Page:The Sceptical Chymist.djvu/109

Rh Concrete by the Fire alone may be Divided into a Number of Differing Substances, as Great as any of the Chymists; that I have met with, teach us that of the Elements to be. And having said thus much (sayes Carneades) to the Objection likely to be Propos’d by some Chymists, I am now to Examine that which I Foresee will be Confidently press’d by Divers Peripateticks, who, to Prove Fire to be the true Analyzer of Bodies, will Plead, That it is the very Definition of Heat given by Aristotle, and Generally Received, Congregare Homogenea, & Heterogenea Segregare, to Assemble Things of a Resembling, and Disjoyn those of a Differing Nature. To this I answer, That this Effect is far from being so Essential to Heat, as ’tis Generally Imagin’d; for it rather Seems, that the True and Genuine Property of Heat is, to set a Moving, and thereby to Dissociate the parts of Bodies, and Subdivide them into Minute Particles, without regard to their being Homogeneous or Heterogeneous, as is apparent in the Boyling of Water, the Distillation of Quicksilver, or the Exposing of Bodies to the action of the Fire, whose Parts