170 CORRESPONDENCE OF RAY. 



Probable it is, that the heterogeneous particles may, in 

 greater quantities, and more closely adhere to them in 

 some vegetables than in others. 



In fine, that there are innumerable concrete bodies of 

 the same figure is evident to sense in the crystals of 

 salts. That these particular crystals must be composed 

 of like-figured particles (one to another, though not to 

 the concrete), and those again of the like, usque ad minima, 

 is highly probable, if not demonstrable, in reason ; 

 whereas, were bodies infinitely divisible, and conse- 

 quently of no certain figure (the minima I mean), I do 

 not see how we could ever come to such regular concre- 

 tions, at least to such multitudes and masses of them, 

 but that the world must have continued, as the poets 

 first fancied it, a chaos. But enough of this. 



Black Notley, May 12, 85. 



Dr. ROBINSON to Mr. RAY. 



SIR, I received yours of the 12th instant, and am 

 sufficiently convinced that there are fixed and certain 

 principles in nature, and settled laws of motion ; yet I 

 have some reason to believe that they are not immutable, 

 but that some outward violence and preternatural causes 

 may alter them, though they are seldom or never mutable 

 in the ordinary course of things. If you please, the 

 transmutation of the parts of analysed bodies shall be 

 struck out of the chapter de Cliym. Plant. Analysi parti- 

 umque resolutarum Usu. 



London, May 19, 85. 



