To
be short, those I reason with, do concerning Blackness, what the Chymists
are wont also to do concerning other Qualities, namely to content
themselves to tell us, in what Ingredient of a Mixt Body, the Quality
enquir'd after, does reside, instead of explicating the Nature of it, which
(to borrow a comparison from their own Laboratories) is much as if in an
enquiry after the cause of Salivation, they should think it enough to tell
us, that the several Kinds of Praecipitates of Gold and _Mercury_) as
likewise of Quick-silver and Silver (for I know that make and use of such
Precipitates also) do Salivate upon the account of the _Mercury_, which
though Disguis'd abounds in them, whereas the Difficulty is as much to know
upon what account _Mercury_ it self, rather than other Bodies, has that
power of working by Salivation. Which I say not, as though it were not
_something_ (and too often the most we can arrive at) to discover in which
of the Ingredients of a Compounded Body, the Quality, whose Nature is
sought, resides, but because, though this Discovery it self may pass for
_something_, and is oftentimes more than what is taught us about the same
subjects in the Schools, yet we ought not to think it _enough_, when more
Clear and Particular accounts are to be had.
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