CHAPTER II.

It is denied, however, that these effects can be produced while the nature of the salts remains intact, but rather when their points and edges have been rendered blunt by an artificial method, by means of other particles receiving them; secondly, where they have obtained various motions and many alterations from the surrounding air and solar rays, as will be discussed further on.

As regards colors, odors, and tastes, we establish that they depend on saline particles; but we ascribe the modification and various changes to the earthly elements, namely from the various situation of the pores and passages of those same ones through which the spirituous salts are twisted.

Phlegma insipid watery residue is mere insipid water, consisting of light, smooth, and flexible particles, a mere vehicle and instrument of all nutrition and conjunction, and the matrix or receiver of spirit and all subtle matter (in volatile spirituous substances, phlegma follows in distillation; in acids, on the contrary, it precedes); lighter oils float above it, and it is carried over the thicker and heavier ones.

Earth is the heavier, hard part of a body, by itself least apt for motion, remaining after all the flight of the more subtle particles, whose motion it could in no way follow; for this reason, chemists have marked it with the title of caput mortuum dead head; worthless residue or damned earth. It is the instrument of longevity