LIGHT COMING OUT BY ITSELF FROM DARKNESS

Poem on the composition of the Philosopher's Stone translated from Italian by Bruno de Lansac

1693
by
Marc-Antonio Crassellame

Letter from the translator to a friend of his


Here I am, Sir, since you wanted it, placed in the chemical category, and as a sign of my obedience I am sending you the translation that you have so desired. To tell the truth, I do not expect very great fruit from it, knowing the taste of the century as I do, and I am very sure that one would much rather see treatises on philosophy according to Descartes than according to Hermes. The first is fashionable and has all the graces of . the new, whereas the latter is so old and so worn that his name is scarcely known to the world; one only offers things that are easy to demonstrate, sticking only to the surface of bodies, the other, more abstract, only attachments to the inner essence of things; finally, one closing in on mechanics, only gives things the virtue of a machine,and claims that movement, of itself indifferent, only produces different things because of the different configurations of the bodies it moves, whereas the entirely intellectual other admits a universal soul of the world, active, intelligent and informing. Speak please to a Cartesian of center, of fire of nature, of seminal virtue, of a directing and architectonic spirit in each mixture, of elementary qualities, etc. : he will not fail to treat your speeches as rigmarole, and you as a visionary, and if you press him, he will soon place you under his authority at the Petites Maisons. But, you will tell me, it is not for them that we write it is for those who are in our same principles, I want it, but if you take away the vulgar chemists who, consulting only their greed,prefer a heap of false recipes to the best books in the world, you will see that there will remain very few of those who dream of becoming philosophers rather than of becoming possessors of the Philosopher's Stone; but you will tell me again that we must not stop at all that, that we must write for the honor of science only, to prevent it from being oppressed, and finally to convince men of its excellence. Ah! Sir, get rid of that thought and reckon that a transmutation experience will convert more people to hermetic faith than all the finest reasoning you could make. This nation asks for signs, and we are in a time when we want to get to the point, without putting ourselves at much trouble for the rest.

For the rest, Sir, as this translation is mainly for you, I followed in making it the advice you gave me, that is to say that I did not attach myself slavishly to the expressions and to the own words of my author; I changed them when I judged it appropriate, and I attached myself only to his spirit, and to his intention; I have with my authority suppressed repetitions which I believed to be useless and boring, and I have also sometimes added mine to clear up places which seemed to me too obscure; finally, I followed him very scrupulously in the doctrine, but outside of it I gave him as much as I could the French twist, and I tried to give my translation an original air. If, despite all my precautions, there is something wrong with it,I will gladly follow the advice that people take the trouble to give me, and I will correct myself without shame in a second edition. At first I had thought of justifying my translation in detail by notes; but I thought afterwards that I would do something more useful for the reader if, instead of the table of contents. my author, I substituted remarks on the doctrine contained in each chapter, which were like the essence and juice of the whole book. With regard to the author, or rather the commentator, I can speak neither of his name nor of his country, for both are unknown to me, but what can be said of him is that this matter has never been treated more nobly, all his Ideas are great, beautiful and sought after, his expressions lively and strong,and what is most commendable in him is that he speaks like a gallant man and without envy; he says all that a sincere mind is permitted to say on such matters, and if he sometimes hides the truth, he may be said that it is under gauze veils through which a subtle mind can easily penetrate. One cannot at least reproach him for teaching false practices with the intention of surprising minds, and if he does not show you precisely the path that must be taken, he does not mischievously throw you, as many others do, into devious ways and into labyrinths; finally, it is such as Hermès would admit without difficulty for one of its most worthy successors. But that's enough and too much for a letter, I am, Sir, etc.


FIRST CANTO

I

The tenebrous Chaos having emerged like a confused mass from the depths of Nothingness, at the first sound of the almighty Word, one would have said that disorder had produced it, and that it could not be the work of a God, so shapeless was it. All things were in him in deep rest, and the elements were confounded there, because the divine Spirit had not yet distinguished them.

II

Who could now relate how the Heavens, Earth, and Sea were formed so light in themselves, yet so vast in their expanse? Who could explain how the Sun and the Moon received movement and light up there, and how everything that we see down here had form and being? Who could finally understand how each thing received its own name, was animated by its own spirit, and, emerging from the impure and unordered mass of Chaos, was regulated by a law, a quantity and a measure?

III

Oh ! you, of the divine Hermes the children and the imitators, to whom the science of your father has shown nature uncovered, you alone, you alone know how this immortal hand formed the Earth and the Heavens from this formless mass of Chaos; for your Great Work makes it clear that in the same manner in which your philosophical Elixir is made, God also made all things.

IV

But it is not for my feeble pen to draw such a large picture, being still only a puny child of art, without any experience. It's not that your learned writings haven't made me see the true goal towards which we must aim, and that I don't know this Illiast well, who has in him everything we need, as well as this admirer. compound wheat by which you knew how to bring from power into action the virtue of the elements.

V

It is not that I do not know well your secret Mercury, which is nothing but a living spirit, universal and innate, which in the form of aerial vapor descends unceasingly from heaven to earth to fill its porous belly, which is then born among the impure sulfurs, and in increasing passes from the volatile to the fixed nature, giving itself the form of a radical humidity.

VII

It is not that I do not yet know that if our Oval Vessel is not sealed by Winter, it will never be able to retain the precious vapor, and that our beautiful child will die at birth, if it is not promptly rescued by an industrious hand and by the eyes of Lincaeus, for otherwise it will no longer be able to be fed with its first humor, like the man, who after having fed on impure blood in the maternal womb, lives on milk when he is in the world.

VII

Although I know all these things, yet I still dare not come to proofs with you, the errors of others always making me uncertain. But if you are more touched with pity than with envy, deign to remove from my mind all the doubts which embarrass it; and if I can be happy enough to explain distinctly in my writings all that concerns your magisterium, please, I conjure you, let me answer from you: Work boldly, for you know what it is necessary to know.

SECOND VOICE

That the Mercury and the Gold of the vulgar are not the Gold and the Mercury of the philosophers, and that in the Mercury of the Philosophers is all that the wise seek. Where one touches in passing the practice of the first operation that the experienced artist must follow.


STRAP I

That men, little versed in the School of Hermes, are mistaken when, with a spirit of avarice, they cling to the sound of words. It is ordinarily on the faith of these vulgar names of quicksilver and gold that they engage in work, and that with common gold they imagine, by a slow fire, finally fixing this fugitive silver.

II

But if they could open the eyes of their mind to fully understand the hidden meaning of the authors, they would see clearly that the Gold and the quicksilver of the vulgar are deprived of that universal fire, which is the true agent, which agent or spirit abandons the metals as soon as they find themselves in furnaces exposed to the violence of the flames; and this is what has caused the metal, out of its mine, finding itself deprived of this spirit, to be no more than a dead and motionless body.

III

It is indeed another Mercury and another Gold, of which Hermes has heard; a humid and hot Mercury, and always constant in fire. A Gold that is all fire and all life. Isn't such a difference capable of easily distinguishing these from those of the vulgar, which are dead bodies deprived of spirit, whereas ours are still living corporeal spirits.

IV

Oh great Mercury of the philosophers! it is in you that the Gold and the Silver are united, after they have been drawn from power into action. Mercury all Sun and all Moon, triple substance in one, and one substance in three. Oh wonderful thing! Mercury, Sulfur and Salt make me see three substances in one substance.

V

But where is this aurific Mercury which, being resolved into Salt and Sulphur, becomes the moist radical of the metals, and their animated seed? He is imprisoned in a prison so strong that Nature itself could not extricate him from it, if industrious art does not facilitate the means.

VII

But what does art do? Ingenious minister of diligent nature, he purifies by a vaporous flame the paths that lead to the prison. There being no better guide nor surer means than that of a gentle and continual heat to aid nature, and to give her occasion to break the bonds with which our Mercury is bound.

VII

Yes, yes, it is this Mercury alone that you must seek, O intractable spirits! since on him alone you can find all that is necessary for the sages. It is in him that the Moon and the Sun are found in next power, which without Gold and Silver of the vulgar, being united together, become the true seed of Silver and Gold.

VIII

But every seed is useless if it remains whole, if it does not rot, and turn black; for corruption always precedes generation. It is thus that nature proceeds in all her operations; and we who want to imitate it, we must also blacken before whitening, otherwise we will only produce abortions.

THIRD CANDY

Vulgar and ignorant alchemists are here advised to desist from their sophistic operations, because they are entirely opposed to those which true philosophy teaches us for making universal medicine.

Stanza I

O you! who to make Gold by means of art, are ceaselessly among the flames of your ardent coals; which now congeals, and now dissolves your various mixtures in so many ways, sometimes dissolving them entirely, sometimes congealing them only in part, whence it comes that like smoky butterflies you spend days and nights prowling round your furnaces "...prowling round your foolish fires in some remote place. "

II

Cease henceforth to weary yourselves in vain, lest a foolish hope should make all your thoughts go up in smoke. Your labors are only useless sweats, which paint on your brow the unhappy hours you pass in your dirty retreats. What use are these violent flames, since the sages do not use burning coals or burning wood to do the Hermetic Work?

III

It is with the same fire that nature uses underground that art must work, and it is thus that it will imitate nature. A vaporous fire, but which is not yet light, a fire which nourishes and does not devour; a natural fire, but which art must make; dry, but rainy; moist, but drying. A water that extinguishes, a water that washes the body, but does not wet the hands.

IV

It is with such a fire that art, which wants to imitate nature, must work and that one must supply the fault of the other. Nature begins, art completes, and it alone purifies what nature could not purify. Art shares industry, and nature simplicity; so that if one smoothes the way, the other immediately stops.

V

What use are so many different substances in retorts, in stills, if matter is as unique as fire? Yes, the material is unique, it is everywhere, and the poor can have it as well as the rich. She is unknown to everyone, and everyone has her before their eyes; it is despised like mud by the ignorant vulgar, and is sold at a low price; but it is precious to the philosopher who knows its value.

VII

It is this material, so despised by the ignorant, that the learned seek with care, since it is all they can desire. In it are conjoined the Sun and the Moon, not the vulgar, not those who are dead. In it is contained the fire, from which these metals draw their life; it is she who gives the igneous water, which also gives the fixed earth; finally, it is she who gives all that is necessary for an enlightened mind.

VII

But instead of considering that a single compound suffices for the philosopher, you foolish chemists have fun putting several materials together; and instead that the philosopher cooks with a gentle and solar heat, and in a single vessel, a single steam which thickens little by little, you put a thousand different ingredients on the fire; and whereas God made all things out of nothing, you, on the contrary, reduce all things to nothing.

VIII

It is not with soft gums or hard excrement, it is not with human blood or sperm, it is not with green grapes, nor herbal quintessences, with strong waters, corrosive salts, nor with Roman vitriol, nor is it with arid talc, nor impure antimony, nor with sulfur, or mercury, nor finally with the very metals of the vulgar that a skilful artist works. a to our Great Work.

IX

What are all these various mixtures for? Since our science contains all the magisterium in a single root, which I have already made known to you enough, and perhaps more than I should have. This root contains in it two substances, which however have only one essence, and these substances, which are at first Gold and Silver only in potentiality, finally become Gold and Silver in action, provided that we know how to equalize their weights.

X

Yes, these substances are currently made Gold and Silver and by the equality of their weight, the volatile is fixed in sulfur of Gold. O luminous sulphur! O true living Gold! I adore in you all the marvels and all the virtues of the Sun. For your sulfur is a treasure, and the true foundation of the art, which ripens into elixir what nature leads only to the perfection of Gold.


LIGHT EMERGING BY ITSELF FROM DARKNESS

Preface, foreword and commentary by Bruno de Lansac


The commentator to the reader

There are so many books on chemistry, either printed or in manuscript, that one can say that never science has had so many authors as that of Hermes. Happy father to have had such children, glorious master to have had such disciples; you must rightly be called the master of masters, each of your disciples being worthy of the name. But all these books are however not true, not being all made by authors who were themselves; some are truncated, others altered; and what is worse, many are falsified; which comes from the envy and rage of those who, for lack of genius Or by a just punishment of God, could not be admitted to this table.Nevertheless, despite the depravity of the century, there are still good people to be found whom Providence has reserved,

I had barely finished my third gloss when, by some instinct or other, I threw myself into reading these books and made every effort to understand them. But my mind being blinded by the too great brightness of this light, and knowing that it was impossible for me to develop your enigmas of this sphinx, I left the books there, I gave up reading them, and renounced for ever the hope of hearing them; however, after some time, having recovered my courage and implored divine help, full of new hope, I resumed reading day and night, with all my strength, and consumed in this reading twelve whole years, after which I wanted to try if I could put into practice what I had conceived in my mind, but uncertain, I made a resolution,then another, and still there remained to me difficulties which I could not overcome. Finally, I associated myself on two different occasions with two other people, and this society gave me the opportunity to study better, because I was sometimes obliged to combat their opinions, and sometimes also to approve them; but in truth, we were all blind, and took for real light what was only an effect of our desires and some reading. We made some experiments together, but useless, and we always found that we lacked something. Finally, I came to understand that it was a waste of time and trouble to work according to the sound of words, that reason alone should guide us, and nature's only possibility of straightening those who go astray. In effect,what is the use of toiling over so many different works, while simple nature offers us a single subject on which we must work; and what good are so many furnaces, so many kinds of fires, so many vessels while the same nature uses only one vessel, one fire, and one furnace. If there were to work only according to the literal meaning, the sound of the words and the apparent method of the authors, that there would be wise men, and learned in this science, who hardly however understands a single word of Latin. O how many are there who believe themselves very skilful because they know how to make a fine distillation, a calcination, or a subtle sublimation. How many more are there who, having formed an opinion in their heads about what they have read, and how they speak,on the process of some author, imagine themselves to be very learned and who, when success does not meet their expectations, are careful not to attribute it to their ignorance but to the fact that the vessel has broken, or to the regime of the fire which they hope to find by starting their work again. Finally, how many are there who believe they can teach others, because their brains are filled with a great quantity of sentences. I knew a man who had arranged in his head, I will not say so many treatises, but so many volumes, and in such beautiful order that one would hardly believe that one could have so much erudition. However, because he was attached to the sound of words, he only knew words, and was entirely unaware of the work,that he will always ignore and only make use of his error to deceive others, being as far from the truth as heaven is from earth, and amused only by particulars and the extraction of tinctures with great expense to those who believe his words; but it is not surprising that the truth being unknown to him, he tries several ways, and that always uncertain he wanders in the midst of darkness. It is not enough to load one's memory with sentences, one must understand them by the understanding, by observing, as we have said, the possibility of nature, and judging its ways by the sole rule of reason. and amused only by particulars and the extraction of tinctures with great expense for those who believe his words;but it is not surprising that the truth being unknown to him, he tries several ways, and that always uncertain he wanders in the midst of darkness. It is not enough to load one's memory with sentences, one must understand them by the understanding, by observing, as we have said, the possibility of nature, and judging its ways by the sole rule of reason. and amused only by particulars and the extraction of tinctures with great expense for those who believe his words; but it is not surprising that the truth being unknown to him, he tries several ways, and that always uncertain he wanders in the midst of darkness.It is not enough to load one's memory with sentences, one must understand them by the understanding, by observing, as we have said, the possibility of nature, and judging its ways by the sole rule of reason.

Having thus fallen into my hands a manuscript of an anonymous author, but very skilfully written, in the Italian language, I have made a plan in this time when darkness is spread over the whole earth, to bring this new light to light and to add to it from my side, as far as I am able, all that can serve for the understanding and explanation of this manuscript.

With regard to the author of this writing, he is known to me only by his anagram, but it suffices that he followed the straight path and discovered the truth of nature; for although he declares that he does not fully know the work, the things he says belie his feigned ignorance.

As for me, dear reader, do not inquire who I am, content yourself that I only seek to clarify the truth, and that my intention is to publish still greater things than these, if God preserves my life with his grace, and after my death you will perhaps know me. For the rest, do not condemn my style, nor the way in which this is written: this edition was made in haste, and I was forced into it by a power which I could not resist. My intention was not to publish such things in my day, but at last be done the will of him who reigns and who will reign forever and ever.

Farewell.


Foreword

There are very few people who, hearing of the Philosopher's Stone, do not frown at the name and, shaking their heads, reject this treatise. In good faith, is it not a great injustice to thus blame what one does not know? Before passing judgment, one should at least know what one condemns, and what the Philosopher's Stone is; but those who use it in this way, judge of this science in relation to vulgar artists who, instead of the Stone they promise to make, consume all their possessions, and those of others;' and seeing so many impostures, so many false recipes, and so many vain promises of charlatans, they take occasion from there to attack the truth of the art, not considering that this is not the work of ordinary chemists,

To be a philosopher one must know perfectly the foundations of all nature, for the science of the Philosopher's Stone far surpasses all the other sciences, and all the other arts, however subtle they may be; there always being this difference between the works of nature and those of art, that the former are the most perfect, the most finished, and the surest; and if (following Aristotle's axiom) there is nothing in the understanding that was not previously in the sense, it will be true to say that what we conceive we conceive only on the occasion of what nature does every day before our eyes; for all the arts have drawn their principles and their first ideas from natural works;which is so well known to all those who have any intelligence beyond the common, that it would be useless to try to justify it.

But without amusing ourselves with vain speeches, it is necessary to know in general that the Stone of the philosophers is nothing other than the moist radical of the elements, spread in truth in them, but reunited in their Stone, and stripped of all foreign defilement. Thus, one should not be surprised if it can operate such great things, being very constant that the life of animals, vegetables and minerals consists only in their moist radical. And just as a man, who would like to maintain a lighted lamp, would not fear that he would go out if he had reserve oil, because he would only have to put it back in as it was consumed. All the same when our radical humidity, in which the fire of life is enclosed, comes to be consumed,

It sometimes happens, however, that the natural heat is so debilitated in its radical humidity by some accident, that it does not have the strength to regain it again in nutrition, which makes it languid, and causes it to finally abandon its body by death. But if someone could give it an essence stripped of excrement, and perfectly purified by art, then no doubt natural heat would attract this essence to itself, convert it into its nature, and restore the body to its first vigor; but all these medicines would avail a dead man nothing, however balsamic, and however perfect they may be; for it is only the fire of nature, contained in the body, which appropriates the medicines, and delivers itself by means of bad humours,

It is therefore necessary by way of nutrition to supply it with a suitable and restorative food, and then this vital fire will recover its first forces; whereas other medicines only irritate nature, far from restoring it. What would be the use of a soldier wounded to death, and who had lost all his blood, if one wanted to excite him to fight by the sound of trumpets, and the noise of drums, and that one pretended to encourage him thereby to support the labors of Mars? Nothing, no doubt; on the contrary, it would harm him, and would only impress upon him a fatal terror. It is the same with a nature debilitated and languishing by the loss or suffocation of its radical humidity, and nothing would be so dangerous or so useless as to irritate it with medicine;but if the radical humidity could be increased and fortified, then nature itself would rid itself of its excrement and its superfluities.

We can say the same thing with regard to the vegetable and the mineral. We are therefore justly astonished at the stubbornness of those who are constantly occupied with remedies for health, and who, however, are entirely ignorant of the source from which flow both health and life. Let these people no longer interfere in talking about the Philosopher's Stone, since they use their reason so badly.

In conclusion, I say that he to whom God will have freely granted the possession of this Stone, and given the spirit to use it, will not only enjoy perfect health, but will still be able with the help of Providence to prolong his days beyond the ordinary term, and have the means of praying God in a long and sweet life.

It is an inviolable law of nature; that whenever a body is attacked by disease proceeding from the contrariety of its qualities, it falls into ruin, because it is no longer sustained except by a languid nature, and its vital spirit abandons it to return to its homeland; and whoever has ever smelled the odor of philosophy will agree that the life of animals, or their viral spirit, being entirely spiritual, and of an ethereal nature, like all the forms which derive from celestial influences, (I do not speak here of the rational soul which is the true form of man) has no connection with terrestrial bodies, except by means which partake of the two natures.

If therefore these environments are not very constant and very pure, it is certain that life will soon be lost, not being able to receive any permanence from them. Now, in the substance of the mixtures, what is most constant and purest is their moist radical, which properly contains the whole nature of the mixture, as we will show in a special chapter. This is therefore a veritable environment, and a subject capable of containing in its center the life of the body, which is nothing other than the innate heat, the fire of nature and the true sulfur of the sages, which the philosophers know how to bring from power to act in their Stone.

Thus he who has the Stone of the Philosophers, has the radical humidity of things, in which the innate heat, which was enclosed therein, has taken dominion by means of a subtle but natural artifice, and has determined its own humidity, transmuting it by a sweet coction into igneous sulphur. The whole nature of the mixed resides in this radical humidity; which means that when we have the radical humidity of something, we have all its essence, all its power, and all its virtues; but it must be extracted with great industry, by a natural and philosophical means, and not according to the spagyric art of vulgar chemists, whose extracts are mixed, full of acrimony, so that there is nothing good left in it, or very little. But like I said,

Let us judge then of what value is the Stone of the Philosophers, and if it is true that one can regain one's health by means of the nourishing substance of food, and by the virtuous essence of some good remedies, notwithstanding that these foods and these remedies are taken with all their shell, and with the mixture of their excrement, what effect must not be expected from their radical humidity, or rather from their core and their center stripped of all excrement, and taken in a suitable vehicle.

Such a remedy does not act violently, and does not irritate nature; on the contrary, it restores its languishing forces, and communicates to it, by its benign and fruitful influences, a natural heat in which it abounds. It is by this that he operates in the bodies of animals admirable and incredible cures, when instead of employing the hand of the physician, nature alone serves at the same time as physician and remedy.

All ordinary medicines, as we have said, only irritate nature, and compel it to collect all its forces against them; whence it happens that after having taken some remedy, one remains for a long time languishing and dejected. Nature alone knows how to reject excrement, and it is this faculty alone which is necessary on such an occasion. For to give purgatives to a weakened body is only to aggravate the evil, and to increase the excrement, instead of diminishing them; but since it is the nature of nature, when a man is healthy, to reject from itself superfluous humours, why, when it is languid, not to try to fortify it? and to impart new vigor to it by means of our medicine? How many admirable cures and surprising effects would arise from this method.

I do not deny that sometimes cardiac patients are given who, with the faculty of purging, still have other very good ones; but apart from the fact that they are very seldom used, these remedies are so crudely prepared, and their virtue is so weak, that they are most of the time very useless; it even often happens that the person who takes them is so ill that he does not have the strength, not to feel the effect of the remedy, but even to feel the remedy. I also know well that there are certain remedies which relieve nature without irritating it, and which by their specific virtue attract and overcome disease and temper, and it is true that with such remedies one would be almost sure of being cured. But who knows them or who; knowing them,knows how to prepare them well? Doubtful science produces only dubious effects; and there is only philosophical medicine which is suitable for all kinds of illnesses; not that by different qualities it produces different effects, for its faculty is solely to fortify nature, which by this means is in a position to deliver itself from all sorts of evils, even if one would suppose them infinite.

It is undoubtedly from this medicine that it is said in Holy Scripture that God has created a medicine of the Earth, which the wise man will not despise. It is said to be of the Earth, because the philosophers draw it from the earth, and yet raise it to a wholly celestial nature. He who knows this medicine does not need a doctor, unless he uses it in greater quantities than nature requires; for it is a very pure fire, which being too strong would devour a lesser flame; and as a man who ate too much would suffocate his natural heat by too much substance, so the forces of the body could not sustain too much of this remedy, and the natural heat would be too dilated. tree roots, and the seeds of plants feed on water and live on water;but if there are too many of them, they grow and die. In this, as in all things, caution is required.

Let us no longer be surprised if our Stone works such great things, when it is administered by the wise hands of the philosopher and if the most obstinate and most incurable diseases are cured as if by a miracle, since nature is so fortified and renewed, that there is no bad quality that it is not in a condition to overcome.

Learn that it is from nature alone that you receive healing and health, provided you know how to help her, and as you are not afraid that your lamp will go out while you have oil to die in, do not fear either that illnesses will assail you, while nature will have such a great treasure in store. Cease therefore to tire yourselves day and night in the search for a thousand useless remedies, and do not waste your time in vain sciences, nor in operations based on fine reasoning, by allowing yourself to be carried away by the example and the opinions of the vulgar. Try rather to understand well what the Stone of the philosophers is, and then you will have the true foundation of health, the treasure of riches, and the certain knowledge of nature with science.

But it is time to say something here about the truth and the possibility of this art with regard to dyeing, by which the philosophers assure that one can dye imperfect metals with gold, because the. knowledge of this possibility will give even more desire to stick to the study of this doctrine; and without stopping at the authority of the philosophers whose writings on this subject can be read, we will only attach ourselves to the reasons which have persuaded us, in order to better persuade the reader of them, and to give him reason to judge things by himself and not by others, as we practiced before we had knowledge of the truth.

All metals are nothing but quicksilver coagulated and fixed absolutely or in part, and as it would take too long to relate here the authority of the philosophers to prove this truth, we will still leave them apart in this respect, and we will only say that it is constant by experience that the matter of metals is quicksilver, because in their liquefaction they visibly manifest the same properties and the same nature of quicksilver. They have the weight, the mobility, the splendour, the smell and the easy liquefaction; whatever you throw on it, it floats on the surface. They are liquid and do not wet the hands; they are soft and when they are liquefied, they go up in smoke like quicksilver in more or less time,

The metals demonstrate all these properties of quicksilver, not only in liquefaction, but also in that they mingle easily with quicksilver; which does not happen to any other sublunary body, the principal property of Quicksilver being to mingle only with what is of its own nature. Therefore, when it mixes with the metals, it comes from the matter of Quicksilver, which is common to them, and Iron mixes with it, and with the other metals only with difficulty because it has very little Quicksilver, in which resides the metallic virtue, with a great deal of earthly sulphur, and it requires even some artifice to give it the mercurial splendor, the easy liquefaction, and the other properties of which we have spoken. all of which are more or less suitable for certain metals than for others.Ductility, which consists in the mercurial union, and in the conglutination of the humid radical, is another mark in the metals that quicksilver abounds there, and is very fixed there, which makes gold the most ductile of the metals.

In addition to what we have just said, to justify that the metals are nothing else than quicksilver, we also discover it in the anatomy, and in the decomposition of these same metals, because from them comes a quicksilver of the same essence as vulgar quicksilver, and all the substance of the metal is reduced in it, in proportion as each metal participates in it; but iron much less than other metals, because of which it is the most imperfect, as Gold is the most perfect in that it is all quicksilver. From which we must conclude that if Gold is not the most perfect of metals, and is properly all metal only because it is all fixed quicksilver, there is no other substance of quicksilver, either pure or impure, cooked or raw, this difference, changing nothing to the species,

Granted that the metals have only quicksilver as their metallic substance, their transmutation or rather their maturation into gold will not be impossible, since only the decoction is needed for this; now, this decoction is made by means of the physical Stone, which being a true metallic fire, completes in an instant, by the hand of the philosopher, what nature takes a thousand years to do.

With regard to this Stone, it is made of the only medium and very pure substance of quicksilver, and if ordinary quicksilver can mix well with metals when they are in fusion, as water mixes with water, what can one not say of this noble, very pure and very penetrating medicine, which is drawn from it, and brought to a sovereign purity, equality and exaltation? Doubtless it will penetrate Quicksilver in its smallest parts; she will embrace it as being of her nature, and being all igneous and red above the redness of rubies, she will tint it in citrine color which is the result of the supreme redness, mingled and tempered with the whiteness of quicksilver.

With regard to fixity, we say that the substance of quicksilver in all metals, except gold, is raw and full of superfluous humidity, because it is in this that quicksilver abounds; but the dry naturally attracts its own humidity, dries it up little by little, and thus the dryness and the humidity tempering each other, a perfectly equalized metal is made, which is Gold. And since it is neither dry nor wet, but equally participating in both, this equality means that the volatile part does not overcome the fixed part, but on the contrary resists the fire, being retained there by the latter; and because in the work of nature the terrestrial dry and the humid are linked in homogeneity; hence it is that in the substance of Quicksilver,either everything flies away, or everything remains fixed and constant in the fire; without anything of the moist part being exhaled, which cannot happen to any other body, because of the lack of this perfect mixing.

We therefore see now how our moisture, dried up and rendered supremely pure and penetrating, can enter into the substance of quicksilver, enclosed in the metals, tint it and fix it, after having separated the excrement from it in the examination, and that there is only this single substance which can be converted into gold, to the exclusion of the others. By which is discovered the error of those who imagine that an imperfect body, like copper, iron or some other similar, can be completely converted into Gold by medicine, without separation of its excrements and the slag; and that only its mercurial moist substance can be so changed.

Those therefore who claim it are impostors; for there can be no alteration except in similar natures; and when we are told that nails or other pieces of iron, dipped in a certain menstruation, have been transmuted into gold, we are told false, and we do not know the nature of the metals; for, although one part appears gold, and the other retains its first metallic form, it does not follow from this that there has been any transmutation; but it is a sham, and is nothing more than a part of natural Gold, adroitly glued to another part of imperfect metal, indeed so precisely that it does indeed appear to be a whole nail, but the fraud is easily discovered by an enlightened mind.

These were the things by which I remained persuaded of the truth of science, and I believe that they will suffice for any man of good understanding, provided he always relates them to the possibility of nature. However, he can still consult the other authors; but before undertaking the Work, let him carefully read and reread what follows.


CANTO FIRST

The tenebrous chaos having emerged like a confused mass from the depths of nothingness, at the first sound of the almighty Word; one would have said that disorder had produced it, and that it could not be the work of a God, so shapeless was he. All things were in him in deep rest, and the elements were confused there, because the divine spirit had not yet distinguished them.

FIRST CHAPTER

The work of Creation being a divine work, it is doubtless that to understand it well, it would require a supernatural spirit, and that it would be throwing oneself into great embarrassment to undertake to speak of what is so far above us since all the hyperboles, and all the similarities, prized by visible things, could not provide us with an idea which responds, as it should, to the extension of this invisible and infinite point. However, if by created things we can reach the Creator, and if it is in the order of his ineffable nature, to make known his properties and his essence, although in an imperfect way with regard to us, by the things which he produces without, it will not be out of place to follow our poet in the instructions which he gives on this subject,

It is impossible for man to raise a building if he has not first laid its foundations; but what is forbidden to the creature is permitted to the creator; because being itself the basis of its own works, it needs no other foundation. If we therefore ask why the Earth, pressed on all sides by the air, remains motionless, why the Heavens and the mass of celestial bodies move with so much order, and yet why our eyes do not discern the cause and the principle of all these things; it suffices for any answer to say that they are emanations from the center, and that the center is the true basis of them.

O admirable mystery, revealed to few people! The basis of everyone is the uncreated Word of God; and as the proper of the center is to represent a point in which there can be neither duality nor any division whatsoever, what is there also more indivisible, what greater unity than the divine Word. The point of the center, no less indivisible than invisible, can only be understood by the circumference, in the same way the invisible Word of God is only comprehensible by creatures. All lines draw from the center and end in the center; likewise all that is created came out of the Word of God, and will return to him after the circular revolution of time. The center point remains stationary while the wheel turns,so the Word of God remains immutable while all other things are subject to change and vicissitudes. As all things emanated from the center by extension, so all things will return to the center by contraction; one was made by uncreated goodness, the other will be made by impenetrable wisdom.

The ineffable Word of God is therefore, so to speak, the center of the World, and this visible circumference emanates from him, retaining in some way the nature of its principle; for all that is created contains within itself the eternal laws of its creator, and it imitates it as much as it can in all its actions. The Earth is like the central point of all visible things: all the fruits, and all the productions of nature also show the eye that they contain in their center the point of their seed, that they preserve it there, and that from it emanate all their virtues and their properties, like so many lines which draw from the center, or like so many rays which issue from a luminous body.

Man, this little World whose image has so many. relation to that of the great World, has it not a heart from which, as from the centre, derive the arteries which are the true lines of the vital spirits, and their sparkling rays? Where, I pray you, is the model and the exemplar of this structure, if not in the great World? Where is the law which prescribed such a provision, if not the divine impression? So that as God supports everything by his presence, everything is also governed by his eternal laws. Let us then assume as constant that from this point were drawn the infinity of lines that we see.

But there is a great question, which is not yet well decided, namely, how and in what form was the matter of things at the point of its creation. If we consider nature closely, and the arrangement of lower things, we will have reason to believe that it was only a watery vapor, or a dark humidity; for if among all created substances, humidity alone ends in a foreign term, and if consequently it is a subject very capable of receiving all forms, it alone also must have been the subject on which the whole work of creation has rolled. Indeed, this dark chaos, as our poet has very well remarked, being formless, and one . confused mass, peculiar to all forms,

We notice that in all the productions which are made in the lower world, the sperm are always coated with an aqueous humor, and that the seeds of plants, which have in them a hermaphrodite nature, being thrown into the ground to be reincrudated there, begin by softening and being reduced to a certain mucilaginous humidity. There is no generation in any reign whatsoever (as we will see in a special chapter) that before the sperms are not reduced to their first matter, which is a real chaos, no longer universal, but particular, and specified.

Nature wanted vegetable seeds to be covered with a hard shell to protect them from the injury of the elements, and to preserve them longer, for the convenience and use of the human race; but when we want to multiply them by a new generation, we must necessarily reincrease them, and reduce them in some way to their first chaos. With regard to the seeds of animals, as they are more noble, and more filled with the spirits of life, they could not have been preserved outside their bodies, unless they had a bark harder than marble, which would have been repugnant to the dignity of the compound, and would have been very inconvenient for generation. This is why wise nature did not want to separate the sperm from the body, but kept it there raw and watery; and this sperm,

What we have said of the two animal and vegetable kingdoms can very well be applied to the mineral kingdom; but as we have to deal with it in a separate chapter, we will say nothing about it here. It is enough that we have shown that the aqueous humidity or the dark vapor was undoubtedly the matter of this shapeless mass, and of this embryo of the World, which was to serve as the base and foundation for all generations. And all that we have advanced on this subject is proved by the evangelical doctrine, where it is said of the divine Word, that by him all things were made, and that without him nothing that was made would have been made;and when it is added that this Word was with God, it means that in the beginning there was a center or an infinite point, the first incomprehensible principle, which was this eternal Word, from which point all things were drawn, and without this point nothing could be . And with regard to this humid vapor, which served to form the first chaos, and which was drawn from this point, Moses designates it enough for us, when he says that light was created immediately, and that the spirit of the Lord moved over the waters; making, as we see, only mention of the light for the form, and of the water for the chaotic subject, and informs before the manifestation of the light, by the virtue of the divine spirit. and that the spirit of the Lord moved over the waters;making, as we see, only mention of the light for the form, and of the water for the chaotic subject, and informs before the manifestation of the light, by the virtue of the divine spirit. and that the spirit of the Lord moved over the waters; making, as we see, only mention of the light for the form, and of the water for the chaotic subject, and informs before the manifestation of the light, by the virtue of the divine spirit.

Moreover, although it is said that in the beginning God created Heaven and Earth, it should not be understood that the distinction between Heaven and Earth was made before light was separated from darkness, not being of dignity or of the order of things, that the creation of light was posterior to that of the Earth, and that the lower things were produced before the higher. For if, according to the common opinion of theologians, the troop of angels and blessed spirits were created in the very point of the creation of the purest substance of light, what appearance would it be that the grossest element of all and the dregs of the World was produced before these celestial intelligences? Besides that, I will ask if at that time heaven and earth were distinguished as we see them,or if they were confused and pell-mell. If it is the first, and we hear that the earth occupied the center of the world, and that the heavens surrounded it spherically, how could the movement of the heavens be made without the light from which all movement derives? For to say that they did not move would be to admit that the Earth, by this rest and this deprivation of movement, would once again have been swallowed up in its first chaos without any distinction, since it belonged only to light alone to drive out the darkness and push it back to the bottom of the waters, as we will explain later. Likewise if it is said that they were not then arranged as they are now, therefore they were confused and in no way distinguished in Heaven and Earth,and Heaven could not rightly have been called firmament, or expands, which separates the waters from the waters; but it would have been chaos without order, and a confused mass, which we grant. Moses therefore makes here a general division of the World, designating the visible upper part by Heaven, and the lower part by Earth, as grosser and elementary; after which he passes to the particular distinction by teaching us that the light was drawn from this central and eternal point. Now, as light was the true form of this first moist vapor, there also took place at the same time the production of all forms in general.Moses therefore makes here a general division of the World, designating the visible upper part by Heaven, and the lower part by Earth, as grosser and elementary; after which he passes to the particular distinction by teaching us that the light was drawn from this central and eternal point. Now, as light was the true form of this first moist vapor, there also took place at the same time the production of all forms in general. Moses therefore makes here a general division of the World, designating the visible upper part by Heaven, and the lower part by Earth, as grosser and elementary; after which he passes to the particular distinction by teaching us that the light was drawn from this central and eternal point.Now, as light was the true form of this first moist vapor, there also took place at the same time the production of all forms in general.

Chaos therefore had only at the beginning of the appearance of nebulous water, and what confirms this truth, is that it is said then that the waters, which were above the extent, were divided from the waters which were below the extent, where it seems clearly in the top and below, above and below the extent, there was nothing but a substance of water, as the subject of all forms.

This foundation thus laid, it is now necessary to continue the description of this immortal work. Now, we have said that from the center issued those confused and disorderly vapours, qualified by the name of the abyss, over which darkness was spread; and then, as our poet teaches, all the elements confounded and mixed;» together without any order, were in complete rest, and this profound silence was like an image of death; the agents took no action, the patients suffered no impairment; no mixture of one with another, and consequently no passage from corruption to generation; finally, there was no sign of life or fertility.

STRAP II

Who could now tell how the two, the Earth and the sea, were formed so light in themselves, and yet so vast in their extent? Who could explain how the Sun and the Moon received movement and light up there, and how everything we see here below had the form of being? Who could finally understand how each thing received its own name, was animated by its own spirit, and, emerging from the impure and disordered mass of chaos, was regulated by a law, a quantity and a measure.

Chapter II

The light issuing like a shaft from this eternal and immense treasury of light, expelled in an instant all darkness by its radiant splendor, dissipated the horror of chaos, and introduced the universal form of things, as chaos had provided the universal matter a little before. Immediately the spirit of the Lord was seen to move over the waters, asking only to produce, and ready to carry out the orders of the eternal Word. Already by the production of light, the firmament had begun to be like a medium between the superior and the most subtle part of the waters, and between the inferior and the grossest. After which, of the purest light, enriched with the divine spirit, was created the angelic nature, whose perpetual office is to be carried on the supercelestial waters in the empyrean sky,

The eternal laws of God have passed from there to the lower creatures, and it is on this divine model that nature has formed her rules for all things here below; so that each creature is like the monkey of its Creator and represents perfectly well the admirable order which he made use of. For, as from the center of the Eternal Word the rays of light spread far and wide into immensity, so each created body constantly pushes out from itself its own rays, though invisible, which multiply ad infinitum. Now, these rays or spirits, which thus emanate from all bodies, are particles, but enveloped in this perfectly pure first light, which alone can strike and penetrate glass and even the hardest diamond, which is refused to the most subtle air.It is therefore a law of God which obliges each creature, as much as its forces can allow it, to follow the first order established in the point of creation. What we will justify even more clearly in a treaty which we will make on purpose, God helping, for his glory and the utility of the children of the art.

by virtue of this divine, separating spirit, the purest and most subtle vapors had been collected Already, and as they participated abundantly in the diffused light, they were consequently a subject very fit to fix the light there.

So we first saw the firmament adorned with luminous bodies; already sparks of light had shone and already the quivering stars had burst their rays in the heavens, when the sovereign Creator gathered all this light into the body of the Sun, which he made as the seat of his Majesty, as the Prophet says:

He put his tabernacle in the Sun.

By the continual irradiation of light, day had appeared; the elements were moved; the principle of generations was near, and awaited only the command of the Eternal Word. However, although there was naturally sympathy between the lower waters and the upper ones, there was nevertheless much disproportion between them, and the higher agents would no doubt have acted with too much speed and promptitude on the lower ones; which obliged the learned architect of the Universe to unite these two extremes by a suitable medium, so that their mutual action might be more moderate. For this purpose he created the Moon, and established her as the female of the Sun, so that having received in her his warm and fruitful light, she might temper him with her moisture,

He gave dominion over the day to one, and to the other dominion over the night, placing it in the lowest part of the sky, so that it might be better able to receive the influences of the superiors and to communicate them to the inferiors. He also saw fit to compose it from the less pure part of the upper waters, which he collected into a body so that its light would be more opaque, colder, and more humid; and hence it is that all the alterations of the sublunar bodies are attributed rather to the Moon than to the Sun, because of its affinity with the lower nature, and that the middles unite much more easily with the extremes than the extremes unite with each other. But it is time to pursue the order of creation.

Already, by the creation of the firmament and the luminous bodies, the mixture of the elements had been made, and already the lower waters began to suffer some alteration, when by the action of the upper ones, and by the way of the rarefaction, there rose as from the bosom of these waters and formed from the purest of their parts the air that we breathe; and as the grossest waters still surrounded all things, God by his word gathered them all together, making appear the dry or the earth, which was like the excrement and the faeces of this first chaos.

But what shall we say of the movement and extent of the heavens, the stability of the Earth, and all that is contained therein? And how can we reach what is so far beyond our reach? It seems that it should belong only to the celestial inhabitants to announce such great things; however, since we make the main part of this very pure light, it would be a crime not to take advantage of the advantages that God has given us, and our all-celestial soul, although enclosed in an elementary body, would be unworthy of its origin, if it did not publish with all its might the magnificent things of the Most High; it would even be a kind of impiety, and in some way combat the admirable harmony of the divine works, if we did not dare to raise ourselves to higher things,

There is only one author of all things, in which there can be no variety; that it receives no exceptions, and it has all the perfection imaginable. Thus it must be recognized that everything is equally the work of his wisdom, and the effect of his goodness and that the intention of the Creator was that the things created, which were incomprehensible in him, should be comprehensible outside him, so that by them we might come to know him; and since the sky, the air, and the Sun itself, are as much the creatures of his hands as the smallest stone and the smallest grain of sand, we must believe that it is no more difficult to know the one than to understand the other.

Perhaps some ill-made mind, which shuns the light to follow the darkness, will imagine that the human body is of a structure less noble, and less perfect than the heavens; but he would be greatly mistaken, since the heavens and the world itself were made only for him. Let us therefore have good courage and do not be afraid to undertake to discourse on superior things, in relation to what we know of inferior things, since a small light increases a greater one, and a spark sometimes kindles a great fire.

But before entering into the distinction of the heavens, it is necessary to know what is to be understood by this word Heaven, and to consult the Holy Scriptures on this as our only rule, since the order of creation is there very faithfully described in Genesis, although a little obscurely, and because Moses said nothing about it except by divine inspiration, being, however, very learned, and very instructed in the science of natural magic.

We are therefore taught there that God made the firmament or expanse, in order to separate the waters only with the waters, and that God called this expanse Heaven, by which we see that the word Heaven and that of Firmament are but one and the same thing; and that when it is said that there were two kinds of waters, one above the firmament, and the other below, it is as if it were said that there; had waters above the sky, and waters below the sky. It is also said that the waters, which were below the sky, were gathered in one place, so that the dry, that is to say the Earth, appeared, and that this mass of waters was called Sea, as all that is above these lower waters was called by the name of Heaven or Firmament.

For the rest, it must not be believed that these inferior waters can ever override the divine command, which carried that they would be assembled in one place. Wherefore, when we see that these waters cannot rise above the region of the clouds, it is because immediately beyond is the sky or the dividing firmament of the waters. For, although the characteristic of water is to become scarce, and natural reason dictates to us that the higher it rises, the more rarefaction it must acquire, because of the great capacity of the place, nevertheless it happens that these waters contract instead of expanding, and that they condense in this place, as if they met there a glass or a solid crystal; which does not come from cold, or from any other remote cause,but of their only obedience to the orders of God, who wanted them to be distinct and separated from the upper waters by the firmament. We can therefore determine that the sky proper contains all that space, which is from the top of the clouds to the upper waters, called by many the crystalline sky; and the sky or firmament (to speak according to the Scripture) is the divider of the waters. With regard to the division that we make of the sky into several different parts, this is only a way of speaking. called by many the crystalline sky; and the sky or firmament (to speak according to the Scripture) is the divider of the waters. With regard to the division that we make of the sky into several different parts, this is only a way of speaking.called by many the crystalline sky; and the sky or firmament (to speak according to the Scripture) is the divider of the waters. With regard to the division that we make of the sky into several different parts, this is only a way of speaking.

God placed the stars and other lights in the sky, each in the place that best suited his nature; the firmament being of itself nothing but the division of the waters, and a certain expanse in which the light had to be spread to enlighten and inform the world. But as the light is of a spiritual nature, and therefore invisible, it was necessary to clothe it with some opaque body, by means of which it could be sensible to other creatures, which compelled the sovereign Creator to form luminaries from the mass of superior waters, of which he made various bodies according to his will, and bestowed on them the light necessary to shine here and beyond. And as in all the bodies of this lower region, the lower waters served to supply the matter that was needed,

God therefore having gathered up some parts of the upper waters, in a spherical form, the nature of water being always to condense in a circle, he clothed them with light, and placed them in the firmament, so that (as it is said in Genesis) that some would preside over the day, and others over the night, and be the signs of the times and the seasons. Whereupon it is good to remark in passing how ridiculous, not to say impious, it is to believe the speeches of those astrologers who make their observations upon these celestial bodies, with the thought of penetrating into the secrets of God, touching the various occurrences of men, their inclinations, their actions, and other accidents, which can only be discovered by God alone, who has reserved the knowledge thereof,and on which alone depends everything that happens in the World. But let them float according to their errors, and content ourselves with being able, by means of these celestial bodies, to make prognoses respecting the various changes of the weather and the seasons, which a man of a little skill and experience can easily know.

All the luminous bodies each occupied their place in the vast expanse of the firmament, and were balanced there by their own weight and according to their different nature. And although they are light bodies, since they are formed from the superior waters; nevertheless, in relation to the firmament, and in view of their mass, they would be heavy enough to fear that they would leave this same place, if they were not stopped there, and as if fixed by the will of God, and by the direction of some intelligence assigned to each of them, according to the opinion of some theologians, who want that all the bodies of creatures each have a particular intelligence which presides over them.

Add to this the rapid movement of the first mobile which, being circular, causes everything that moves by it to remain in its own sphere and in Its ecliptic. Experience itself showing us that any mass whatsoever, of lead or of marble, as soon as it comes to turn spherically, loses its weight, and flies, so to speak, whirling also around the center, so that a very slender thread would be capable of always retaining it there at the same distance. We also see that a wheel, however large it may be, after the first movement imparted to it, moves by itself and turns easily around its axis. After that it is no longer surprising that the bodies of the luminaries, although of prodigious size, each turn easily in its own sphere,without varying a single point, as if they were nailed to a solid wall. Moreover, the cause of such a movement comes only from this living and luminous spirit, of which these bodies are full; for this spirit cannot endure rest, and it is on it that all the actions and all the force of the vital spirits depend, as we will show some day in treating of the admirable structure of man.

The sky therefore properly is taken for the firmament, which of its nature is unique, and without distinction. But as we have been accustomed to call by the name of heaven all that we see above us clothed in celestial clothing, whether the place of the upper waters, or the empyrean, the denomination usually being taken from what is the most visible and the most visible; in the same way Moses used the word Earth to designate the lower elements, and that of Heaven to signify the higher ones. By imitating Moses, we will therefore call all that is above us Heaven, and all that is below Earth; after which, we will divide this upper part into three classes or into three heavens.

The first heaven will be laid down from that elemental region, which is immediately above the clouds, and where the lower waters have their term assigned by the Creator to the fixed stars; that is to say, to the place where the wandering planets are, so called because in their turn they do not observe any order between them, but turn differently from each other to better give shape to the Universe and serve to mark the change of times and seasons.

The second heaven will be the very place of the fixed bodies, into which the stars also go, always keeping the same distance between them, and observing an invariable course, which makes them called fixed, as if they were actually attached to some solid body. This first and this second sky join successively, and there does not appear to be any distinction, being only one and the same firmament, and the same upper part of the Universe, as we have already said.

The third heaven will be the very place of the supercelestial waters, distinct from the lower waters by the dividing firmament - and there are the cataracts of the heavens which are preserved there for the execution of the secret judgments of God, and to serve as instruments of his vengeance, as we saw of old, when God sent the deluge for the punishment of men. It is up to this third heaven, close to the empyrean, where reside the majesty of God and the army of his holy angels, and where the Scripture teaches us that Saint Paul was caught up, and it marks us no more distant limits than the third heaven.

One might ask whether these supercelestial waters wet or not; but there is no difficulty in deciding that they do not wet, because they are rarefied waters of supremely perfect rarefaction, and it is properly the spirit of the waters. And if we are allowed to argue from less to more: since the lower waters, although coarse and like the faeces of others, do not wet when they are rarefied and spread here and there in the air, the upper waters must still wet less, as much because of their more subtle nature, as because they are in a much larger extent. From which one can learn that the more water is rarefied, the more it approaches the nature of this first very pure water, placed above the firmament in the ethereal region.

From this rarefaction of the waters, and from their well-studied nature, the hermetic philosopher will draw more instruction than from all the science of Aristotle and his followers, although very subtle and very beautiful, considered in other respects. This is what the learned Sendivogius insinuates in his New Light, when he says that we must observe well the wonders of nature, and especially in the scarcity of water; but we will deal with these things more fully in their place.

With regard to matter, of which the firmament is composed, we do not know if it is only a vacuum, or if it is something different from the waters which surround it. But by closely examining the nature of things, perhaps we shall not fail to penetrate the truth in spite of the distance which is from there to us. We therefore say that the substance of the waters has served as universal matter, as light has served as universal form; and as the light diffused on all sides had to be chiefly confined in the firmament, and to shine there with more brilliancy, its domicile also had consequently to have more affinity with the light than the material substance has, in order that it might have room to shine and spread it more freely; but there is only the air,

With regard to the earth, as it is not properly an element, but the bark and the dregs of the elements, it has no rank in a place where there is none for excrement; because the light being there in its own and natural habitat, it does not need an envelope, as it needs it here below, as we are going to show.

Having spoken of the sky and the celestial bodies, it is time to come to the lower elements; and because we have often mentioned the lower waters, something must now be said about them.

The lower waters having been separated and brought together in one place by the virtue of the divine Word, to which the action of the light greatly contributed, which, driving out the darkness, forced them to take refuge in the depths of the waters, there was immediately like a new chaos which was seen in the lower nature, for all the elements were confused and without order, and there was no action there. This obliged the wise Creator to bestow on this lower nature a light which was peculiar to it; but because it is in the nature of light to always want to rise upwards, he thought of giving it a subject that would serve as its home and hold it, and for that he thing fire.

But because it is very pure and very dry in its nature, very attractive in its natural airy humidity, that it would have been too easily absorbed by the action which is natural to it, and would have increased so greatly, that it would have been able to consume almost everyone and convert all the lower air into itself, prudent nature, or rather the very Author of nature, by establishing fire to serve as a vehicle for the light, wished at the same time to assign him a hard prison, namely the earth, and that he should be retained there. under its impure envelopes, lest it escape. He was bound, so to speak, by a double bond, namely, by the coldness of the earth, and by the dampness of the filthy water,so that being subject to these contrary and anti-peristatic qualities he would remain arrested for the convenience of the lower nature. This is how fire was made the vehicle of form, that is, of light; and his seat set in the earth, the dregs of the lower waters, where he is held under a hard bark.

This fire acts on the matter that is closest to it and more suitable to suffer, namely water, which it immediately rarefies and converts into the nature of the air which is below the clouds mixed with water, and attracted by the force of celestial bodies. But if this fire finds contained in the center of the earth an aerial humidity, already produced by its action, which could not be exhaled because of the solidity of the places and the opacity of the earth, and if it acts again on it, by joining to this aerial humidity the driest and most subtle parts of the earth, from there is made the bituminous and terrestrial sulphur, which is diverse according to the diversity of the places.

Likewise, if this air finds day to go out, it stirs the other air and causes the wind. And if this same fire acts on an aqueous moisture, the air not having been exhaled, and that it joins with the purest, but drier parts of the ground, to which it makes itself adherent, then the common salt is made, and from there comes the cause of the saltiness of the sea; for the sea being too deep, and almost in the center of the earth, where the central fire is most vigorous, this fire finding there a great mass of waters, which are there in a sort of rest, it acts continually on this humid matter, the air always exhaling through the pores of the water, and from there the salt is made, as from this exhalation of air are born storms, whirlwinds, and the winds which come from the sea.

It is enough for the present to know what effects this exhalation of aerial humidity usually produces, which being also sometimes retained in the earth, in very enclosed places which obstruct its passage, excites great earthquakes there according to the quantity of the moved matter. From this continual action of fire on aqueous humidity, the union of the most subtle parts of the earth is made, as we have said, the common salt, which by the agitation of the sea, comes out of the caverns of the earth and the water, impregnated with it by a continual movement, becomes salty. But these salty waters, coming to pass through the pores of the earth in their ordinary course, this fire no longer has any action on them, especially since the sources of fountains or rivers are deep;for the generation of salt does not take place on the surface of the sea, but in the land.

Hence it is that if the places where the salt is made are coated with chalk, or if they have very small pores, so that water cannot penetrate them to serve there for the generation of salt, or if the salt being made it cannot draw it up or impregnate itself with it, then it remains dispersed in the bowels of the earth, and the water remains on the surface, soft as it was before; but in the bottom of the sea, where there is a great quantity of arena, there is a passage for the water to enter and take on the substance of the salt, and thus become salty.

This is how the sky, the earth and the sea were produced from this first shapeless chaos, and how the world was formed from their various arrangements with rule, weight and measure. But my intention being to treat of this great subject in a particular book, we refer the reader to it.

STRAP III

O you, of the divine Hermes, enjoined and imitators, to whom the science of your father has made nature see uncovered; you alone, you alone know how this immortal hand formed the earth and the two of this formless mass of chaos; for your great Work makes it clear that in the same manner in which your philosophical elixir is made, God also made all things.

CHAPTER III

Only the children of hermetic science know the true foundations of nature, and they alone, enlightened by this beautiful light, deserve the name of physicists. It is to them, like to eagles, that it is permitted to gaze fixedly at the sun, source of all light, at the hour of his birth, and who can with their hands touch this son of the Sun, to draw him out of his darkness, to wash him, to nourish him and to lead him to an age of maturity. It is they again who know and adore Diana, his true sister, and who, having had favorable Jupiter in their birth, are like the monkeys of the Creator in the work of their Stone; but if they imitate him wisely, they bless and praise him perpetually, rendering him infinite graces for the great good they possess.

Indeed, who could imagine that from a small confused mass, where the eyes of the vulgar see only faeces and abomination, the wise chemist could draw from it a tenebrous and mercurial humidity, containing in itself all that is necessary for the Work, according to the common saying that: in Mercury is all that the wise seek: and that in this reservoir of superior and inferior waters all the elements are contained, which must be extracted from it by a second separation? physical, perfectly purified and led afterwards”; to the act of generation by means of corruption.

Who could believe that there was found the firmament, dividing the upper waters from the lower ones, and the domicile of the luminaries to which eclipses sometimes occur? Finally, who would believe that in the center of our earth there was a fire, the true vehicle of light, which was neither devouring nor consuming, but on the contrary which is nourishing, natural, and the source of life, and from whose action is generated at the bottom of the philosophical sea the true salt of nature, and that there is at the same time in the bosom of this virgin the true earth sulfur, which is the Mercury of the wise, and the Stone of the philosophers?

O you, perfectly happy to have been able to conjoin the upper waters with the lower ones by means of the firmament! O you, even more skillful in knowing how to wash the earth with fire, burn it with water and then the. sublimate! Surely every kind of bliss and glory will accompany you on earth and every darkness will flee from you. You have seen the upper waters which do not wet; you have handled the light with your own hands; you knew how to compress the air; you knew how to nourish the fire and sublimate the earth in Mercury, in salt, and finally in sulphur.

You have known the center; you knew how to draw rays of light from it, and by the light, you knew how to chase away the darkness and see a new day. Mercury was born in you, the Moon was in your hands, and the Sun was born in you; he was born there a second time, and was exalted. You have admired this Sun in its redness, and the Moon in its whiteness, and you have contemplated all the stars of the firmament in the midst of the darkness of the night; darkness before light, darkness after light, finally light mixed with darkness has appeared to you. What shall I say more? you produced a chaos, you gave a form to this chaos which you drew from itself, and thus you had the first matter,which you have informed of a more noble form than it had before; you then corrupted it and at last raised it to an entirely perfect form. But that's talking too much on a subject where it's good to be more reserved.

STRAP IV

But it is not for my feeble pen to draw such a large picture, being still only a puny child of art, without any experience. It is not that your learned Writings did not make me perceive the true goal towards which one must aim; and that I do not know well this Illiast, which has in him all that we need, as well as this admirable compound by which you knew how to bring from power to action the virtue of the elements.

CHAPTER IV

Here our poet apologizes for having dared to use the comparison he has put forward, and makes it clear that it is a quality attached to the true philosopher to be humble and without vanity; unlike others who speak boldly of what they do not know. They tell the truth that Mercury and Sulfur enter into our composition; but blind as they are, they do not know what this Mercury is, what this Sulfur is, and do not know what they are dealing with, nor the goal towards which they must aim, and the paths that must be followed are incomprehensible to them. They stick to the 'vulgar mercury, assuring that there is no other, although the learned Sendivogius affirms the contrary in his dialogue, where he says that there is indeed another Mercury,

Finally, although all the philosophers unanimously condemn vulgar mercury and forbid using it, they persist in commenting on the text of the philosophers in their fashion, and absolutely want them to have understood that mercury, in the form that we see it, is not in truth the Mercury of the philosophers, but only when it is worked and purified at their whim, and that it is reduced to another form.

What madness, great gods! It is almost as if some author had forbidden the use of common sulfur for the manufacture of glass, and that a man nevertheless persisted in wanting to draw it from it, for the sole reason that the defense would have looked at sulfur as we have it, but not at worked and prepared sulfur; by reasoning in itself this beautiful reasoning, that the sulfur was in the beginning earth, and that consequently it can be reduced to ashes, from which the glass will be made. Who does not see that it would go directly against the intention of whoever would have made the defense.

This is what those do who work with common mercury, which by the action of nature has passed into a certain substance, very useless to art; and although Mercury, Gold, and the other metals, even all the sublunary bodies contain in them naturally the Mercury of the philosophers, it is nevertheless a very great madness to work on the ones and on the others, since art needs a body which is close to generation. Let them therefore know that we must work on a body created by nature, which, like a good and provident mother, she presents to art ready prepared.

In this body, the sulfur and the mercury are mixed, but very weakly linked together, so that the artist has only to untie them, purify them, and once again reunite them by an admirable means. All this must be done not by caprice and by ordinary work, but with great wisdom and industry, and always according to the ways and rules of nature, which alone must entirely govern the philosophical work, and it is by this alone that one can arrive at the goal that one proposes.

This body is called by our poet Illiast, or Hylé, and indeed it is a veritable chaos, which in this new production contains in itself, though confusedly, all the elements, which industrious art must separate and purify by the ministry of nature, so that, being conjoined again, there arises the veritable chaos of the philosophers; that is, a new heaven and a new earth. Of this Hyle or chaos, the learned Pennot says admirably in his Canons sur l'Ouvrage Physique that the essence in which dwells the spirit we seek is grafted and engraved in it, although with imperfect lines and lineaments. The same is said by Ripleus, English, at the beginning of his "Twelve Gates"; and Aegidius of Vadis, in his "Dialogue of Nature",shows clearly and as if in letters of gold, that there has remained in this world a portion of this first chaos, known but despised by everyone, and which is sold publicly. I could allege an infinity of authors who speak of this chaos or confused mass, but what they say about it can only be heard by children of art. They are the oracles of the Sphinx, which are only clear to those who understand them, and which under the same shell hide life and death. Therefore, whoever undertakes to handle our Hermetic Serpents, let him arm himself with a solid and fundamental theory, if he does not want to find his loss where he seeks his security and his advantages.I could allege an infinity of authors who speak of this chaos or confused mass, but what they say about it can only be heard by children of art. They are the oracles of the Sphinx, which are only clear to those who understand them, and which under the same shell hide life and death. Therefore, whoever undertakes to handle our Hermetic Serpents, let him arm himself with a solid and fundamental theory, if he does not want to find his loss where he seeks his security and his advantages. I could allege an infinity of authors who speak of this chaos or confused mass, but what they say about it can only be heard by children of art. They are the oracles of the Sphinx, which are only clear to those who understand them, and which under the same shell hide life and death.Therefore, whoever undertakes to handle our Hermetic Serpents, let him arm himself with a solid and fundamental theory, if he does not want to find his loss where he seeks his security and his advantages.

That these unfortunate philosophers are to be pitied, who on the simple reading of a few books, dare to put their hand to the Work. It is not a question of reading, but of hearing what one reads; for if we had only to take literally what the philosophers say, how many scholars, how many Hermes, how many Gebers there would be in the world! But there has been and there will be only one Hermès and one Géber. Let it suffice then for the wisest to be reputed worthy of succeeding them, and let them count that they will never know how to do anything if they do not first learn how to do it. Our poet has perfectly known this truth, that it is of no use to know the matter, to know the vulgar operations, and to understand even the nature of the Illiast,if at the same time one does not have a perfect understanding of the books and a profound theory. For after all this is the work of philosophers and not of ordinary chemists; it is a work of nature and not a subtlety of art. It is therefore necessary to begin by learning well what nature is, and this is what you will find, my dear reader, written in several places; but it is up to you to separate the dew from the thorns, and if your judgment does not help you in that, the quantity of books and doctors will be of no use to you; it will be rather a confusion than a real science, and far from acquiring knowledge, you will only be wasting both your time and your trouble. For after all this is the work of philosophers and not of ordinary chemists;it is a work of nature and not a subtlety of art. It is therefore necessary to begin by learning well what nature is, and this is what you will find, my dear reader, written in several places; but it is up to you to separate the dew from the thorns, and if your judgment does not help you in that, the quantity of books and doctors will be of no use to you; it will be rather a confusion than a real science, and far from acquiring knowledge, you will only be wasting both your time and your trouble. For after all this is the work of philosophers and not of ordinary chemists; it is a work of nature and not a subtlety of art.It is therefore necessary to begin by learning well what nature is, and this is what you will find, my dear reader, written in several places; but it is up to you to separate the dew from the thorns, and if your judgment does not help you in that, the quantity of books and doctors will be of no use to you; it will be rather a confusion than a real science, and far from acquiring knowledge, you will only be wasting both your time and your trouble. written in several places; but it is up to you to separate the dew from the thorns, and if your judgment does not help you in that, the quantity of books and doctors will be of no use to you;it will be rather a confusion than a real science, and far from acquiring knowledge, you will only be wasting both your time and your trouble. written in several places; but it is up to you to separate the dew from the thorns, and if your judgment does not help you in that, the quantity of books and doctors will be of no use to you; it will be rather a confusion than a real science, and far from acquiring knowledge, you will only be wasting both your time and your trouble.

V-STRAP

It is not that I do not know that your secret Mercury is nothing but a living, universal and innate spirit which, in the form of aerial vapor, descends unceasingly from heaven to earth to fill its porous belly, which is then born among the impure sulfurs and, in growing, passes from the volatile to the fixed nature, giving itself to itself the form of a radical humidity.

CHAPTER V

It is now time to bring to light, as far as it will depend on us, the foundation of all the doctrine since it would serve no purpose to know the subject of our science if we were ignorant of what is contained in it, and what must be drawn from it; it is with this intention that our poet continues to explain the nature of the Mercury of the philosophers, but nevertheless under a veil which hides the truth from the eyes of the ignorant, and lets it be seen by the wise and the learned.

He establishes a double movement in Mercury, one of descent, and the other of ascension. And as the first serves to inform the materials arranged by means of the rays of the Sun and other stars, which by their nature are directed towards the lower bodies, and to awaken by the action of his vital spirit the fire of nature, which is as it were dormant in them, so the movement of ascent serves him naturally to purify the bodies of the excrement which they have contracted, and to exalt the pure elements with which he unites, and whose nature he strengthens; after which he returns to his homeland, having become more vicious indeed, but not more mature or more perfect.

Just as there is a double movement in mercury, so we find in it a double nature, namely one igneous and fixed, the other moist and volatile; and it is by this that he reconciles the discordant, and that he reconciles the opposites. If we look at its intrinsic nature, it is the fixed heart of all things, very pure and very persevering in fire, the true thread of the Sun, the fire of nature, essential fire, the vehicle of light; in a word, the true sulfur of the philosophers. From him proceeds splendour; of its light the life, and of its movement the spirit. With respect to its extrinsic nature, it is the most spiritual of all spirits; purest of all purities; the quintessence of the elements;the foundations of all nature, the first matter of things; an elemental liquor; in a word, the true Mercury of the philosophers.

This double movement, and this double nature of Mercury cause us to consider it under two different eyes; for before its congealing and in the way of descent, it is the airy and very pure vapor of the elements of nature of the superior waters, bearing naturally in its bosom the spirit of light, and the true fire of nature. It is moist and volatile and it is the noblest portion of this first Illiaste or chaos. It is permanent water, drawn from this first humidity, always the same, and always incorruptible. It is the wind or the air of the heavens, which carries in its womb the fecundity of the Sun and which with its wings covers the nudity of fire.But after the freezing, it is the radical humidity of things, which under vile slag, does not fail to preserve the nobility of its first origin, and without its luster being stained; she is a very pure virgin, who has not lost her virginity, although one finds her in the midst of public squares; it is in every body, and each compound conceals it within itself. What would a body be without its radical humidity and how could a substance subsist without its own subject? How could spirits be held if there was no proper place to hold them? Finally, how could the Sulfur of nature be confined if it did not have its own prison? To recognize this better, let us examine the nature of things a little more closely.and each compound harbors it within itself. What would a body be without its radical humidity and how could a substance subsist without its own subject? How could spirits be held if there was no proper place to hold them? Finally, how could the Sulfur of nature be confined if it did not have its own prison? To recognize this better, let us examine the nature of things a little more closely. and each compound harbors it within itself. What would a body be without its radical humidity and how could a substance subsist without its own subject? How could spirits be held if there was no proper place to hold them? Finally, how could the Sulfur of nature be confined if it did not have its own prison?To recognize this better, let us examine the nature of things a little more closely.

There are three humidities in every compound, as the learned Evaldus Vogelius teaches in the chapter on radical humidity, the first of which is called elemental, which, in each body, is stubbornly united to the earth, and this earth and water, thus united, are called the vase of the other elements; this moisture never absolutely abandons the compound, on the contrary it always remains with it, even in the ashes, and in the salt, which is drawn from it; and what is more admirable is that it remains even in the glass, to which it gives fluidity. This humidity is the true and very pure element of water, which has not received any alteration from the other elements, but which has remained in the one and simple nature of water, outside the union which it has contracted with the terrestrial part.

The second humidity is called radical, about which something was said above, and which we will talk about even more fully below. In this moisture consists particularly the strength of the body, but it is inflamed, and easily separates from the compound; however, some small portion always remains, even in the ashes; but it is entirely dissipated in the vitrification. The third humidity is called alimentary, and it is properly the aliment that supervenes the compound. It is of the nature of radical humidity, but this is before it has been frozen, and when it has not yet suffered considerable alteration by specific agents. It is called by various names, and often it is taken by philosophers for radical humidity, intended to embarrass readers.This moisture is volatile, and almost leaves the body first. Moreover, the knowledge of these three humidities is more necessary for those who attach themselves to our science, than that of their own language, because without it it is absolutely impossible to know the Mercury of the philosophers well.

I will say again in a few words, touching the first humidity, that it is the gross element of water united with the gross element of earth, and that they are the vessels of nature in which the two other pure elements are enclosed, namely fire in the earth, and air in the water; but not yet immediately, for the true air is enclosed in another purer body, as well as the true fire. These two elements are still called bodies by philosophers because they communicate corporeality to all nature, and their substance serves as clothing to cover the nudity of the true elements; but the body of the earth especially understood and clothes all things.

With regard to the second humidity, it is an aerial humidity, which before its freezing was the vapor of the elements of an ethereal nature, retains this same nature after freezing, which means that in each compound it takes the form of oil, especially in plants and animals. With regard to minerals, as they abound chiefly in watery moisture and earthiness, both bound together, on account of which their oil has received a gross earthly alteration, it follows that the nature of their oil, where moisture prevails, is transmuted into an earthy quality, where chiefly dryness prevails, and hence their radical moisture, especially of the metals, more stubbornly resists fire than the moisture of other bodies; however this humid is not fixed in all,because the aqueous sometimes prevails over the terrestrial; but if such moisture were drawn together and transmuted by coction, then the radical moisture would become very constant and very fixed in the fire. Oil therefore abounds in aerial humidity, which means that it burns and is easily ignited, this property being particular to aerial humidity (whereas the other humidity flies away without igniting) because the air is food for the fire, which lives on the air, is nourished by it, rejoices in it and clothes itself with its body; so that all that is of oily substance in bodies may be said to contain in itself that radical moisture, which in vegetables is in an oleaginous form, in animals in a form of fat, and in minerals in a form of sulphur, as we said ;although it sometimes happens, however, that this substance varies, both in name and in form. But basically, it is only this airy and radical humidity, contained in their intrinsic, which is to be considered; for this humidity being destroyed, the compound falls and is no longer what it was; being altered, the whole body is altered; for it is in this humidity alone that the real subject of all alterations consists, as well as the foundation of generations; but this moisture subsisting, the virtue of the compound subsists at the same time, which is vigorous or languid, according to the abundance or the lack of this moisture. Finally, nature is enclosed within it, and is preserved there.It is the true sperm of things, in which resides the seminal point,

As for the third humidity, it is properly the vegetable Mercury, being still in the way of descension, when by the planetary rays, it descends to make nature vegetate, and to multiply the seed in the bodies. But because it is a very subtle and very spiritual vapor, as our author very learnedly insinuates, it needs, in order to penetrate the lower bodies and mingle with them, to assume the form of water, by means of which it prevents the bodies from being burned. It serves entirely for the production of things in the act of generation, for it is the true dissolvent of nature, penetrating the bodies by its innate spirituality, and awakening the internal fire when it is dormant;also causing by its humidity corruption and blackness and because of the acidity it has contracted in a completely mineral body. It is very acid, and very sharp, and it is the true author of all motions. It is sometimes compared to the menstruation, and it has such and such a great virtue that it cannot be expressed, although to consider it in itself, and grossly, it is very imperfect, very raw, and even very vile; but enough is enough. and grossly, it is very imperfect, very raw, and even very vile; but enough is enough. and grossly, it is very imperfect, very raw, and even very vile; but enough is enough.

Philosophers have four kinds of Mercury, whose names confuse readers so much that it is almost impossible to fathom their true meaning. The principal and most noble is the Mercury of bodies, for it is the most virtual and the most active of all, and it is also towards its acquisition that all chemistry tends, since it is the true seed, so much sought after, from which the tincture and the Stone of the philosophers are made. It is this Mercury that has driven philosophers to write so much; it is he who is truly the Stone; and who does not know it, uselessly breaks his head in search of it. The second is the Mercury of nature, the acquisition of which requires a very subtle and learned mind.It is the true bath of the wise, the vase of the philosophers, the truly philosophical water, the sperm of metals, and the foundation of all nature. Finally, it is the same as the humid radical, which we talked about above. The third is called the Mercury of the philosophers, because only philosophers can have it; it is not sold, it is not known, and is found only in the philosophers' stores, and in their mines.

It is properly the sphere of Saturn, the true Diana, and the true salt of the metals, the acquisition of which is beyond human strength; its nature is very powerful and it is with it that the philosophical Work begins, that is to say after its acquisition. Oh, how many enigmas have originated from him! What parables are made for him! How many treaties composed in him. It is hidden under so many veils, that it seems that all the skill of the philosophers has been employed to . wrap it well. The fourth is the common Mercury, not that of the vulgar, which is named so only by resemblance, but ours, which is the true air of the philosophers, the true middle substance of water, and the true secret fire. It is called common, because it is common a.all mining,

If you know these four Mercurys well, my dear reader, you are already at the entrance, and the sanctuary of nature is open to you, because you already have in them three perfect elements, namely air, water and fire. With regard to the pure land, you can only have it by philosophical calcination, and only then the virtue of the Stone will be complete, when all is changed into earth. But enough has been said of the nature of Mercury, and if our author, in another genre of writing, has treated it learnedly and magnificently, we believe that we have said in a few words all that could be said of it, and as clearly as such a science can permit. You will see still greater things in the sequel; so that all you have to do is put your hand to work; but before we begin,

STRAP VI

It is not that I do not yet know that if our oval vessel is not sealed by winter, it will never be able to retain the precious vapor, and that our beautiful child will die as soon as it is born, if it is not promptly rescued by an industrious hand. and by the eyes of Linyx, for otherwise he will no longer be able to be nourished with his first humor, following the example of man, who after having fed on impure blood in the maternal womb, lives on milk when he is in the world.

CHAPTER VI

All the authors say many things about the seal of Hermes, and all assure that without it the magisterium would be destroyed, since by its means alone the spirits are preserved and the vessel well equipped. But I have not yet been able to understand what our poet means by the word winter that he uses, so that I would easily believe that it is a writing error, and that there should be sigillarsi di vetro instead of di verno, the resemblance of the words having been able to deceive the copyist.

However, I am not unaware of what Sendivogius among others teaches, namely that winter is a cause of putrefaction, because the pores of trees and plants are blocked by (ambient) cold, which causes the spirits to preserve themselves there better, and have their actions more vigorous. But I do not see how this reasoning could be applied to our Work, where a continual heat must surround the material, and warm it up and is necessary until the end, all the authors agreeing that if it comes to cease for a moment, the composition falls and the work is destroyed. They give as an example the egg put under the hen for the production of the chicken, which becomes useless as soon as it is cooled. This is what put my mind in suspense on the intention of our author.

For you, my dear reader, without stopping at all this, when you want to put your work in your vessel in good time, just take care that it is sealed exactly, so that virtue is retained there in all its strength, and that the salutary and precious waters cannot come out of it, because that is where all the danger lies. Bring your work above all to that of nature, let her serve you as mistress and guide, and observe carefully how she operates in such cases, always having in your mind the way in which she uses to put her work in her vase, and seal it there exactly, because the knowledge of one gives that of the other. If you want to drive the cold out of the house, light a fire there; but if you want to retain the spirit, which asks only to return to the fatherland,keep the enemy from approaching the walls, lest he fall into his hands, and then he will remain at home; so be careful and wise.

We necessarily need a midwife when the child is born, but if she receives it without precaution, we must fear that it will escape her. Or, if, having received him ahead of time, she squeezes him too tightly with his clothes, he will run the risk of being suffocated. And finally, if she is not careful to separate the after-work from it and the other superfluities, it is to be feared that he will either die of it, or that he will be perpetually infected with it. Prudence and vigilance cannot therefore be too highly recommended on such an occasion, for each thing has its appointed hour for birth, as well as its autumn for maturity. The fruits picked before the time never come to perfect maturity; if they also ripen more than necessary, they rot easily.Thus nothing is so necessary as to know this middle and precise term of perfect maturity; for what would be the use of cultivating a fruit, watering it, and making it ripen, if it were not picked in due time? It would be a complete waste of time.

The time of birth is not determined by philosophers, who vary greatly among themselves on this; but it suffices to warn the reader that every fruit must be gathered in its season, and that nature which delights in its own numbers is satisfied with the mysterious number of seven, especially in the things which depend on the lunar globe, the Moon showing us perceptibly an infinite quantity of alterations and vicissitudes in this septenary number. It is by this magic number that nature and everything that depends on it is secretly governed. But this natural mystery is hidden from gross minds who can see nothing except through the eyes of the body, who are content with that and seek nothing more.

This septenary number is one of the great secrets of the philosophers, and whoever will know how to understand the order of the universe through it, will know a mystery which, far from having to be revealed, must on the contrary be buried in profound silence; but some day, God helping, we shall deal more thoroughly with these great things.

What shall we say now of nutrition, or of secret multiplication, the mystery of which remains among the greatest secrets of the Philosophers? For what would be the use of reaping the harvest if, being reaped, it would not be preserved with care to employ it for the use of multiplication? We therefore say that there are three kinds of increases: one, which is by way of nutrition; the other by the addition of new matter, and the third by dilation or rarefaction; but the latter is not properly an increase, it is a circulation of the same matter, and the attenuation of its parts. Of the two others, the second, which is that which is made by addition, regards art rather than nature, which has no local movement, nor of parts proper thereto;but it uses only attraction, and this is properly the increase which is made by way of nutrition.

To fundamentally understand what nutrition is, it is necessary to know that the dry naturally attracts its moist, and the more spirits the moist, the more easily it is attracted. Now, the fire of nature, which resides in radical humidity, as we will see below, being very dry, and the most active of the elements, it attracts to itself that of them which is the most rarefied and the most spiritualized, namely the air. Hence it is that the air being removed, the fire is extinguished because it is nourished, although in an imperceptible manner, with the medium substance of the air.

This medium aerial substance is coated with an aqueous body, and it is stripped of this outer shell by means of corruption, insinuating itself into the depths of the radical humidity, which is of the same nature as it, but more congealed; and then, by a new generation, by means of the digesting fire, it is transformed into this same moist radical, whence there comes a continual corruption and a continual generation.

It is true that the nourishment and repair of what has been destroyed is not always done, because the fire, which must perform at the same time a double action, namely to consume what has been digested, and to restore by new nutrition what has been consumed, is sometimes found weakened, or else is prevented by some accident from making its attraction, and it is then that the body dies by the dissipation of its humid radical, consumed by its own fire.

In order, therefore, that nutrition be done as it should, it is not enough that there be a fire acting, and a consumption of the radical humidity (which, however, is necessary, for if nothing were consumed, nature would always be content, the compound would be immortal, and in animals there would never be hunger, nor desire for new food). Nor is it enough that there is a ready-made new food; but it is also necessary that the action of the internal fire be equal, and even superior to the resistance which is made on the part of the nourishing; otherwise, the effort of the attractor would be in vain as soon as he could not convert the attracted into his nature.
We have an example of this in man, whose natural heat perpetually devours his own radical humidity, causing hunger, and the desire for new like matter. Although he has taken his food, and this movement of desire has ceased, it is still necessary, in order for this food to be converted into food, to remove all its impediments, to strip it of its outer shell, to attenuate it by the formation of the chyle, and to make it pass, so to speak, into the nature of its first chaos; and then, the food thus rarefied, is easily attracted by the natural heat to make up for the lack of the consumed radical humidity, which however is never absolutely repaired, because of the excrements which the food leaves, which are always increasing,

This is how the nutrition of man is made, and consequently its increase, namely by the assimilation of food; whence it follows that in the physical work, this natural agent or fire of nature, continually consumes by its action its own radical humidity, and that thus it is necessary to give it new food in place of that which has been consumed. But because at the beginning its virtue is weak, you must first give it only a little food, which is very light. until this fire, having become stronger, we can give it more solid meats. Our author therefore teaches us by this to strengthen the child after his first nourishment by new foods, following the example of the human embryo, which in the womb of the woman, STRAP

VII

Although I know all these things, yet I still dare not come to proofs with you, the errors of others always making me uncertain. But if you are more touched with pity than with envy, deign to remove from my mind all the doubts which embarrass it; and if I can be happy enough to explain distinctly in my writings all that concerns your magisterium, please, I conjure you, let me answer from you: Work boldly, for you know what it is necessary to know.

CHAPTER VII

After our author has given us a touch of our divine science, he apologizes for not saying more about the fact that he himself still has a lot to learn; and he confesses that he should have shown more doctrine, having to speak to learned people. He even fears that something is missing from his work, and that order is not well kept. Learn from there, sellers of smoke, how difficult it is to do our work, since it is not a question of carrying out vulgar operations, which, although perfect in their kind, are useless to our purpose and despised by all philosophers. There is, as we have said, only one operation in our magisterium. All the philosophers teach us,

It is in philosophical sublimation that all other operations are contained, and in this alone consists all that the artist can do best and most subtle. So if someone knows how to do this sublimation well, he can boast of having known one of the greatest secrets and the greatest mysteries of the philosophers. But so that you yourself can understand it clearly, see how Géber defines sublimation: It is, he says, the elevation by fire of a dry thing with adhesion to the vessel.

So, to do a good sublimation, there are three things you have to know, the fire, the dry thing, and the vase. If you know them, you are happy and you only have to make the dry thing adhere to the vessel; for if it did not adhere to it it would be worth nothing; but in order for it to adhere to it, it must be of the same nature as the ship, and it is their nature which makes their resemblance; for dryness is of the nature of fire, which is the dryest of all things. It is by it that it dissipates and consumes all humidity, as it is also by it that it abounds in purity; but it is greatly increased in our sublimation, and that is quite a different thing from when it was contained in the faeces.

Care must also be taken that the vessel be very pure and of the nature of fire. Now, of all the materials, glass alone and gold are the most constant in the fire, are pleasant to it and are more purified there; but because Gold can only be had at a great price, and moreover it melts easily, the poor would not have the means to undertake the philosophical Work, and there would only be the rich and the great of this world, which would derogate from Providence and the goodness of the Creator who wanted this secret to be indifferently for all those who feared it. It is therefore necessary to stick to a vessel of glass, or of the nature of glass, very pure, and drawn from the ashes with skill and subtlety of mind.

But let the disciples of art take good care here not to be mistaken, and to know well what the Philosophical Glass is, by attaching themselves to the meaning and not to the sound of the words; this is the advice I give them out of a spirit of pity and charity. In this well-known vessel of glass, sublimation takes place, when the dry nature rises by means of fire and adheres to the vessel because of its purity and their same nature. Besides, if there is much to sweat in the search for the vessel, there is no less difficulty in the construction of the fire. But as we shall speak of it in a particular chapter, we believe that what we have said suffices for the present.

Let this only serve as a lesson to ignorant chemists who believe that these things must be understood literally, and who; without previous study, imagine themselves doing the Work by their vulgar sublimations. They continually read Geber but without hearing it, and success not meeting their expectations, they are the first to bark at true philosophers. And because they have taken a single author for their guide, they would not design to look at others, not knowing that one book opens another, and that what is abbreviated in one is found expanded in the other.

Let them therefore read the books of the philosophers, and especially of those who, less envious than the others, transmitted to their successors the knowledge of nature. Among all these treatises, those which are inserted in the Muséum Hermeticum hold, in my opinion, the first rank, and especially the Treatise which is entitled Via veritatis although there is as well as in the others a hidden serpent, which at first does not fail to sting those who are not careful. But what shall we say of so many volumes, more dangerous than the plague, whose authors, although very learned in their genre, are nevertheless so full of envy, that God will doubtless punish them for having been the cause of so many misfortunes and will measure them by the same measure with which they have measured the others?

For in the end, if the love of neighbor is as good as that of God, the Summary of the Holy Law and of the divine Commandments, what becomes of this Law, and where will the observance of these Commandments be, if envy reigns so strongly among men? Of what use are so many treatises full of impostures, so many false recipes, and so many writings suggested by the devil, if not to ruin people who are too credulous? And what advantage has a philosophizing to sweat over such works, which cause so much harm? Isn't it enough of these pestilent offshoots, and these accursed seeds, incapable of producing anything good without envy, like Satan, coming to fill our fields with weeds? It is this envious rage, source of so many misfortunes, whose fatal breath overthrows houses,

It is your envenomed tongues, whose points reduce the substance of the unfortunate to ashes, and it is these black vapors that you spread in your writings, which throw horror and darkness into the minds of those who read you. If you don't want people to profit from the reading of your books, why entice people with fine promises, and why don't you rather keep a silence which God and men would be more grateful to you than to speak with envy? We see many authors who, in accusing others of having been envious, and of having maliciously concealed the truth, spread even more obscurity in their speeches than the first, so that the poor students gather from all their doctrine only much confusion; for if one rejects a thing, the other raises it to the sky;one commands what the other forbids, and in this way they confuse the reader's mind so much that the more he studies, the more he has reason to mistrust the truth of the art.

There is almost none, among those who write, who do not promise to speak faithfully and sincerely; and yet their speeches are so full of ambiguity that they can hardly be understood by the most learned. And although they apologize for not having the freedom to say more, and although a seal has been placed, so to speak, on their lips (books), their desire is still unraveled, however careful they take to hide it.

It is much better to remain silent, when one feels obliged to keep the secret, than to substitute a lie in its place, with the intention of leading people into error. Finally, the philosophers speak among themselves so obscurely that hardly a single word can be found free from sophism. Let them hide the practice as long as they want, at the right time; but at least let them faithfully teach the theory and the foundations of science, for without foundations there can be no building.

Wouldn't art be sufficiently hidden from the ignorant, if the philosophers were content to be reserved either on matter or on the vessel, or on fire? Hardly would there be one in a thousand who could approach this sacred table, but it is not enough for these gentlemen to hide all these things, they must also put in their place visions and fantasies, by which, far from making a reader more learned, they only show their malice and their envy. May these envious people not imitate Hermes, of whom they call themselves the children; for although in his Emerald Tablet he was a little reserved, he nevertheless did not fail to make one smell the odor of this divine science, of which he spoke very learnedly; but those who came after him, instead of clarifying his words,

There are people who, reading certain authors, who at first have an air of sincerity and charity, hold that it is necessary to reject for the Work all sorts of minerals and attach themselves by their advice to metals.

But then reading that the metals of the vulgar are dead, Becuse they have suffered the Fire of Fusion, they have recoveries to Those Whish are Still in the mines and begin to work on them, and Finding Nothing in the rest of the work that satisfies them, after having made various tests , discouraged by their experience they Take up the books again and, finding that all imperfect metals without exception are condemned, touched by reason and authority, they come back to the perfect metals, namely gold and silver; but after having wasted their trouble and consumed their property for some time, they suddenly change their minds, considering that these metals are of a very strong composition and get it into their heads that they must be reincrusted, as they say,by a natural solvent, which they mistakenly believe to be common mercury; but, whatever they do with such matters, they find only damage and shame, because they are ignorant of the true principles of nature, on which one must establish one's foundation, and know neither what vulgar gold contains, nor what it can yield; for if they knew this well, they would see that our body, the true Gold of the wise, possesses sufficiently all that is necessary for art. and know neither what common gold contains, nor what it can yield; for if they knew this well, they would see that our body, the true Gold of the wise, possesses sufficiently all that is necessary for art. and know neither what common gold contains, nor what it can yield;for if they knew this well, they would see that our body, the true Gold of the wise, possesses sufficiently all that is necessary for art.

Those who work as we have just said, finally seeing themselves deceived in their hopes, come to despise all kinds of bodies, and to blaspheme against nature, not understanding that each body, according to its species, contains in itself its own seed, which is not found in various things. After having thus worked in vain sometimes on one thing and sometimes on another, they have resorted once more to books where, finding that the authors condemn all sorts of plants, animals, minerals, and even metals, by a ridiculous refinement, they go out of nature, and carry their research or rather their madness, sometimes to the sky, and sometimes to the center of the earth, trying by painful labors to extract a virgin salt from the earth, or a volatile milk. air, dew, or rain;but when they think they have made a very fixed Stone and the true Sulfur of the philosophers, it turns out that they have nothing else but an aerial stone and the Sulfur of fools.

The infinite errors of those who work only come from the fact that philosophers deliberately deceive those who read them, imagining that by this means they will divert them from work, but they deceive themselves; for each loves his mistake so much that he sets to work again with more warmth and confidence than he did. The cause of so many misfortunes is therefore the sole envy of authors, which causes our poet, terrified by so many kinds of errors into which those who attach themselves to this science fall, to doubt himself and his own work, imploring with humility the indulgence of philosophers, and especially of those who, not being infected with the venom of envy, exercise all their duties and are invested with a truly philosophical charity.

These are the ones about whom we cannot speak too much or too well, because they are the oracles of nature which announce only good things. They are radiant stars, whose light shines fully in the eyes of those who consult them. But returning to the modesty of our poet who makes him say that he does not know the Work, and asks him for the indulgence of the philosophers; it is very likely that he uses it in this way only out of prudence, and that he prefers to pass for a disciple rather than a master.

Nevertheless, to satisfy him and also those also who will be in the same doubts as him, we want to assure them that they can undertake the Work boldly, when they know by theory how, by means of a crude spirit, one can extract a mature spirit from the dissolved body, and once again unite it with the vital oil to work the miracles of a single thing or, to speak more clearly, when they will know with their vegetable menses, united with the mineral, to dissolve a third menstruum. essential strue, for then, with these various menses, to wash the ground, and having washed it, to exalt it in celestial nature, in order to compose their sulphurous lightning of it, which in the twinkling of an eye, penetrates the bodies, and destroys their excrements. This is all we are allowed to say to them, again in a figurative style,because it concerns the practice of which we will perhaps deal more clearly some day. So be happy with it, you who love science and who seek the truth.

End of the first canto


CANTO SECOND


STROPHE I

That men little versed in the school of Hermes are mistaken, when with a spirit of avarice, they cling to the sound of words. It is usually on the faith of these vulgar names of Quicksilver and Gold that they engage in work, and that with common gold they imagine themselves by a slow fire finally fixing this fugitive silver.

FIRST CHAPTER

We have already touched on the errors of those who work with Quicksilver and Gold, imagining that they can derive some profit from them; and we have shown that they are entirely ignorant of the principles of nature; so that instead of finding the Stone, in the midst of the darkness which surrounds them they strike heavily against the larger stones which are in their way.

Their opinion revolves solely on the fact that gold is the noblest of all bodies, and that it contains within it the auric seed, which they claim, they say, to multiply with its like, and in this view these poor idiots propose to make it vegetate. This error is fortified among them by the captious speeches of certain philosophers who teach that in Gold are the seeds of Gold, and that it is the true principle of aurification as fire is of ignition.

Doctrine from which, no doubt, one can draw much fruit, provided it is taken in its true sense, but which, being misunderstood, ruins the ignorant. Our poet makes the cause of such an error very well known, when he reproaches those who only approach this divine art in a spirit of avarice, and whose heart, desiring only gold, causes them to be never content if they have no gold in their hands. Its brilliance dazzles their minds as well as their eyes, and its solidity shakes the weakness of their brains. Her beauty binds their desire and her virtue occupies all their senses; but its strong composition only produces their confusion, and its nobility shows the smallness of their conceptions.

It is doubtless that in Gold is contained the aurific seed and even more perfectly than in any other body; but that does not necessarily oblige us to use vulgar gold, because this seed is found in the same way in each of the other metals, since it is nothing other than this fixed grain, which nature introduced into the first congealing of Mercury, as Flamel and the others perfectly teach; and in this there is no contradiction, since all metals have the same origin and a common matter, as we will see below.

From which it follows that, although this seed is more perfect in gold, nevertheless it can be extracted much more easily from another body than from gold itself, and the reason is that the other bodies are more open, that is to say, less digested, and their humidity less finished, nature having not accused to introduce the form of gold until after the last firing. The other metals therefore, having not yet been able to receive this form because of the lack of cooking, are found to be more open, not only by the humidity of their substance, which is not sufficiently digested, but also because of the mixture and the adhesion of the excrement which prevent compactness and perfect union; which makes iron, although more fired than silver (as learnedly teaches, among others,

But as for gold, it has received the last firing, and nature has exercised its action on it to its full extent, and has imprinted on it all its virtues; so that it would be very long, very difficult, and almost impossible to work on it, unless you had that ethereal water, the sky of the philosophers, and their true solvent. Anyone who has it can boast of having perfect knowledge of the Stone, and of having reached, as they say, the Atlantic limits.

Common gold resembles a fruit which, having reached perfect maturity, has been separated from the tree, and although there is in it a very perfect seed, and very digestible, nevertheless if someone, to multiply it, put it in the ground, it would take a lot of time, trouble, and care to lead it to vegetation. But, if instead of that, one took a graft or a root of the same tree, and put it in the ground, one would see it in a short time and without difficulty vegetating and bringing back much fruit. It is the same with Gold: it is the fruit of the mineral earth and of the solar tree, but a fruit of a very solid mixture, and the most complete compound of nature, which, because of this equality of elements, which is found in it,

It is therefore a very difficult and almost impossible enterprise to claim to put it in the ground in order to reincrude it and lead it to vegetation; but if instead of that, we take its root or its graft, we will have what we want much more easily, and the vegetation will arrive much sooner. Let us therefore conclude that although Gold contains in itself its own seed, it is in vain to work on it, since it can be found more easily elsewhere.

But what shall we say of vulgar Quicksilver, which the ignorant take for their solvent and for the philosophical soil, in which Gold must be sown in order to multiply there. Certainly, it is a worse error than the first, and although at first it seems, because of its affinity with Gold, that it must have the faculty of dissolving it, nevertheless it is easy to be disillusioned with it as soon as we examine a little the principles of our art. For we agree that there is no body which has so much resemblance and affinity with the nature of Gold as it, so that it is true to say that Gold is nothing else than quicksilver congealed and cooked by virtue of its own sulphur, on account of which it has acquired extension under the hammer, constancy in the fire, and the color citrine ;but that does not mean that Quicksilver has the power to dissolve it, nor that it can ever acquire it, especially since it has passed into another substance, and has lost its first purity and simplicity, having become a metallic body very abundant in superfluous humidity, and charged with an earthly lividity, which render it incapable of this action.

It would be a great stupidity to imagine that by putting the seed of a man with the blood of another man, one could make a new generation, on the basis that the seed is nothing else than the very pure part of the blood, which has received a great digestion, and that the blood is only more humid and rawer; but if instead the sperm were thrown into the womb of a woman, where there is a very raw menstrual blood which, by virtue of the salt of the womb, has acquired a certain acuity and ponticity, then this sperm, being in its own vessel, would doubtless reincorporate itself there by the way of putrefaction, and would pass on to a new generation.

It is the same with quicksilver; for, although it is of the same nature as gold and that by its abundant humidity it easily insinuates itself into its pores, and makes there a disgregation of the smallest parts, so that it appears dissolved, nevertheless it would be a great mistake to believe such a good dissolution, which properly speaking is nothing other than a corrosion of the metal like those which are made with vulgar etchings. Such quicksilver is not our menstrual blood, and it is only to deceive the ignorant that authors use this equivocal name.

Ordinary Quicksilver and Gold are not at all suitable for the Philosophical Work (Physical Work) not only with regard to their own substance, but also because they lack one thing which, in our art, is of absolute necessity, namely a proper agent. I do not mean to speak here of this internal agent, which is the virtue of the solar sulfur of which we will speak hereafter, but of the external agent, which must excite the internal, and bring it from power to act.

Now, this agent was separated from the Gold at the end of the decoction, that is to say, as a new form of Gold was introduced into matter, this agent withdrew, after having however imprinted therein its own virtue (as the author of the book entitled Margarita pretiosa very well explains), so that only one material substance remained, determined by the action of the internal agent after its excitation. If, then, nature has separated this agent from Gold, because they cannot sympathize with each other, why would we want to join it again? In truth, that would be ridiculous, whereas we can have a body with which this agent finds itself united by the weights of nature, to which, if we know how to add the weights of art,

Zachaire also speaks very learnedly in his Opuscule of vulgar Quicksilver as being deprived of this external agent, and teaches us that it only remained as we see it because nature did not join its own agent to it. What could be clearer and more intelligible? If, then, vulgar Quicksilver and Gold are stripped of their proper agent, what good can we expect from their cooking? Count Bernard seems to have had the same thought when, forbidding to take animals, plants and minerals for the physical Work, he adds and metals only, as if he meant the metals which remained alone and without agents (*), as the author of the book entitled Arca aperta explains.

Now, it is certain that among all the metals, these two only, namely Gold and Quicksilver, can be said to have no proper agent; Gold, because its agent was separated from it at the end of its decoction; and Quicksilver, because it has never been introduced there, and has remained thus raw and indigestible. Let chemists therefore learn from this how much they make mistakes when they work with quicksilver and gold; taking one for the solvent, and the other for what is to be dissolved; and how little they hear the philosophers. For our part, we tell you boldly that neither vulgar gold nor vulgar quicksilver should enter into the philosophical work, either in whole or in part. Let everyone after that put forward their opinion as much as they want,

(*) It seems that the Trevisan thinks differently than reported here. What I am about to transcribe from him on this subject, although a little long, will be none the less satisfactory for those who like clarification. It is impossible, he says in his reply to Thomas de Boulogne, for art to produce human seeds, but he can put man in the state he must be in order to engender his fellow man. The vital seeds are digested only by nature in the spermatic vessels; but we can mingle these seeds in the womb by the conjunction of male and female, and this conjunction is like the art which arranges and blends the natures or seeds for the generation of man. For example, the seed of man, as more mature, more perfect and more active,is conjoined by artifice with the passive and less digested semen of the woman. The seed of man, containing in itself more actually the agency elements, which are air and fire, is more mature and more active for digestion. Likewise, the seed of the woman, containing in itself more actually the indigestible and raw elements, which are earth and water, is passive and indigestible. These two seeds being mixed in the natural vessel of the woman, without any addition of extraneous things, and being aided by the internal heat of the woman, the active elements of the seed of the man digest and ripen the passive elements of the seed of the woman, and by this means the man is begotten perfect in his nature. Our divine art is like that generation of man. Because, as in Mercury,of which nature makes Gold in the mineral vase, is made the conjunction of the two male and female seeds. Likewise, in our art there is a similar conjunction of agent and patient, for the active elements, which are the masculine seed, and the passive elements, which are the feminine seed, come together naturally, always keeping the proportion of nature. This first mercurial conjunction is called digestion, during which the power is acted out; that is to say, the masculine seed is drawn from the feminine seed, or otherwise the air and the fire are drawn from the earth and the water, by a digestion and subtiliation which is made of these elements. Besides this natural conjunction and digestion of seeds in Mercury,the philosophers have imagined another, more subtle conjunction and digestion. Therefore, not only do they make gold, but they make it more excellent than the common. They therefore command to take the Gold which contains in itself the active elements, as a male seed, and the Mercury which contains in itself the passive elements, as a female seed, and duly conjoin the one with the other, in order to dissolve them by administering to them only a heat which sets in motion that of the Gold to digest the Mercury. So then, as man engenders himself naturally, so Gold is engendered artificially, although art cannot engender seeds.Art cannot know the propositions required in the mixture to make the seeds and the causes of the beings which are made in the earth, which is the natural place of their generation, but it conjoins the seeds produced by nature, so that from their conjunction is produced the thing which must be begotten, in which these two seeds remain mixed together, although Aristotle seems to be of a contrary opinion. Our sulphur, therefore, or masculine seed, does not withdraw after the coagulation of Mercury, as some falsely assert, saying that this is done by the virtue of the sun, whose heat perfects the form of gold under the earth. They would speak better if they said that it is by means of the movement of his globe and that of all the heavens,


STRAP II

But if they could open the eyes of their mind to fully understand the hidden meaning of the authors, they would see clearly that the Gold and the quicksilver of the vulgar, are stripped of this universal fire, which is the true agent, which agent or spirit abandons the metals as soon as they find themselves in furnaces exposed to the violence of the flames; and this is what makes the metal out of its mine, finding itself deprived of this spirit, no more than a dead and motionless body.

CHAPTER II

Our poet seems to subscribe to the opinion which we have just explained, by saying that the vulgar metals are without spirit or agent, because they have lost it in fusion; which insinuates that all the metals, being still in their mines, have with them this agent, with the exception only of the Gold and the Quicksilver, which, although in their mines, do not however have their own agent, because, as we have shown, it has been separated from the Gold by its final decoction, and has never been joined to the quicksilver by nature. But so that the reader does not fall back into his first error, it is time that we say something about the generation of metals.

All philosophers unanimously assert that the metals are formed by nature from sulfur and mercury, and engendered by their double vapour. But most explain too briefly and too confusingly how this generation is made. We therefore say that the vapor of the elements, as we have shown above, serves as matter for all inferior matter, and that this vapor is very pure and almost imperceptible, needing some envelope by means of which it can take shape, otherwise it would fly away and return to its first chaos.

This vapor contains in itself a spirit of light and fire, of the nature of celestial bodies, which is properly the form of the universe. So that this vapour, thus impregnated with the universal spirit, fairly well represents the first chaos, in which all that was necessary for creation was contained, that is to say, universal matter and universal form. It is she whom Hermes calls wind, which carries in its womb the son of the sun. When therefore by the movement of the celestial bodies it is pushed towards the center, as it cannot remain without acting, it insinuates itself into the earth, which is the center of the world. But needing a body to make itself sensitive, it takes a body, of air, which is the same as we breathe,

This vapor is drawn through the air by our internal fire which transmutes it and converts it into its own nature; but nevertheless after having made it pass through suitable mediums, as we will show more fully some day, in treating of the true anatomy of man. This air is attracted so quickly and so naturally that it is impossible to conceive of any time, any place, any body in which such an attraction does not take place, which proves invincibly that there is no vacuum in nature, as all philosophers and scholastics attest; and though some try to prove the contrary by experiments, these are bad proofs, founded on false suppositions, for they do not take heed that what they call empty,

No body in the world could have or preserve its substantial being if it were not endowed with this spirit, which is specific and takes on the nature of each body, to exercise there the determined functions of God, who willed that each thing should have in itself its specific spirit for the conservation of its substantial being. And as this spirit, which resides in each body, is of the nature of fire, as we have explained in the Treatise on Creation, it is doubtless that it constantly needs a nourishment of its own, the nature of fire requiring that it be nourished and nourished continually to replace what it continually dissipates, because of the perpetual movement which is in it, as well as in the celestial bodies, endowed with this same spirit.

The movement of this spirit, as it takes place in bodies, is hidden and can never be perceived by the senses, unless art leads this same spirit to a new generation by the ministry of nature. In truth we see well that the animals attract this spiritual vapor which is in the air; but with regard to other bodies, whose nature is grosser and more impure, it is not so easy for this spirit to insinuate itself into them when it is clothed only with the body of air. He therefore needs a more solid body, which has more affinity with earthly bodies. This is why this pure vapor of the elements insinuates itself into the water, and takes on its body, and by this means the vegetables and the minerals receive their food much more easily, because of this conformity to their nature.This spirit therefore is not only contained in the air, but also in the water.

The water is dispersed over the whole earth, and sometimes becomes salty, as we have shown. However, it happens that in certain places where the air is enclosed, this air by the sympathy and the correspondence that it has with the celestial bodies, is moved by their movement and this movement of the air excites the vapor contained in this salty water, and rarefies the water. In this rarefaction, there is a great commotion, and dilation of the elements. And as at the same time other sulphurous vapors, which are also widespread in these places, because of the continual generation of the sulfur which is made there (as we have again shown above) come to rise, it happens that they mix with the aqueous and mercury vapor and circulate together in the matrix of this salty water,whence, no longer able to issue, they join the salt of this water, and take the form of a lucid earth, which is properly nature's vitriol; vitriol being nothing but a salt, in which are contained the mercurial and sulphurous spirits, and there being nothing in nature which contains sulfur so abundantly and so visibly as vitriol, and all that is of the nature of vitriol.

From these vitriolic waters, by a new commotion of the elements, caused by that of the air, of which we have spoken, rises a new vapor, which is neither mercurial nor sulphurous, but which is of the nature of both, and in rising by its natural movement, it also raises with it some portion of salt, but the hardest, the most lucid, and the best purified by the contact of this vapor; as a result of which it encloses in places more or less pure, drier or more humid, and there; joining with the starch of the earth, or with some other substance, there are engendered various sorts of minerals, of the specific generation of which we shall treat. God helping, on some other occasion.

But with regard to the generation of metals, we say that if this double vapor arrives at a place where the grease of sulfur is adherent, they unite together, and make a certain glutinous substance, which resembles a formless mass, from which, by the action of the sulphur, acting on the vaporous humidity which is abundant in those places, there is formed a pure or impure metal, according to the purity or the impurity of the place.

Because if these vapors are pure and the places also very pure, a very pure metal will be generated, namely Gold, from which the proper agent will be separated at the end of the decoction; so that only mercurial humidity will remain, but coagulated. And if it happens that the decoction is not completed, and that the sulfur is not entirely separated, then there will be generated various imperfect metals which will be so more or less, in proportion to the purity or impurity of the vapor and the place, and such metals are said to be imperfect, because they have not yet acquired an entire perfection by the last form.

With regard to vulgar Quicksilver, it is also generated from this same vapor, when, by the heat of the place or the commotion of the superior bodies, it rises with the purest parts of the salt, but separated from its own agent, the spirit of which has evaporated by too sudden a movement, as happens to the spirit of other metals in fusion. And this causes that only the material mercurial part remains in quicksilver, deprived of its male, that is to say, of its sulphurous agent or spirit, and that thus it can never be transmuted into gold by the decoction of nature, unless it is again impregnated with this agent, which never happens.

From what we have said, it is easy to see how distant vitriol is, in the generation of metals, and what illusion are those who work on it as on the true matter of the Stone, in which the true metallic essence must actually reside.

We also see that the metals, while they are in their mines, have with them their own agent, but that they are deprived of it by fusion, and retain only the bark and the envelope of this sulfur, which is properly the scoria of the metal, by which is still condemned the error of those who work on imperfect metals, after they have suffered fusion.

But some wretched chemist will perhaps infer from this that the imperfect metals, being still in their mines, might therefore well be the subject upon which the art must labor. Should he be accorded the consequence, it would still be inappropriate for him to undertake to work on them,' since we have shown that the mercury vapours, from which these imperfect metals were formed and the places of their birth, were impure and contaminated. How then could they give this purity which one asks for the elixir? It belongs only to nature alone to purify them or to that blessed aurific sulphur, that is to say, to the perfect and finished Stone, which, in this state, is a true ethereal fire, very penetrating, which in an instant gives purity to metals,by separating from them their excrement, and by introducing into it fixity and purity, because it is itself very fixed and very pure. And if the artist claimed to separate these impurities himself, it would happen that while working there, this spirit or this agent, so necessary to the Work, would flee from his hands. It is therefore the work of nature, and not of art. But what art can do is to take another subject, already prepared by nature, which we will treat of in a particular chapter, as clearly as we can, for the relief of the poor students and for the glory of the Most High. it would happen that while working there, this spirit or this agent, so necessary to the Work, would flee from his hands. It is therefore the work of nature, and not of art.But what art can do is to take another subject, already prepared by nature, which we will treat of in a particular chapter, as clearly as we can, for the relief of the poor students and for the glory of the Most High. it would happen that while working there, this spirit or this agent, so necessary to the Work, would flee from his hands. It is therefore the work of nature, and not of art. But what art can do is to take another subject, already prepared by nature, which we will treat of in a particular chapter, as clearly as we can, for the relief of the poor students and for the glory of the Most High.

STRAP III

It is indeed another Mercury, and another Gold, of which Hermes has heard; a humid and hot Mercury, and always constant in fire. A Gold that is all fire and all life. Is not such a difference capable of easily distinguishing these from those of the vulgar, which are dead bodies deprived of spirit, whereas ours are still living corporeal spirits?

CHAPTER III

We only hear talk among the philosophers of quick gold, of philosophical gold; but far from wanting to explain to us what it is, it seems that they take it upon themselves to veil it, and to envelop it under shadows. However, as it is in this principally that the true roundness of doctrine, and even of practice, consists, I thought I could do no better than to say something about it now.

It is not without reason that the philosophers have given it the name of Gold, for it is really Gold in essence, and in substance; but much more perfect and more finished than that of the vulgar. It is a Gold which is all sulfur, or rather it is the true sulfur of Gold. A Gold, which is all fire, or rather the true fire of Gold, which is generated only in caves and in philosophical mines. A Gold, which cannot be altered or overcome by any element, since it is itself the master of the elements. A very fixed Gold, in which only fixity consists. A very pure Gold, because it is purity itself. An almighty Gold, because without it, everything languishes. Balsamic gold, it is he who preserves the necks of bodies from rotting.Animal gold is the soul of the elements, and of all lower nature. vegetable gold, it is the principle of all vegetation. Mineral gold, because it is sulphurous, mercurial, and saline. Ethereal gold, for it is of the own nature of both, and it is a true earthly sky, veiled by another sky. Finally, it is a solar gold, because it is the legitimate son of the sun, and the true sun of nature.

It is he whose vigor fortifies the elements, whose warmth animates the spirits, and therefore movement moves nature. From his influence are born all the virtues of things, for he is the influence of light, a portion of the heavens, the lower sun and the light of nature. without which even science is blind; without its warmth, reason is imbecile; without its rays, the imagination is dead; without its influences, the mind is barren, and without its light, the understanding remains in perpetual darkness. It is therefore very apropos that the philosophers have given it the name of Quick Gold, since it is itself, as I said, the life of Gold, and of its own substance.

For Gold is but a very pure mercurial substance, separated from its excrement, and from its own external agent, into which the internal sulphur, or otherwise the intrinsic fire has introduced its qualities, by which the other elementary qualities have been changed, and have remained subject to the dominion of these; what makes Gold unalterable; for all the qualities of the elements are in him in such equilibrium that there is no longer room for movement; so that the volatile being overcome by the nature of the fixed, and the fixed equally mixed with the volatile, there results a certain homogeneity, which constitutes its perfection and the purity of the compound.

The living gold of the philosophers is still nothing else than the pure fire of Mercury, that is to say, the most digestible and the most accomplished portion of the very noble vapor of the elements. It is the radical humidity of nature, full of its innate warmth. It is a light clothed with a perfectly pure ethereal body, as we explained in the Chapter of Creation, where we showed that since the light could not reside in this lower region, the Creator had enclosed it in fire, and had clothed it with his body. Now, this fire is a pure spirit, which makes its dwelling in the center of the elements, and serves as a vehicle for the light. Our spirit therefore is joined to the radical humidity of things, and resides particularly in the innate warm;which is why the sages have rightly said of their quick gold that it was the very pure vapor of the elements, on which the igneous spirit had begun to act, and had imprinted fixity on it, causing it to pass into the nature of sulfur, whence it took the name of sulfur of the philosophers, because of the igneous quality, which dominates in it. She is also very often called by the name of Mercury, because her whole essence depends on the mercurial substance.

It is this sulfur which acts in all compounds, and which having in itself the nature of the celestial light, wishes, following its example, continually to separate light from darkness, that is to say, the pure from the impure. This is the true internal agent, which acts on its own mercurial matter, or moist radical, in which it is enclosed. It is the form informing all things; and in the order of generation, it is from its action and from the alteration it causes, that all the various colors are born, according to the various degrees of digestion; but its proper and natural color is the perfect red, in which all its action terminates, and in which its entire domination over the altered subject is manifested.

It is the innate heat, which feeds continuously on its own radical humidity, and as this one ceaselessly furnishes matter, the other also acts perpetually. Finally, it is the true artisan of nature, by whom the sympathetic virtues are manifested, and by whom the attractions are made costly; whence it is easy for us to understand the nature of lightning, which is nothing but a very dry exhalation of the earth, which being diffused in the air, only asks to rise, and in this elevation, coming to be purified and stripped of the faeces and excrement to which it is joined, it gradually begins to feel its sympathetic forces.

This exhalation contains in itself that vapor of the elements, which we have said is diffused by all nature, but clothed with a body, because it has already acquired some fixity by means of terrestrial dryness. And as in this new elevation it finds itself joined to another more volatile vapour, which incessantly exhales from the earth, it is constrained to rise with it to the heights of the air where, finding itself purer and more free from its excrement, as I have said, it takes on an igneous nature, and continuing to rise ever higher, because of the volatile vapor to which it is united, it is finally warmed up and altered by the movement of the stars and celestial bodies ;so that having drawn to itself the most subtle terrestrial parts of the exhalation and all its radical humidity being consumed, it is in an instant transmuted into a terrestrial sulphur, which being of a fixed nature, is no longer carried upwards, as happens with volatile sulphurs, but falls to the earth with such impetuosity, that there is no obstacle strong enough to resist it.

The same thing happens to the sulfur of the philosophers, when it is projected on quicksilver; for by its fire it changes into its nature all the radical humidity, which is very abundant in Quicksilver, after having separated and rejected the excrement. And this Quicksilver itself becomes sulfur and medicine in all parts, provided that the humidity is less than the virtue and dryness of the sulfur. For if the projection is made on too great a quantity of Quicksilver, so that it absorbs and overcomes the virtue of Sulphur, then it is changed and fixed only in Gold, in which there is a temperament between the radical humidity and the innate warmth.Moreover, the lightning being carried through the air by its own virtue, it is attracted to the earth by another sulfur which is fixed in it, because the fixed rejoices in the fixed nature, and hastens to embrace it, and join it. After which the thunderbolt having fallen to the ground, its movement ceased, and finding itself in a place which is proper to it and where, by the presence of the attractant, there is rather a retention than an attraction, it remains at rest, cools and concentrates in its own body, after having deposited its ferocity and repressed its violence. With regard to its prodigious effects, one need not be astonished;for as it is the very fixed fire of nature, it destroys in the twinkling of an eye all that it touches, and consumes all its radical moisture, much as a great flame devours a lesser one, and a great light absorbs a mediocre one. and goes hastily to embrace him, and join him. After which the thunderbolt having fallen to the ground, its movement ceased, and finding itself in a place which is proper to it and where, by the presence of the attractant, there is rather a retention than an attraction, it remains at rest, cools and concentrates in its own body, after having deposited its ferocity and repressed its violence. With regard to its prodigious effects, one need not be astonished;for as it is the very fixed fire of nature, it destroys in the twinkling of an eye all that it touches, and consumes all its radical moisture, much as a great flame devours a lesser one, and a great light absorbs a mediocre one. and goes hastily to embrace him, and join him. After which the thunderbolt having fallen to the ground, its movement ceased, and finding itself in a place which is proper to it and where, by the presence of the attractant, there is rather a retention than an attraction, it remains at rest, cools and concentrates in its own body, after having deposited its ferocity and repressed its violence. With regard to its prodigious effects, one need not be astonished;for as it is the very fixed fire of nature, it destroys in the twinkling of an eye all that it touches, and consumes all its radical moisture, much as a great flame devours a lesser one, and a great light absorbs a mediocre one. and finding itself in a place which is its own and where, by the presence of the attractor, there is rather a retention than an attraction, it remains at rest, cools and concentrates in its own body, after having deposited its ferocity and suppressed its violence. With regard to its prodigious effects, one need not be astonished; for as it is the very fixed fire of nature, it destroys in the twinkling of an eye all that it touches, and consumes all its radical moisture, much as a great flame devours a lesser one, and a great light absorbs a mediocre one.and finding itself in a place which is its own and where, by the presence of the attractor, there is rather a retention than an attraction, it remains at rest, cools and concentrates in its own body, after having deposited its ferocity and suppressed its violence. With regard to its prodigious effects, one need not be astonished; for as it is the very fixed fire of nature, it destroys in the twinkling of an eye all that it touches, and consumes all its radical moisture, much as a great flame devours a lesser one, and a great light absorbs a mediocre one. after laying down its ferocity and suppressing its violence. With regard to its prodigious effects, one need not be astonished;for as it is the very fixed fire of nature, it destroys in the twinkling of an eye all that it touches, and consumes all its radical moisture, much as a great flame devours a lesser one, and a great light absorbs a mediocre one. after laying down its ferocity and suppressing its violence. With regard to its prodigious effects, one need not be astonished; for as it is the very fixed fire of nature, it destroys in the twinkling of an eye all that it touches, and consumes all its radical moisture, much as a great flame devours a lesser one, and a great light absorbs a mediocre one.

It also sometimes happens that lightning acquires in its exhalations a certain specific nature, according to which it determines its action, so that it will destroy one thing, and do no harm to another; what comes from what it attracts to itself, and absorbs only what is of its nature, leaving what is foreign to it. And although each body has in itself this moist radical of the elements, that it is of one and the same nature everywhere, and that there are not two kinds, nevertheless because there will be found in some body specific spirits, opposed to those of the thunderbolt, and that it will be surrounded besides by various excrements, then the thunderbolt, feeling a nature contrary to its own, will move elsewhere, and will attach itself to another subject.

The effect of sulphur, or innate heat of the elements, which we treat of in this present chapter, is still better discovered in powder a. cannon, for it abounds extremely in aerial mercury vapor, on account of the nature of the sulfur and the saltpeter, which are contained therein. But, because its humidity is raw and more volatile than fixed by its airy nature; though this moist yet has in itself its innate heat or internal fire, it happens that when it is kindled it fully demonstrates its volatile nature, and ascends upwards to its homeland, because of the conformity which it has with higher things, taking away with it portions of earthly and fiery exhalation;but she only wanders in the middle of the air, without there being in her any feeling of attraction, nor any movement which carries her further, and in this indifferent state it only serves nature for new uses. But if the fixed nature were in it, then it would seek the center of the earth, and would rush there as one sees happens to lightning, or to the fulminant powder of gold, from which experts are well able to extract the fixed sulfur — (according to what several authors faithfully teach), which after being mixed with flammable and volatile things, like gunpowder, becomes itself flammable; but being inflamed, it does not fly up into the air; on the contrary, having become freer and freed from its excrement, it rushes towards the earth like lightning;and despite all obstacles, he hides himself in it, because the sulfur of gold, having become fixed by nature, is powerfully attracted by the fixed fire, which is enclosed in the earth; and thus by its own movement it is drawn towards the place of its sphere.

Since, then, we so visibly discern similar attractions, why should we not want what we call occult and sympathetic virtues to come from the same cause, although this is not entirely apparent to the ignorant. O how many things are there in the ordinary course of nature which are very inappropriately attributed to these occult virtues! But it is not for unfortunate philosophers to know the nature of things; this advantage is reserved for true philosophers only. Let those, therefore, who thus dwell on occult causes, stick to the vain subtleties of the school; although it was much better for them to pass for chemists, and that it would at least help them to know some truth, than to bark, as they do, at the moon, showing that they are basically only beasts.But let everyone rock their own chimeras as they please, I wholeheartedly consent to that.

Our Sulfur is aptly called Living Gold, since it is indeed the movement and life of all things; and our poet has very learnedly described its nature, saying that it is hot and humid, very fixed to fire, and yet of a spiritual nature; what truly constitutes an embodied spirit. It is therefore not surprising that philosophers hide it from the ignorant, and discover it only under the name of Quick Gold; because in it consists all the secret, and all the science. But let us examine a little in what place, and in what body principally it can be found, in order to explain its theory faithfully.

The sulfur in question is contained in every body, and no body can subsist without it, as it is easy to infer from its nature; he is in the valleys, he is in the mountains, he is in the depths of the earth, in the sky, in the air, in you, in me, in every place, finally, and in every body; so that one can very well say that the Quick Gold of the philosophers is everywhere; but strictly speaking one must find it in one's house, and it is there that one must take it, otherwise it will be in vain to seek it elsewhere.

Now the house of Gold is Mercury, as all philosophers teach. It is therefore in the house of Mercury that it must be sought; but the vulgar mercury must not be understood here; for though he is also there, and his body encloses him, yet it is only imperfectly and in potency only, as we have already said. Learn therefore to know the Mercury, and know that where it resides principally and most abundantly, there is the sulfur. Know more that it is a real fire, and that the fire lives on the air. Where, therefore, the air abounds more, it is there that it is nourished, that it grows, and that it is easily found. But take care to discern it well in the places, where, although imprisoned, it continues to exercise,some kind of empire, and not in those where he is absolutely submissive to others, and soiled with excrement; for the fire of nature always renders itself dominant over the other elements, unless it is prevented from doing so by the abundance of water which is contrary to it, or unless it is suffocated under excrement. Hence it is written: Do not eat of the son, whose mother abounds in menstruation.

The philosophers have therefore sought their Stone in the minerals, thinking to find there a fixed nature, and a permanence suitable for preserving life in its being, because the minerals are of a more fixed nature, because of the coarseness of the elements which compose them, and the abundance of water and earth which is in them; which causes their humid radical, approaching more to fixity, to be converted more easily into fixed sulphur.

Besides that, the minerals and especially the metals are engendered in the bowels of the earth where the humidity of the elements, which the influences have brought to the center, is preserved in greater abundance, whence it comes that the principles, of which the metals are composed, are very full of this ethereal spirit; and besides that again, by dint of circulating in vapor, and of sublimating themselves, they become more purified, whereas in the other compounds, one cannot find this natural and perfect sublimation, because of the porosity of the vases and the debility of the matrices, which would cause all that would sublimate to fly away.Or if the substance were more corporeal, there would be an alteration and corruption, tending to generation, with some loss of spirits, which, especially in the generation of a child,

The elements therefore not rising in vapor, nor becoming rarefied, there is no circulation, and consequently no purification; by which it is easy to see of what excellence the physical Stone must be, which by means of a second sublimation, which takes place in the philosophical vessel, acquires a much greater perfection, and a purity, if I may say so, entirely celestial; which is why philosophers have rightly called it their sky.

STRAP IV

O great Mercury of the philosophers, it is in you that Gold and Silver are united, after they have been! been drawn from power into act; Mercury all-Sun and all-Moon; three substances into one, and one substance into three. O wonderful thing! Mercury, sulfur and salt make me see three substances in one substance.

CHAPTER IV

We have already briefly discussed the Mercury of the philosophers; but in order to make it better known, it is necessary to know that it is by the philosophers alone that this Mercury is drawn from potency in action, nature not being able of itself to complete this production, because after a first sublimation, it stops, and its matter being disposed, it introduces the form, making gold or some other metal, according to the more or the less decoction, and also according to whether the places are pure or impure. The philosophers have taken care to hide this Mercury under veils, and to wrap it in parables; having never spoken of it except in enigma, and above all under the name of amalgam of Gold, and vulgar Quicksilver, giving to Sulfur the name of Gold, and to Mercury that of Quicksilver,

All their words are ambiguous, and that is their way of speaking; so much so that it would be sheer stupidity to want to work according to the sound of their words. If this amalgam were only made with vulgar Quicksilver and Gold, how many people would become possessors of the Philosopher's Stone! Everyone would be a philosopher, and science would be easy to acquire by this single operation. But, basically, what can we gather from such an amalgamation, albeit made with great care? Nothing doubtless, and only a subtle and penetrating mind can fully understand the mercury and the sulfur of the philosophers, as well as their union.Let chemists therefore stop stopping at the sound of words, and let them know that to work according to their apparent meaning is pure madness,

After that, by sublimation, art has purified the Mercury, or the vapor of the elements, for which marvelous industry is required, then it must be united with the quick Gold, that is to say, the Sulfur must be introduced into it, so that they will together make one substance and one Sulfur. It is this union that the artist must know perfectly; and the points or mediums by which he can reach it; otherwise he will be frustrated in his expectation. For this purpose he needs to know several things; but above all, if the mercury and the sulfur are well purified; which is not easy, unless you know well the principal agent of this Work, the vessel which belongs to it, and many other things, taught by the philosophers on the subject of sublimation.When therefore they are well purified,

It is here where we must imitate the silence of the philosophers, lest science be profaned; for it is written to leave those who err, in their error, and that it is only by the permission of God that one comes to the knowledge of this Work, which consists in knowing how to conjoin the sun and the moon in one body. But also so that we are not accused of envy, if we say no more, we protest that if in truth we have reserved something for ourselves, there is at least no lie in all that we have said. That we have not taught any sophisticated operation. That we have not proposed various subjects and that finally we have made it clear that there is only one truth, although by the just judgment of God,

We add further that this Mercury is very often called by philosophers their chaos, because in it is contained all that is necessary for art. For the same reason again, they named it their body, the subject of art, the full moon, animated quicksilver, and an infinity of other names. And because the three principles are there equally balanced by the operation of nature, the philosophers, because of this perfect union of the principles, have sometimes called it vitriol. In fact, the marriage of the sun and the moon can be seen there with the eye, we see the king in his bath, Joseph in his prison, and we contemplate the sun in his sphere; but the explanation of all these names would require a large volume, so we will put it off for another time.

V-STRAP

But where is this aurific Mercury, which being resolved in salt and sulphur, becomes the humid radical of the metals, and their animated seed? He is imprisoned in a prison so strong that nature itself could not extricate him from it, if industrious art does not facilitate the means.

CHAPTER V

The sulfur of the philosophers is, as we have said, enclosed in the intimacy of the radical humidity, but imprisoned under such a hard shell that it can only rise into the air by an extreme industry of art; for nature does not have in the mines a suitable menstruation nor capable of dissolving and delivering this sulphur, for lack of local movement, and according as the vapor rises, or whether it remains enclosed, all that is of the first composition also remains, or flies away; but if once more it could dissolve, putrefy and purify the metallic body, doubtless it would itself give us the physical Stone, that is to say, a sulfur exalted and multiplied in virtue.

Any fruit, or any grain, which is not again put into suitable ground to rot, will never multiply, and will remain as it is. Now the artist, who knows the good grain, takes this grain, and throws it into his earth after having smoked and prepared it well, and there it rots, dissolves, and is so refined that its prolific virtue extends and multiplies almost to infinity. And whereas at first this virtue was contained and as if dormant in a single grain, it acquires in this regeneration so much strength and extent that it is forced to abandon its first home to lodge in several other grains.

Let the disciples of the art therefore carefully consider how, by the single act of putrefaction and dissolution, this internal sulfur acquires such a great virtue, contained in the first grain, which is so simple at first, and to which no greater is added, is so fortified and purified by itself, that it easily passes from potency to act by multiplying its humid radical by the humid radical of the elements, to which it is joined because it is in this that virtue consists. specific, and not at all in anything else. All the same, if one knows how to take the physical grain, and throw it into his earth well smoked, well purged of its impure sulphur, and brought to a perfect purity, it is doubtless that it will rot ;that the pure will be separated from the impure in a true dissolution, and that finally it will pass to a new generation much nobler than the first.

If you know how to find this land, my dear reader, you have only a short way to go to reach the perfection of the Work. It is not a common land, but a virgin land; nor is it the one that madmen seek in the earth on which we walk, where there is no germ and no seed; but it is that which often rises above our heads and on which the terrestrial sun has not yet imprinted its actions.

This earth infected with pestilential vapors and mortified venoms, from which it must be purged with great care and artifice, and sharpened by its raw menstruation, so that it acquires more virtue to dissolve. Besides, we must not understand here that land of the wise, where the virtues of both are gathered together, and in which the sun and the moon are buried; for such an earth is acquired only by a true and complete physical calcination; but that which is in question here, is an earth which lures the embraces of the male, that is to say, the solar seed; in a word, it is designated among philosophers by the name of Mercury. But take care, dear reader, not to confuse this name of Mercury and take for your teacher and your guide the fifth chapter of the first canto,so that by his means you get rid of these nets; for this art is a mysterious art, which can only be learned after having known its true principles well. So stick to knowing them, and you will reach the end you desire.

STRAP VI

But what does art do? Ingenious minister of diligent nature, he purifies by a vaporous flame the paths that lead to the prison. There being no better guide nor surer means than that of a gentle and continual heat to help nature and give her the opportunity to break the bonds with which our Mercury is bound.

CHAPTER V

Nature has always been accustomed to make use of heat for the generation of things, and this heat is manifest and sensible in animals. With regard to plants, it is indeed insensible, but it is nonetheless understandable according as the sun advances or recedes; what are called the seasons; although the heat of the sun should not be considered an efficient cause, but only an occasional cause; the external fire of nature being excited by the movement of the sun and the other spheres. But as far as minerals are concerned, the heat is never perceptible in them, except by accident, when the sulfurs ignite.

Such heat does not contribute to the generation, on the contrary, it burns and destroys what is already generated in the neighboring places. Thus, we must seek for them another value, and we will find that it must not be perceived by the senses because if it were, the work of nature would be too quick, but it must be such that we rather perceive the cold, as it happens in the mines, where reigns a perpetual cold, in spite of which (which is admirable) nature always preserves the cause of generation; that is to say, a heat which is not repugnant to cold, and which, being of the nature of superior beings, is rather intelligible than sensible; but it is no wonder that our senses, being enclosed in a gross body, cannot discern what is of spiritual substance.We conceive, for example, in artificial things, that the hand of a watch is constantly moving, and we judge of its movement by the effects it produces; however, there is no one who has the sense subtle enough to perceive this movement, however diligent he may have to observe it. We can therefore easily conclude, by an argument drawn from the small to the large, that the movement of nature, much more subtle than that of art, must be imperceptible to our senses. and we judge of its motion by the effects it produces; however, there is no one who has the sense subtle enough to perceive this movement, however diligent he may have to observe it.We can therefore easily conclude, by an argument drawn from the small to the large, that the movement of nature, much more subtle than that of art, must be imperceptible to our senses. and we judge of its motion by the effects it produces; however, there is no one who has the sense subtle enough to perceive this movement, however diligent he may have to observe it. We can therefore easily conclude, by an argument drawn from the small to the large, that the movement of nature, much more subtle than that of art, must be imperceptible to our senses.

Finally, it is a heat of the nature of the spirits which is to be always in movement and as movement is the cause of heat, it has an innate faculty of heating. We can find some idea of ​​it in strong waters, and in similar spirits, which burn no less in winter, than fire does at all times, and which produce such effects, that one would believe them capable of destroying all nature, and reducing it to nothing; yet the radical moisture of the elements does not fear their voracity, for in it, as we have said, resides a fire of a much nobler nature, which despises that other fire. Hence it is that the Gold, which abounds in this moist radical, is not destroyed by such waters, and although it sometimes appears dissolved by them and reduced to the nature of water,it is only an illusion of the senses, since it emerges from these same waters as beautiful as before, while retaining its same weight; which does not happen to other bodies, because their humidity is not so finished nor so digested by the intrinsic fire of nature, which is found suffocated in them by the too raw humidity, which makes it languid, and susceptible to alteration by the fire of these strong waters, so that it flies away easily and the compound is reduced to nothing, remaining only a corroded ash.

With regard to these corrosive spirits, they are called fires against nature, because they destroy 'nature. Let the ignorant learn from there how much they err when they take such waters to dissolve metals, or other similar matters, instead of using the same fire, which nature uses, which it is only necessary to know how to sharpen well, in order to make it more active, and more suitable to the nature of the compound. Besides, the construction of this fire is very ingenious, and in this consists almost all the physical secret, the philosophers having said nothing about it, or very little. For us, we will talk about it below, contenting ourselves for the present with warning chemists to take good care not to build their fire with strong and vulgar waters, STRAP

VII

Yes, yes, it is this Mercury alone that you must seek, O intractable spirits! since you alone can find everything that is necessary for the wise! It is in him that the moon and the sun are found in next power, which without Gold and Silver of the vulgar, being united together, become the true seed of Silver and Gold.

CHAPTER VII

It is said in the "Dialogue of Nature" and elsewhere, that one easily judges the principle which causes action, by the end one proposes. But with regard to chemists, it is not difficult to see that the goal to which they aspire is to make gold, and that they are inclined to acquire this art only for this reason alone. The tyranny that Gold exercises over hearts has taken hold of the world so that there is no country, no city, no place where Gold does not manifest its power. There is no scholar, no peasant, no child even, who is not delighted by his brilliance, and is not attracted by his beauty; and that because it is human nature to desire the good and to seek what is most perfect.Now there is nothing under the sun more perfect than this son of the sun, in which is engraved the true character of the father. It is not an adulterine child, but his legitimate son, and his true race, clothed in all his splendor, who has united all his virtues in himself, and who then distributes them liberally to others. Nothing is so beautiful in the sky as the sun, nothing so perfect on earth as the O'r; also the whole chemical troop aspires only to its possession; when it happens that such is their end, such is their work; that is to say, their intention being to have Gold, the ground of their work is Gold; but they do not know that for the multiplication of things, one does not ask for the fruit nor the body, but the sperm and the seed of the body,with which it can multiply. But it is time to explain in a few words what this sperm & this semen are.

We have already said above in several places that the true subject of nature, or the substance of bodies, was the radical humidity, and we have shown the nature of this radical humidity so well that all that remains is to know the order of its specification, and the manner of its multiplication. To achieve this, it must be regarded as a constant thing that the fire of nature, or otherwise the sulfur of nature, resides in this moist radical, and that it is the great craftsman of nature, to which she absolutely obeys; for what he wills, nature wills also. Now, this fire, thus enclosed in bodies, desires only to spread in virtue, and in quantity; this is why it constantly converts the radical humidity into itself and multiplies by consuming it;but this is done imperceptibly, and gradually,

This fire is the innate heat, always full of life and warmth; but it is governed by specific spirits, which are of the nature of the supercelestial light, and received this specification in the point of creation by the ineffable virtue of God, and according to his good pleasure, which nature only obeys, relentlessly following his eternal laws. These specific spirits remain constantly in the bodies until they are entirely consumed, and reduced to nothing; that is to say, as long as the humid radical subsists in whole or in part; but he, being once destroyed, the specific virtue is also destroyed. This innate warmth, enriched with its specific spirit, resides, as we have said, in the royal domain of the radical humidity, like the sun in its own sphere.The nature of the body obeys it, and the moist radical ceaselessly furnishes it with its matter and its nourishment, which is also ceaselessly devoured by this fire, and converted into its own nature; but this coction is more or less strong, and nature operates more or less easily, according to the more or less excrement that it encounters. This humidity is dispersed throughout the body, and is conserved in the center of the least of its particles; and when it abounds in moisture, it is the sperm of the body. But if that moisture is finished and no longer cooked, then it is properly the seed of the body.The semen is therefore nothing other than an invisible point of innate heat, clothed with its specific spirit, which resides in the radical humidity, and this humidity, after some alteration, is properly the sperm of the body. and the moist radical ceaselessly furnishes it with its matter and its nourishment, which is also ceaselessly devoured by this fire, and converted into its own nature; but this coction is more or less strong, and nature operates more or less easily, according to the more or less excrement that it encounters. This humidity is dispersed throughout the body, and is conserved in the center of the least of its particles; and when it abounds in moisture, it is the sperm of the body.But if that moisture is finished and no longer cooked, then it is properly the seed of the body. The semen is therefore nothing other than an invisible point of innate heat, clothed with its specific spirit, which resides in the radical humidity, and this humidity, after some alteration, is properly the sperm of the body. and the moist radical ceaselessly furnishes it with its matter and its nourishment, which is also ceaselessly devoured by this fire, and converted into its own nature; but this coction is more or less strong, and nature operates more or less easily, according to the more or less excrement that it encounters. This humidity is dispersed throughout the body, and is conserved in the center of the least of its particles;and when it abounds in moisture, it is the sperm of the body. But if that moisture is finished and no longer cooked, then it is properly the seed of the body. The semen is therefore nothing other than an invisible point of innate heat, clothed with its specific spirit, which resides in the radical humidity, and this humidity, after some alteration, is properly the sperm of the body.

This seed, in any kingdom whatsoever, animal, vegetable or mineral, constantly wants to multiply as much as it has the means; but it is often compelled to remain at rest and without action, shut up in its body, because nature has no local motion, unless industrious art excites the internal heat by some external means, and gives it cause by this spur to gather its forces, and awaken its virtue to use it to devour its moist root, and thus multiply. But the radical humidity, which is the proper nourishment of the seed, is also sometimes so enveloped in excrement that it cannot help the innate warmth; so that he remains all languishing and without action, although it is in his nature to act; and then,being able to attract to itself only a very small portion of the radical humidity, and still with great difficulty and time, it finally arrives, by the natural emotion and the bad weather of the elements, that it destroys itself entirely, and returns to its homeland; whence he returns in new bodies. Thus the corruption of one is the generation of the other, by a continual vicissitude of things.

In the animal kingdom, the innate heat attracts moist food, which is necessary for its restoration; and by this attraction, the weakened parts of the body are supplied with a new moist indeed, but nevertheless more raw, although it is of the same nature, and that it has all the more affinity with it, as these foods are more often taken from the same kingdom. They are sometimes also taken from the vegetable, where this humidity has received a particular specification, but nevertheless more suitable to animal nature, than that which is found in minerals or in the elements, whose nature is too universal. For the rest, all these moist radicals are of the same substance and essence, with the difference that some have received no coction, and the others have received it in part.

Nature, in its. operations, always passes through middles, and never goes from one extremity to the other, if it is not forced to do so; which happens very rarely, as is noticed in people who, according to some authors, have lived for a certain time on air only, or on earth applied to their stomachs, whence they are said to have drawn the humidity which was contained therein. But if that were true, it shouldn't be made a rule. Be that as it may, the radical humidity is drawn from all the parts of the body for the re-establishment of the innate heat, which has been consumed, and all these various parts, finding themselves full of this nourishment, reject a certain aqueous superfluity, which has some affinity with water, which remains diffused through the whole body, until,by the attractive faculty of certain parts, it is attracted there and preserved for the use of the sperm. Then, coming to receive its determination in the spermatic vases, it finally becomes a true sperm, which having been spread through the whole body, and having gathered in itself all the virtue, contains because of this in potency, all the members of the body distinctly. And from there is established the truth of this doctrine: that the sperm is the last and the most perfect excrement of the food. all members of the body distinctly. And from there is established the truth of this doctrine: that the sperm is the last and the most perfect excrement of the food. all members of the body distinctly.And from there is established the truth of this doctrine: that the sperm is the last and the most perfect excrement of the food.

This sperm always wants to be separated from the gross body, to be taken to a pure place, where it can serve for the generation of the animal; and as it is the extract and the quintessence of the body, it is necessary that it be dissolved by something very pure, so that the innate heat, or the seminal point contained in it, can easily be strengthened and multiplied in virtue. Therefore, to achieve this, nature gave this instinct to the animal to couple with its female, so that, by this coupling, this sperm would be carried out of its place, and thrown into a suitable womb.

The male sperm having entered the womb, instantly unites with the female sperm, from which results a certain sperm of a hermaphroditic nature. In the female sperm the passive elements dominate, and in the male sperm the active elements dominate, which gives them cause to act and suffer from each other; for otherwise, if they were of the same quality, there would be no alteration, neither so easily nor so quickly, and it would be to be feared that the specific virtue of the seed, which is very subtle, would vanish.

These sperms, coming to receive some alteration, to which the acid quality of the menses contributes, then the innate heat begins to act on the humid and assimilates it to itself; and thus increasing in virtue and quantity, it becomes more mature and more active; so that always receiving new nourishment from menstruation, it transmutes it into flesh, bone, and blood. But as we will deal with that in its place, it suffices for the present to know that this sperm is increased by the transmutation of the menstrual blood, and that this menstrual blood abounds in humidity, which serves to corrupt the sperm; that is to say, by its rawness and acidity, it corrupts the moist elements of the radical humidity, and dissolves them;so that being purified by this alteration, they become a nobler and cleaner food for the seed, to which they give rise to act with more virtue, and to lead things to greater maturity. But that's enough about the animal kingdom.

With regard to the vegetable, we say the same, that the sperm of the vegetables is their radical humidity, diffused throughout the mass of the body, which is abundant in aqueous humidity. This sperm asks only to be subtilized and raised upwards by the attraction of the upper air, because it is air itself and nature rejoices in its nature; hence it is that trees and plants rise upwards, leaving the gross part below until, having reached a suitable subtlety, and the pure being always separated from the impure, they finally pass into grain of seed. This grain, where the sperm is enclosed, is of a hermaphroditic nature, and contains in itself the masculine and feminine qualities; because the plants do not have a local movement to make the coupling of the two natures,

These grains remain without action, and do not pass to a new generation, unless they are set in motion by an external agent. But if the plowman throws them into earth, which is proper to them, as into a womb, in which there is a raw and menstrual humor, then they become corrupted by means of this humor and of a certain acrid nitrous spirit, and by this corruption the sperm is purified, and the seed dissolved, which draws to itself its food for its restoration; but not finding enough in the grain itself, it is obliged to draw some from the earth, whose virtue it strengthens and multiplies.

And at the same time, by this attraction, some parts of earth and water are also attracted, which serve as channels for the other elements and for the radical humidity; and in this way the seed grows in quantity with respect to the body, and in quality with respect to its virtue. The seed is powerfully drawn to such an attraction, so that, unable to remain at rest, it goes forward of itself. nutriment, spreading in roots, which creep underground to seek ever new food, and though there is plenty of it in the air, yet that which is in the earth has more affinity with the nature of the grain, because it is less spiritual; which obliged the master of nature to arrange things so much, that at the same time as the seeds were sown,

Besides that, by the action of the great cold, this vapor of the elements, or this raw radical humidity of things, is much better preserved in the earth, because the pores being blocked, the roots extend much more freely in its bosom, and become much more vigorous there, taking on a hard and solid body there, because of the coldness of the earth, and the coarseness of the water.

But when spring comes to take the place of winter, then the pores of the earth open; and this vapor coming to exhale, the roots, which are deprived of food, are obliged to go and seek it in the air, where they feel that it is, which causes them to rise, and are as it were attracted upwards, and in this elevation, the pure is always more easily separated from the impure, the coarse food being drawn from the roots for the production of the mass only. Moreover, the plant grows and strengthens until it has reached an age of perfection; after which its attraction being weakened, it is constrained to stop in terms of its greatness; but the pure does not always cease to be separated from the impure,

Let us now come to minerals, and say that they are produced in the same way, because nature is one, and the same everywhere. With regard to the metals in particular, as we have already treated of their generation, we will refer the reader there, contenting ourselves with saying something here of their seed. The seed of metals is properly their innate heat; that is to say, the fire enclosed in the radical humidity; and because nature has had the time and the proper place to properly purify their humidity and subtilize it into vapor, we can say that the metals, because of their great homogeneity, are nothing other than the radical humidity itself; especially the perfect metals, which retained no scoria, nor any external sulphur, but were separated from them.This wet is called by another name, Bright silver; but it must not be imagined that it has been purified and subtilized so perfectly as to have acquired entirely a spermatic nature; on the contrary, it has contracted in the earth some coarseness by the union of an aqueous substance, in which the metals abound extremely; which means that they are properly fruits of the water as the plants are of the earth. As for the other elements, they are mixed in various ways. in which metals extremely abound; which means that they are properly fruits of the water as the plants are of the earth. As for the other elements, they are mixed in various ways. in which metals extremely abound;which means that they are properly fruits of the water as the plants are of the earth. As for the other elements, they are mixed in various ways.

The sperm, then, of metals is enclosed in a body, which body is quicksilver, as much of the vulgar as that of other metals, and it is this which is properly its matter; so that if you separate the Quicksilver substance from the metal — (which is easy to do) what remains is no longer a metal. This sperm is still defiled, because it is enclosed in a body of earth and water, and although this water and this earth are very pure and very resplendent in relation to other bodies, nevertheless, in relation to the semen, they are only like faeces, and like bark; because the seminal point is of the nature of heaven, of which it partakes much more than of the lower nature.

This sperm is the true vehicle of the celestial light, which could only lodge in such a pure body, and this body is properly the middle substance of quicksilver, of which Geber and the others speak so much, saying that it is the Stone known to the philosophers and designated in their chapters. And that it is finally the true sperm of the metals, which, it is necessary to have, since without it the multiplication of the seed is impossible.

The seed of the metals is therefore enclosed in this sperm, in the same way as has been said with regard to the other kingdoms; but in different degrees, according to the more or less coction and purification. It can also be extracted from all bodies, but very easily with regard to some, and with great difficulty with regard to others, that is to say, almost not at all. It is necessary for the artist to know this seed well, and having known it, to extract it to operate a new generation and multiplication. But before that, it is necessary that his sperm putrefy, separate, and be purified by a proper means & a suitable menstruation, in a matrix which is also;after which you will find it multiplied, and you will have the true Stone of the philosophers, and the sulfur of the wise. I tell you again that this seed has acquired above all in the metals the fixed nature, which has obliged the philosophers to seek it particularly in them, in order to have a fixed medicine, which would not be easily consumed, nor fly away in a gentle heat. So be careful, my dear reader, in extracting this seed. If you want to achieve the philosophical work, let that be enough for you.


STRAP VIII

But all seed is useless, if it remains whole, if it does not rot, and turn black;
for corruption always precedes generation. It is thus that nature proceeds in all her operations; and we who want to imitate it, we must also blacken before whitening, otherwise we will only produce abortions.

CHAPTER VIII

Our poet here briefly teaches what we have already explained, namely, that without putrefaction it is impossible to attain the desired end, which is deliverance from the sulphur, or seed, enclosed in the prison of the elements. And indeed, there is only this one means, because if the seed is not thrown in the ground to rot there, it remains useless, nature teaching us to proceed by corruption to the multiplication of seeds. Now, this corruption is accomplished only in an appropriate menstruation, as we have shown in speaking of animals and vegetables.

In animals, the menses is placed in the womb, where the sperm spoils; and with regard to vegetables, their menstruation is in the earth, where the seeds are reincrusted and corrupted. As for minerals, their menstruation is enclosed in their own matrix, which is taken for their earth. But as in animals, the wombs must be strengthened, and the females fed with the best food, otherwise the embryo would have difficulty in being pushed out, or would remain very weak; and as it is also necessary in vegetables that the earth be ploughed, purified, appropriated and smoked, otherwise in vain would we throw grain there, it is the same with minerals, and especially with our metals in the procreation of the elixir; for unless the auriferous seed be sown in well-prepared ground,the artist will never achieve what he wishes, because otherwise the womb will be infected with stinking vapors and impure sulphur. So be very circumspect in cultivating this land, after which sow your seed there, and no doubt it will bring you much fruit.

End of the second Canto


THIRD CANDY

STRAP I

O you, who to make Gold by means of art, are unceasingly among the flames of your ardent coals; which sometimes congeals, and sometimes dissolves your various mixtures in so many ways, sometimes dissolving them entirely, sometimes congealing them only in part; whence it comes that like smoky butterflies you spend days and nights prowling around your stoves.

FIRST CHAPTER

The forehead of the chemists, always moist with the perspiration which it incessantly distills, clearly marks the dissolution of their brain; but in vain vapors rise from them, they are so black and so impure, that far from their ignorance being purged by this means, and their heads purified, they only discover their madness. It is the torture of the damned to always want to see the light, and to be in perpetual darkness. It is the same with these chemists; for, although the light rises for the others, they still remain buried in a deep sleep, and their eyes are in an endless blindness.

What means of dispelling from around them the darkness which surrounds them, and how of dissolving the coarseness of their spirit, if the continual fire of their furnaces has so rarefied their understanding, that they hardly have any left? You see them ceaselessly occupied in anatomizing all sorts of mixtures by their calcinations, dissolutions, cohobations, and sublimations, imagining that they have distinctly, by this means, the various substances of the elements, and giving to their mixtures, their oils, and their mad concoctions various names, such as air, fire, and the like.

What extravagance to claim to purge the bodies of their filth and their impurity, by means of corrosive waters, and against nature, which corrupt and destroy nature, contained in the mixtures! These dissolving waters of the philosophers must not wet the hands, because they are of the kind of mercurial and permanent spirits, which attach themselves only to things which are of their own nature. And if they read the authors, they would see that they teach that no water can dissolve the bodies of a true dissolution, except that which remains with them in the same matter, and in the same form, and that the dissolved metals can refreeze again. But, in truth, what agreement is there between the waters of these people and their bodies? no doubt;because, instead of joining them, they float above, and would thus remain in the fire until the day of judgment. Unhappy as they are, they claim to be very clever, and have never taken the trouble to learn what it is necessary to know before anything else.

There is no less skill in knowing the water of the philosophers, than there is in knowing their sulphur; and the work of the solution is as hidden among them as the Gold which they hear must be dissolved is mysterious. This causes the ignorant to first take common gold, or some of the other metals, and try to dissolve it with mercury, or with some other corrosive mineral, which they do in vain. What foolish reason can persuade them that a terrestrial body will be conjoined with an aqueous humidity without a medium which can unite these two natures, all the philosophers expressly ordering the combination of the elements by means, and teaching that the extremes can never be united without a participating nature of the two?

But the poor people don't know anything about what there is to know, and they want to edify without having a good foundation. They join together various things according to their whim and without examination, and they imagine everything possible and everything easy. There are several of them who, reasoning according to the capacity of their little brains, establish for an indubitable axiom that matter is one; that it must be dissolved and purified, then extract what is pure in it, and then join it with a well-washed mercury; after which, without any other industry, and without any other fire than that of the coals, it must be committed to the care of nature.Those who reason in this way are the most learned, and claim to understand perfectly the words of the philosophers; but the poor ignoramuses do not understand the true intention of it.

Because before committing the work to nature, it is necessary, following the example of the plowman, that the artist choose the grain which is necessary for him, that he purifies it, and that he then puts it in a well cultivated ground, after which he can without difficulty entrust it to the care of nature, with the help of a simple heat, administered outside. So let them start by hearing what our grain is, what the cultivation of our land is, and then they can say that they know something. But since we have touched on what concerns the solution, it is appropriate that we examine it with some attention.

The authors say that there are three kinds of solution in the physical work: the first, which is the solution or reduction of the raw and metallic body in its principles, namely in sulfur and quick silver. The second is the solution of the physical body. And the third is the mineral earth solution. These solutions are so enveloped in obscure terms that it is impossible to understand them without the help of a faithful master. The first solution is when we take our metallic body, and we laugh a mercury and a sulfur. It is there that we need our industry, and our artificial occult fire to extract from our subject this mercury or this vapor of the elements, to purify it after having extracted it, and then by the same natural order, to deliver from its prisons the sulphur,or the essence of sulfur; which can only be done by the only means of solution and corruption which must be perfectly known.

The sign of this corruption is blackness, that is, one should see in the vessel a certain black smoke, which is engendered from the corrupting dampness of natural menses; for it is from it that in the concussion of the elements, this vapor is formed. If therefore you see this black vapour, be certain that you are on the right track, and that you have found the true method of operating.

The second solution is made when the physical body is dissolved, jointly with the two substances above, and that in this solution everything is purified, and takes the celestial nature it is then that all the subtilized elements prepare the foundation of a new generation, and this is properly the real philosophical chaos, and the real first matter of the philosophers, as Count Bernard teaches it; for it is only after the conjunction of the female and the male, of the mercury and the sulfur, that it must be said to be the first matter, and not before. This solution is the true reincrudation by which we have a very pure seed, and multiplied in virtue because if the grain remained in the ground without being reincrudated and reduced in this first matter,in vain would the plowman wait for the desired harvest. All the sperm are useless for multiplication, if they are not previously reincrudated. This is why it is very necessary to know perfectly this reincrudation, or reduction in first matter, by which alone this second solution of the physical body can be made.

With regard to the third solution, it is properly this moistening of the earth, or physical and mineral sulphur, by which the child increases his forces; but as it is mainly related to multiplication, we will refer the reader to what the authors have written about it. This is what we had to say briefly on the subject of the solution, so that the reader can understand well all that belongs to the theory, and with this help he can read the writings of the philosophers more boldly, and get out of their nets more easily.

STRAP II

Cease henceforth to tire yourselves in vain, lest a mad hope make all your thoughts go up in smoke. Your labors produce only useless sweats which paint on your brow the unhappy hours you pass in your studies. retreat rooms. What use are these violent flames, since the sages do not use burning coals or burning wood to do the Hermetic Work?

CHAPTER II

We should in this chapter, to follow the order of our poet, speak of the ridiculous work of ignorant artists; but because we have already said something about it, and will have another opportunity to speak of it, we will not insist on it for the present, for fear of being too prolix. We will only content ourselves with advising the reader on the subject of fire, that a fire of coal, manure, lamp, or any other kind is to be understood; but that it is the fire of which nature uses, this fire so strongly hidden among the philosophers, and of which they speak only very obscurely; the construction of which is as difficult as it is secret, and if the artists knew it, we can boldly assure that they would only have to undertake the Work of the philosophers to succeed in it.But so that the reader is convinced of our good intentions on this subject, we will pass to the explanation of the following chapter.

STRAP III

It is with the same fire which nature uses underground that art must work, and it is thus that it will imitate nature. A vaporous fire, yet not light; a fire that nourishes and does not devour; a natural fire, but which art must make; dry, but rainy; moist, but drying. A water that extinguishes, a water that washes the body, but does not wet the hands.

CHAPTER III

I am not surprised that many, and almost all of them, have wandered because they did not know fire; for it is as if someone lacked the instruments necessary for his art; he is sure that he would never come to the purpose he proposes, and would do nothing but cripple and imperfect. So that your works may be perfect, O children of art, make use of this instrumental fire, by which alone all things are made perfect. This fire is diffused by all nature, for without it she could not act, and wherever the vegetative virtue is preserved, there also this fire is hidden. This fire is always found joined to the radical humidity of things, and continually accompanies the raw sperm of bodies.But, though it is thus diffused through all the lower nature, and dispersed in the elements,

It is this fire which causes the corruption of things, for it is a very raw spirit, enemy of rest, which asks only for war and destruction. It is a thing which one cannot admire too much in nature that all that is exposed to the air, all that which is in the water, or under the ground, is reduced to nothing, and returns to its first chaos. The most solid stones, the strongest towers, the most superb edifices, the hardest marbles, and finally all metals, except gold, are reduced to powder after a long succession of time.

The ignorant vulgar are wont to attribute such a surprising thing to time, which devours everything; and that comes from ignoring what is hidden in the elements, and especially in the air. It is an invisible and insensitive flame which imperceptibly consumes everything, and envelops it in a profound silence. This fire of which we speak is diffused in the air, because it is all airy in its nature. By his raw spirit he decomposes the mixtures, and destroying the works of nature, he reduces all things to their first being by means of corruption.

It is by him that the lead coverings of certain buildings are after a long time converted into a white rust, which resembles artificial white lead, and which, being washed away by rainwater, merges with it and is lost. The iron, all the same, is changed into slag little by little, and one part after another. The corpses of animals, their bones, the trunks of trees, as well as their roots, marbles, stones, metals, in short everything that is in nature, fall by succession of time and are reduced to nothingness by this single cause, and by this single secret fire.

This fire is sometimes called Mercury by philosophers, by an ambiguous name; because it is of an aerial nature, and it is a very subtle vapour, partaking of the sulfur with which it has contracted some defilement; and we say in good faith that he who knows the subject of the art, also knows that it is there principally that our fire resides, however enveloped in faeces and impurities; but it is communicated only to true sages, who know how to constitute and purify it.

It has drawn from sulfur an imperfection, and an adustible dryness, which means that we must deal with it wisely and with precaution, if we want to use it well; otherwise it becomes useless. For lack of this fire, nature often ceases to act in bodies, and where entry is denied to it, there is no movement towards generation, nature leaving its work imperfect as soon as this agent no longer has its free action. This fire is in continual motion, and its vaporous flame perpetually tends to corrupt, and draw things from power into action; as it is seen in animals, which would never be brought to generation, would never seek mating, and would never think of the production of their fellows, without this quick-moving fire,

It is he who is the true cause of the libidinous movement, by which the animal is inclined to join its fellow creature, and is excited thereto by a very prickly sting, which causes that at certain times, the animals are so incited to the acrid of generation, that letting go of all obstacles, forgetting all sadness, and despising all pain, they go there with all their power, and follow all its movements with joy. Who among men would be crazy enough to wish for all the filth attached to this action? Who would want to go to all the pains that usually serve as a means of achieving this? And who would not be afraid of exposing himself to diseases, which derive from this source, if he were not forced to it by a violent movement, and dragged along by the laws of nature?

It is this fire, which diffused in the members, agitates the whole body, usurping a tyrannical power over the faculties which are subject to it, and submitting all our will to the appetites of the soul; so that one can say, if someone resists its flames, that it is only by divine help, and by the brake of an all-powerful reason. This very subtle spirit insinuates itself into the entrails, moves them strongly, and by its fire kindles the whole mass of blood. It is by its heat that the internal fire is excited and as if invited to the combat of Venus, for it goes violently to the spermatic vases, and heats them so much that the seed full of spirits, expanding, and breaking the limits of its prison, asks only to be thrown into the womb of the woman,

This fire exercises has similar power in the vegetable kingdom; but, although it is there contained in all the bodies, nevertheless, because the elements there are grosser than in the animal kingdom, it is not so easily excited, and it needs the industry of the art, and that one calls to its help the air, or some other element, in order to be made more active and more ready to operate. What is noticed at the arrival of spring and in summer; for then the pores of the bodies being open, this fire, diffused in the elements of water, earth and air, insinuates itself into these bodies, and shows its action in the work of the vegetation. it acts incessantly; and grown more vigorous, she spreads her virtue far and wide.

The same can be said of minerals, and as they are engendered in the caverns of the earth, it is easy for this fiery spirit to preserve itself there because of the solidity of the place; which makes it more convenient for nature to generate metals there, especially if the places have already been purified by this same fire. But as it sometimes happens, because of the coldness of the place, that the pores of the body are blocked, and that this causes them to remain without action, full of obstructions and excrements, then this spirit is obliged to wander in these caves, and often arouses violent movements there, after having abandoned its body. But to make this fire better known, know that it is usually enveloped in sulphurous excrement; because he desires warm nature,

But after nature has completed the generation of metallic bodies, there is no multiplication because of the impediments of which we have spoken above, and this fire suddenly vanishes. From this also comes that the metals, which have suffered the fire of fusion, remain as if dead, because they are deprived of their external motor: and this is what obliges the artist, when nature has ceased to act, to help it by doubling its weight, and by introducing it into a greater degree of fire.

Finally, we say that this fire, because of the sulphurous dryness of which it participates, wants to be moistened, in order to insinuate itself more freely into the moist feminine sperm, and corrupt it with its superfluous humidity; but because of its volatile and dry quality, it is very difficult to catch, and it must be fished with a well-tied net by a means suitable for this. It is on this occasion that the artist must know perfectly the sympathies of things and their properties, and that he must be versed in natural magic. The menses must be sharpened by this fire, so that its forces are increased and it is not enough for the artist to know the fire, he must also know how to administer it, and let him understand perfectly the degrees of his proportion ;but as it depends on the experience and skill of the masters, we will say no more about it now.

STRAP IV

It is with such a fire that art, which wants to imitate nature, must work, and that one must supply the fault of the other. 'Nature begins, art completes, and it alone purifies what nature could not purify. Art shares industry, and nature simplicity; so that if one does not smooth the way, the other immediately stops.

CHAPTER IV

We have shown above in what consists the skill of the art, namely in helping nature, and especially in the administration of fire, both external and internal. The latter serves for the abbreviation of the Work, and consists in the addition of a more mature and more digestible sulphur, by means of which the physical sublimation is entirely perfected; for fire increases fire, and two united fires heat more and convert the passive elements into their nature much more easily than one alone can do. It is therefore a very great artifice to know how to succor fire with fire, and the whole art of chemistry is nothing other than knowing fires well, and knowing how to administer them well.

The philosophers tell us in their books of three kinds of fire, the natural, the unnatural, and the fire against nature.

The natural is the masculine fire, the main agent; but to have it, the artist must employ all his care and all his study; for it is so languid in the metals, and so strongly concentrated in them, that without a very obstinate work, one cannot put it into action.

The unnatural is the feminine fire, and the universal solvent, nourishing the bodies, and covering with its wings the nudity of nature; there is no less difficulty in having it than the preceding one. This appears in the form of a white smoke, and it very often happens that in this form it vanishes through the negligence of the artists. It is almost incomprehensible, although through physical sublimation it appears corporeal and resplendent.

Fire against nature is that which corrupts the compound, and which first has the power to dissolve what nature had strongly bound. It is veiled under an infinity of names, in order to be better hidden from the ignorant, and to know it well one must study much, read and reread the authors, and always compare what they say with the possibility of nature. There are besides these various fires, such as of dung, of bath, of ashes, of bark of trees, of nuts, of oil, of lamp and the like, all of which are mystically comprehended under the category of these three fires, either by themselves, or in part, or as united together; but because it would take a large volume to explain all these names, and several more which are found in books, it will suffice for the present,

V-STRAP

What use are so many different substances in retorts, in stills, if matter is as unique as fire? Yes, the material is unique, it is everywhere, and the poor can have it as well as the rich. It is unknown to everyone, and everyone has it before the Games; it is despised like mud by the ignorant vulgar, and: is sold at a low price; but it is precious to the philosopher, who knows its value.

CHAPTER V

Almost all philosophers agree among themselves on the unity of matter, and unanimously affirm that it is one in number and species; but many of them hear of physical matter, which is a mercurial substance, and in this respect they say that it is one, because indeed there is only one mercury in all nature, though it contains in itself various qualities, by which it varies, according to the various dominance and alteration of these qualities. For me, I do not mean this kind of unity here, but that which regards the physical subject, which the artist must take in hand and which is unequivocally unique; because our work is not made of several materials, art not being able to mix things in proportion, nor to know the weights of nature.There is therefore only one nature, only one operation, and finally only one subject, which serves as the basis for so many marvelous operations.
This subject is found in several places, and in each of the three kingdoms; but if we look at the possibility of nature, it is certain that the metallic nature alone must be aided by nature, and by nature. It is therefore in the mineral kingdom alone, where the metallic seed resides, that we must seek the subject proper to our art, in order to be able to operate easily. But although there are several subjects of this kind, there is nevertheless one which must be preferred to the others.

There are various ages in man, but the virile age is the most specific to generation. There are various seasons in the year, but the fall is the best for reaping the harvest. Lastly, there are various luminaries in the sky, but the sun is the only proper one to illuminate. So learn to know which is the cleanest material, and choose the easiest. Above all, we reject all materials in which the metallic essence is not contained, not only potentially, but also in very real act, and so you will not err in the choice of your material. Where the metallic splendor is not, there cannot be the light of our sperm.

So leave everyone in his error and take care not to let yourself be surprised by trickery and illusions, if you want to succeed in your plan. And certainly know that all that is necessary for art is contained in this one and only subject. It is true that we must help nature so that she can do her work better, and finish it more quickly, and that by a double means, which, on all things you must know,

This subject not only is one, but it is besides that it is despised by everyone, and to see it one does not recognize any excellence in it. It is not salable, because it is of no use outside the philosophical work, and when it is said by the philosophers that every creature uses it, that it is found in shops, and that it is known to everyone, they mean by that either the species or the internal substance of the subject, which, being mercurial, is found in all things.

Many people often have it in their hands, and reject it out of ignorance, not believing that there can be anything good in it, as has happened to me several times. But in order to mark it more clearly for you, here is a new lesson that I am going to give you. Know then that philosophical sulfur is nothing other than the very pure fire of nature, dispersed in the elements, and contained by this same nature in our subject, and in several others, where it has already received some coction, by which it is partly congealed and fixed; however, its fixity is still only a power, because it is enveloped in many volatile vapours, which cause it to fly away easily and vanish into the air.

For when in a subject the volatile part overcomes the fixed, both become volatile, and that is according to the rules, and the possibility of nature. This light is therefore not currently found fixed on the earth, without being overcome by contrary qualities, except in gold; which makes Gold the only one of all bodies in which the elements are in equal proportion, and consequently fixed and constant in fire. But when this fixed virtue is surmounted by a greater volatile part of the same nature as itself, and it is found joined to vaporous excrement, then it loses this fixity for a time, although it still has it in power.

Our sulphur, which is required for the Work, is the splendor of the sun and the moon, of the nature of the celestial bodies, and clothed with a like body. So you must seek carefully in what subject this splendor can be and can be preserved there, and know that where this splendor is, there is the Stone so much sought after. It is in the nature of light that it cannot appear to our eyes without being clothed with some body, and this body must also be suitable for receiving light. So where the light is, there must also necessarily be the vehicle of this light.

This is the easiest way not to wander. Seek therefore with the light of your mind, the light which is enveloped in darkness, and learn from it that the lowest subject of all, according to the ignorant, is the noblest according to the wise, since on him alone the light rests, and that it is by him alone that it is retained and preserved. There is no nature in the world, except the rational soul, which is so pure as the light, so the subject which contains the light must be very pure, and the vessel which is to serve both must not lack purity either. This is how in a very abject body is contained a very noble thing, and this so that all things are not known to all.

STRAP VI

It is this material, so despised by the ignorant, that the learned seek with care, since it is all they can desire. In it are conjoined the sun and the moon, not the vulgar, not those who are dead. In it is contained the fire, from which these metals draw their life; it is she who gives the igneous water, which also gives the fixed earth; finally, it is she who gives all that is necessary for an enlightened mind.

CHAPTER VI

Our poet continues in this chapter to teach in his usual way what we have already said of the subject of art; but in order not to bore with repetitions, we will only say here that in this subject are contained the salt, the sulfur and the mercury of the philosophers, which must be extracted one after the other by a perfect and accomplished physical sublimation.

For first one must draw up the Mercury in the form of vapor or white smoke, and then dissolve the igneous water, or the sulfur by means of their well-purified salt, volatilizing the fixed, and conjoining the two together in perfect union. With regard to this fixed earth, which our father says is contained in our subject, we say that in it lies the perfection of the Stone, the true place of nature, and the vessel where the elements rest. It is a fusible and igneous earth, very hot and very pure, which must be dissolved and buried, to be made more penetrating, and more suitable for the use of philosophers, and finally to be the second vessel of all perfection. For as it is said of mercury that the vessel of the philosophers is their water,also one can say with regard to this ground, that the vessel of the philosophers is their ground. Nature, like a prudent mother, has given you, my dear reader, in this one subject all that you can desire so that you can extract the kernel from it, and prepare it for your use.

This earth, by its igneous and innate dryness, draws its own moisture to itself, and consumes it; and because of this she is compared to the dragon that devours its tail. Moreover, it only attracts and assimilates its humidity to itself because it is of its own nature. Wherein is discovered the folly of those who vainly try to unite and congeal, by means of their waters, things quite opposite and as distant from each other as the sky is from the earth, in which there is not the slightest attraction. External heat is not capable of freezing water, to any degree that heat is put; far from that, it dissolves it, and rarefies it by raising it in the air. But the internal heat of our physical earth operates much more naturally;also there comes a sure and perfect congealing.

STRAP VII

But instead of considering that a single compound suffices for the philosopher, you foolish chemists have fun putting several materials together; and instead that the philosopher cooks in a gentle, solar heat, and in a single vessel, a single steam which thickens little by little, you put a thousand different ingredients into play; and instead of God making all things out of nothing, you, on the contrary, reduce all things to nothing.

CHAPTER VII

Our author makes fun in this place of all the vain labors of vulgar chemists, and especially of those who work on various matters at the same time; which is entirely repugnant to the truth of science; for these substances are separated either by nature or by art. If it is by nature, whatever they do, they will never be able to conjoin what nature has disjointed, and the aqueous substance will always float; what is even to be considered is that they will never know the right weight, because they do not have in their power the balance of nature, which, by its attractions, weighs the essences of things; and so it will happen that these ignoramuses, far from fortifying these attractions, will destroy them,not considering that the stomach of the animal only attracts what is necessary for it, and rejects the rest by the excrement. It is therefore impossible for them to know this true weight and consequently their error is irremediable; for taking things contrary and already separated by nature, in which there can be no attraction, weight will never be found.

That if these substances are separated by art, the weight of nature will not be there either, being destroyed and dissipated by the discontinuity of the elements, and one part will always remain separated from the other. Thus those who, taking two materials, claim to work them, purify them and unite them by their sophisticated operations, no less err than those who, taking only a single subject, divide it into several parts, and by a vain dissolution, believe to reunite them anew. Our art does not consist of plurality and although it is ordained almost in all the treatises of the philosophers to take sometimes one thing and sometimes another, namely a fixed part and a volatile part, or else to take gold or some other body, purify it, calcine it and sublimate it,all this is only deception and a pure movement of envy to deceive men; but when they have recognized their errors by their own experience, then they will see that I have only taught the truth.

STRAP VIII

It is not with soft gums or hard excrement, it is not with blood or human sperm, it is not with green grapes or herbal quintessences, with strong waters, corrosive salts, nor with Roman vitriol, nor is it with talcaride, nor impure antimony, nor with sulfur, or mercury, nor finally with the very metals of the vulgar that a skilful artist will work. to our Great Work,

CHAPTER VIII

Those who work on animals, plants, and everything that depends on them, are very seriously mistaken; and whoever can imagine such things is not worthy to bear the name of philosophizing. For, what agreement, I pray you, is there between animals and metals, either material or formal? Will they say, to excuse themselves, that animals, vegetables, and minerals have the same principle of substance in general, having all come out of one and the same chaos? Such ignoramuses know little of nature, and have never seen its light; so it would be a waste of time to amuse oneself by refuting such a vain opinion, especially since one should never argue against those who deny principles.We therefore content ourselves with telling them that instead of undertaking so many vain operations on such weak grounds, it would be even more pardonable for them to anatomize the elements of the air or common water, in which they could find these same substances and less soiled with excrement. We can say the same thing to those who amuse themselves by working on gums and resins, which are really only excrements of the radical humidity of plants, which nature has rejected as a superfluity. It is not that there has not been some slight alteration of the elements, and that they do not contain some specific virtue, capable of action; but that this is far removed from mineral nature, in which alone we should seek what is necessary for our work.

Those are still rushing into an abyss of errors that work on salts, and on strong and corrosive waters; because these things do not have in them this admirable physical sulphur, nature never being but in its own nature; and moreover, they do not have that metallic splendor that we must necessarily find. These sorts of waters can never be useful to us, for they are unnatural humidity which dissipates it and destroys it by their impurities and their stinking spirits; and far from using their ministry for our art, we must on the contrary avoid them like a plague.

But what shall we say of those who work on vitriol? For it seems that they have hit the mark, vitriol containing in itself the principles from which the metallic essence is formed; and thus, having the principle, it is not difficult to arrive at the end. We say that they are mistaken like the others, because this principle is too remote, and because we must take an immediate and specified matter, in which nature has weighed its sperms and has contained therein a prolific seed. Now, since vitriol does not contain this metallic seed, which, as we have said, is not found in the blood which is still raw, but only in a body brought to a certain point of perfection, it is with good reason that it is rejected and that it cannot be taken for our matter.It is the same with vulgar sulfur and quicksilver, in each of which something is wanting, namely in the one the proper agent, and in the other the due matter or the patient; because of which they are rejected by all philosophers. The same thing must be said of the other minerals, in which we cannot find that splendor and that metallic essence of which we have spoken.

But as far as antimony is concerned, it seems to be able to give us what we are looking for; for it has such a great affinity with metals that it can be said that it is properly a raw metal. However, if we examine its intrinsic composition, it is certain that we will find that it has very great superfluities, and among others a coarse and indefinite humidity, which it is very difficult for the art to purify, because its nature is too determined in Saturn, being properly an open and raw lead, transmuted by the operation of nature, which has obliged the philosophers to forbid that one attach to it, nor that one work on it.

Those who work on metals still err a great deal in the choice of the next material to be taken; because being unique, it is not necessary to have fun with too much refinement to make amalgams, nor any other vain mixture. But as we have already dealt with their generation and the causes of their imperfection, which prevents them from being fit for our Work, we will refer the reader to what has been said about it.

For the conclusion of this chapter, we here warn the son of science, that he must profit from the experiments of others, and put in mind that since so many people have worked on minerals, by an infinity of different operations, without however hitting the target, it is necessary that they have erred with regard to the principles, and the foundations of the art, as Count Bernard justifies it by his own experience, teaching us that he has traveled almost all over the world without ever finding that operators ophistics, who did not work in due matter, but always on bad matters, all of which he names and condemns at the same time as useless for the Work.

There must therefore be another way, and another matter which the eyes of the vulgar do not discern; because if the material were, once known, it is certain that after many errors, we would finally find the secret of working it well; but we see that they do not know it, particularly in that they throw themselves from error to error, without ever being able to extricate themselves from it, nor to discern the slightest truth. They always have metals and minerals in their hands, and do not know which are alive, which are dead, which are healthy, which are diseased, and from this ignorance there is still born an infinity of other errors. Until after flattering themselves for a long time, finally losing all hope, they only think of deceiving others.


Of what use are all these various mixtures, since our science contains all the magisterium in a single root which I have already made known to you enough, and perhaps more than I should have. This root contains within it two substances which, however, have only one essence; and these substances, which are at first Gold and Silver only in potency, finally become Gold and Silver in act, provided that we know how to equalize their weights.

CHAPTER IX

As our author speaks here of the equality of weights, we believe ourselves obliged, notwithstanding what we have already said of it, to instruct the studious reader anew.

It is the office of art and not of nature to observe exactly the weight in all things. But when nature already has her own weights, as we have shown in the seventh chapter, the same doctrine teaches us to accommodate our weights to the weights of nature, and to work therein as she does, by way of purification and attraction, that is to say, when we have well purified our substances, and raised them from earthly nature to celestial dignity, at the same time and by the force of attraction we weigh our elements in such just proportion that they remain as scales, without one part can surpass the other, because when one element equals the other in virtue, so for example that the fixed is not overcome by the volatile,

This equality of weight is manifestly seen in vulgar gold, and it is this which causes the virtues of the elements to remain quiet in it, without any dominating over the other; but on the contrary, their force being united by this means, he is able to resist all the contrary qualities of the elements arising from without. In our Work, all the same, when such a mixture is achieved, we can say that we have the true quick Gold of the philosophers, because life is much more abundantly in it than in vulgar Gold, and because it is completely filled with spirits, so that it can be considered immediately as a true Mercury, than as a Sulphur. That should be enough about the weights.

STRAP X

Yes, these substances are now Gold and Silver, and by the equality of their weight, the volatile is fixed in Gold Sulfur. 0 luminous sulfur! 0 Real Animated Gold! I adore in you all the marvels and all the virtues of the Sun. For your Sulfur is a treasure, and the true foundation of the art, which ripens into elixir what nature leads only to the perfection of Gold.

CHAPTER X

The philosophers have written many things touching the virtue of their Sulfur or hidden Stone; and as on this occasion they have not disguised the truth, but on the contrary have clarified it as much as they could, the reader will be able to instruct himself sufficiently in their books, where he will find that it is nothing else than the radical humidity of nature, clothed and enriched with the qualities of innate heat, which has the power to operate admirable, and even incredible things, powerfully demonstrating its virtues in the three kingdoms.

We have already shown what it can operate on animals. With regard to plants, it is doubtless that he can extend their virtue so greatly that a tree will bear fruit three or four times a year, and far from his strength being diminished, they will be increased; for it is a terrestrial Sun which unceasingly spreads its fertile rays from the center to the circumference, fortifying nature so powerfully that it multiplies a hundredfold.

We see that the gardeners have well known how to find the secret of having roses every month, and of multiplying their virtue enough to make it go beyond the ordinary term. Why then, by an even greater comfort, shouldn't other plants be made to grow and multiply? And as for minerals, should we not believe that it will still have much greater effects on them, since they have much more agreement with its fixed nature, and that these effects will be a thousand times more admirable than the authors say, most of whom have not known it well, and the others have deliberately enveloped it in silence? Be that as it may, we maintain that by means of this great secret it will be possible for a skilful artist to extend the force and virtue of things so far,

With regard to what is said that by our Stone, the glass is made malleable, the thing is very uncertain, although for reason it is possible, since, the malleability or the extension comes from a certain fixed and radical oleaginity, which conglutinates things, and unites them by their smallest parts, in which our Stone extremely abounds. Glass being therefore a very pure portion of earth and water deprived of its radical humidity, as we have shown in the chapter on Mercury, it would not be surprising if, by giving it a new radical humidity, its parts would conglutinate, and together form a certain homogeneous being.

Finally, an infinity of miracles can be done by this way, which will however only have the effect of simple natural magic, but which the ignorant will believe to be productions of the devil, not reflecting that it is sacrilege and impiety to attribute to this evil spirit what is due to nature alone, or to the author of nature.

Instead of an epilogue, we only warn the reader that if he reads these things in the spirit of wise curiosity and with a desire to learn, we will gladly dedicate this writing to his leisure, that he may derive from it the fruit which he desires, in proportion to the breadth and capacity of his mind, which we pray God to grant him. But he must also know that every perfect gift comes from the Father of lights, and that it is written that sapience will never enter a defiled soul, and that one may have a subtle mind, or a profound erudition, if the Most High does not design to look with pity on those who invoke him in sincerity of heart, and does not freely grant them this great gift. Whoever therefore will approach without this true disposition, will return without any fruit.We protest, moreover, that if we have advanced anything against the Catholic and Christian faith, directly or indirectly, we want it to be held as unwritten, recognizing that the main point of the philosopher is to walk under the rule of Jesus Christ the Redeemer, and to fear over all things God our Sovereign Judge.

END