CHAPTER II.

Of the Theory of Transmutation in general, and of
the Universal Matter.

Est in Mercurio quicquid quserunt Sapientes. — Turba Exercit.l.

THE theory of Alchemy, though arcane, is very
simple ; its basis indeed may be compre-
hended in that only statement of Arnold di
Villanova, in his Speculum, — That there abides in
nature a certain pure matter, which, being discovered
and brought by art to perfection, converts to itself
proportionally all imperfect bodies that it touches.

And this would seem to be the true ground of
metalline transmutation, and of every other ;
namely, the homogeneity of the radical substance
of things ; and on the alleged fact that metals,,
minerals, and all diversified natures, being of the
same created first principles, may be reduced into
their common basis or mercurial first matter,
the whole Hermetic doctrine appears to hinge and
to proceed.

The multiform body of the world lies open, but
the source is everywhere occult ; nor does ordinary
analysis at all discover this Universal Matter of
the adepts. It has been accordingly objected, that
natural species cannot be transmutable, because
the transmutation of different species one into
another necessarily implies mixtion and a spurious
offspring : thus, that if it were even admitted
possible by any means to infuse gold into lead or
other inferior form, it would still remain imperfect,
and the better species be defiled by the vile
admixture ; that the result would not in fact be
gold at all, but a middle nature, according to the
proportionate virtue of the metals conjoining,,
golden or leaden, or as the case might be. Since

Theory of Transmutation. 73

species are indestructible, therefore, the trans-
mutation of metals has been regarded as a sophis-
tical proposition and not a true art.

And this argument the alchemists also admitting,
have sometimes seemed to contradict themselves
and their science ; but such is not really the case
and only from want of understanding them has it
been supposed so. It is not species that they profess
to transmute ; nor do they ever teach in theory that
lead as lead, or mercury as mercury specificate, can
be changed into gold, any more than a dog into a,
horse ; a tulip into a daisy, or vice versa, in this
way, anything of unlike kind ; but it is the subject-
matter of these metals, the radical moisture of
which they are uniformly composed, that they
say may be withdrawn by art and transported
from inferior Forms, being set free by the force
of a superior ferment or attraction.

Species, says Friar Bacon, are not transmuted,
but their subject-matter rather, — Species non
transmutantur, sed subject a specierum optime et
propriissime : — therefore the first work is to reduce
the body into water, that is, into mercury, and this
is called Solution, which is the foundation of the
whole art.1 And the first preparation and founda-
tion of the Hermetic art, says the author of the
Rosarium, is Solution and a reduction of the body
into water, which is argent vive : for it is well
known to artists that species cannot, as them-
selves, be transmuted, since they are not liable
to sensible action and corruption ; but the Subjects
of species rather, since they are corruptible and
may be changed : yet neither can the Subjects of
species be transmuted, unless they are reduced
first into their original matter, and made free to
pass from one into another form. But this is not
contrary to reason, because one form being ex-
pelled, another may be introduced, as is evident
in rustic operations — as in the making of glass from
1 See Rogeri Bachonis Radix Mundi et Speculum Alchemize.

74 Exoteric View.

flints, stones and ashes : much more then should
the experienced philosopher be able to corrupt the
Subject-matter of natures and to introduce a new
Form.2 Arnold, also admitting that species are
indestructible, advises therefore that the Subject
be freed by an artificial reduction.3 Species non
transmutari sed individua specierum.4 And
Avicenna,5 and Aristotle,6 who is also quoted
from by Ripley.

As the Philosopher who in the Book of Meteors did wryte,
That the lykeness of bodyes metallyne be not transmu table.
But afterwards he added theis words of more delyte,
Without they be reduced to the;r beginnyng materiable;

2 Adverte carissime quod quae sequuntur verissima sunt intel-
ligentibus. Prima preparatio et fundamentum artis est solutio,
id est corporis in aquam, reductio hoc est in argentum vivum. . .
Sciant artifices alchemize species metallorum vere permutari
non posse, quod quidem verum est, quia species per se non
sunt subjecta actionibus sensibilibus, cum omnino incorrupt -
ibiles ; sed subjecta specierum optime permutari possiint
quoniam corruptabilia sunt : attamen subjecta specierum per-
mutari non possunt nisi ipsa prius ad primam reducantur
materiam et sic in aliam formam quam prius erant permutan-
tur. Contra hoc autem ratio non stat, quia destructa una
forma immediate introducitur alia, ut patet in operibus
rusticorum, qui de lapidibus faciunt calcem et de cineribus
vitrum. Sic multo fortius potest sapiens studiosus individua
speciei corrumpere et novam formam eis introducere. — Rosar.
Abbrev. Tract, ii. De Lapide in Theat. Chem. vol. iii.

3 Species metallorum transmutari non j)ossunt : et hoc
verum est ut ipsi asserunt, nisi ad primam materiam redi-
gantur. Reductio autem illorum ad primam materiam est
facilis, &c. — Liber Perfect. Magist., sub initio.

4 Speculum Alchymiae Arnoldi, Gctava Dispositio. See also,
in Rosario, lib. i. cap. ix. Quid sit opus physicum : also
Clangor Buccinse, Tractatus mirabilis, de Luna Philosophica
Enigmata Di versa.

5 Sciant Artifices Alchimise species sive formas metallorum
vere transmutari non posse nisi in primam materiam et sic in
aliud quam prius permutentur. — Lib. ii. Tractat. i. cap. iv.
De Operat. Med. Sing.

6 Metalla autem omnia, ut ad rem redeam, fiunt ex una
eademque materia, &c, before quoted, page 14. — Meteor,
lib. iii. cap. xv.

Theory of Transmutation. 75

Wherefore such bodies as in nature be liquable
Mineral and metalline may be mercurizate,

Conceive ye may theis science is not opinable,

But very true by Raymond and others determinate.7

When therefore Lully, speaking of the Art, de-
clares that species are absolute and cannot be
changed one into another, — Elementiva habent
vera conditiones et una species se non transmute t
in aliam,8 — we shall not understand him as deny-
ing the art by any means, but a false position
of it only ; the fundamental possibility and prin-
ciple of transmutation being not of species, but
of their Universal Subject or first matter.

And this Universal Subject is the alleged founda-
tion of the whole Hermetic experiment ; not only
the thing transmutable in natures, as is above
shown, but the thing transmuting also, when set
free and segregated in its proper essentiality, the
fermented Spirit assimilates the Light throughout.
— Trust not, says the adept, those imposters who
tell you of a sulphur tingens, and I know not what
fables ; who pin also the narrow name of Chemia
on a science ancient and infinite. It is the Light
only that can be truly multiplied, for this ascends
and descends from the first fountain of multi-
plication and generation. This Light (discovered
and perfected by art) applied to any body, exalts
and perfects it in its own kind : if to animals, it
exalts animals ; if to vegetables, vegetables ; if to
minerals, it refines minerals, and translates them
from the Avorst to the best condition ; where,
note by the way, that every body hath passive
principles in itself for this Light to work upon, and
therefore needs not to borrow any from gold or
silver.9

This last advice is given to correct a common
error, that the alchemists extracted the Form out

7 Epistle to King Edward, stanza 10.

8 De Arte Magna, part ix.

9 See Yaughan's Anima Magia Abscondita, page 30.

76 Exoteric View.

of these metals to transmute and increase with.
Gross misconception of their initial principle has
indeed caused their positions frequently to appear
ridiculous ; as of the common talk, for instance, of
weighing and proportioning the elements so exactly
as to constitute them into lasting accord ; of con-
solidating the metalline vapour by heat artificially
introduced, or by the rays of the sun and moon
drawn to simultaneous co-operation, and several
such-like literally imputed follies, far from their
minds, who protested against such misunder-
standing, having assumed to themselves another
principle and another method of generating metals,
by which they were enabled to follow nature inde-
pendently, and help her to exceed the ordinary
limits of her law : not by the condensation of
imaginary vapours in the mines, or by the assist-
ance of the great luminary or lunar light, but by
working, as it is said, the only universal living and
occult nature by and through itself, scientifically,
which contains within itself the true original of all
these, even of the whole manifested existence.
Thus, we read, in the Lucerna Salts,

A certain thing is found in the world
Which is also in every thing and in every place.
It is not earth, nor fire, nor air, nor water,
Albeit it wants neither of these things,
Nay it can become to be fire, air, water, and earth ;
For it contains all nature in itself purely and sincerely \
It becomes white and red, is hot and cold,
It is moist and dry and is diversifiable every way.
The band of Sages only have known it,
And they call it their salt.
It is extracted from their earth ;
And has been the ruin of many a fool ;
For the common earth is worth nothing here.
Nor the vulgar salt in any manner,
But rather the salt of the world,
Which contains in itself all Life :

Of it is made that medicine which will preserve you from
all maladies.10

10 Lucerna Salis, from the Latin verse, p. 150.

Theory of Transmutation. 77

The Stone is one, says the monk in his Rosary ;
the medicine is one, in which the whole myste^
consists, to which we add nothing nor take away
anything, only in the preparation, removing
superfluities.11 All is made of Mercury, says Geber ;
for when Sol is reduced to his first original, i.e., the
mercury, then nature embraceth nature, and by
open and manifest proof we have concluded that
our Stone is no other than a fcetent spirit and
living water, which we have named dry water, by
natural proportion cleansed and united with such
union, that they can never more be absent each
from other.12 And Aquinas says, — It is Mercury
alone which perfects in our work, and we find
in it all we have need of ; nothing different must
be added. Some, mistaking, believe that the work
cannot be perfected with mercury alone without
his sister or companion ; but I do assure thee
that working with mercury and his sister (i.e., as
agent and patient) that thou addest nothing-
different from mercury ; and know also that gold
and silver are not unlike in kind to this our Mercury;
for it is their roo.t : if thou workest therefore with
Mercury alone, without foreign intervention, thou
obtainest thy desire. The White and Red proceed
from one root, for it dissolves and coagulates itself
—whitens, rubifies, and makes itself to be both
yellow and black ; it unites with itself, conceives
itself, and brings itself forth, to the full perfecting
of its intention.13

It is only in her manifold changes that nature is
known and made apparent in ordinary life ; but,
since these alchemists profess to have enjoyed
another experience, and through their Art to have
discovered her in her simple essentiality, to be
that total which works all conditionedly throughout
existence, it will therefore be requisite to consider

11 Rosar, Abbrev. Tract, iii. and v.

12 Invest, of Perf. cap. xi.

13 Rosar. Abbrev. Tract, iii. and v.

78 Exoteric View.

their whole doctrine with reference to this pre-
sumed unity, and by no means be led aside by
their metaphoric language into a common mis-
construction of its meaning ; but since, according
to the old maxim, All is in Mercury which the wise
men seek, let us seek therefore if we may be able
at all to identify this mercury, and whether the
same ancient material be yet on earth.

It is well known, that the Greeks and eastern
sages derived all things in common from a certain
pure and hidden fire ; Stoics, Pythagoreans,
Platonists, and Peripatetics vie with each other
in celebrating the occult virtues of the Ether ; its
all-pervading essence and perfective power : in it
they place the providential regulation of nature ;
it was the very life and substance of their theo-
sophy, in which from the highest to the lowest
confines of existence, from Jove to the last link
in the infernal monarchy, all were inhabiting the
etherial world ; for, as Virgil says, it lights and
nourishes the innermost earth as well as the air
and starry heavens.

Principio ccelum, ac terras, composque Jiquentes,
Lucentemque globum Luna?, Titaniaque astra,
Spiritus intus alit ; totamque infusa per artus
Mens agitat molem, et magno se corpore miscet.14

And the assertions of the Ethnics, about the
Anima Mundi, differ very little or nothing in sub-
stance from the Hebrew doctrine, but in words only ;
neither are their opinions so heinous or ridiculous
as the zealous policy of ignorance, under a Christian
guise, has too often caused them to appear. That
there is a fluid or vitalizing principle invisibly
permeating all things, and resident in the air we
breathe, common experience indicates, for life
cannot subsist without air, nor in all kinds of air ;
but there is some one quality or ingredient in the
atmosphere which is a secret food of life, and on
which it immediately depends ; what this aliment

14 iEneid, lib. vi. 724.

Theory of Transmutation. 79

is, though many names have been invented, the
moderns in default of knowledge are not agreed ;
and seeing it escapes the test of their closest
vessels and analvses, and that it can be neither
seen, heard, felt, nor naturally understood, the
ancient theory of the One Element has been very
much derided. The chemist, Homberg, indeed, with
Boerhaave, Boyle, and others eminent of that
period, hold with the alchemists, that there is a
distinct substance universally diffused, though
sensible only in its mixed forms and powerful
effects ; that it is the alone pure and active source
of all things, and most firm bond of the natural
elements, giving life to all bodies, penetrating and
sustaining all things, and enlivening all ; that this
mighty Ether moreover is always at hand, ready
to break forth into action on predisposed subjects ;
fermenting, producing, destroying, and governing
the total course of nature. Bishop Berkeley, too,
in his Siris, contends learnedly in favour of the
same universal material, which he likewise calls
ether, and a pure invisible fire — the most subtle
and elastic of all bodies pervading all, and con-
siders that it is from thence, and not from anv
mingled property, that the air has its power of
sustenance and vitalization.

These then, with a few others, in recent times
have so far concurred with the ancients in dis-
tinguishing the fontal Spirit of nature, apart from
its manifestation, and as distinct from that
elementarv ignition with which we are sensiblv
familiar ; for they do not allow that to be fire
indeed, but an excitation only or effect of the
antecedent potency which they describe. But
then they could adduce no tangible proof of their
doctrine. The world could not see their invisible
fire. It has therefore been regarded as a mere
speculative chimera (which in part it was perhaps,
hi their minds, without experience), and, accord-
ingly, disbelieved. For philosophy, at length,

SO Exoteric View.

laudably anxious to prove all things, yet too idle to
theorise, will suppose nothing that is not openly
shown ; how then should she recognise that
recondite fire ?

Neither are we desirous absolutely to assume it
here ; for though experiments of recent date seem
to supply concurrent evidence, and the phenomena
of Mesmerism have helped to force again on the
minds of the more observing portion of mankind
the supposition of a ; New Imponderable," or
" Od-ic Force," yet, few believe ; and we pass
it now to continue our research concerning that
elder Quintessence of the magi which they intro-
duce, not as a being of speculation merely, but of
experimental science ; not perceptible only in
mingled forms, in the common air or elementary
water, but as an essence compact and tangible
without heterogeneity ; in which pure estate, the
Kabalists, also describing, call it, Lumen Vesti-
menti, the Vehicle of Light ; and the Greeks,
eXevOepos the Free Ether, that is to say, freed
from the prison of gross matter, and able to
work of itself intimately by the virtue of its own
included light. Thus Zeno defines it, — Ignem esse
artificiosum, ad gignendum progredientem via ; —
as a plastic fire, ever generating by rule. And Cicero,
as that ccelestis altissima sethereaque natura, id
est ignea aquae per se omnia gignat, — that most
heavenly high etherial igneous nature, which
spontaneously begets all things.15

The light of life ; the vital draught

That forms the food of every living thing,

And e'en the high, enthroned, all-sparkling eye

Of ever-mounting fire ; th' immense expanse,

The viewless Ether in his genial arms

Clasping the earth ; Him call thou Lord and Jove.16

It is requisite, however, to distinguish airs here,
lest we speak profanely, calling that Jove which is

15 De Nat. Deor. lib. ii.

16 Euripides. See BlackwelFs Letters on Mytholog}^ 12.

Theory of Transmutation. 81

not Jove ; and, mistaking Olympus, embrace
some cloud whilst the life-giving Juno is far away
above all our idea and sight. For the goddess is
subtilely mingled in nature commonly observable
in her action only, as adepts say, and to the world
unknown, as we may observe Lully, amongst
others telling us, she is of another birth, and cannot
be brought to knowledge without sagacious hand-
ling and human help. — Imo argentum vivum
nostrum est aqua alterius naturae, quae reperiri
non potest supra terram, cum in actionem venire
non possit per naturam, absque adjutorio ingenii
et humanarum manuum operationibus.17
Hoc vere nullibi est quod quaerimus.

Nowhere ; for the etherial spirit does not subsist
of itself, separate or tangibly on earth ; but, giving
subsistence to other things, is occultated even
in their life, and defiled. It is moreover, an especial
doctrine of adepts, that nature operates her ordi-
nary manifestation in direct contrariety to her
perfect law ; that, as darkness and imperfection
are now apparent, the true Light is made occult ;
and that neither sanity nor beauty can permanently
supervene in bodies, unless the contrary be
operated in them ; so that that which is fixed
becoming volatile and the volatile nature fixed,
the adventitious or externally generated image
may be constricted utterly, and the central form
contrariwise developed into life and act.

Si fixum solvas faciasque volare solutum
Et volucrem figas, facient te vivere tuturn :
Solve, Coagula, Fige.

Thus, it is said that by a real experimental inver-
sion, the Hermetic Art has proved imperfections to
be accidental to nature, and introduced to her
from without ; that as water, spread abroad upon
a many-coloured surface of earth, salts, or spices
takes the hue and flavour of the spot on which it

17 Lullii Theorica et Practiea in Theat. Chem. vol. iv.

82 Exoteric View.

rests, so it is with the prolific source of things ;
species subsist in it adventitiously, as it were, by
sufferance, and may be expelled, and ought to be
for the attainment of perfection. — Whoever de-
sires to attain this end, says Arnold, let him
understand the conversion of the elements, to make
light things heavy, and to make spirits no spirits,
then he shall not work in a strange thing. Con-
verts elementa et quod quseris invenies.18

And if any skilful minister of nature shall apply
force to nature ; and, by design, torture and vex
it in order to its annihilation, says the philosopher ;
it, on the contrary, being brought to this necessity,
changes and transforms itself into a strange variety
of shapes and appearances ; for nothing but the
power of the Creator can annihilate it or truly
destroy ; so that, at length, running through the
whole circle of transformations, and completing
its period, it in some degree restores itself, if the
force be continued. And that method of torturing
or detaining will prove the most effectual and
expeditious which makes use of manacles and
fetters ; i.e., lays hold and works upon matter in
the extremest degree.19

So much does Lord Bacon assume upon the
declaration of Democritus ; our philosopher had
in him the bright light of genius, which enabled
him independently of experience to conceive well
and grapple with the possibility of nature. His
mind glanced intuitively through and beyond the
darkness which time had cast before the Wisdom
of antiquity, and he discerned her yet beaming
afar off with venerable splendour in her old domain.
Though chained to the superficies, observing and
collecting facts, he honoured those sages who
long before him had experimented into the centre,
and proved there a firm and immutable foundation
of truth ; but thither he was not able himself to

18 Arnoldi Speculum, Octava Dispositio, &c.

19 See Bacon, De Sapientia Veterum, Fable of Proteus.

Theory of Transmutation 83

pass, for he knew nothing of their Great Art, or
of its subject even, and naturally mistook their
hidden ground. Had the smallest glimpse only of
this been revealed to him, he would have imagined
all differently, nor ever proposed that the disso-
lution of nature should be attempted mechanically,
or by help of such " particular digesters applied
to the fire," as in the Sylva Sylvarum he seriously
designs for this end.20

Such instruments do, in fact, expel the very
nature which the ancients prized ; leaving us with-
out all recompense in the dead ashes of her con-
suming vesture ; whereas, the proposal of Demo-
critus is not only to reduce the matter, with her
false forms, to the verge of annihilation, but to
entrap the bare spirit and help her on from thence
to operate her own intrinsical freed will, which
according to this testimony she possesses, and is
able to make manifest, wrapping herself sponta-
neously about it, even to a recreation. But if she
is suffered to depart invisibly without pursuit or
amendment, which is the common catastrophe,
then she is caught up again by other external
compellents, and, becoming defiled, is imprisoned
by them and no better than she was before. The
contrariation proposed by the alchemists, indeed,
is not in the power of ordinary art, any more than
of nature herself ; but she passes through death
from one form into another, as in the chemic
vessels, without self-discovery, being instigated
by a most forcible excentric will, which she has
no power but to obey : yet, as the passage runs, —
If any skilful minister shall apply another force,
and by design torture and vex the spirit in order to
its annihilation, it, being brought under this
necessity, transforms and presently restores itself,
the force being continued.

And that magic, says Paracelsus, is the most

20 See the Sylva Sylvarum, in two places ; and the History
of Rarity and Density.

84 Exoteric View.

singular secret that directed such an entrance into
nature ; which, if it were divinely done by God
alone, it would be to no purpose to study for it.
But the Deity doth not make himself especially
operative herein : if that magic then were natural,
certainly it was most wonderful, very excellent
for quickness of penetration and swiftness of
separation, the like whereof nature can neither
give nor express. For whilst that is at work,
behold all things fall apart into their elements^
breaking forth into their act and simple essence.
The greatest miracle of all in philosophy is
separation : separation was the principle and
beginning of all generation. And as it was in the
great mystery, so it is in the lesser. The truphat, or
matter of the metals, brings everything into its
proper kind, distinguishing and separating with
wonderful diligence every thing into its due form.21
— Convert the elements, says Arnold, and you will
find what you seek ; for our operation is nothing
else than a mutation of natures, and the method of
conversion in our Argent vive is the reduction of
natures to their first root.22 The elements of
Mercury being separated, says Ripley, and again
commixed by equal weight or proportion, make
the elixir complete.23

Now as we are taught from the beginning, that
the whole of the Hermetic theory and practice
proceeds upon the assumption of a certain Univer-
sal Being in nature, which is occult, and since the
whole Art therefore has respect to this, we may be
careful to observe that in speaking of elements, our
authors do not allude to the common elements —
as of fire, air and water — with which we are
familiarly conversant, or to those subtler gases, so
called simples of modern Chemistry, all of which are
impure and equally irrelevant to this philosophy ;

21 To the Athenians, book i. text 9.

22 Speculum Alchimiae, Octava Dispositio.

23 Medulla Alchimia?, can. i.

Theory of Transmutation. 85

but the elements they speak of, as being introverted
and transformed are the elements of the Mercury,
properties of the universal spirit ; in which, and
by which alone, they profess to have operated the
perfective miracle of their Stone. We must not
limit, says Paracelsus, an element to a bodily
substance or quality. That which we see is only
the receptacle ; the true element is a spirit of life,
and grows in all things, as the soul in the body of
man. This is the First Matter of the elements,
which can neither be seen nor felt, and yet is in all
things ; and the first matter of the elements is
nothing else but that life which the creatures have ;
and it is these magical elements which are of such
an excellent and quick activity that nothing
besides can be found or imagined like them.24

Concerning the same, Hermes also advises men
to understand that the knowledge of the four
elements of the ancient philosophers was not
corporally or without wisdom sought after, but
they are through patience only to be obtained,
according to their kind, which through their own
operation are everywhere in nature hidden and
obscured.25

We do not know whether we have set the posi-
tion clearly, that the order of natural procedure
ought to be introverted for a true and perfect
manifestation ; the point is subtle, and as it may
be more easily apprehended hereafter on more
intimate ground, we leave it for the present to
consider especially what that nature was, which
the alchemists profess so to have revolutionized,
in order that gathering .their definitions of the
whole, we may be better able afterwards to con-
ceive the particulars. — Qui Proteum non novit,
adeat Pana.

24 To the Athenians, book ii. text 2 and 5.

25 Tractatus Aureus, cap. i. prop. 4. See also Luilii Theoria
et Practica, c. iii.

86 Exoteric View,

Fortis subtilis Pan, integer et generalis ;

Et totus ignis, aura, terra, sive aqua,
Qui resides solio cum tempore semper eodem

Medio, supremo et infimo regno tuo.
Concipiens, generans, producens, omnia servans,

Exordium rerumque finis omnium.26

Yet not in his elementary immanifest diffusion
let us invoke the most Ancient Nature, but as he
was discovered by the Hermetic masters ; whole,
and singularly, and before any alteration had been
induced in his uniform substance by their art.
Thus Albertus Magnus defines the Mercury of the
wise to be a watery element, cold and moist, a
permanent water, an unctuous vapour, and the
spirit of body ; and again, — the first material of
the metals is an unctuous subtle humidity, forcibly
incorporated with a subtle terrestreity.27 Artephius
describes it as a white fume, in substance like to
pure silver, resolving bodies into their original
whiteness ; and as a vegetable life making all
things to grow, multiply, and resuscitate.28 Which
Lully, not dissimilarly viewing, calls Hyle, saying,,
that it is a clear compounded water, most like in
substance to argent vive, that it is found flowing
upon earth, and is generated in every compound
out of the substance of the air, therefore the

26 Orpheus Hymni — 1.

27 Mercurius Sapientum est elementum aqueum, frigidum et
humidum, aqua permanens, vapor unctuosus et spiritus-

corporis, &c Prima materia metallorum est humidum

unctuosum subtile, quod est incorporatum terrestri subtili
fortiter commixto. — De Mineralibus, cap. ii. et Breve Com-
pendium in Theat. Chem. vol. ii.

28 See Liber Secretissimus Artefii. Ilia namque aqua fumu&
albus est, &c. Est autem aqua ilia media qua?dam substantia?
clara ut argentum purum, qua? debet recipere tincturas solis et
lume ut congeletur et convertatur in terram albam vivam. . . .
Est quoniam aqua ista est aqua vita? vegetabilis, ideo ipsa
dat vitam et facit vegetare crescere et pullulare ipsum corpus
mortuum et ipsum resuscitare de morte at vitam solutione et
sublimatione et in tali opera tione vertitur corpus in spiritum,
spiritus in corpus et tunc facta et amicitia, &c.

Theory of Transmutation. 87

moisture is extremely heavy.29 Seek our Argent
Vive, says Arnold, and you will have all you desire
from it ; it is a stone and no stone, in which the
whole Art consists, spirit, soul, and body ; which
if thou dissolvest, it will be dissolved ; and if thou
coagulatest, it will be coagulated ; and if thou
makest it fly, it will fly ; for it is volatile, and clear
as a tear. And afterwards, it is made citrine, then
saltish, but without crystals ; and no man may
touch it with his tongue, for it is a deadly poison.
Behold, I have described it to thee ; but I have
not named it, lest it should become common in
the hands of all ; nevertheless, I will in a manner
name it, and tell thee that if thou sayest it is water,
thou dost say truth ; and if thou sayest it is not
water, thou dost lie. Be not therefore deceived
with manifold descriptions and operations, for it
is One Thing to which nothing extraneous may be
added.30 There is another found speaking after
the same sense — Belus, in the classic synod of
Aristaeus ; and this, he says, amongst all great
philosophers is magisterial, that our stone is no
stone ; though with the ignorant this is ridiculous ;
for who will believe that water can be made a
stone, or a stone water ; nothing being more

29 R. Lullil Theorica et Practica, cap. iii. De Forma Minori.
Est aqua lara composita ex dictis vaporibus per condensa-
tionem sua? naturae, qua? venit in dictos vapores quatuor
elementorum, et ilia est res argento vivo magis propinqua,
quod quidem reperitur supra terrain enrrens et fluens, &c.

30 Lapis est et non lapis, spiritus anima et corpus : quern si
dissolvis, dissolvitur ; et si coagules, coagulatur, et si volare
facis, volat. Est autem volatilis albus ut lachryma oculi ; postea
efficitur citrinus, salsus, pilis carens, quern nemo lingua sua
tangere potest. Ecce ipsum jam sua demonstravi descriptione.
Non tamen nominavi, quo omnis eget locuples et pauper et
omnes habere possunt ; et in manibus suis est ac pro eo
causantur. Modo volo ipsum nominare ; et dico quod si
dixeris eum aquam esse, verum dicis ; et si dicis eum aquam
non esse mentiris. Ne igitur decipiaris pluribus descriptionibus
et operantibus. Unum enim quid est, cui nihil alieni infertur.
— Speculum Alchimise, Octava Disp.

88 Exoteric View.

different than these two ? Yet, in very truth, it is
so ; for this very permanent water is the stone,
but whilst it is water it is no stone.31 Again : —

It is a stone and no stone,

In which the whole art consists ;

Nature has made it such,

But has not yet brought it to perfection.

You will not find it on earth, since there it has no growth ;'

It grows only in the caverns of the mountains.

The whole art depends on it ;

For he who has the vapour of this thing,

Has the gilded splendour of the Red Lyon,

The pure and clear Mercury.

And he who knows the red Sulphur which it contains,

Has within his power the whole foundation.32

Basil Valentine, more intimately defining the
nature of the First Matter, declares it to be com-
parable to no manifested particular whatever, and
that all description fails in respect of it, without
the light of true experience. And Rupecissa says
the same : and Ripley, that it is not like any
common water or earthy material, but a middle
substance, — Aquosa substantia sicca reperta, —
partaking of extremes celestial and terrestrial ; and
though it may seem contradictory so to speak of a
first matter, as of a middle, or third ; yet this is
done in respect of its generation by active and
passive relations of the Universal Spirit, whence

31 Ecce dicta in hoc despecto, fama divulgata quod apud
philosophos excelsum est, quod est lapis et non lapis, quod
multis noncupantur nominibus, ne quis ipsum agnoscat
insipiens, &c. — Turba Philosophorum Sermo Vigesima

Est lapis attamen non lapis,

In ipso solum natura operatur,

Qui fons ex eo profluit,

Fixum patrem suum submergit,

Absorbens ilium cum corpore vitaque,

Donee reddatur illi anima

Et mater volatilis ipsi similis

Fiat in suo regno, &c.

B. Valentinii De Prima Materia .

32 Lucerna Salis Phil. p. 33. From the Latin verse, Est
quidem lapis et non lapis, &c. — See Digby's Trans, p. 277.

Theory of Transmutation. 89

it proceeds as a third, yet homogeneal from its
radix ; Lully also calls it tertium, and compounded
in this sense ; and Basil Valentine, —

Corpus anima spiritus in duobus existit,
Ex quibus tota res procedit :
Procedit ex uno et est res una,
Volatile et fixum simul colliga,
Sunt duo et tria et saltern unum
Si non intelliges, nihil obtines.33

And Vaughan, for example of a modern author-
ity, says, that the First Matter is indeed the union
of masculine and feminine spirits ; the quin-
tessence of four, the ternary of three, and the
tetract of one ; and that these are his generations,
physical and metaphysical. The thing itself, con-
tinues he, is a world without form, a divine ani-
mated mass of complexion like silver, neither mere
power nor perfect action, but a weak virgin sub-
stance, a certain soft prolific Venus, the very love
and seed of nature, the mixture and moisture of
heaven and earth.34 As Sendivogius likewise
declares, — Our water is heavenly, not wetting the
hands, not of the vulgar, but almost rain water ;35
.and by such familiar analogies as tears, rain, dew,
milk, wine, and oil, the fermental principle of the
spirit and her distilled quintessence are very
ordinarily denoted. We conclude these verbal
instructions with the following summary passage
from the ancient book of Synesius, and the New
Light — It is, says this esteemed author, speaking
of the same Matter, a clear Light, which fills with
true virtue every mind that has once perceived it ;
it is the nucleus and bond of all the elements which
are contained in it, and the spirit which nourishes
all things, and by means of which nature operates
universally ; it is the virtue, true beginning, and
end of the whole world ; in plain terms, the quin~

33 B. Valentinii De Prima Materia, in Museo Hermetico,
Lullii Theor. et Pract. cap. iii.

34 Lumen de L umine, p. 46, &c. [Generation.

35 New Light of Alchemy, Tract. 10. Of the Supernatural

90 Exoteric View.

tessence is no other than our viscous celestial and
glorious soul drawn from its minera by our magistery.
But nature alone engenders it ; it is not possible to
make it by art ; for to create is proper to God
alone ; but to make things that are not perceived,
but which lie in the shadow, to appear, and to take
from them their veil, is granted to an intelligent
philosopher by God, through nature. And this
Latex is the sharp vinegar which makes gold a
pure spirit, seeing she is even that blessed water
which engenders all things. Our subject is presented
to the eyes of the whole world, and it is not known !
O our heaven, O our water, O our mercury, 0 our
salt nitre, abiding in the sea of the world ! 0 our
vegetable ; 0 our sulphur, fixed and volatile ; O
our caput mortuum, or dead head, or fceces of our
sea ! Our water, that wets not the hands ; without
which nothing can live, and without which nothing
grows or is generated in the whole world ! And
these are the Epithetes of Hermes, his Bird, which
is never at rest. It is of small account, yet no body
can be without it, and so thou hast discovered to
thee a thing more precious than the whole world ;
which I plainly tell thee is nothing else than our
sea water, which is congealed in gold and silver,
and extracted by the help of our chalybs, or steel,
by the art of philosophers, in a wonderful manner
by a prudent son of science.36

Thus obscure, after all, is the true Matter of the
Alchemists ; and if we presume to add here, that it
is the simple generated substance of life and light,
immanifestly flowing throughout nature, and
define it as that without which nothing that exists
is able to be, we are not for this yet wiser how to
obtain or work it apart ; nor are words sufficient
to convey a just notion where there is no ground
of apprehension ; and whether a thing be most like

36 See at the end of Kirchringius Valentine, in English, the
Treatise of Synesius, p. 166, and Sendivogius, New Light of
Alchemy, page 44,

Theory or Transmutation. 91

water, earth, fire, quicksilver, azote, or ether, is
indifferent to the mind, needing actual experience
to fix its idea. This the art promises to a patient
and true philosopher, but as a reward of individual
labour and perseverance only. We may content
ourselves thus early, therefore, with the exclusive
assurance that it is no one of the many things
with which sense brings us acquainted ; that it is
neither water, nor earth, nor air, nor fire, though
it contains in principle the nature of all these ;
neither gold, nor silver, nor mercury, nor antimony,,
nor any alkali, or gas, or vitriol of the vulgar ;
though these titles are found interspersed abund-
antly with others, equally deceptive, in the pages
of the adepts. Neither is it animal absolutely, or
vegetable, or mineral, or any natural particular
whatever : but the alone Lcelia Mlia latent in
and about all, which the Enigma celebrates as
comprehending all ; but which the Alchemists
alone teach experimentally to expound.

The ordinary phenomena of light, however, may
occur, as not dissimilar from those which they de-
scribe ; only that they are shadowy and mingled,
compared with the alleged virtue and perfective
properties of the Philosophic Subject. Yet as
colours — blue, red, yellow and purple — are blended
in the one uniform solar light, and are shown
apart simply by a prismatic parting of the rays,
or particles of their essence ; and again, when the
disposition is exchanged, relapsing, they exhibit
the uniform whiteness whence they came ; so is it
said to be with the Alchemical Pan, who, being
but one himself, is in his offspring multitudinous,,
and manifold in every diversity of form, hue, and
complexion.

The ever varying substance of the whole
Etherial, watery, earthly general soul,
Immortal Fire ! Even all the world is thine
And parts of thee, O Proteus, power divine ;
Since all things nature first to thee consigned,
And in thy essence omniform combined.

92 Exoteric View.

Then, again, as light and heat mingle with bodies
entering their composition, hardening some, soft-
ening others, destroying or cherishing, changing their
aspect continually, and modifying their qualities ;
so is the Mercurial quintessence said to produce all
various effects, but within itself consummately
without external reference, or elementary confusion.
Hitherto we have had account of the Matter only
as it first appears, pure, as they say, and white,
out of the philosophical contrition ; and, so far,
we find the testimony sufficiently congruous : —
but when the wise artist has brought all into this
annihilate condition, and pressed out the waters
of her extreme life ; nature re-acting, as it is said,
exhibits from out her unity three great magnetic
principles of being — the Salt, Sulphur, and Mer-
cury of adepts, in relation to each other of agent,
patient, and offspring universal, — perpetually
flowing forth to multitudinous manifestation. For
Pan contains Proteus, as we have before seen from
Democritus, and exhibits himself through this god ;
evolving every particular propert}^ and form of
beings, out of his central will, of necessity, as the
Orphic oracle declares ; also of Mercury, with like
allusion.

Hear me, O Mercury, and Son of Mala ; the bright
expositor of things !

This Proteus, then, or Mercury, or quintessence
of philosophers, is warily concealed by them under
an infinity of names, all more or less applicable, yet
delusive ; for though every epithet is admissible,
inasmuch as nothing can be said amiss of a
Universal Subject, yet the right conception is hard
to gather from their books. In its artificial
fermentation and progress towards perfection, the
changes it undergoes are manifold ; and as the
common life of nature, it becomes any and every
conceivable thing in turn that it wills to be ;
now it is mineral, now vegetable, now animal ; by
predominance of either principle, it is fire, spirit,

Theory of Transmutation. 93

body, air, earth, and water ; a stone, a vapour, or
an aqua sicca ; an essential oil of life, and a most
sharp vinegar, a phoenix, a salamander, a poison-
ous devouring dragon, and a chameleon ; every
colour, every thought is included in its circulations ;
nourishing, destroying, living, dying, corrupting,
purifying, it is all things ; and, anon, it is nothing,
— but a potential chaos and egg of philosophers ;
a precedential, nameless principle, always in muta-
tion, becoming to be, — first, last, greatest, least,
the servant of art and queen of nature. Proceeding
homogeneal through each omniform variety, and
returning into herself manifestly the life and all
phenomena which she as constantly supplies, the
great Identity is as herself unchanged ;

Et, quanto ilia magis formas se vertet in omnes,
Tanto, nate, magis tenacia vincla.37

Adepts have taken advantage of the mutable
nature of their subject, to baffle the blind searcher,
as well to confound false premises as to lead the
intelligent to a discovery of the simple truth ; and
where we find them speaking confusedly of ele-
ments, colours, and operations, it is very requisite
to bear in mind the idiosyncracy of their ground,
and that it is to the qualities and changes which
take place during the preparation, and multiplying
the Mercury by its proper Light, they allude, and
not to any superficial phenomena or those elements
which the moderns have so triumphantly decom-
posed. The three principles, the Salt, Sulphur, and
Mercury, are merely different as modes of being of
the same thing, and the many names arising out
of the action and passion of these, do but indicate
the stages of progress and development, as of a
tree, which with its leaves, trunk, flowers, buds,
fruit and branches, all differing, is nevertheless
one individual, of one original, and of one root.

37 Georgics, lib. iv. 411.

94 Exoteric View.

In the common estate, as the Spirit is in nature,
said to be everywhere, it is called a thing vile and
cheap ; in its perfectly prepared form, a medicine
the most potent and precious in the whole world ;
and the intermediate stages partake of the pre-
dominance of either extreme ; being sublimed at
first, it is called a serpent, dragon, or green lion, on
account of its strength and crude vitality, which
putrefying, becomes a stronger poison, and their
venomous toad ; which afterwards appearing
calcined by its proper fire, is called magnesia and
lead of the wise ; which again dissolving, becomes
their vitriolic solvent and most sharp acetum ;
and this afterwards is changed into an oil, which,
whitening, is called milk, dew, quintessence, and
by many other names ; until raised to the final
perfection, it is henceforth a phoenix, salamander,
their royal essence and Red Stone.

Our great Elixir most high of price.

Our Azot, our Basiliske, and our Adrop, our Cocatrice.
Some call it also a substance exuberate.
Some call it Mercury of metalline essence,
Some limus deserti from his body evacuate,
Some the Eagle flying fro' the north with violence,
Some call it a Toade for his great vehemence,

But few or none at all doe name it in its kinde,

It is a privy quintessence ; keep it well in minde.38

Some speaking of it thus in metaphor, others in
abstract terms, and all ambiguously ; one regard-
ing only certain properties, which another as ■
entirely passes by, now describing in the natural
state, then in its purified condition, or otherwise
in any one of the intermediate stages through which
it passes, without note of order in the art ; alto-
gether it is by no means wonderful that so many
erroneous conclusions have arisen respecting it,
ingenuity having been rather directed to obscure
than reveal the truth, which indeed can hardly be
well conceived, without an insight into the experi-
mental ground. And there are other difficulties

38 Bloomfield's Camp of Philosophy, book i. in Ashmole.

Theory of Transmutation. 95

which beset an exoteric theory of occult science,
and inconsistencies will continually appear betwixt
the sound of the alchemical writings and their
true sense, until the initial ground is understood.
Patience in the beginning is required, therefore,
to interrogate and discern, from amongst so
many shadowy representatives, the true light.
Constantly holding in mind the simplicity of the
Substance, whence these images are all derived, we
may nevertheless be enabled to thread in compara-
tive security this Hermetic labyrinth of birds and
wild beasts : and when Geber says, that the thing
which perfects in minerals, is the substance of
argent vive and sulphur, proportionally commixt
in the bowels of clean inspissate earth ;39 or
Sendivogius, that the matter of the metals is two-
fold ;40 or Lully, or Ripley, or Basil, calls it a third
thing ; we shall not understand them, or any
others so speaking, as of a variety of things, of
sulphur, mercury, or earth in a commonsense
interpretation, but of the magnetic relation, action,
and passion of the Ethereal being in itself.

And from the foregoing we may also judge that
when Hermes says that the separation of the
ancient philosophers is made upon Water, dividing
it into four substances,41 that it is not the common
elementated water to which he alludes ; any more
than did Thales when he said that all things were
generated from thence, or Moses when he taught
that the Spirit of God moved creatively upon the
face of the same. This water they speak of is not
the fluid with which in this life we are conversant,
either as dew, or of clouds, or air condensed in
caverns of the earth, or artificially distilled in a
receiver out of sea fountains, either of pits, or
rivers, as the empirical chemists formerly imagined
— but it is the ethereal body of life and light
which they profess to have discovered, — a certain

39 Invest, of Perf. cap. i. 40 New Light, Tract. 3.
41 Tract. Aur. cap. i. prop, v

96 Exoteric View.

tortured water, having suffered alteration by art
and become corporifled. 0 how wonderful,
exclaims the Arabian, is that Thing which has in
itself all things which we seek, to which we add
nothing different or extract, only in the prepara-
tion removing superfluities !42

The sense of all these philosophers is the same
and from their gathered evidence we may infer
that their Stone is nothing more or less than the
pure Ethereality of nature, separated by artificial
means, purified and made concrete by constriction
and scientific multiplication of its proper Light —
the preparation, generation, birth, specification —
all proceeding, arte mirabili, on the hidden basis
of its primal eduction. Earliest and easiest it
attains to the perfection of the mineral kingdom ;
and the seed of gold, says the adept, is a fiery form
of Light inspissate, and this is the Stone of Fire ; —
Lapis noster, hie est ignis, ex igne creatus, et in
ignem vertitur, et anima ejus in igne moratur.43
Thus nature, by the help of art, is said to transcend
herself, and Light is the true fermental principle
which perfects the Ether in its proper kind.

Nor can one be so stupid as to think
That water of its own accord should cause
Within itself so great a change, and link
Sulphur and mercury with so firm laws,
Its own dimensions to penetrate
So many times a metal to create.
No, there must be an inward agent granted,
Else would a thing unchanged still remain ;
This agent is the form that matter wanted,
While it its proper nature did retain ;

This Form is Light, the source of central heat,
Which clothed with matter doth a seed beget.
The seed no sooner is produced, but soon
Essays to bring the matter to a change,
On it it stamps its character, which done,
The Matter lives, and that which may seem strange.
Co-worketh with the Form t' attain the end
To which the seed implanted doth intend, &c.44

42 Rosarium, Aristotele Arabus.

43 Rosarium, Democritus Phil. Artis Auriferse, vol. u\

44 Eirenseus, Marrow of Alchemy, book i. 45.

Theory of Transmutation. 97

This of the mineral kingdom, where the Formal
Light, by multiplication in its Ether, is said to
produce gold ; through superior skill and coction
in the vegetable life, the elixir of the wise ; and
more rarely yet in the animal kingdom, and most
of all in man ; wherein all these are included, and a
mystery of Universal Being, profound and difficult
to govern and no less arduous than glorious to
sustain. For though the material is one throughout,
forms are diverse, and in him it assumes an Image
that is Divine and more potent than all the rest :
which is in this life yet an embryo, but when
unfolded through a new birth in universal intelli-
gence, transcends the limits of this nether sphere,
and passes into communion with the highest life,
power, science, and most perfect felicity.

Of the phenomena of light, electricity, magne-
tism, &c, great account is taken at the present
day ; both to exhibit them, and to apply their
various potencies to the affairs of life : but of the
real source of these potencies, or of the true
efficient in any case, nothing is known. The beam
has been tried and tortured, through prismatic
glasses and crystals, every chemical agent has
been exhausted upon it, and electrical machines
have been instituted to entrap the fluid, but in vain.
The learned are free to admit that, though they
have discovered much of the mysterious influences
of light, the more is discovered the more miraculous
do they appear. — It has passed through every test
without revealing its secrets, and even the effects
which it produces in its path are unexplained
problems still to tax the intellects of men.45 These
phenomena are effects then of a Cause unknown,
and that very unknown Cause it was the alleged
object of the Hermetic experiment to prove. Shall
we not therefore revert to the inquiry, and search
earnestly, if a glance of faith be granted only,
to ascertain whether, recovering the ancient
45 See Hunt's Poetry of Science.

98 Exoteric View.

method of philosophizing, we may advance by
it to the same end ?

Truth is no where manifested upon the earth,
because her forms or sulphurs are perplexed, and
the passive spirit of nature is included and impure.
She is moreover specified everywhere, and does
not consequently, as a true passive, reflect without
difference another impressing image from without
truly to itself. But by the Hermetic dissolution
the right recipient is said to be obtained, the pure
is separated from the impure, the subtle from the
gross, and the agent and the patient are one
identity, as in the Emerald Table it is graven, —
that which is below is as that which is above, and
that which is above is as that which is below, for
the performing of the miracles of the One Thing
whence all the rest proceed by adaptation. — And
on this unitary basis of production the metamor-
phosis of species is not so entirely ridiculous. Have
we not example in the common process of ferment-
ation, the mild juice of grapes concerted into wine,
and milk into butter and cheese and whey ; and
these each proceeding out of one thing without
requiring the addition of anything different : but
only by operation of their own ferment they
become changed into different specific natures ?
Just so is the Vital Spirit said to be, by the art
of Alchemy, promoted from one form of being
into another by its own prepared must or leaven ;
and as such, in turn, it reacts convertively on the
elements of its original extraction ; having pre-
viously passed on, through many stages, from
imperfection to perfection. Analogy of this, like-
wise, we have in the animal kingdom ; caterpillars
changing their neuter forms quiescently, and
becoming winged moths. There remains the great
difference, however, that whereas, in these familiar
examples, imprisoned nature rests necessarily
within the limiting law of her species ; the will of
the philosophic Proteus is free to be drawn without

Theory of Transmutation. 99

hinderance to form itself about the universal
magnet of its own infinite self -multiplicative Light ;
which being transmuted, transmutes ; and multi-
plying, multiplies its proper substance freely, in
proportion to the virtue which it has acquired in
the fermentation. And hence it may be better
conceived, perhaps, how this fermented Spirit or
Stone, (as in the crystalline perfectness of its
essence it has been called,) when brought into
contact with the crude life of nature whence it
sprung, transmutes, i.e., attracts the same away
from other forms into intimate coalescence with
its own assimilative light. And notwithstanding
metals and all things in the world, as the adepts
say, derive their origin from the same Spirit, yet
nothing is reputed so nearly allied to it as gold ;
for in all other metals there is some impurity, and,
therefore, a certain weight is lost in transmuting
from them ; but in gold there is none, but the
Formal Light is wholly swallowed up in it without
residue, dissolving intimately, gently, and natur-
ally, as they compare it to ice in warm water ; an
excellent simile, by the way, inasmuch as the
commingling natures differ in estate only and
were originally one. And I say to you, adds
Sendivogius, that you must seek for that hidden
thing, out of which is made, after a wonderful
manner, such a moisture or humidity which doth
dissolve gold without violence or noise, but sweetly
and naturally ; if you find out this you have that
thing out of which gold is produced by nature.
And although all metals have their origin from
thence, yet nothing is so friendly to it as gold ; it
is even like a mother to it ; and so finally I con-
clude.46

And the method of working to this discovery,
and to supply the deficiency of Form to the purified
body of the Spirit, is described as the same in each

46

New Light of Alchemy, Preface to the Phil. Enigma, p. 49.

100 Exoteric View.

of the three kingdoms of nature : the preparation
only being diversified according to the variety of
things indigent or intended to be changed. And
if the Art has been more frequently proved in the
mineral kingdom than in the other two, we learn
that this has happened, not because the power is
limited here, or because adepts have desired gold
above every other good ; but because the metalline
radix first presents itself in the experimental
process, and is most easily apportioned ; and
because the responsibility involved is less vital and
consequential, it has been more freely exhibited
and worked at large. In metals, says Geber, is
lesser perfection than in animals ; and the per-
fection of them consists more in proportion and
composition than in anything else. Therefore,
seeing in them is less perfection than the other,
we can more freely perfect these. For the Most
High hath so distinguished perfections from each
other in many forms ; and those things which in
the natural composition were weakest, (i.e., where
life predominates over corporeal consistency,) are
by God endued with greater and more noble
perfection, viz., that which subsists according to
soul or mind. And other things by Him made of a
more firm and strong composition, as stones and
metals, are endued with lesser and more ignoble
perfection, viz., that which is from the way of
proportionate mixtion of the matter.47 But metals,
notwithstanding their inferiority of proportion, are
said to be produced originally, as all other things
are produced, from metalline seeds out of the
Universal Spirit or Mercury, by which also they
may be exalted and multiplied, and by no other
thing ; for that without this spirit growth is
impossible, or transmutation or increase, and by
it all natures are generated externally in their
proper kinds. And the reason that is given why
metals which thus include the prolific principle

47 Invest, of Perf., Russell's Geber, p. 44.

Theory of Transmutation. 101

do not naturally increase, is a deficiency of heat,
the Spirit being overcome in the gross, preponder-
ating elements of their hard composition, so that
they cannot fructify, unless they be first purged
from their terrestreity and their tincture set free
in the subtle Original of all life. Vulgar gold
Sendivogius compares to a herb without seed,
which when it is ripe bears seed ; and as trees
from southern climates cease to blossom and bear
fruit when transplanted into colder soils, so it is
with the metals hindered by the crude earth
of which they are composed. But, he adds, if
at any time nature be sweetly and wittily helped,
then art may perfect that which nature could
not : gold may yield fruit and seed in which it
multiplies itself by the industry of a skilful
artificer, who knows how to exalt nature, and this
by no other medium than fire or heat ; but seeing
this cannot be done, since in a congealed metallic
body there appear no spirits, it is necessary that
the body be loosened and dissolved, and the pores
thereof opened, whereby nature may work.48 And
thus, continues another, when the mineral spirit
is pure, it will, by its especial forms, do more
than generate their forms to produce something
like themselves, for it will work such an alteration in
things of like nature with themselves, that they
shall equalise the Philosophical Elixir, whose divine
virtues wise men so much admire, and fools con-
demn because their blinded eyes cannot penetrate
within to the centre of the mystery.49

We do not presume to suppose that such a view
of nature will be immediately acceptable, or that
the Hermetic theory presents itself even in a
plausible aspect as yet ; the Laws on this ground
are directly inverse to our ordinary notions of

48 New Light of Alch. Tract. 10 ; also Augurellus Chrysopaea,
lib. i.

49 Nuysement, Sal, Lumen et Spiritus Mundi, Phil. ed.
Combachius.

102 Exoteric View.

natural procedure and to our acquired conception
of simplicity and specific variation. But we are
not investigating for those who make their mere
individual experience a negative measure of belief,
and who understand the possibilities of nature and
art so far as to limit them ; but for such rather
who, more observing, see reason for hope beyond
their present vision, and are able to imagine at
least those surpassing realities which the ancients
assert convictively as having apprehended in
intellect and experimentally known. We have
hitherto brought their testimony so far only
as to the existence of a Homogeneal Subject in
nature, showing that the same was the material
basis of their philosophy, and the only principle
of transmutation, life, increase, and perfection. We
have endeavoured also to explain, (as well as the
fence without which we placed ourselves for the
preliminary discussion would admit,) that the
reduction of bodies to their original matter, by
introversion of the generated life, is requisite to a
true manifestation and permanence in any form,
as by the ordinary process of fermentation also was
familiarly evinced ; furthermore, that this inver-
sion is not in the power of unassisted nature, as is
evident ; indeed, she never withstands or alters for
an instant her mode of being or vital perpetuity.
It is in vain, therefore, to seek for that in nature
which is an effect beyond her strength ; she must
be helped, that she may exceed herself, or all will
be useless. For the Mercury of the philosophers
is not found of itself on earth, nor can be detained
or perfected without this occult and needful Art
assisting her. And these are the grand desiderata,
to know what the true matter is, where and how
it may be taken, and to find an artist able and
fitted to perfect it : — without the former we are
advised to attempt nothing ; and without the
latter the former can be practically of no avail.

Theory of Transmutation. 103

Having premised thus much concerning the
matter with the ground of the Hermetic theory, so
far only, however, as may enable us to guard
against gross misapprehension ; we propose, pre-
vious to entering on a more intimate discussion,
to set the whole fairly before the reader's judg-
ment, in the following translation of the Tractatus
Aureus, or Golden Treatise of Hermes, concerning
the Physical Secret of the Philosopher's Stone.
which has been considered to be one of the most
ancient and complete pieces of alchemical writing
extant ; and may be regarded as an exposition in
epitome of the whole Art. Mystical and disorderly
as this relic is, and must especially appear at first
to an}^ one unaccustomed to the antique style, we
trust that the short pains may not be grudged that
it will cost in passing on with us to the discovery
of its idea. The treatise has been held in high es-
teem by the alchemists, and the Scholia given in