Page:The Sceptical Chymist.djvu/11

Rh '' Experiments so Deliver’d as that an Ordinary Reader, if he be but acquainted with the usuall Chymical Termes, may easily enough understand them; and even a wary One may safely rely on Them. These Things I add, because a Person any Thing vers’d in the writings of Chymists cannot but Discern by their obscure, ambiguous, and almost Ænigmatical way of expressing what they pretend to Teach, that they have no Mind to be understood at all, but by the Sons of Art (as they call them) nor to be Understood even by these without Difficulty and Hazardous Tryalls. Insomuch that same of Them Scarce ever speak so candidly, as when they make use of that known Chymical Sentence; Ubi palam locuti sumus, ibi nihil diximus. And as the obscurity of what some Writers deliver makes it very difficult to be understood; so the Unfaithfulness of too many others makes it unfit to be reli’d on. For though unwillingly, Yet I must for the truths sake, and the Readers, warne him not to be forward to believe Chymical Experiments when they are set down only by way of Prescriptions, and not of Relations; that is, unless he that delivers them mentions his doing it upon his own particular knowledge, or upon the Relation of some credible person, avowing it upon his own experience. For I''