"But methinks I hear some of my antagonists cunningly opposing
this, and telling me that they will not on any account allow
their boards to be wetted, because the weight of the water so
added, by making it heavier than it was before, draws it to the
bottom, and that the addition of new weight is contrary to our
agreement, which was that the matter should be the same.

"To this I answer, first, that nobody can suppose bodies to be
put into the water without their being wet, nor do I wish to do
more to the board than you may do to the ball. Moreover, it is
not true that the board sinks on account of the weight of the
water added in the washing; for I will put ten or twenty drops on
the floating board, and so long as they stand separate it shall
not sink; but if the board be taken out and all that water wiped
off, and the whole surface bathed with one single drop, and put
it again upon the water, there is no question but it will sink,
the other water running to cover it, being no longer hindered by
the air. In the next place, it is altogether false that water can
in any way increase the weight of bodies immersed in it, for
water has no weight in water, since it does not sink. Now just as
he who should say that brass by its own nature sinks, but that
when formed into the shape of a kettle it acquires from that
figure the virtue of lying in water without sinking, would say
what is false, because that is not purely brass which then is put
into the water, but a compound of brass and air; so is it neither
more nor less false that a thin plate of brass or ebony swims by
virtue of its dilated and broad figure. Also, I cannot omit to
tell my opponents that this conceit of refusing to bathe the
surface of the board might beget an opinion in a third person of