By
GASTON LE DOUX,
The goal & end of Argyropée & Chrysopée, that is to say, the Art of Silver & Gold, is to produce Silver & Gold; but it is necessary to have a matter which is the next power to receive the form of Silver & Gold.
1°. In our Apology we have proven by obvious reasons and by some experiments, that this matter is Quicksilver, not only the vulgar one, but also that which resides in the other Metals.
quantity of the Philosophical Stone thrown on a large quantity of Living Silver, changes it into Silver & gold, proves this truth.
2°. The form which by the efficient cause must be impressed in the proximate matter, is not substantial, but accidental; in which there is a great difference: for the substantial constitutes the principal part of the mixed or compound body; it is of the predicate of the substance, & it gives the name to the mixed body: it is unique in each body, & it is properly called form. But the accidental form does not constitute a part of the body, nor is it of the predicament of the substance, but of others; nor does it give the name to the mixed body, but there are several together, such as quantity, quality, &c. It cannot subsist by itself, but it must be in a subject in which it can be or not be really or by imagination & understanding, without the substantial form being corrupted:
Such are the first & second qualities. The substantial form is the first act of the mixed body; the accidental is the subsequent act. When Quicksilver and other metals are changed into Silver or Gold, their substantial form does not perish, but only the accidental one; neither the compound is not destroyed, but it is perfected: never corrupts without something being generated, and a new substantial form being born.
But because I see clearly that many have a contrary feeling, because two forms cannot be in the same subject; I ask them if the substantial form of an unripe grape is the same as that of this grape when it is ripe, or if it is different? I think they will answer that it is the same substantial form; & they will not dare to say that it has only just begun. Now this grape is not ripe, because it can be perfected by maturity: Therefore this perfection is not of the substantial form, but of an accidental one. But, corrupted & destroyed which was before, & is no longer now; therefore the first form which was in the compound is destroyed, and now there is another. Thus they teach that Quicksilver which was before, is corrupted after it is changed into Silver or Gold.
I grant them that when Quicksilver is changed into Silver or Gold, it there is a change, or if you want a corruption of the accidents which were before; and that the previous accidental form perishes, and that a generation of other accidents takes place , and that in the subject another form is born accidental. However, the substantial form and the first act of Argentvif are not lost, but remain there; & Quicksilver or the compound which was imperfect, has become perfect: But when common Quicksilver, or that which was in other metals, is changed into Silver or Gold, it does not lose all the accidents that he had before; because those which are specific and common to Silver, Gold and Quicksilver remain. Now all the accidents which are specific and common to them, mainly to Gold and Quicksilver, are that they are neither corrupted nor burned by fire; to be free from unctuous humidity capable of being burned & burning; that their mixing which takes place in the substantial parts are indissoluble; let them be very heavy, and others similar: But the other accidents which do not belong to the property of the substantial form, perish; & it is accidental to Money.
lively whether it is subtle, liquid, volatile, indefinite & without stopping; because when it is thick, solid, fixed & cooked, it is limited & becomes perfect.
It is therefore certain that common quicksilver, or which is in imperfect metals, is only different from silver and gold by the accidental form, which cannot be known by the functions of the senses. , but through understanding & reason; & which being stripped of the previous accidental forms which do not belong to the property of the substantial form, can do all the functions of Silver & Gold; like resisting fires and suffering all the trials, according to the nature of one and the other. This is enough for matter which is a next power to Art; & for the form also in which it takes after it has arrived at the later act; because we have written more at length in the Treatises which we have already given to the Public.
3°¨ I intend to deal more fully with the efficient cause, to supplement and repair what we have said less sufficiently and truly. The efficient cause is that which, through destruction, creates form accidental of Quicksilver, or of that which is in metals, gives it the perfection of Silver & Gold. Many believed that fire and external heat alone was the efficient cause, because by purifying it separates and cooks heterogeneous things. Albert the Great is the author of this opinion, book 4. of Minerals, chap, 7. He thinks that three bodies can be drawn not only from metals, but also from all mixed bodies.
From what above, he says, it is constant in some way so that it reasons several Alchemists assure that from any elemental body three can be drawn; namely Oil, glass & Gold: for it is clear from what has been said many times, that in each elemental body there is some moist fat spread around the parts; & because it is viscous, at the same time as the viscous humidity vanishes, it distils from the lit roasted body, because by the assation it is pushed from within where it was more constantly defended from the fire, to the out.
Moreover, in all mixed bodies there is a watery moisture mixed with an earthly subtlety, so that one retains the other; & this very strongly roasted body , by sublimating itself in the interior pores whose exterior orifices are closed by the combustion, is divided into two: because what is coarser & aqueous swims in the upper parts of the body; & speak very strong fire it spreads with the effusion of a glass which by the cold condenses into glass:
But the purest being sublimated because of the heat, becomes yellow and spreads with an effusion of Gold, which by the cold it freezes into Gold. Some may have experienced this in imperfectly mixed metals; but they wasted their time & their work. This will happen Optesis in Greek, it is the action which roasts less in quicksilver, although Geber in his Book of Perfection, teaches that by the too long duration of the fire it will freeze and thicken; but I do n't think we'll get through it in three years. But if metals which are imperfect mixed we were to draw Gold, this change would be made by generation & corruption: & we do not draw it from this matter, but by mixing, as we proved in the Apology, & as we will confirm it below by reasons very obvious.
4°. Others wanted all kinds of salts, alums, inks and the smallest minerals to help the heat of the fire; then they invented several types of cement, & several gradations made with distilled etchings but all these things not being the material of metals, do not mix more than fire alone, nor make anything more perfect & even do not help the heat, except to rather corrupt the imperfect metals & changing them into glass; because they consume the humid and burn the terrestrial. However, I do not want to deny that pure silver, often exposed to cementing with common salt, and glass which we call Alkali, and after reduced to a body, we do not draw Gold, which the strong water of separation causes to remain at the bottom of the vessel; because by the reiteration of the operation Silver is purified, its moisture is cooked & fixed: & because it is perfectly mixed, it cannot be torn off nor separated from earthly dryness; & this same dryness which is currently white & potentially red , becomes red by this concoction & dyes its own citrine color humidity: But all these sauces cost more than fish.
5° There are others who think that the efficient cause is some salts taken from imperfect metals; & for this subject they tried to mix these salts by the same cementations & gradations with Quicksilver, or with the same metals. I grant them that this mixture can be made, because all these things have a common substance and contrary qualities; but I don't think they have the virtue of making silver or gold. I also admit that with salt taken from copper & iron, mixed & enveloped in an amalgam made with Gold, Silver & Quicksilver, we can increase the quantity of Gold by cooking & reduction, as I taught in the Book De recta & vera ratione progignendi Lapidis Philosophici; but this increase is of such a small amount that the expense exceeds the profit: So if all those who use their trouble and their money uselessly in these kinds of operations took my advice, I would tell them to save so much effort and of expenses, & to begin to be wise, if they do not want to be miserable & beggar after several years.
6°. The true & natural subject of the efficient cause of Gold & Silver is nothing other than Gold & Silver: It is in vain that we hope for it and seek it in other things. Fire is the principle which from another body produces & increases the fire; Silver & Gold are also the principles which produce & increase Silver & Gold in the next matter: And as nature has generally given to all seeds of all species the virtue of multiplying, she used the same with regard to Silver & Gold To increase them, although by a species of mutation different from that which is found in animals & in plants: because in these the efficient cause firstly corrupts the things on which it acts, and finally it changes and converts the same subject; but Silver & Gold are mixed with the first matter. They alter first, perfection: but this force & virtue or this efficient cause is a property which is not of the kind of the elements nor of their primary or secondary qualities, nor does it take its origin from them; but it is derived only from the form of the mixed body. It is also outside the human senses, and we cannot perceive it either by taste, nor by odor, nor by touch, nor by any sense, when it is born; but only by observation & experience which is confirmed by long use.
We have therefore recognized by perpetual observations that it is neither fire, nor trees, nor animals which generate; but that the virtues & faculties which are in each seed are the causes & the main workers of generation & multiplication. That if previously we said that in inanimate bodies fire and heat were the efficient cause, we must understand this as a secondary cause and not the main one, which we must not look for elsewhere than in the Silver & gold. Nevertheless, it must be admitted that the subject of the efficient cause can neither receive nor give perfection, except with the help of external heat.
7°. Since the virtue of making Silver & Gold is in Silver & Gold & we have said that by mixing them with the first matter we achieve perfection, metals or quicksilver, they do not give the same perfection: because quicksilver mixed & amalgamated with Gold does not perfect quicksilver, but quicksilver loosens into vapor; & however the cold turns it into quick silver, but the Gold persists. Likewise, lead fused with Silver or Gold does not take the perfection of Silver or Gold, as we see by the proof of the cup; but Silver & Gold always remain the same.
This question is not only not useless, but it also discovers the secret of this Art; and he who does not know the explanation must not see clearly in the practice of the work: here then is the decision. is in each body the first & the principal efficient, in which the force, the faculty & the property with which it acts is hidden; but which alone is ineffective for acting, if it is not provided with first and second qualities , as well as its instruments. Just as an artisan can form in his soul a statue in idea, but he cannot form it on a stone nor make it visible, if he does not have instruments for this; in the same way also the form of Silver & Gold has in itself the force & faculty of producing Silver & Gold by an occult property; but which is ineffective in acting if it is not armed with the strength of qualities.
their nature, do not act on metals or on quicksilver, when they are mixed together.
Many have been of the feeling that the thickness of Silver & Gold is the cause that they cannot exercise on quick silver & metals their productive property of Silver & Gold; but that if they were reduced in spirit and subtle consistency, they could produce Gold from quick silver and imperfect metals. For Augurel, speaking of metals, teaches it in this way: That if they do not produce their child outside, he says, the cause is that the spirit which gives all life, being hidden under much matter, does not deploy that with difficulty his strength, hidden forces. And a little later speaking of the spirit of Gold he adds: Finally this spirit retained in Gold requires the hand of the worker who loosens the bonds, and who makes it powerful by his own virtue. If someone deploys this spirit, and then cooks it for a long time with a lukewarm fire, he will also see that life is given to Gold with a long use of seed, and he will not fail to do so. 'Gold of Gold.
Geber also teaches in various places that the reduction of various barks into very small parts is the cause of mixing and true union; but we maintain with Aristotle that the tenuity of the substance of bodies is not the main cause of mixture, but it only helps. The order and law of true mixing is this: Firstly , that the bodies which must mix touch each other by a mathematical touch in the thinnest parts, so that they act on each other. other, and that they receive each other with equal and fighting forces.
Now the bodies that must be mixed only act & receive by means of the first & second qualities, which are hot, humid, cold & dry : because hot acting against cold, & wet against dry, destroy each other, because these primary qualities are capable of acting & receiving mutually; which does not happen in the secondary qualities, between which we must take into account the tenuity & the thickness: but very certain that the tenuity of the substance is of great assistance to the first qualities to act.
But just as form acts through the first qualities as through its instruments, so these first qualities act through the second. This is how by a well-proportioned combat of the first qualities in the common matter, which is reduced into very thin parts, there results a perfect mixture and the true union of various bodies capable of mixture. In truth, Silver and Gold do not have so much strength from heat and drought, metals, & they are of too thick a consistency to be able to enter into the parts of others. It is therefore up to Art to make the degrees of heat, dryness and tenuity of Silver and gold more extensive and stronger, so that with these weapons the faculty and virtue of producing Silver & Gold, drives out quick silver & other metals from a certain accidental form, introducing another suitable to the productive form of Silver & Gold. It is thus and not otherwise that true Gold & Silver is made with the help of Art, quicksilver and other metals; but the extension of qualities in a subject is the acquisition of a form accidental in all parts, which form was not previously in the same subject nor in all its parts, as when a hand cold in all or some of its parts becomes hot everywhere.
With regard to the intention, it is done when the degree of the accidental form, which was already presently in the whole subject, acquires a greater force, the degree of its first heat remaining however the same: so that the forces of Silver & Gold, that the substances of heat, dryness & tenuity which are existing in the subject with the act, will increase; & the more vigorous they are, the more quickly the form which produces Silver & Gold, will act on the matter which is next in power, and will give to a greater number of parts the perfection of a very true Silver & Gold.
But this intention in degrees of the qualities in Silver or Gold, depends on their different preparation, which is the whole and the main part of the practice of Silver & Gold, in which all those who devote themselves to this Art must put all their care & work: This is also what moved us to put as the title of this new Edition: Of the triple Preparation of Silver & Gold. I know that there are many who use several other preparations:
Silver and Gold, that is good; but we intend to explain now those which are supported by authority, reason and partly by experience: However we will do it in a few words and still concise, so that we do not discover secrets if great & so many mysteries to those who are unworthy, to the impious & to the mockers. 8°. The first preparation of Silver & Gold is their reduction in lime: because all calcined things become hotter, drier & finer through this firing. The lime of the stone is a clear proof of this:
Therefore Silver & Gold which had a weaker virtue than being calcined, calcination more intense heat, dryness & tenuity, become more effective in acting. Now they are calcined by amalgamating them with quicksilver, and expressing the amalgam through leather; so that there remains a small ball of the two which has not passed through the leather. We mix with this little ball something which is of the nature of quicksilver (but reason does not give everything to the vulgar.) The whole being well crushed and placed in a glass vessel, it is cooked, until that by the force of the fire the quick silver and what is of its nature are expired or passed away, the lime of the Silver and the Gold remain at the bottom of the vessel.
very subtle powder without any shine. Finally, armoniac salt, already perfectly purged by sublimation, is added to their lime, and it is further sublimated four or more times, so that the lime acquires a greater degree of heat, dryness and tenuity; but this degree of intention and this preparation is weaker than the others, because the lime has not left all of its metallic nature, and it still retains part of its thickness; even it would return there, if it were melted by a fusion fire.
This is why all quicksilver does not advance in Silver or Gold indifferently; but only that one or which, being cooked from its nature, is drawn artistically imperfect metals, or the vulgar which is delivered from its excessive cold and humidity by an often repeated sublimation, and which as if dead attaches itself to the sides of the vessel, and afterwards becomes alive and flowing again. The way to act is to make an amalgam with three parts of one or the other of these quicksilves, and one of the lime of Silver and Gold; & after having put them in a glass vessel suitable for this, we cook them first with a weak fire, & then increase little by little: Immediately afterwards you will see your amalgam take on different colors, until finally the mixture silver lime with quick silver has taken on a color of ashes or whitish, & that the mixture of golden lime has acquired a red color, & that both are reduced to a very subtle & impalpable powder.
It is a marvel that the same bright silver mixed with different limes takes on different colors at the end of the firing. It is an even greater marvel that it takes on different thicknesses and weights; because golden lime cooked with quicksilver is thicker and heavier than white lime in the same quantity. To put an end to this admiration, we must understand that the difference in color & weight does not come from the elements of Silver or Gold, nor from their qualities; but first of all & immediately of the form of the same Silver & Gold: And it should be noted that the quick silver artistically drawn from Silver being mixed with the lime of Gold, receives by the firing more suddenly the perfection of Gold, because approaching maturity, it is less resistant to Golden lime.
9°. The second preparation is the reduction which is made of the silver or gold lime into a fusible salt, and then into oil; but the only Art does it with the same method as we usually do with all mixed calcined bodies: because we start with a lye often purged with felt, and afterward it thickens with a gentle heat. What remains after having exhausted aqueous moisture is salt, or that which has the nature of salt, as we recognize it by the flavor. It dissolves in any cold & humid liquor, because it has been frozen by dry heat; but as mixed bodies of various genera & species have different faculties, so also do the salts obtained from them. Hence it is that those who are drawn from Silver & Gold have a faculty of producing Silver & Gold; I understand this virtue of making Silver & Gold, but much more excellent & more effective than their lime, because this preparation cleanses them of their impure lees: because it is then a very pure earth which leans towards nature fire & becomes excellent.
And the more the salts are purged by the felt and thickened, the greater their strengths become; but in order to give them more tenuity, after several solutions & coagulations, they reduce themselves into oil, if they are exposed to a cold & humid place, & the oils thicken again with a gentle dry heat ; And this operation is repeated until they can no longer coagulate by dry heat; but being exposed in a hot or cold place, like walnut or olive oil, they do not thicken, but remain runny. These oils mixed with common quicksilver change into Silver or Gold, depending on the nature of one or more the other, starting with a gentle cooking, and then stronger for eight days: We can only know the dose by experience.
But this aurific oil has another virtue: because if we mix seven ounces of living silver perfectly purged seven times by sublimation with an ounce of this oil, we send back down several times what the force of the fire had raised and thickened , finally it will attach itself with the oil and remain like oil in the boiling fire; & removed from the fire, it will firm up like ice. An ounce of this coagulation thrown on pure Silver will give it the perfection of very fine Gold; but experience alone can teach the quantity & dose of Money: for the more carefully or carelessly the preparation has been made, the more or less Money will be changed. The sign of perfection, both of the oil and of the sublimation fixed with the oil, will be if a grain of one or the other thrown on a burning blade, melts like wax without smoke, and that it enters the interior parts of the blade, giving it a silver or gold color, just as oil quickly penetrates paper.
This oil is a medicine of the second order which freezes quicksilver, of which Geber in his Book of Perfection, chap. 26. speaks in these terms. Quicksilver being fugitive due to easy inflammation, needs a medicine which attaches itself deeply to it before its flight, and which joins it with its smallest parts and thickens and by its fixation is preserved in the fire until it happens to be able to endure a greater fire which would consume its humidity, & through this benefit changes it into a true solific & lunific cause, that is to say into Gold or Silver, depending on whether the medicine will be prepared. He says elsewhere: From this it must be inferred that medicine, whatever it is made of, must necessarily be of a very subtle substance, which by its nature attaches itself to it in a very easy and very subtle liquefaction like water, & fixed in the fight of fire: in a solar or lunar nature.
This oil certainly has all these properties & qualities: What is more subtle & purer than oil? What is more attached to quicksilver than Silver & Gold, but mainly Gold? What is easier to liquefy than oil that is runny? What is more subtle in consistency than oil? And what is more fixed, since it is drawn from Silver and Gold which bear all the force fire. The Writings of Raymond Lulle teach nothing other than how to make this oil from Silver & Gold, but by another way: because by the distillation of all kinds of salts, waters which by their very acute force dissolve the already calcined Silver & Gold; then he coagulates them with a slow fire: & he says that the part of these waters which is the thickest & most effective (which he calls spirit of quintessence,) fixes it & unites with Silver or Gold , & changes into oil, with which it mixes seven times as much sublimated, perfectly purged quicksilver, which it fixes by repeated sublimation.
But I fear that the spirits of these waters cannot attach themselves to black with Silver & Gold, either because they are of various materials, or because they are stripped of the proportion of the metallic nature. only fire: which will be painful for the ignorant and those who do not have experience, but very easy for the learned and experienced.
But the oil prepared in our way is undoubtedly something else, and stripped of any foreign or suspicious body. It is the true potable Gold which is a sovereign remedy for several desperate illnesses, if it is true what is said about potable Gold , and which I do not dare to assure, because it is not in the limits of Chrysopoeia, and that it must be referred to the judgments of Physicians.
But whatever we like or not, it is certain and we have experienced it, that Gold with fire alone can be changed into oil, this it will no longer return to Gold, unless it is like a gold tincture it is mixed with quick silver or pure Silver, and it gives them its perfection.
10°. The third & final preparation of Gold (I will not speak of the preparation of Silver, because that has the strength of both) surpasses in much more intense forces & faculties the previous ones; because in this preparation the spirit of Gold is raised alongside the vessel by fiery heat, just as soot comes out of wood. This spirit subsequently through the coction becomes fixed in a stone first white, then later in red powder. This powder is the real aurific salt & the Stone Philosophical, or aurific tincture. Its strength and faculty is to give, by the sole projection, to all kinds of quick silver and to all metals, the perfection of Gold.
It possesses so many admirable virtues that through this sublimation it takes on a celestial and igneous nature; that he strips himself of all earthly impurity; from which, being delivered as if from its bonds, it draws from the metals their quicksilver and separates it: It still cooks, it stops, it dyes, it changes into Gold in a moment the vulgar quicksilver; what Golden oil which is not yet sublimated (much less Golden lime) cannot do; but Silver & Gold which are not yet altered in their nature cannot do anything at all, Many have written many things about the method and manner of raising these Golden spirits; but we will say the most suitable, easiest and most reasonable way, according to Geber's feeling, that we mix perfectly four ounces of aurific oil with as much quicksilver, by grinding them for a long time, so that they mingle down to the smallest parts. Put this mixture in a closed glass flask with lut; first give it a weak fire, then after violent & sudden for the space of twelve hours: let the vessel cool, break it, and you will find in the upper part of the vessel the Red Sublimated Quick Silver; because quicksilver sublimated, because all its substance is similar, will draw with itself a part of the aurific spirit, which is called sulfur: because like common sulfur by concoction & sublimation dyes Quicksilver in a red color, & that of the two it is 'in fact cinnabar; in the same way also from this spirit of Gold and sublimated living Silver , a sublimated red is made.
If all the spirit of the oil has not risen, mix with what remains at the bottom of the vessel, new sublimated quicksilver; sublimate again, & repeat this operation until almost all the oil is elevated in spirit. I said almost, because there will be feces at the bottom, which must be thrown away as useless.
our Philosophical Stone. This matter is fixed by cooking alone, and changes into fixed spiritual salt, with the degrees of heat that we have prescribed in our Treatise De recta & vera ratione progignendi Lapidis Philosophici, to which I refer the Reader.
11°. It remains to deal briefly with the increase of silver or gold lime, and silver or aurific oil. So when the lime of Silver & Gold has converted into itself the Quicksilver taken from imperfect metals, or the Quicksilver already perfectly purged & sublimated; it must be calcined again, and mixed with a new quick silver taken from imperfect metals, or the vulgar sublimated; or fix it by cooking with the same degrees of heat than the first. And for a similar reason, sublimated living silver fixed with the oil of silver or gold increases in quantity if we calcine it and reduce it to oil, and if we mix more with sublimated again & fixed by cooking. We must thus judge the increase of the Philosophical Stone in quantity as the grains of wheat sown increase and multiply to infinity.
We should not be surprised that we have said that the matter of the increase of Silver & Gold lime is the same as that of oil & the Philosophical Stone; namely, Quicksilver taken from imperfect bodies, or the vulgar sublimated: have the same food, with which they grow & multiply; & each species of seed attracts and changes the food in itself. This is how the same foods are converted into the bodies of different species of animals which feast on them. Thus the prepared Quicksilver is like the food, both of the lime of Silver & Gold, as well as of the oil of both, or of the Philosophical Stone; & it takes the nature, substance & form of that from which it increases, although the foods of vegetables & animals are only converted by their corruption & generation, & quicksilver by mixing.
But the size of our Philosophical Stone does not only increase in quantity; it still grows all together in virtues and faculties, if the Philosophical Stone already brought to light is again reduced to oil, which with new living silver sublimated by a violent and precipitated fire, is elevated into a spirit which settles little by little by the first degree of heat: and the more often we repeat the operation, the more it will receive an increase in size and virtue. Geber says that in this order of solution, sublimation & fixation, we achieve the secret which is over all the secrets of the sciences of all the world, & the treasure which is incomparable.
12°. It still remains to be proven by very obvious demonstrations that the mutation of living silver, metals, is done by mixing alone, and not by other mutations. It still remains to discuss this mixture more fully than we have done in our previous works: For many things can be said against it.
1° That all mutation takes place either in the substance, & it is generation & corruption; or in quality, & it is called alteration; or in the place, and it is properly the movement, and not mutation: So it is in a species of these mutations, at least of the first three, that the mutation of quick silver and other metals takes place in Silver or Gold, and not by mix. Moreover, since we have said that Gold reduced to lime can return to being Or by fusion, the species of this mutation will be alteration; but if this lime increases by the addition of quicksilver, it will be an increase. Then after when Gold is converted into lime, lime into salt, salt into oil, oil into spirit, & spirit again into lime, these mutations will be understood under the species of generation & corruption.
To these and other similar objections, we respond on the authority of Aristotle and all other Philosophers, that mixture is understood under the genus of mutation, and that it is different from other species. For greater understanding of this, it is necessary to notice that the things which contain & compete in mixtures, do not all agree or compete in other mutations.
2° That the things which are mixed are actually and by themselves separated and subsisting before being mixed, and consequently that their matter is common; then after, by touching each other and when they mingle, they act and receive each other through their first contrary qualities. Item, that in the mixture there is none which corrupts or perishes, nor which destroys the other, but that both are altered; the forces of the agent and the patient on both sides diminish and are reduced to a certain temperament, subject of the agent benefits, and that of the patient receives; finally that from altered mixed bodies there emerges a body of a single form which participates in the nature of both, and which however is not the first subject of either the agent or the patient, but a third party. This is why Aristotle, defining mixture, says that it is the union of things which can be mixed and which are altered.
All this must be understood as true mixing: but even though it seems that Aristotle spoke of the mixing of simple bodies, it nevertheless nevertheless takes place mainly in the mixing of our argentific & aurific seed, & of quicksilver and the metals from which it is constant that they are already mixed. First, they are all currently separate and subsist on their own before being mixed.
They also have a common material: for they are all quicksilver, but one more perfect than the other; & we have shown that they are only different by their accidental forms, because they combat each other with contrary qualities: the seed is hot & dry, the silver quick & the metals cold & humid, if not actually, at least in potency, as the Doctors say when talking about their medications. So when they touch it & mingle, they act & receive, mutually: They are also opposite in tenuity & thickness. The seed is subtle, so that it can penetrate the parts of quicksilver and metals; & these are coarse & thick, so that they retain the nature of metal.
Moreover, in the mixture neither one nor the other is corrupted, nor does it perish, nor is it destroyed; but they are all altered: because after the perfect mixture, the tincture of the argentific & aurific seed is seen in quick silver, or in changed metals; & the dye being changed, the quicksilver remains as before the mixture, but stopped, finished & cooked.
Metals also converted into Silver & Gold remain metals: because they retain in them the kind of metal; but the virtues & faculties are broken, both the active ones of the seed or tincture, and the passive & resistant ones of the quicksilver of the metals, but the active ones in acting perfect, and the passive ones in receiving are perfected. Finally the mixed body which results from this action & passion, is not the seed or quicksilver, or the metal as it was before the mixture, but a third body; namely Silver or Gold, which has a single substantial and accidental form, which is that of Silver or Gold; & this third body participates in the nature of the other two.
But common sense shows that all this is not suitable for other species of mutation: because the things which generate & which corrupt, & those which are generated & corrupted, can actually subsist in themselves in the face of generation & corruption, like fire & wood; but their matter is not common, any more than that of animals and the foods which are converted into them. But when they touch, the fire acts on the wood and the animals on the food, and receive nothing from it; but wood and food alone receive, and neither resist nor act. That if we admit some recurrence in these agents, it would only take place during the time of their action; but when the meal was over, they would resume their first forces, like heat acting on food receives something from them; but once digestion is over, it regains the strength it had before. Besides this, what is corrupt perishes entirely, and from being what it was, it becomes non- being; but that which is generated was not before, and from not being it is made a being: for the wood which by burning becomes fire, is corrupted, and the fire is generated; & there takes place, as they say, a resolution of all the accidents down to the first matter, nor do we find in the generated body any of the accidents which were in the corrupt before corruption: Hence it is that we do not say that wood is mixed with fire.
Likewise in the generation & corruption the forces & qualities of the generator & the corrupter, of the corrupt & the begotten, are not broken on either side ; but these remain and these perish, and the action of the corrupting and engendering does not make the third body participate in the nature of the two; but the corrupt is changed into that of the begetter, like wood on fire and food into the substance of the animal; or if the forces are equal, they are both destroyed, and a third is generated, which is entirely different from their nature: as in simple bodies, when they are resolved into smoke and ashes by water and fire, he makes himself a air, & in the mixed by fire; because what is thus resolved perishes & not one of these first accidents remains.
This reason further shows the difference between the species of mutation which we call augmentation or growth, and nutrition in animals and vegetables; & between the species of mutation called mixtion, as we consider the mutation of that which increases & nourishes itself: because it is corrupted, & there is a generation in part; but what is increased & nourished or diminished, remains the same body after the increase, nutrition & decrease: But the difference between alteration & mixture, is that the qualities which alter are accidents which cannot subsist by themselves; but they always attach to substances. This is why they are not mixed; but the things which mix are separate substances which subsist separately, like the argentific or aurific seed, & quick silver & imperfect metals: Because the true mixture takes place with the bodies; but temperament is one of the only qualities.
What we have said about the increase of Silver & Gold, when their lime is mixed with quick silver taken from imperfect metals or the vulgar a little freed from its coldness & its humidity by means of art, is not to be understood as a true increase by which the same body which was before remains after the increase; but because this lime is not not very far from the nature of Silver & Gold, and that it would return there by a fusion fire: Then they would be in some way fragile or breakable, because something of their humidity has been exhausted by calcination ; but which would easily become ductile if we threw on them when they are melted, a small quantity of sublimated quicksilver.
However, when we admit that this mutation is a kind of increase, it would belong even more to the mixture, both because lime through alteration has a certain nature with forces and qualities different from Silver & 'But which have not been altered, only because quicksilver in the mixture with lime is not destroyed, but perfected; & that the mixture of the two results in a third body which is neither lime nor quicksilver, but a powder which by fusion melts into Silver or Gold.
This same powder before being melted, can be made into lime by a longer & more vehement cooking. For the same reasons, what we have said about the increase of both lime & oil in quantity only, or of the Philosophical Stone, or aurific salt in quantity & virtue, belongs more to the mixture than to the increase; but it is more true and obvious that the mutation of quicksilver and other metals into silver or in Gold, by Gold oil or by the Philosophical Stone, is done by mixing : because the oil and the Philosophical Stone are further from the nature of Silver & Gold, than It's not lime. That if we must draw a reason from the mutation of mixed bodies, from what they were before being mixed; it must be admitted that the mutation of Silver & Gold into lime, oil or Philosophical Stone, is only an alteration: As if we understood by thought alone the mutation of quicksilver & other metals, in Silver or Gold separately without mixing, it would only be an alteration; but after a perfect mix, she will no longer be the only one alteration of both, but the union of various altered bodies in a single mixed form.
13°. Since this belongs to the Treatise on Mixtion, I will add the things that have been said elsewhere; namely, that the equality of contrary qualities is the principle of mixed things; I mean argentic, aurific seed, quick silver & imperfect metals; which equality must not be measured by size or weight, but by the efficient virtue of power: which must be deduced more clearly by demonstration. No one doubts that we cannot estimate bodies by their weight, and that we cannot discern with the senses those which weigh more or less: but it is impossible to weigh with scales the primary qualities, which are hot, cold, humid & dry which are in these mixed bodies; we judge by their power & efficiency alone how great they were. We can therefore weigh in the balance the body which is the subject of the efficient cause, namely Silver or Gold, or what has been altered by them; & that of the patient, namely quick silver & metals : but we cannot weigh their qualities. But when the same subjects of the efficient & patient cause are mixed, it is not necessary that they be of the same size & gravity: because the substances of the four simple bodies, or elements, are not of the same weight or size, when they are mixed and a mixture results; because in Gold there is more of the substance of earth, as we know it by its gravity, than there is of water, and even less of air, and even less of fire than of the others.
But the contrary qualities of simple bodies, and even of mixed ones that we want to mix together, must be equal in degree; so that the subjects are reduced to a temperament. For example, if lime, oil or the Philosophical Stone are hot, dry & subtle in one degree, common quicksilver or that of metals must also be cold, humid & thick in one degree. If these have several degrees of heat, dryness & humidity, it is necessary that these have several degrees of contrary qualities, to fight on equal strength. Physicians call this temperament justice, and not weight: However, the qualities of the patient subject who is heavier or lighter in size and quantity, will be greater or lesser in extension, but not in intention. For example, if an ounce of quicksilver has one degree of cold, two ounces will have two, and three ounces three, and so on for the rest: But the thing is otherwise in the subject of efficient cause; because by the different preparation, the quality of heat, dryness & tenuity in a subject of the same size & weight, can have more or more less virtue: this is why an ounce of Philosophical Stone has many more and stronger degrees of active qualities than an ounce of oil; & this one has more than an ounce of lime.
To find the right proportion of the subject agent and patient, let us suppose that the subject agent, for example golden lime, is an ounce in weight, but that this ounce has three degrees of heat, dryness and tenuity; & that the patient subject, for example quick silver, in an ounce has only a degree of contrary qualities; it will be necessary to mix an ounce of lime with three ounces of quicksilver, because in a single ounce of agent there is as much degrees of active qualities, as there are passive ones in three ounces of the patient subject.
That if an ounce of the agent subject had a hundred thousand degrees (more or less) of active qualities, this quantity would have to be mixed with a hundred thousand ounces (more or less) of living silver; & this is how we must estimate the equality of contrary qualities: But we cannot give a certain rule of this proportion; only experience and the discernment of the eyes can determine it.
But from what we have said that lime, oil & the Philosophical Stone abound in intense qualities of heat, dryness & tenuity; it must not be inferred that they have abandoned their temperament: for we have not said so only by comparison, by comparing them with the qualities of quicksilver and imperfect metals. Without this, speaking absolutely, these are very temperate, and their qualities and virtues are all equal; and for this reason the fire does not dissolve them: but it dissolves quicksilves, because of their bad weather; except that they are reduced to the temperament of Gold & Silver, and that they are perfected by the benefit of the mixture.
14°. Here we could ask whether we can extract lime, salt, and oil from imperfect metals; and if with oil the spirits can be sublimated or fixed, as we said of Silver and Gold; & if these things mixed with quicksilver & imperfect metals, will be able to reduce them to their temperament & perfect them. It is certain that through Art we can obtain all these things, as is said of Silver and Gold; but it is impossible to reduce imperfect things to temperament & perfect them: The reason is that in Silver & Gold alone, Nature has placed the argentific & aurific force & property which immediately follows from the sole form. I know that no one, or almost no one, paid attention to what I said about mixing: however, if we ignore or omit this, it will not be easy to respond to the arguments of our adversaries who fight this Art, & those who want to come to practice, will walk like blind people: For the arguments that we make against this Art, are drawn from the resemblance of the mutations that we recognize in animals and vegetables, which are corrupted, generated, nourished or altered: but money- alive & imperfect metals are neither corrupted, nor generated, nor increased, but altered; & they are mixed & united with the subject of the efficient & perficient, argentific & aurific cause.
End of the Treaty of the Triple Preparation of Gold & Silver.
Clear & abbreviated explanation.
I believe that we have argued enough on both sides in our Apology, whether the Art of making Silver & Gold is a true Art, or not: We have again confirmed by very obvious reasons, that the proximate matter of Silver & Gold, that is to say, the seed of Gold, or what takes the place of the seed of Silver & Gold, is nothing other thing that quicksilver, whether the vulgar or that which is in other metallic bodies, and which only needs the perfection which gives it the efficient and efficient cause in the way of Silver and of the Gold. We said that this main efficient cause is Argyrogony & Chrysogony, the cause that helps; but we have only discussed in passing between one and the other efficient cause.
Argyrogony & Chrysogony being the main efficient cause, it is more perfect & nobler than the matter which it informs & perfects, and which Nature has not completed, having left it after having begun it; & she awaits the hand of the Worker who helps & serves her: It is also this that we must discuss & treat more clearly than I did in my Apology, in order to partially satisfy to the obligation that I voluntarily imposed on myself in the same Apology.
I undertake this all the more willingly, take an Infinite amount of trouble & make great expenses, making at every step experiments without reason, the greater part of which has been left in writing by those who profess this Art; & finally only collect debts from all their work. I have compassion on them all; & I thought I was doing them a service, by putting these misguided people back on the right path: I will not show them any of these difficult works, but I will show them easier ones and at much less expense than they used & n will be used by those who have sought in good faith Argyrogony or Chrysogony, which I now call the Philosophers' Stone, or the argentific or aurific Salt. That is why as we said in the Apology, those who are fond of Chrysopoeia must devote all their work to the search for this aurific Salt, and reject all others.
But so that it does not seem that we are working in vain in the way of seeking & completing this Salt, we must first know why we call it Aurific Salt? Why also having its aurific virtue, it gives to common quicksilver, or to that which is in metals, the perfection of a very true gold. Here is the reason & the cause In all mixed bodies, with regard to the mixture alone, several & different substances are drawn through the Ministry of Art which are generally divided into two, because their matter is mainly composed of water & earth although it is also composed of the substances of fire & air: but the humid substance just like water becomes rarefied by the action of fire. rises in vapor & exhalation, but the substance dry like earth remains & it is fixed.
Both of these substances are further divided into two; because between the humid ones there is an aqueous one, having the qualities of water, namely cold and humid; the other is aerial or oily, having the qualities of air, namely humidity & heat & the two are distinguished by tenuity & thickness: because the one which has more earth, is thicker; & the one which is more subtle, has less earth: because the substance of water is not pure, but it still participates in the substance of the other elements, namely water and fire.
But between the dry, there is a difference between the pure & subtle, between the impure & gross. The pure & subtle has the name & nature of Salt, having in part the quality of the earth, namely drought; & partly that of fire, namely heat. The impure and gross is like the dregs of other substances, which by the excellent heat of the fire is changed into glass.
That all these substances are really different, we see very easily in bodies of weak mixture, which have their heterogeneous parts like the woods; but it is with difficulty that we know him in bodies of a uniform mixture, & composed of similar parts; because when they are burned, a food humor comes out which is aqueous and subtle; the flame having ceased, an aqueous and partly oily substance is contained in the charcoal, but both thicker. These substances being separated, what remains is the ash, from which the salt is drawn and flowed by lye; because by the active heat the water of the lye goes away in vapor; & what remains earthly at the bottom of the vessel is recognized as salty by taste: but the Salt being drawn, the ash which remains melts into glass by the action of igneous heat.
This ash by metaphor is called dead earth and thick, because it has no virtue: but the other substances are called spirituous, of a very subtle essence and like living, because they have its admirable faculties to act: but the most effective of all is the substance of Salt, whether we consider its ability to act; for Salt is of an igneous nature, mainly because of its heat, as if drawn by a long and vehement fire: whether we consider its faculty for receiving, because it is of an earthly nature which is not overcome by the force of the fire: whether we have regard to the tenuity of the substance of the same Salt, because it is free from impure and coarse faeces, from which it penetrates and enters into the solid parts.
This is the cause why we need only the aurific salt, especially since in its substance is rooted an igneous virtue & faculty which stops the indefinite humidity of quick silver & tempers it: there is still an earthly & fixed one which retains the same humidity, thickens it and fixes it, and gives the perfection of gold to other metals which it finally dyes in a fixed internal gold color: because salt is a very pure earth; & it is to all mixed bodies the color which comes from a very pure earth subtly mixed & united from which comes that this art is called Alchemy; because Als in Greek is Salt, and Chemistry is fusion, as if the end of this art was none other than to teach the way and the way to make melting aurific Salt.
It seems that Chrysippus Fanianus arrived there: and all the Authors of Art have learned by experience that Salt has great virtue. Because strong water, which by distillation according to Art, is drawn from saltpeter & vitriol (and which is nothing other than their subtlety) cooks quick silver, & by the active heat stops at a color yellowish, what is called precipitate; but it does not give it a perpetual fixation, because the water is not fixed: however the powder or our aurific salt which endures all the violence of fire, and which resists it no less, but more strongly than gold, gives quick silver a perpetual fixation, so that it is henceforth insured against the violence of fire, & that it is not rarefied, nor does it go into vapor.
It is no wonder that this Salt has so many virtues since it is so free from its lazy, weak & humid nature, and even from its coarse, earthly & impure nature; it is elevated to a nature full of spirit, and igneous: and because it is under the domain of fire, it penetrates quickly, and enters into parts of living silver; it also produces in impure metals the effects of fire, separate the heterogeneous parts, terminate the flowing humidity & reduce it to equality; finally for all these causes, to change the rest of the metals into Gold.
This is what put these salts in use among doctors, which, as everyone knows, they use in the composition of remedies, among such a great multitude of different ones.
What then, do those who do their apprenticeship in this sacred art not know that the force of the Salts drawn from copper & iron according to the Art, purges Silver, stops its indefinite humidity, & converts it into a very true?
Because we amalgamate Gold & Silver with corrected quicksilver, and we express through leather the part of the quicksilver that passes.
enveloped in these Salts, which are a solder of gold; we put it in an earthenware vessel, & first we give it a weak heat then we increase it little by little to cook it, & finally we melt it with a more vehement fire: what remains at the bottom of the vessel is called regulates, & it is a solid mass, which exposed to the royal proof, namely the hot one, is purified, & what remains is all Gold; thus Silver is converted into perfect Gold. The cause of this perfection can only be the quality of the brass and iron salts, although gold and quick silver help: but these salts are nothing compared to our aurific salt, strength and virtue. which we will talk about later.
Now then we will begin to deal with the manner of making this Aurific Salt, or the Aurific or Philosophical Stone; because Nature without the help of Art will never give it. A scholar who taught it in person would show it more solidly than it can be confirmed by reason; because this Art is one of those which gives no faith except to the testimony of the eyes and the other senses, when the effects of the aurific salt are demonstrated. But as there are few who have learned the doctrine of the Art, even fewer who have taught it with truth and clarity in their Writings, and almost none who want to declare it in fact, it is necessary look elsewhere for Masters who not only teach the doctrine of the Art, but who also clearly show how it is necessary to discern and judge everything that many have said in their Writings.
The Master is Nature: & if we focus strongly on contemplating its virtue & its works, we will not deviate from the right path, mainly in the research & perfection of our aurific Salt but also Nature asks for the help of the hand of the worker who provides the material for it to act. We will apply ourselves to the works of Nature, if first of all we contemplate in general the causes, the order, & the manner of nature in the production of our bodies; if then we say in what way we can imitate Nature, and in what way we cannot; then what is the use of Art; finally if we declare the manner and method of action that must be followed: And this is what I intend to treat by order.
I will speak little of natural causes alone, of the generation and corruption of natural bodies, and of their other mutations, because they must be drawn from the sources of Physics, and we have touched upon something of them in our Apology. I would only repeat that the matter from which something is made, and the efficient cause which makes it, are mainly necessary: that to receive the form; this to act & imprint the form: just as a Sculptor imprints the figure on stone , & the seal on wax. We will therefore not stop for long in the knowledge of natural causes, but we will consider more closely the order and manner of action of Nature, because this is very useful to our work.
If we fully understand the order that Nature maintains in the diversity of the things it produces, we will see firstly that in univocal generations it corrupts something and makes it a seed; & in the equivocations that there is a body which takes the place of seed; & finally she gives perfection for both. This order of nature is inviolable, because most perfect plants and animals first produce the seed and then perfect it. The Sky & the Stars corrupt & putrefy some composite body; & from putrefaction a moist body is made, which is like the seed in which there is a certain proportion of celestial heat, by which it itself is perfected.
But the proximate matter of metals, minerals and everything that is produced in the veins of the earth, is generated from the corruption of something preceding, and is subsequently perfected by the efficient cause. Nevertheless we must be careful that the species of generations & corruptions are very different from the species of perfection, & this reveals the whole secret of the work. In all generations accompanied and always inseparable from corruption, the body from which the seed is produced does not change entirely into seed, but only the purest portion; plants and animals draw their seeds from food, for all seed is a useful excrement of the food, so that the body from the corruption from which animals are generated is not entirely changed into the seed of animals, but a certain portion; & when fire is generated from wood, all the substance of the wood is not not changed into fire, but only the aerial portion: because the aqueous substance dissipates, and the terrestrial remains below, like ashes.
Furthermore, there is a generation of substance which was not before, and which passes from non-being to being. In the corruption of the mixed body, there is a resolution of substances down to the raw material, that is to say down to the elements of which the mixed was composed; & in generation there is a mixture of the same separate elements. But when the seed, or that which takes the place of seed, is perfected, nothing of the quantity of the seed is lost; on the contrary, it often increases. When the egg is hatched, the shell being open it leaves nothing inside, but we find it completely changed into a chicken; when the seeds of animals are perfect, nothing of their substance is lost, but rather they increase.
The substance of the seed, when perfected, is the same as before; & nothing passes from non-being to being. In perfection there is no resolution or separation of substances, but they all remain without any waste, whatever they are changed, as in the egg, when a chicken is formed from it: In a word, the generation, corruption & perfection tend to different ends.
I know that many will speak out against this doctrine; they will deny that the seed is perfected, and they will maintain that it corrupts, and that from corrupted seed, the animal is produced: because when the animal is generated, it was not before; & what was previously seed is no longer so; consequently it is corrupted. Hence comes this very famous question: If in the dog's seed his soul which is the form is there; if it is currently there , or only potentially: & if the form of the animal and the seed is the same or another than that of the dog generated from the same seed; or if in both there is only one soul or form.
Fernel d'Amiens, this great Philosopher & Doctor, under the name of Eudoxe, claims to prove by many reasons that in matter there was not the least thing of form. But when we have arrived at the ultimate perfection, in a moment the form comes from outside, as if by an inevitable necessity.
Scaliger, a very subtle philosopher, combats this Opinion as full of ostentation; & it seems that he proves by very obvious reasons, & by the authority of Aristotle, that the soul or form of the dog is actually in the semen, which is in the imperfect dog; but that the seed receives its perfection from the soul or form (which is the principal part of the substance of the dog) as from the efficient cause: that this form or soul of the dog is not known by the function of the senses, but by the understanding & reason, just as in the egg the bird form is currently there; but that the egg is an imperfect bird, and that the egg is not corrupted when the hen incubates the eggs, but that it is completed in perfection; the same in other seeds.
If I were allowed to say what I think about such contrary sentiments of these very famous men, I would say that we must consider the form in the first act or in the later act. The first constitutes the form, because the act is the form which is not started or imperfect, since the substances do not receive the more or the less, posterior exercises the actions & functions of the form. A little dog does not yet give birth, nevertheless it is currently a dog; but when he is of a more perfect age, he will produce the seed: thus it must be said that the form is in the first act, and not in the later. But finally the seed being perfect, the posterior act is added, and yet the form is not imperfect, but the seed or the compound.
As for what is objected, that when the dog is begotten from the seed, there is a generation; for the dog was not before, and the seed ceases to be seed, whatever it was before: We must respond thus; that the substance of the dog is not generated, posterior of the substance of the dog: which is not a true generation; for this later act is a property and an accident, which was not in the seed before the dog was: but we cannot say that it is substance, because it happens to the substance, and that it cannot subsist on its own.
So when the dog grows, the form or matter of the dog does not grow, but the dog as a whole.
This question is of great importance, even in the matter of our Aurific Salt, as we will now say: because although it is among the number of equivocal generations, it must nevertheless be judged as univocal ones.
All agree, currently in the seed: but that it is created by God, & given to the fruit, & that it is immortal; which is very true and beyond doubt: This is why Scaliger establishes three orders of generations; one univocal, of which the parents are the efficient causes, and produce their fellows:
The other equivocal, the Author of which is the Sky & the Stars, which do not produce their fellows, nor the rational soul of man of which God alone is the Creator: and when it is put into the body, it remains alone; & the other souls which were in the seed, namely the vegetable and the sensitive, perish, according to the feeling of the Theologians. From this it comes that we can define perfection, what is the promotion which gives the subsequent act to what was already in the nature of things & in the first act, as when from the seed of the dog, a dog is made.
But all perfection is taken simply or comparatively: thus the seed taken simply is perfect; & compared it is imperfect. Furthermore , perfection, or it is compared from one substance to another, or from substances to accidents, or from accidents to accidents: as in simple bodies the substance of fire is more perfect than that of air, because that fire has more action: In the same way air is more perfect than water, and water than earth. In mixed bodies, man is more perfect than the brute, the brute than the plant, the plant than inanimate bodies: but also all substances are more perfect than accidents, and accidents are more perfect than some. others. Heat is more perfect than cold, cold than damp, damp than dry.
Perfection has two ends; one to acquire a perfect faculty of action which it did not have before, as the animal produces semen when it can; the other, to possess a perfect faculty of receiving; as a man in perfect age is stronger to endure work than a child.
But this passive power is more properly suited to inanimate bodies; because these have rather the faculty of acting than that of receiving, and those have the function of receiving rather than acting.
Perfection also has its degrees; for a man in a perfect age generates what a child does not do, nor a decrepit one: however we do not attribute these degrees of perfection to the form; for the soul of a child of itself acts neither more nor less than that of a man; but by the subsequent act, which is a property & accident, it acts either more strongly or more slowly. You have to be careful about all this. But the already produced seed of nature, unfolds its manner of perfection by the concoction, which according to Aristotle is a perfection that natural heat draws from opposing passive things; & the passive qualities are the matter subject to each thing, like the seed.
There are three species of this concoction: Pepansis (maturation) which is a cooking that natural heat makes from the interminated humor which is in the moist semen : Epsesis (boiling) or Elixation, which is a cooking that moist heat makes of the interminated humor which is in the moist seed: Optesis (roasting) or Assation, which is the cooking that the dry heat makes of the same unfinished humor. All these tricks are done as much by Nature as by Art; but Pepansis does more by Nature, and the others by Art; & strictly speaking, they are only so called metaphorically. Anyone who desires more can consult Aristotle, in the fourth Book of Meteora.
But this way of acting, of perfecting & cooking the seeds of plants & animals, is only known to Nature; because the instrument of Nature or of the soul is natural heat, which in proportion conforms to the element of the stars, which Art cannot imitate. It is not the same in inanimate bodies which have no other state than that of mixture , as in the seed of our aurific salt & in the metals to be perfected, according to which we have shown in our Apology, we will show even more clearly below, with the help of God.
This being thus explained in the works that Nature alone does of itself without the help of Art, we must now investigate whether all this takes place in the production both of our aurific Salt and of Gold, which is not done not from Nature alone, but with the help and service that Art renders it; moreover in what way Art imitates Nature, and in what way it does not. In these things Art follows in the footsteps of Nature.
As Nature does nothing without matter or subject, so also Art: for in all the works of Nature & Art, we seek first the matter; but where this matter is distant or next, which is the seed or takes the place of seed: but what is distant or near must be reduced ; which is as much as if I said that the seed must be first generated according to the order of Nature: Likewise Art does not seek distant matter, but the next one which is the seed of both the Aurific Salt or the Stone Philosophical as Gold in its perfection.
The seed is not enough, but an efficient cause is necessary which prints the form in the matter, that is to say, which produces the seed in which the form is, or which gives it perfection. Thus after having sought the seed of the Aurific Salt, Art seeks its own natural efficient cause which gives perfection: the end of Nature is the form or perfection of the seed produced, & it is also the end of Art.
Nature's way of perfecting the seed is Pepansis, which is the action which leads to maturity: Epsesis, it is the action which boils Optesis the action which roasts: but the manner of Art is a species of wet-cooked Epsesis, and dry-cooked Optesis.
But in these things Art cannot imitate Nature: for Nature which will produce Gold, produces in the mines the next material, which is the seed of Gold; & this seed, according to Aristotle, is a vapor mixed with a subtle earth. This steam, of matter) is and cannot be either the subject or the seed to produce Gold; but there is another seed taken from the bosom of Nature: Nature generates the seed, and then gives it perfection; but Art can neither generate it nor give it perfection, but only help to perfect it: for Nature is the principal efficient cause, and Art is its aid.
The efficient cause of Nature to give perfection to metals, according to Aristotle, is cold & dry; the efficient cause of Art is heat.
Nature alone has never produced or been able to produce aurific salt, because it does not use fiery heat; but Art helps Nature, so that the natural efficient cause produces the aurific salt.
Nature remains for a long time to produce Gold in the mines, but this same Nature, or that which takes its origin from a natural thing, namely the Fusible Aurific Salt, gives in a moment by projection, perfection to others metals & quicksilver, which are the seed of Gold, with the help of fire which is also natural; but the help of Art was necessary to make this aurific Salt.
Therefore the duties of Art are to seek the seed suitable both for our Aurific Salt or Philosophical Stone, and to perfect Gold. But the liberality of Nature has given us both & we have them in hand: for Gold & its quick silver, as I will say, are the seed of the aurific Salt; & quicksilver & other metals are the seed of Gold. But Nature left these seeds of aurific salt and gold imperfect, and she did not move further; but Art helps the same Nature to make them perfect.
Nature gave us with the same liberality and like a prodigal, the efficient cause, just as she gave the seeds; because the efficient cause is fire and external heat, but with a certain proportion of the determined degrees of heat necessary for the progress of the work: because in all very small bodies which acquire their perfection by mere mixture, fire is the general efficient cause, & this fire is natural; & we don't have to look for it any further, since we have it in our hands, like the seeds.
We therefore have no reason to complain about the liberality of Nature, which brought us the seed and efficient cause; but from the weakness of our imagination, if we do not know how to finish the seed. However, like the perfection or subsequent act, which is of Nature alone, in the seed already produced for different ends; in the same way also there are various ends in the seed of our aurific Salt, or in the seed of Gold which must be perfected: for the end of the seed which must be perfected in Salt aurific, consists of giving it the faculty of action. Gold, which is a part of the same seed, is imperfect, and it does not act on quicksilver or metals, nor does it perfect them, until it has the perfection of the aurific salt.
But the end of quick silver and other metals which must receive the perfection of Gold is that they have passive power: for without the aurific Salt which gives the perfection of Gold, they would be corrupted by the fire; & one part would go away in smoke, and the other in filth & mud.
The general ways of giving perfection to these seeds are Epsesis & Optesis, so called not properly, but metaphorically; because the internal moisture of these seeds in the cooking becomes lacking, partly by the humid heat, and partly by the dry heat; & they acquire with the help of Art the later act: but there is much more art to complete the seed of the aurific Salt, than to give to metals & quicksilver the perfection of the 'Gold; because by the mere projection of this Salt and the active fire, they immediately receive the perfection of a very pure Gold. For the quicksilver of the metals is purged, and the impurities are separated; and the humid interminate of common quicksilver is cooked, and when fixed, changes into Gold:
By the grace of God I will say more at length how to do it, when I show the entire practice; but now we must still discuss why Gold is the seed of our aurific Salt, and that it is only partly so; & why it is necessary to mix live money. It is necessary that Gold be the principal part of the seed, since we have proved that the second end of Chrysopoeia is to change Gold into Salt; which is clear by the authority of all those who are more truly and seriously versed in this Art, and reason confirms it. That Gold alone is not the material of our seed, the proof is that Gold alone cannot by any Art be corrupted nor become more perfect; & because every generation begins with the humid, and ends with the dry, as we see that all the seeds of animals are first moist, and then dry; what experience shows in the fruits.
But because Gold is currently dry, and cannot acquire greater perfection in the nature of Gold, our predecessors very well judged that it was necessary first to dissolve Gold into wet, so that he can suffer Money to give him greater perfection. For although the matter of Gold is simply perfect, yet it is imperfect, compared to matter changed to wet; since by this dissolution the subtlety & The tenuity of the substance expands, and its active qualities have more vigor. Therefore Gold in its nature is not yet a part of our aurific seed, but only after it is changed into a moist substance; and again this substance of dissolved Gold is not all the matter of the seed, but only a part; either because it cannot be changed into moist, nor being changed, it cannot receive more perfection, without the mixture of another moist; just as the grain of wheat sown in the ground cannot produce a moist germ, nor perfect itself, nor multiply without the mixture of a moist which surrounds it. So the humid which dissolves in moist substance of Gold, is a substantial part of our aurific seed; & the two together are the seed which only needs to be cooked to have perfection.
But as the Scholars of this Art unanimously agree, that the substance of gold dissolved in moisture, is a part of the seed; in the same way they are very different for the other part of the seed, namely what has the ability to dissolve Gold. Some taught that it was water distilled from minerals; others, that it was water drawn from animals; others, that it was water drawn from vegetables; others, that it was waters of all these mixed waters.
Writings of Raymond Lulle say nothing else, if however Lulle is the Author, or rather it is attributed to him. But I cannot condescend to those who are of this sentiment: because the moist solvent of Gold must neither be corrupted nor changed from the nature of fluid quicksilver, neither it does not wet, nor it it does not attach to another body, nor mix, nor unite, nor finally attach itself by a true union or fixation, except with Gold; but with Gold it takes on the perfection of the Aurific Salt.
Now these distilled strong waters are stripped of the nature of fluid quicksilver ; they wet what they touch, just like water & oil; they do not attach and do not mingle by a true mixture, nor do they become fixed not with Gold, nor do they take with Gold the perfection of the Aurific Salt: on the contrary in the proof we separate them, we burn them, and they go away in smoke. Those are therefore of a more just feeling, who teach that fluid quicksilver makes the other part of the Philosophical seed, because it effectively dissolves gold into quicksilver: it unites with it; & the two together receive the perfection of the Aurific Salt, because they are of the same nature since the molten gold seems to be a fluid quick silver, & this removed from the fire resembles a molten gold.
However, those who believe that quicksilver is the other part of the seed, is this quicksilver; if it is the common one, or that which was taken from metals according to the Art, and of which mainly, lead or tin, or bismuth (which is the tin of ice) or antimony , or some other. For those who deny that common quicksilver is a part of our seed, say that it has too cold a quality, for which reason it does not have the virtue of dissolving gold; & that its humidity is too fluid, volatile & spiritual, because of which it cannot be fixed with gold: but that quick silver taken from other metals, has by its nature greater digestion.
But those who assure that among all liquors there is none more effective in dissolving gold than quicksilver, allege for reason, that gold must be dissolved by Epsesis or elixation, just as flesh is boiled with water; & that quicksilver is compared to water, because it has much of this humor, which is the efficient cause of dissolution; & for this reason dry minerals must not be altered by sublimation.
This is the feeling of Bernard Trévisan in his Letter to Thomas of Bologna, Physician to King Charles VIII. & the others also do not lack the authority of very learned Philosophers: but it is not appropriate to spend any longer examining such contrary opinions. All these things are same genus & species, & are only different in accidents.
But to certainly prove which liquor is more effective in dissolving gold it is necessary to examine the causes which make gold fixed & thick; because the opposites will be the cause of its dissolution. Now according to the doctrine of Aristotle, the cause of the thickness and fixation of gold is partly an earthly drought which is in the humidity of the gold, and which tightens it; partly the cold and the foreign dry which thicken among the stones, and push into them the vapors, which are the next material of the metals: therefore the interior humidity, the exterior humidity and heat are the efficient causes of the dissolution of the gold in one moist substance: but this external moist must be of the same nature with the moist of gold, as is the moist of quick silver so that the two moist being in greater quantity, can dissolve the dry gold. But the less cold the humidity of quicksilver will be, the more quickly will it dissolve gold.
This is why I will not condemn the feeling of those who extract quicksilver from lead, from tin, from bismuth, or from antimony, which is less cold than common quicksilver, better digested and more finished. : & I learn that several have used it for the dissolution of Gold; & that of the mixture of the two,
But I should not also be condemned if I say that common quicksilver is the other part of the seed, provided that a small portion of Gold is mixed with it beforehand and united with it; & then we call it by metaphor animated quicksilver; not that he has a soul, because he is inanimate; but because as the soul makes the animal warm, while it is in the body: so Gold chases away the cold from quick silver and tempers it, while it will be truly united with it; because the smallest portion of the Philosophical Stone or the Aurific Salt, which is none other than Gold, much more cooked than natural Gold,
We must take it from this lively animated silver, rather than from that which is drawn from metals, because it is only obtained with great industry of Art, long work, and a lot of expense: but we we have a large quantity of common quicksilver ; & it can be easily purged, mixed & united with Gold, as I will say soon. So to put an end to this question, quick silver taken from lead, or tin or antimony, or the vulgar prepared & animated (this is how I will use the terms of Art, to explain everything more intelligibly) is the other part of the seed of our Aurific Salt; & the two mixed together are the true seed, but imperfect. It remains to be explained clearly & briefly the method or practice of perfecting the two imperfect seeds, as this Art requires, & as the title of this Letter shows.
But it is necessary to prepare both of these seeds separately, then mix them before exposing them to external heat, which is the cause which gives perfection. This preparation is a disposition & empowered to receive the degrees of perfection, or the destruction of both forms; in order to separate the heterogeneous parts, & purge the two seeds, just as the learned Plowers purge & choose the seeds, before throwing them into the ground.
But our learned predecessors in this Art, barbarian of Rebis as I said in the Apology; they called Gold the male seed, as being warmer & drier, and quick silver the female seed, as being colder & moist; the Gold of the name of sulfur, and the quick silver of its own name, from the embrace of which the Philosophical Stone or our aurific Salt receives its perfection. I will first deal with the preparation & animation of the feminine semen; & I will not fear in this very serious matter, to deviate a little from the use of the Latin language, so that all things are understood with more ease and clarity.
Purge the vulgar quicksilver, & distilled vinegar, until it is divided into very small parts: after washing it, remove the purgation & enema, until it is blue or celestial in color, which is the sign of 'a perfect purgation. Here is the way to animate quicksilver. Make an amalgam of very pure gold, cut into very subtle fragments , and quick silver purged as the Gilders are wont to do, namely an ounce of gold and twelve of quick silver. Pound this amalgam for a long time in a mortar, having poured over it a small quantity of distilled vinegar; wash & repeat until the amalgam has a blue or celestial color.
& thick, & express it so that it passes everything. If there is anything left that has not passed through, add to it six times as much purged quicksilver: Pound again & wash & express, & repeated until it has all passed through the linen; & this is done so that the gold is divided into very small parts.
However it is not yet divided into parts small enough to pass all through the buckshot leather like quicksilver, because the holes are narrower: & however it is necessary that finally the whole amalgamation, by the expression, passes through the leather and that the Gold is truly mixed and united with the living silver.
of an ounce of Gold, will have passed through the leather, enclose it in a glass vessel which has the shape of an egg, and of which the amalgam only occupies the third part, the others then with a languid heat , low & equal; cook it, & dissolve it in a furnace suitable for this for forty days, during which time you will find a darkness which will appear above the surface; which is a sign of the perfect dissolution of Gold into quicksilver. Open the vessel, and express the amalgam wrapped in leather: and if it passes all this is good; but if it does not pass everything; weigh what has not passed: & if it weighs an ounce, add nine ounces of new prepared quicksilver.Grind, wash, and again enclose in a glass vessel which you will close with glass; cook as before until you see blackness above the surface; which will happen in much less time : Open the small vessel, & pass the amalgam through the leather, & repeat this operation so often until all the amalgam expressed passes through the holes in the leather; thus the Gold will be reduced into very small parts: nevertheless the two will not yet be truly mixed & united: but it is often necessary to grind the amalgam, wash it, & pass through the leather so that it rises completely in vapor with ease: distill it in a glass retort well luteed up to half; firstly with slow heat, then with increased heat , and finally with very violent and ardent heat, so that the Gold goes in spirit with the quicksilver, and so that it falls into the flowing quicksilver container; for then the two, namely gold and quicksilver, will have a very great resemblance in matter and form: and when gold will be rarefied into very small parts like quicksilver, it is necessary that one cannot be separated from the other, and by the force of fire acting together the two are raised into vapor.
What if there was anything left at the bottom of the vessel; it would be necessary to repeat the same operation as above, until everything is distilled; except perhaps that some rubbish remained at the bottom which is useless, and it must be thrown there and left.
This is the true feminine and animated seed which is the solvent of Gold: And the other part of the seed of our aurific Salt is the living silver which we called Zion in our Apology, because the gold by common quicksilver has been truly changed into quicksilver. This quick silver of Gold is the oil & the true hidden dye; it is this that the Ancients called Azot, namely the quick silver extracted from the body of Gold; but it is extracted in the same way that the flesh in boiling is dissolved & changed into broth: in favor of which we have said that common quicksilver mixes more freely with golden lime than water mixes with water.
This same animated living silver increases to infinity, if we mix it again with Gold & new living silver in the same way; in the same way it is still called menstruation or very sour vinegar, because it makes Gold become pure spirit. But the male seed, or the other part of the seed of our aurific salt, is Gold reduced to a very fine lime, and it is prepared in this way.
Make an amalgam of one ounce of gold and twelve of quicksilver prepared as has been said, & with the same accuracy; pass it through a thick cloth, until it has all passed, express through the leather: & what has not passed is the Gold with the quick silver, whose figure is a small ball; For none of the Gold will pass through the holes in the Leather, but it will all be in the ball: put this ball in a glass vessel, distil the quick silver over a slow fire until it is completely distilled. Break up the ship; very subtly grind the Gold remaining at the bottom with the distilled quicksilver: distill again; grind & repeat the distillations until the Gold is reduced to very small parts; grind them again, and pass them through a silk sieve with very narrow holes; & what will not have passed, & sift it, & repeat until the whole thing is reduced to a very fine powder, which you will put in a well-lit glass vessel; & with a moderate fire you will calcine it for three days: remove it from the vessel; & if you see that this powder is as subtle as flour, it is good; but if it is not like this, repeat the operation until you find the sign: then throw brandy on this powder which burns everything, distil over a slow fire, throw it again distilled water, & distill again; what you will repeat seven times, & you will have the real lime of Gold to mix with this animated living silver. This calcination & reduction into very fine powder is necessary, so that it drinks quick silver more easily, and also so that by the same cooking it is more quickly reduced to impalpable powder: because as the end of our Art is to change Gold into the nature of Salt, it is necessary our industry to rarefy & attenuate it:
For all things, says Geber; truly calcined approaches the nature of Salt; and all the more subtle it will be before the conjunction with the feminine semen, all the more easily and quickly will it dissolve into quick silver, and more easily and quickly will it be reduced to powder. It is first necessary to mix the prepared seeds mathematically and by their contiguous parts ; then after the preparation is completed, naturally, & by their continued parts of a true union.
For it is the law & order of all things which are finally truly mixed, that their parts touch each other, the first forms remaining whole in the mixture, & after they are altered, & finally they are united . This first & mathematical conjunction is done like this. Throw the Gold lime into an earthen vessel which Goldsmiths use to melt Gold; cover it with another small vessel, so that the coals do not fall into it, or anything else; & bury it with lighted coals, until the vessel is all burning, but the golden lime does not melt.
Throw eight ounces of lively live silver into another earthen vessel, and let the vessel be surrounded by coals; cook until the quicksilver begins to exhale, & immediately throw the fiery golden lime into the animated quicksilver; shake & stir with a stick until by touching you know that they are amalgamated & mixed by their smallest parts: then throw this amalgam into a wooden bowl full of water, grind the amalgam & it wash & dry it, so that no moisture remains; wrap it in leather & express it: the little ball that remains, a fair proportion, of which some have doubted, and the feelings are different; but we never fail when we have Nature as our guide:
For the golden lime retains as much lively seed as is necessary, and what is superfluous passes through the holes in the leather. This ball will weigh four ounces, more or less; there is therefore an ounce of gold lime, three or so of animated quick silver: if nevertheless there were more than three ounces of animated quick silver involved, up to five, there would be no danger, because the semen would dissolve more quickly, but it would thicken & coagulate more slowly. Before exposing to the efficient cause these seeds prepared & mixed in the right proportion of nature, they must be confined in their own place, because the place is necessary to aid perfection: The seeds of animals are only perfected in the womb, the eggs in their shells, the fruits generated in the earth; outside their place they are corrupt.
The place of our seed is a glass egg, or a small vessel with the shape of an egg: we must place the ball inside, with this proportion that it only occupies the third part of the vessel, and that the other two are empty, so that it contains the vapors of the quicksilver which will rise, and so that the little vessel does not break. But you have to close it with glass the orifice of the vessel, just as the fruits of animals are in the womb, the white and yolk of the egg in the shell, so that nothing transpires; for in the seed of animated quicksilver there is a vapor and a spirit so subtle, that if it were to transpire, we would not see it; & that it is with the external heat the cause of perfection: but if it flies away, the work is done; just as the chicken perishes if there is a hole in the shell of the egg: & we cannot stop its escape & evaporation with an iron bed, although thick, tight & solid, but with glass only one which is very thick, and which has no holes.
aurific, by the same way & method that we draw salts from all mixed bodies, with a heat of fire, & a fire which divides these bodies into several substances as we said of wood reduced to ashes, or of salt drawn by laundry. This is why they draw strong waters from several bodies, with which they dissolve the Gold into a liquor which they distill, and pour it again onto the dissolved; then they thicken it with slow heat; & of what remains, they believe that it is our aurific salt. They also use an infinity of other bodies, all of which are useless and sophistic, and have more opinion than truth. Nature having produced the seed, more in various substances; but it perfects it: it takes nothing away from the seed, but it completes it entirely; which is more evident in the egg, which is the seed of the chicken, and even the imperfect chicken.
So to imitate Nature, as soon as we are certain of the seed of our aurific Salt, who it is, & what it is, we must not divide it into several substances, but perfect it by cooking alone, & change it entirely to the type of fuse salt. This is the whole aim of Art, by producing the efficient cause which gives the perfection of Gold to quick silver and imperfect metals, with the help of the heat of fire.
To perfect our Aurific Salt, there are six degrees; dissolution, coagulation or incrassation, first fixation, second fixation, calcination & inceration. I say that there are several degrees, because since I have established that the perfection of the already existing seed consists in advancing it to the later act of the form, this perfection is not completed so soon; the first act or the form being the principal part of the substance, does not receive degrees; but the subsequent act receives degrees as well as qualities. The fruits born from the tree, before reaching maturity, receive degrees of perfection; for in the midst of time they are more perfect than before, and so in the future until they have reached complete maturity: The same must be judged to perfect our aurific salt.
But since external heat is the efficient cause of perfection, and has six degrees, the first five are their progress with five degrees of heat; & the last is only a reiteration of the five degrees: but during this process, one must not move the seed, nor remove anything from it, as is done in sophistical works; but it must be left at five degrees of heat.
Dissolution which is the first degree of perfection, gold lime, which is a part of the seed, in quicksilver, which is made by the heat of the first degree, & by the force of the spirit & vapor which is in quicksilver, as it is made in the seeds of animals, in eggs and in grains of wheat. Because by this degree of heat the ball of amalgam which is a little hard, becomes soft and dissolves: and the solution made in the glass vessel, we see all the quick silver thick and as if rotten. The sign of the completed dissolution is a blackness above the surface; because the heat which acts on the humid causes darkness. This dissolution ends almost in forty days: & this same dissolution is a species of Epsesis or elixation; for as flesh boiled in water dissolves into broth by the heat which is in aqueous humidity, so Gold is dissolved by the heat which acts in humidity, which is quick silver.
Coagulation.
Coagulation or incrussation is the thickening, hardening & drying of the dissolved seed into flowing quicksilver, & it is done by the virtue of the second degree, as of the efficient cause, & by the force of the terrestrial which is in the gold lime, which has the property of drying out & thickening: because as before the wet quicksilver exceeded in quantity the dry gold lime, it was necessary for the dry to give way, coarse & rotten consistency of quicksilver; but the heat being increased, the very subtle vapor of the quick silver disperses in the air through the empty parts of the vessel, and the humidity necessarily thickens, as oil thickens by long heat which brings out the subtle spirit: But the dryness of golden lime drinking the humidity of quicksilver, helps a lot to thicken.
For the same causes, with the viscous humor the Stones are perfected in the bodies of animals by an earthly dry which is in the humor as matter, & by external heat as efficient cause: in the same way we also see that little by little the dissolved semen thickens & grows, and it tightens inside into a solid stone; which usually happens within forty days, during which the seed will retain its black color and become blacker. This cooking is a species of Optesis or assation, like the following.
First fixation.
Since the moisture of our seed is not yet stopped or united by this cooking, but volatile, it must be stopped and fixed by a heat of the third degree; Thus the fixation succeeds. Now fixation, according to Geber, is the suitable adaptation, by which a thing which fled from fire is made capable of suffering it; & it is his intention, he says, that any alteration & dyeing be continued in the altered body, & does not change. It can be defined as a limitation or stopover overcoming the interminable humidity which is in the seed, and this by the force of the heat of the third degree, & by the active dryness of the earth which is in the seed.
This fixing is also completed in forty days. In this color we see various colors, which finally all end in a whiteness of snow & this whiteness is the true sign of fixation: In this color, it is said, the body, spirit & soul truly unite & become fixed; & it is nothing other than an equal proportion, union & fixed perfection of all the elements of the seed. This perfect seed is called argentific because thrown into quicksilver it stops it, and gives it the perfection of a very true Silver: But it is called first fixion, because even though it is taken simply & absolutely, it is perfect; nevertheless compared to the fixation of our aurific Salt, it is interminate & imperfect, and does not deserve the name of Salt or Stone. Posterior or second fixation.
The first fixation completed, follows in order the posterior fixation, which is a perfect and absolute cooking of the interminated humidity which resides in the humor of the seed, and made by the force of the heat of the fourth degree. firstly the whiteness changes from citrine to yellow, and little by little to red: because according to the different moods, different colors result; but after it has been cooked, the whiteness appears, which by the force of the fire is changed into yellow, and from yellow into red; which is easy to notice when sandaraca (sandaraque) and ocher are cooked: because the very pure subtle earth which is cooked in the seed and which is not burned, is currently white, but potentially red; & it becomes such by stronger cooking & it dyes all its own moisture red. This white seed remains for a long time in a solid mass, which at the end, after long cooking, gradually detaches, & changes to red color.
This fourth degree of cooking is completed in two hundred and forty days; & there is nothing to fear for the degree of heat, because after whiteness the seed is fixed; but in front of the perfect whiteness there would be danger in not observing the degrees of heat, because the two seeds were not yet fixed and united.
Calcination.
Although the temper of this seed is overcome by these four degrees of heat, it is nevertheless not entirely overcome, nor so much so that it has quite the nature of Salt: for the nature of Salt is very dry and free from any mood, since Salt is a pure land. It is also the nature of Salt that it be dissolved by a watery humid, because it is thickened by the heat:
Therefore if the humor is not entirely overcome, it will not have the nature of Salt, nor will it dissolve in the wet watery, which however is necessary; because our aurific salt, being a sovereign medicine for human bodies, can dissolve in all liquors, since it is given to the sick to swallow. Moreover, the cooked powder of the fourth degree has something impure and earthly mixed with it, which is neither of the nature nor of the proportion of the salt that must be extracted from the red powder.
This perfect & absolute cooking of the red powder, & its exemption from earthiness, is done by calcination with the heat of the fifth & last degree: For calcination, according to Geber, is the pulverization of a dry thing by fire, & by the deprivation of the humid which consolidates the parts: It seems that we would say better, by the absolute intoxication of the endless mood.
I add that the cause of the calcination is so that the powder fixes better and more perfectly, and that it dissolves in water more easily: because experience teaches that any type of calcined is more fixed and of a solution easier than what is not calcined, because a body reduced into very subtle and very small parts mixes more easily with water.
by this calcination the powder swells like leaven, because of the long fiery heat by the force of which it was reduced into very small parts; & a certain impure earth remains at the bottom of the vessel, which is separated from the red powder. This impurity must be thrown there, because it is not of the nature of Salt; but it is called vile, damned and vituperated earth, being like the useless dregs of other effective substances; and it is of the type of earth, which by excellent heat changes and melts into glass. This calcination must be done in an earthen vessel for eight days, and you will have the very true aurific salt, the color of which will be like burnt blood, and it will dissolve in all liquors; for all things, as we have said, which approach the nature of Salt, also accompany it in their properties: Now it is of the nature of Salt that it dissolves by an aqueous liquor.
Ceration.
Even though things are like this, our salt has not yet acquired all the absolute and completed perfection, which consists of being easily and quickly melted by fire like wax, and that it has a very subtle consistency in fusion, like water; otherwise it will not have the virtue of penetrating and entering the thickest parts of quicksilver, or metals; & being cast upon them, he would not give them perfection: but our Salt aurific having been thickened & altered by such a long cooking, does not have this prompt property it must nevertheless return. It should therefore not seem strange that we have said that our aurific salt dissolves in all liquors, and that it melts with each heat; which seems to be against the rules of Aristotle, things, he says, which thicken by dry heat, dissolve by humid cold, like salts; & those which are cooked by cold dissolve by heat, like metals: But experience teaches that common salt does not dissolve only in a liquid of water, but also in fire. For if the Salt is melted like silver in a earthen vessel, you will see it dissolved like pure water, & thrown into a small channel, it will thicken by the cold, like metal: & it is the same with other salts, which being purged several times from the water by solution, filtration & coagulation, finally melt like wax, with light heat.
It is necessary in the same way to give our aurific powder a prompt fusion; & it is necessary that our Salt, which has no melting point, be dissolved in humidity, but not in the liquor of water: for our Salt does not only need easy fusion, to be entirely perfect; but of a moist which unites with it in the center, & fixes itself with it for protect against vitrification: but the liquor of water cannot do this, because it would never settle with our Salt; this is why it must be dissolved & incerated, because incertion is the last degree of perfection; & Geber defines it as the mollification & liquefaction of a hard, non-fusible thing: & the cause of this invention is, he says, so that what by the deprivation of its humidity had no liquefaction on the body to alter it, softens to flow; and that those who think they do incineration with oils and liquid waters are seriously mistaken; but that it must be done with minds. They call quicksilver spirit; & certainly the mixture of animated living silver gives our Powder & Salt this dissolution & incineration. Here is the method.
Mix one denier or twenty-four grains of the Powder with four deniers of animated quicksilver; make an amalgam which you will put in a glass vessel which you will close: cook it with the first four degrees of fire, in the same order as the Powder was made; & in the space of thirty days you will discover all the colors that were seen in the space of nine months: repeat the operation, adding to the Powder four parts of lively silver. The operation being repeated, it will take less time than the first time; for what is now salt dissolves more quickly than when it was not yet salt and it could be: thus you will have the very perfect aurific Salt, or the very fixed Philosophers' Stone, meltable like wax, subtle like water, penetrating, tingent, transmuting, & giving to all quicksilver, whether common or taken from metallic bodies, the perfection of a very true Gold.
The sign of the perfection of this Salt will be, if a grain thrown on a fiery blade melts immediately, and penetrates the interior parts of the Silver, and it spreads on all sides like oil, and that he dyes the inside and the surface with gold color , without creating vapor or smoke: but what will remain after the twenty-four grains removed, as above. In the first place, only twenty-four grains are removed; because by each reiteration of the work the quantity is increased, because of the addition & mixture of new quicksilver & if we removed much more than twenty-four grains, at the end of the seventh reiteration the size would be bigger than enough to cook it.
Multiplication.
Although the substances receive no intention or diminution, they nevertheless act by the qualities as by their instruments; & as the qualities can increase or decrease in force, our Fusible salt acts more strongly or more weakly: this is why our predecessors have found an admirable art to increase our Aurific Salt, or melting Philosophical stone, & in quantity & in virtue or faculty of action. There are two ways or methods of this increase; the first, that you take an ounce of the same Salt already perfect, with which you mix twelve ounces of animated quick silver; dissolve everything & distill; after that mix four ounces of this lively quicksilver with an ounce of our perfect salt, & cook it with four degrees of heat.
The other shorter method is that you take a small portion of our perfect salt, and throw it into common quicksilver; take an ounce of that Gold which we call Philosophical, drawn with great art from quicksilver, which you will mix with an ounce of our perfect salt, and cook it with the four degrees of heat: and in a short time you will see all the colors that you saw making our aurific salt; because the increase is nothing other than the degree of the quality more rooted in the same part of the subject; because by this reiteration all the Salt is made igneous and of a very small and very subtle consistency.
Now fire and igneous things have more action; & the more subtle they are, the more quickly they penetrate and enter into the interior parts: Therefore the more you reiterate, the more your posterior Powder will receive increase both in quantity and in virtue & faculty.
expressed by these words: “If you dissolve the fixed, and make what is dissolved fly; if you fix the bird I will make you live in safety: unjoin the joined things, more join the disjointed things: melt what is hardened, harden what is melted; I will say you are happy. Say that arsenic will be the soul; but the spirit is quicksilver & lime is said to be body. » By fixed we mean Gold. Dissolution is a reduction of Gold into quicksilver, By common quicksilver or taken from some metal. The dissolved substance flies when Gold is distilled into quick silver by the force of fire and falls into the container vessel.
part of the golden lime, & they are fixed by the firing. Joint things are disjointed when the solid parts of Gold dissolve; & they join again , when the dissolved parts are fixed. Arsenic is the soul, that is to say, Gold drawn by Art is quicksilver, or from common or other metals. Lime is Gold reduced to lime.
Those are not very different, who say that Azot and the fire subsist for the work; because Azot is Gold dissolved in slightly thick living silver, which is cooked & fixed by the heat of a temperate fire, is ours Pierre or rather the fuse & fixed aurific Salt everyone will be able to easily understand what we have said, everything that the Ancients wrote enigmatically. Finally, Geber in the Book of Sovereign Perfection, chap. 30. & 43. said in a few words the entire previous method. The sum of the intention of the whole work, he says, is that we take the Stone known in the chapters, and its addition; that is to say, Gold converted into oil or quicksilver that they are stolen, until they have reached the ultimate purity of subtlety; & finally, that both are made volatile fixed: & in this order we complete the very precious Secret, which is above all the Secrets of the Sciences of this World, & an incomparable treasure.
faculties of our aurific salt: because the corrected & repurged quick silver on which a grain of powder has been thrown, is converted not into metal first, but into powder, the force of which diminishes: we again throw this last part of powder on other quicksilver; & we always spray the last powder, until no more powder is produced, but metal: Because in the mixture the igneous, hot & dry qualities of our Powder fight with the cold & humid qualities of quicksilver, which, whether common or that of metals, can only be tempered or changed into gold with a certain proportion of active and passive qualities.
Perhaps some will doubt, hearing that we teach that common living silver, although animated, is the other part of the seed; so much because Gold with it only rises with great difficulty, nor unites and is animated only because it has an extremely interminable humidity: Finally, if it constitutes the other part of the seed, the perfection of the two seeds will draw too much in the long run; so that quicksilver or tin, or lead , or regula of antimony is required. For that is what is called what remains below , and which will be more excellent and shorter.
I will not be very opposed to their sentiment & I will subscribe to it, mainly if quicksilver is taken from the regula of antimony; for it has a great resemblance of all its substance to Gold; but it will be necessary to take care that it is necessary to increase or decrease the degrees of the first heat, according to the different temperament of the quicksilver: For the aim is to unite the humid with the dry, & to fix the two of a firm & solid fixation. This is why in the observation of each external degree, the law is that there be an equal and temperate heat, which can alter the two mixed seeds, and not rarefy them into vapor.
If, therefore, common animated quicksilver is mixed with Gold, a lower degree of heat will be required at the beginning of the work, & volatile; & if we mix quick silver taken from other metals with Gold, a slightly higher degree of heat will be required. Because this quick silver being a little thicker and more cooked by Nature, it suffers a greater force from the fire, and does not so easily fly away in smoke by the heat of the fire, like the vulgar: this quick silver is drawn tin, lead, & regula of antimony, by the same way & method that Geber teaches of the sublimation of marcasite; for by the power of excellent fire; a dry vapor rises which thickens by the cold, and condenses in the sides of the vessel, being drawn out and softened with the washed oil of tartar & crushed in fluid quicksilver, as if delivered & purged from the filth of the earth.
The ancient Professors of the Art had prudently passed over in silence this method of extracting quicksilver, and had written nothing about it, because it is the whole secret of the Art, and the entry into the final operations , which they indeed discovered, but it is certain that they hid the first ones. This is therefore the clear, right, true and compendious way of making our own Aurific Salt or Philosophical Stone, whose virtue and faculty is to give the perfection of a very true Gold to quick silver, & other metals.
said to be a very excellent and very suitable remedy against all desperate illnesses ; I always believed that it was more certain to stick mainly to this aurific salt. But many will say that they know by experience, that they dissolved Gold in a shorter time without quick silver, and that they did something without this aurific Salt or Philosophical Stone.
To answer them, I will not deny that some salts cannot with Art be changed into water and into a liquid consistency, and that more quickly than Gold is dissolved by quicksilver, and than by force. of these waters and their very strong faculties, it appears in appearance that Gold is dissolved; but he does not is not in truth, nor is it stripped of its metallic nature; for it only appears to be dissolved while it retains this salty liquor, which is not truly mixed or united with Gold, since things of dissimilar nature do not truly mix. So this salty liquor driven out by the violent fire, becomes rarefied into vapor and rises; but the Gold remains at the bottom like a yellow, fixed powder, which melts if we add Gold solder , and it returns to Gold without waste; but the quick silver which we have said to be the other part of the seed, truly dissolves the Gold, unites and fixes itself with it forever; because they are of the same shape, but not the same temperament, or rather of the same perfection.
The dissolution & fixation of the two being finished, the powder or our aurific salt can no longer return to gold, unless it is thrown with a certain proportion into the other metals or quick silver: For this salt is a true tincture & a very fixed oil, and of a very subtle essence. I also do not deny that Gold dissolved in this aqueous liquor by the force of etchings can give the perfection of very pure Gold to quick silver and Silver: this is what they do not deny. gave no reason, a mark of their ignorance; because they do what they do not know, and cannot correct their error: but we will do, whatever it seems that we go beyond our purpose. But as a strongly shaken pile cannot return, so the pen is inclined to the place from which it is not easy to turn it, until it has touched everything that belongs to that matter .
Maybe those who read this will remember us before or after our death. So here is the reason: Quick silver only needs to be cooked to be perfect; and as we have said, it is an imperfect Gold, not yet ripe: external heat alone cannot make this cooking, because fire does not mix with quick silver, nor does it attach to it; nevertheless it is necessary that some thing attaches to him: and that during the cooking he holds back, so that the force of the fire does not make him flee. Furthermore, Gold, whatever it attaches to it, cannot retain it, because it is of a harder consistency than would be necessary to penetrate its interior parts; & because it is not retained by the liquefaction of Gold, as being later; but by the violence of the fire he vanished.
However, even if quick silver were not held by Gold, it would not be cooked by it. Because the cause of cooking is heat and igneous quality; & the igneous qualities are not in Gold to give the humid interminate of quick silver, nor finish it & overcome it; but when we believe that these salty liquors have dissolved it in liquor, although it is not truly dissolved or mixed, it can nevertheless do these things, not like our Aurific Salt or Philosophical Stone, which alone, without the help of anything else, if it is only can be helped by the heat of the fire, gives perfection.
But Gold must be helped , although it retains its metallic nature, with these strong liquors, by which being dissolved, it takes on a very subtle consistency, and an easy liquefaction like wax, while they will be mixed with him. Because all these liquors do not fly away immediately, except by a very vehement heat of the fire.
Although some believed, like Lulle, perpetually with Gold; which I have never been able to understand, since their fixation is sufficient to retain living silver without the fight of fire, when it reaches the nature of the body; moreover, these liqueurs, which are nothing other than salts, and which have the nature of salt, cook separately by their own igneous qualities, the humidity of quick silver; they finish it, and finally overcome it entirely. Money also only needs purgation and cooking to receive perfection; but these salty liquors do both, because the strength of the salts is admirable in all the work: however the silver being more arid, needs to be mixed & united with the quick silver, makes him suffer all the proofs of Gold: because the wetness of Gold being pure, viscous & perfectly cooked by Nature, cannot be separated from its dryness by any industry.
There are several ways of changing Gold into liquor, and you will find among the Authors some of them which they have prescribed and disclosed; but this among all the others is the easiest: Reduce the Gold to lime by the same way & method that we have already said in the preparation. Dissolve this lime with royal water, that is to say with strong water distilled from saltpeter & vitriol ; then add armoniac salt, perfectly purified by sublimation, and in a warm place it will dissolve in the same water: more subtle aqueous liquor by hot water, which is called Bain marie, or de Mer; repeat this distillation seven times, until you see at the bottom of the vessel a red oil:
This oil dissolves with light heat; and being removed from the fire, it thickens in a cold place, and condenses like gum. Mix with this gum four parts of Armoniac salt , purified and dissolved in water by an often repeated sublimation; then cook it over a languid and weak fire, so that it has a thick consistency; after dissolve it in a humid place, dry it again , & repeat this work by coagulating & dissolving, until that finally it does not thicken with a dry and languid heat, but that it remains constantly like a thick oil in the same heat.
Take an ounce of this oil which you will mix with four ounces of pure quicksilver in the best way you can; & having put it in a clean earthen vessel, cook for eight days, gradually increasing the degree of heat, until you have given it the great heat of the fourth & last degree, & you have a powder red or at least yellowish: & you will melt this powder taken from the vessel into real Gold, giving it a fusion fire, & adding Gold solder. But this will happen even more quickly, if you rub with a small portion of this oil the ball made of gold and quick silver, as we taught above, and that you grind them, and that you cook them in the way that we said. Finally, you will do this work more happily and surely if you compose the ball of Gold, Silver, and quicksilver, and express it; & that with this ball you mix a small portion of golden oil which you will grind together; & that, as has often been said, you cook everything with the degrees of heat increased little by little:
But the oils of Gold prepared with etchings, although it seems that they are of great importance, if however we compare them with our Aurific Salt or Philosophical Stone, should not be estimated.
To God alone, source of all good, be honor, praise & glory eternally.
Amen.
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“And so that you cannot stray from the right path, apply yourself to metals; for the aforementioned sulfur is found in all”
Nicolas Flamel
Testament of Nicolas Flamel
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