e Bodies by
Fermentation rarify into several sorts of Air, and this Air by
Fermentation, and sometimes without it, returns into dense Bodies.
Mercury appears sometimes in the form of a fluid Metal, sometimes in the
form of a hard brittle Metal, sometimes in the form of a corrosive
pellucid Salt call'd Sublimate, sometimes in the form of a tasteless,
pellucid, volatile white Earth, call'd _Mercurius Dulcis_; or in that of
a red opake volatile Earth, call'd Cinnaber; or in that of a red or
white Precipitate, or in that of a fluid Salt; and in Distillation it
turns into Vapour, and being agitated _in Vacuo_, it shines like Fire.
And after all these Changes it returns again into its first form of
Mercury. Eggs grow from insensible Magnitudes, and change into Animals;
Tadpoles into Frogs; and Worms into Flies. All Birds, Beasts and Fishes,
Insects, Trees, and other Vegetables, with their several Parts, grow out
of Water and watry Tinctures and Salts, and by Putrefaction return again
into watry Substances. And Water standing a few Days in the open Air,
yields a Tincture, which (like that of Malt) by standing longer yields a
Sediment and a Spirit, but before Putrefaction is fit Nourishment for
Animals and Vegetables. And among such various and strange
Transmutations, why may not Nature change Bodies into Light, and Light
into Bodies?

_Quest._ 31. Have not the small Particles of Bodies certain Powers,
Virtues, or Forces, by which they act at a distance, not only upon the
Rays of Light for reflecting, refracting, and inflecting them, but also
upon one another for producing a great Part of the Phaenomena of Nature?
For it's well known, that Bodies act one upon another by the Attractions
of Gravity, Magnetism, and Electricity; and these Instances shew the
Tenor and Course of Nature, and make it not improbable but that there
may be more attractive Powers than these. For Nature is very consonant
and conformable to her self. How these Attractions may be perform'd, I
do not here consider. What I call Attraction may be perform'd by
impulse, or by some other means unknown to me. I use that Word here to
signify only in general any Force by which Bodies tend towards one
another, whatsoever be the Cause. For we must learn from the Phaenomena
of Nature what Bodies attract one another, and what are the Laws and
Properties of the Attraction, before we enquire the Cause by which the
Attraction is perform'd. The Attractions of Gravity, Magneti