without any alteration or Fermentation, Perhaps some of the Particles do evapo∣rate, but the rest do not tumultuate. In the mean time the juice and blood of Ve∣getables or Animals, as also all Liquors Concreted, and compounded of many things, quickly Ferment, and from thence enter into divers turns of changes. The Spirit of Wine being closely shut up in a Phial shews no sign of growing hot, but if but a lit∣tle Oyl of Turpentine be added to this Spirit, the Particles of the Liquor will so leap forth, that I have seen it break a Glass Hermetically Sealed. All Distilled Waters of Herbs, so they be kept simply in a Glass, will remain incorrupt a long time, but if you add to the same Sugar or Syrrup, it presently grows soure and is corrupted: Wherefore, that the Fermentation of Bodies may be rightly unfolded, we must in∣quire, what those Particles or Substances are, and of what Nature of which mixt things are Compounded, and from whose being put together, and mutual strivings, motions for the most part naturally proceed.
Altho there be many and divers Opinions of Philosophers concerning the begin∣nings of Natural things, yet there are three chiefly deserve our Assent, and Faith, before the rest. That famous fourfold Chariot of the Peripateticks obtains the chief place, which emulous of the four wheel'd Coach of the Sun, is hurried by a quick passage, through the fictitious Heaven of the first Matter, and measures that vast and empty thing, with a perpetual reciprocation. For they say, all things are Con∣stituted out of Water, Air, Fire, and Earth; and that out of the divers transposi∣tion of these, Generation and Corruption, as also the changes of all alterations what∣soever, do arise. In the second place, and next, stands the Opinion of Democritus and Epicurus, which lately also hath been revived in our Age, this affirms all Natural effects to depend upon the Conflux of Atoms diversly figured, so that in all Bodies, there be Particles Round, Sharp, Foursquare, Cylindrical, Chequer'd or Streaked, or of some other Figure; and from the divers changes of these, the Subject is of this or that Figure, Work, or Efficacy. The third Opinion of the Origination of Na∣tural Things, is introduced by Chymistry, which, when by an Analysis made by Fire, it resolves all Bodies into Particles of Spirit, Sulphur, Salt, Water, and Earth, affirms by the best right, that the same do consist of these. Because this Hypothesis determinates Bodies into sensible parts, and cutts open things as it were to the life, it pleases us before the rest.
As to the four Elements, and first Qualities from thence deduced, I must confess that this Opinion doth somthing help for the unfolding the Phaenomena of Nature, but after so dark a manner, and without any peculiar respect to the more secret recesses of Nature, it salves the appearances of things, that 'tis almost the same thing, to say an House consists of Wood and Stone, as a Body of four Elements. The other Opi∣nion, which is only a piece of the Epicurean Philosophy, forasmuch as it undertakes Mechanically the unfolding of things, and accommodates Nature with Working Tools, as it were in the hand of an Artificer, and without running to Occult Quali∣ties, Sympathy, and other refuges of ignorance, doth happily and very ingeniously disintangle some difficult Knots of the Sciences, and dark Riddles, certainly it de∣serves no light praise: but because it rather supposes, than demonstrates its Princi∣ples, and teaches of what Figure those Elements of Bodies may be, not what they have been, and also induces Notions extremly subtil, and remote from the sense, and which do not sufficiently Quadrate with the Phaenomena of Nature, when we de∣scend to particulars, it pleases me to give my sentence for the third Opinion before-mentioned, which is of the Chymists, and chiefly to insist upon this in the following Tract, to wit, affirming all Bodies to consist of Spirit, Sulphur, Salt, Water, and Earth, and from the diverse motion, and proportion of these, in mixt things, the beginnings and endings of things, and chiefly the reasons, and varieties of Fermenta∣tion, are to be sought. If any one shall object, That the Atomical, and our Spagyric Principles, are altogether subordinate, to wit, that these, tho at the last sensible, are resolved into those, only to be signified by Conception; I shall not much gainsay him, so it shews that those Conceptions are real. I being dul and purblind, leave the more accurate to quick sights, being content to be so wise as to perform the business of the outward Sense with Reason: for I profess, it pleases not me, to devise or dream Philosophy. But that our Work may more rightly proceed, it will be neces∣sary, to speak first a few things of these kind of Principles in general, and of their Affections.