Page:The Sceptical Chymist.djvu/34

diffident, or dull a Nature, as to think that if neither of them can bring more cogent arguments to evince the truth of their assertion then are wont to be brought; a Man may rationally enough retain some doubts concerning the very number of those material Ingredients of mixt bodies, which some would have us call Elements, and others Principles. Indeed when I considered that the Tenents concerning the Elements, are as considerable amongst the Doctrines of natural Philosophy, as the Elements themselves are among the bodies of the Universe, I expected to find those Opinions solidly establish’d upon which so many others are superstructed. But when I took the pains impartially to examine the bodies themselves that are said to result from the blended Elements, and to torture them into a confession of their constituent Principles, was quickly induc’d to think that the number of the Elements has been contended about by Philosophers with more earnestness then success. This unsatisfiedness of mine has been much wonder’d at, by these two Gentlemen (at which words he pointed at Themisti-