examine their manner of dissolution, or acting upon those
bodies dissoluble in them; The texture of those bodies before and after the
process. And this for the History.

Next for the Solution, To have examin'd by what, and how many means, such
and such Figures, actions and effects could be produc'd possibly.

And lastly, from all circumstances well weigh'd, I should have endeavoured
to have shewn which of them was most likely, and (if the informations by
these Enquiries would have born it) to have demonstrated which of them it
must be, and was.

But to proceed, As I believe it next to the Globular the most simple; so do
I, in the second place, judge it not less pleasant; for that which makes an
Enquiry pleasant, are, first a noble _Inventum_ that promises to crown the
successfull endeavour; and such must certainly the knowledge of the
efficient and concurrent causes of all these curious Geometrical Figures
be, which has made the Philosophers hitherto to conclude nature in these
things to play the Geometrician, according to that saying of _Plato_,
[Greek: Ho Theos geometrei]. Or next, a great variety of matter in the
Enquiry; and here we meet with nothing less than the _Mathematicks_ of
nature, having every day a new Figure to contemplate, or a variation of the
same in another body,

Which do afford us a third thing, which will yet more sweeten the Enquiry,
and that is, a multitude of information; we are not so much to grope in the
dark, as in most other Enquiries, where the _Inventum_ is great; for having
such a multitude of instances to compare, and such easie ways of
generating, or compounding and of destroying the form, as in the _Solution_
and _Crystallization_ of Salts, we cannot but learn plentifull information
to proceed by. And this will further appear from the universality of the
Principle which Nature has made use of almost in all inanimate bodies. And
therefore, as the contemplation of them all conduces to the knowledg of any
one; so from a Scientifical knowledge of any one does follow the fame of
all, and every one.

And fourthly, for the usefulness of this knowledge, when acquir'd;
certainly none can doubt, that considers that it caries us a step forward
into the Labirinth of Nature, in the right way towards the end we propose
our selves in all Philosophical Enquiries. So that knowing what is the form
of Inanimate or Mineral bodies, we shall be the better able to proceed in
our next Enquiry after the fo