After this, and several other conferences, which the Empress held with the Worm-men, she dismissed them; and having taken much satisfaction in several of their answers, encouraged them in their studies and observations. Then she made a convocation of her chemists, the Ape-men; and commanded them to give her an account of the several transmutations which their art was able to produce. They begun first with a long and tedious discourse concerning the primitive ingredients of natural bodies; and how, by their art, they had found out the principles out of which they consist. But they did not all agree in their opinions; for some said, that the principles of all natural bodies were the four elements, fire, air, water, earth, out of which they were composed: Others rejected this elementary commixture, and said, there were many bodies out of which none of the four elements could be extracted by any degree of fire whatsoever; and that, on the other side, there were divers bodies, whose resolution by fire reduced them into more than four different ingredients; and these affirmed, that the only principles of natural bodies were salt, sulphur, and mercury: Others again declared, that none of the forementioned could be called the true principles of natural bodies; but that by their industry and pains which they had taken in the art of chemistry, they had discovered, that all natural bodies were produced but from one principle, which was water; for all vegetables, minerals, and animals, said they, are nothing else, but simple water distinguished into various figures by the virtue of their seeds. But after a great many debates and contentions about this subject, the Empress being so much tired that she was not able to hear them any longer, imposed a general silence upon them, and then declared herself in this following discourse.
I am too sensible of the pains you have taken in the art of chemistry, to discover the principles of natural bodies, and wish they had been more profitably bestowed upon some other, than such experiments; for both by my own contemplation, and the observations which I have made by my rational and sensitive perception upon nature, and her works, I find, that nature is but one infinite self-moving body, which by the virtue of its self-motion, is divided into infinite parts, which parts being restless, undergo perpetual changes and transmutations by their infinite compositions and divisions. Now, if this be so, as surely, according to regular sense and reason, it appears no otherwise; it is in vain to look for primary ingredients, or constitutive principles of natural bodies, since there is no more but one universal principle of nature, to wit, self-moving matter, which is the only cause of all natural effects. Next, I desire you to consider, that fire is but a particular creature, or effect of nature, and occasions not only different effects in several bodies, but on some bodies has no power at all; witness gold, which never could be brought yet to change its interior figure by the art of fire; and if this be so, why should you be so simple as to believe that fire can show you the principles of nature? and that either the four elements, or water only, or salt sulphur and mercury, all which are no more but particular effects and creatures of nature, should be the primitive ingredients or principles of all natural bodies? Wherefore, I will not have you to take more pains, and waste your time in such fruitless attempts, but be wiser hereafter, and busy yourselves with such experiments as may be beneficial to the public.
The Empress having thus declared her mind to the Ape-men, and given them better instructions than perhaps they expected, not knowing that her Majesty had such great and able judgment in natural philosophy, had several conferences with them concerning chemical preparations, which for brevity’s sake, I’ll forbear to rehearse: Amongst the rest, she asked, how it came that the imperial race appeared so young, and yet was reported to have lived so long; some of them two, some three, and some four hundred years? and whether it was by nature, or a special divine blessing? To which they answered, that there was a certain rock in the parts of that world, which contained the Golden Sands, which rock was hollow within, and did produce a gum that was a hundred years before it came to its full strength and perfection; this gum, said they, if it be held in a warm hand, will dissolve into an oil, the effects whereof are following: It being given every day for some certain time, to an old decayed man, in the bigness of a little pea, will first make him spit for a week, or more; after this, it will cause vomits of phlegm; and after that it will bring forth by vomits, humours of several colours; first of a pale yellow, then of a deep yellow, then of a green, and lastly of a black colour; and each of these humours have a several taste, some are fresh, some salt, some sour, some bitter, and so forth; neither do all these vomits make them sick, but they come out on a sudden, and unawares, without any pain or trouble to the patient: And after it hath done all these
