these or those writers thought or taught, but what we find to be the obvious & most general opinion of those, who are willing to be accounted Favourers of the Peripatetick or Chymical Doctrine, concerning this subject.
I see not (saies Eleutherius) why you might not immediately begin to argue, if you were but agreed which of your two friendly Adversaries shall be first heard. And it being quickly resolv’d on that Themistius should first propose the Proofs for his Opinion, because it was the antienter, and the more general, he made not the company expect long before he thus addressed himself to Eleutherius, as to the Person least interessed in the dispute.
If you have taken sufficient notice of the late Confession which was made by Carneades, and which (though his Civility dressed it up in complementall Expressions) was exacted of him by his Justice, I suppose You will be easily made sensible, that I engage in this Controversie with great and peculiar Disadvantages, besides those which his Parts and my Personal Disabilities would bring to any other cause to be
