Quest. 30. Are not gross Bodies and Light convertible into one another, and may not Bodies receive much of their Activity from the Particles of Light which enter their Composition? For all fix'd Bodies being heated emit Light so long as they continue sufficiently hot, and Light mutually stops in Bodies as often as its Rays strike upon their Parts, as we shew'd above. I know no Body less apt to shine than Water; and yet Water by frequent Distillations changes into fix'd Earth, as Mr. Boyle has try'd; and then this Earth being enabled to endure a sufficient Heat, shines by Heat like other Bodies.
The changing of Bodies into Light, and Light into Bodies, is very conformable to the Course of Nature, which seems delighted with Transmutations. Water, which is a very fluid tasteless Salt, she changes by Heat into Vapour, which is a sort of Air, and by Cold into Ice, which is a hard, pellucid, brittle, fusible Stone; and this Stone returns into Water by Heat, and Vapour returns into Water by Cold. Earth by Heat becomes Fire, and by Cold returns into Earth. Dense 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?