I doubt not but if we could
discover the figure, size, texture, and motion of the minute
constituent parts of any two bodies, we should know without trial
several of their operations one upon another; as we do now the
properties of a square or a triangle. Did we know the mechanical
affections of the particles of rhubarb, hemlock, opium, and a man,
as a watchmaker does those of a watch, whereby it performs its
operations; and of a file, which by rubbing on them will alter the
figure of any of the wheels; we should be able to tell beforehand that
rhubarb will purge, hemlock kill, and opium make a man sleep: as
well as a watchmaker can, that a little piece of paper laid on the
balance will keep the watch from going till it be removed; or that,
some small part of it being rubbed by a file, the machine would
quite lose its motion, and the watch go no more. The dissolving of
silver in aqua fortis, and gold in aqua regia, and not vice versa,
would be then perhaps no more difficult to know than it is to a
smith to understand why the turning of one key will open a lock, and
not the turning of another. But whilst we are destitute of senses
acute enough to discover the minute particles of bodies, and to give
us ideas of their mechanical affections, we must be content to be
ignorant of their properties and ways of operation; nor can we be
assured about them any further than some few trials we make are able
to reach.
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