THE AIM AND ACHIEVEMENTS OF SCIENTIFIC METHOD. 77 



" primary Particles," " Minima or Prima Naturalia "* are 

 analogous to the " ions " of the " one Universal Matter " from 

 which are built up the "atoms" of the elements to which 

 Boyle's " primary Concretions " correspond, while the 

 " molecules " of the modern chemist are anticipated by the 

 "grosser and more compounded Corpuscles "f that compose 

 such bodies as the " exotick Compounds " already mentioned.:} 



Mercury (to take one of Boyle's examples) " will with divers 

 Metals compose an Amalgam, with divers Menstruums it seems 

 to be turned into a liquor, with Aquafortis it will be brought 

 into either a red or white Powder or precipitate, with Oyl of 

 Vitriol into a pale yellow one, with Sulphur it will compose a 

 blood-red and volatile Cinaber, with some Saline Bodies it will 



ascend in form of a salt which will be dissoluble in water 



And yet out of all these exotick Compounds, we may recover 

 the very same running Mercury that was the main ingredient 

 of them, and was so disguised in them." 



In this way a concept drawn from the context of meta- 

 physical speculation served as the instrument which enabled 

 Boyle to render a definite group of primary facts intelligible. 

 The outcome of its application in a few cases was that a definite 

 new problem emerged into view : the problem of showing that 

 of the manifold substances that compose the material universe 

 the majority can be regarded as compounds of a few simple 

 elements which may be thought of as existing side by side in 

 the compounds, disguised but not destroyed. When the 

 corpuscular hypothesis had led to the formulation of this per- 

 manent problem for the chemist face to face with a new 

 substance, it had, for the time being, accomplished its task, and 

 ceased to be any longer an instrument of investigation in 

 chemistry. 



* Origines of Formes, p. 47. 



/ t Ibid., p. 48. 



I The Sceptical Chymist, p. 41. 



P. 40. 



