CHAPTER IV.

Concerning the Fruits and the Harvest of Minerals.
Just as all the fruits of the earth have their harvest and autumn on the earth and in the air, according to the predestined time in their generation^ so the fruits of the water, that is to say, minerals, are gathered at their own time of maturity* When the mineral root first germinates they rise to their own trunk and tree, that is, into the body from which minerals or metals are subsequently produced ; just as a nut or a cherry is not immediately produced from the earth, but first of all a tree, from which at length the fruit is generated. In like manner, Nature puts forth a mineral tree, that is, an aqueous body, in the clement of water. This tree is produced in the earth so far as it fills the pores thereof, just In the same way as the earth itself fills the air. From this are eventually produced fruits according to the nature and property of its species, at the extremities of its branches, just as occurs in trees which we see on the surface of the earth. We must seek, then, first of all, for the aqueous tree, and by-and-by for its fruits, by a method not inaptly borrowed from agriculture, and in the following manner. Some of the visible trees produce their fruits covered up ; for instance, chestnuts under a prickly bark, walnuts under one that is green and bitter, under that a wooden covering, and under this again a bitter membrane, and then at last the kernel. So it happens in minerals, the kernels of which, that is to say, the metals, are separated just like those others by barks. Other trees produce their fruits naked, such as plums, cherries, pears, apples, grapes, etc., where there is no such separation as that just described. So also some aqueous trees produce their gold, silver, corals, and other metals of that kind, free and naked, according to the condition and nature of the water. As we know by the rind what fruit lies concealed within it, and as the spirit is known by its body, just so» in the case of minerals, the spirit oi the metal is recognised, though hidden,
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I * 94 TAe Hermetic and Alchemical Writings of Paracelsus.
I \ beneath its corporeal or mineral bark. The spirit of the aqueous element
i « produces the body, of one kind in the mineral, of a different kind in the fruit.
\ Although, then, gold may be in a mineral body, nevertheless that body is of
•. no moment ; it has to be separated from the gold as impure, while the gold
* itself is pure. There are, therefore, in a mineral two bodies, of which one is
- the fruit, the pure body of gold, wherewith its spirit is inseparably
J incorporated. So the fruits are first introduced from the element into the
tree, as the spirit into an impure body, and with that at last into the earth, as
something noble and pure. The same thing is seen in man, to whom have
I been given two bodies, one corrupt, but the other incorrupt, which will be
{ eternally united with him, since it is the image of God, and by its possession
\ especially man differs from all other creatures.*
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