promis’d him not to be unmindfull, when time should serve, of what he had declar’d.
I consider then (saies Carneades) in the next place, that there are divers Bodies out of which Themistius will not prove in haste, that there can be so many Elements as four extracted by the Fire. And I should perchance trouble him if I should ask him what Peripatetick can shew us, (I say not, all the four Elements , for that would be too rigid a Question, but) any one of them extracted out of Gold by any degree of Fire whatsoever. Nor is Gold the only Bodie in Nature that would puzzle an Aristotelian, (that is no more) to analyze by the Fire into Elementary Bodies, since, for ought I have yet observ’d, both Silver and calcin’d Venetian Talck, and some other Concretes, not necessary here to be nam’d, are so fixt, that to reduce any of them into four Heterogeneous Substances has hitherto prov’d a Task much too hard, not only for the Disciples of Aristotle, but those of Vulcan, at least, whilst the latter have employ’d only Fire to make the Analysis.
