A Seventh _Query_ was, Whether the _dissolution_ or mixing of several bodies, whether fluid or solid, with saline or other Liquors, might not partly be attributed to this Principle of the congruity of those bodies and their dissolvents? As of Salt in Water, Metals in several _Menstruums_, Unctuous Gums in Oyls, the mixing of Wine and Water, &c. And whether _precipitation_ be not partly made from the same Principle of Incongruity? I say _partly_, because there are in some Dissolutions, some other Causes concurrent.
I shall lastly make a much more seemingly strange and unlikely _Query_; and that is, Whether this Principle, well examined and explained, may not be found a _coefficient_ in the most considerable Operations of Nature? As in those of _Heat_, and _Light_, and consequently of _Rarefaction_ and _Condensation_, _Hardness_, and _Fluidness_, _Perspicuity_ and _Opacousness_, _Refractions_ and _Colours. &c._ Nay, I know not whether there may be many things done in Nature, in which this may not (be said to) have a Finger? This I have in some other passages of this Treatise further enquired into and shewn, that as well _Light_ as _Heat_ may be caused by _corrosion_, which is applicable to _congruity_, and consequently all the rest will be but _subsequents_: In the mean time I would not willingly be guilty of that _Error_, which the thrice Noble and Learned _Verulam_ justly takes notice of, as such, and calls _Philosophiæ Genus Empiricum, quod in paucorum Experimentorum Angustiis & Obscuritate fundatum est_. For I neither conclude from one single Experiment, nor are the Experiments I make use of all made upon one Subject: Nor wrest I any Experiment to make it _quadrare_ with any preconceiv’d Notion. But on the contrary, I endeavour to be conversant in divers kinds of Experiments, and all and every one of those Trials, I make the Standards or Touchstones, by which I try all my former Notions, whether they hold out in weight, and measure, and touch, &c. For as that Body is no other then a Counterfeit Gold, which wants any one of the Proprieties of Gold, (such as are the Malleableness, Weight, Colour, Fixtness in the Fire, Indissolubleness in _Aqua fortis_, and the like) though it has all the other; so will all those Notions be found to be false and deceitful, that will not undergo all the Trials and Tests made of them by Experiments. And therefore such as will not come up to the desired _Apex_ of Perfection, I rather wholly reject and take new, then by piecing and patching, endeavour to retain the old, as knowing such things at best to be but lame and imperfect. And this course I learned from Nature; whom we find neglectful of the old Body, and suffering its Decaies and Infirmities to remain without repair, and altogether sollicitous and careful of perpetuating the _Species_ by new _Individuals_. And it is certainly the most likely way to erect a glorious Structure and Temple to _Nature_, such as she will be found (by any _zealous Votary_) to reside in; to begin to build a new upon a sure Foundation of Experiments.