Part II.

Table of Contents,
Of Light, Of the Preservation of Mixts, Of the Moist Radical, Of the Harmony of the Universe, Of Movement, Treatise on the Hermetic Work, Philosophical Counsels, Aphorism: Of the Truth of the Sciences, The Key of Science, Of Secrecy, Of the Means of Arriving at the Secret, Of the Keys of Nature, Of Metallic Principles, Of the Matter of the Magnum Opus in general, Ancient Philosophical Names given to this Matter, Matter is All and yet Simple, The Key of the Work, Definitions and Properties of this Mercury, Of the Vase of Art and that of Nature, Names given to this Vase by the Ancients, Of Fire in General, Of Philosophical Fire, Operative Principles, Operative Principles in Particular, Calcination, Solution, Putrefaction, Fermentation, Demonstrative Signs or Principles, Of the Elixir,
Operation of the Elixir according to d’Espagnet,
Quintessence, The Tincture, The Multiplication,
102 108 109 TI2 113 je | 125 126 126 127 127 128 129 130
133 136 143 152 157 158 161 163 167 173 173 174 174 177 180 IQI 193 194 195 196
Table of Contents.
Of the Weights in the Work, Very Instructive Rules, Of the Virtue of the Medicine, Of the Maladies of the Metals, Of the Times of the Stone, Conclusion,
ADDENDA. Dictionary of Hermetic Symbols, Alchemical Characters, Alphabetical Index,
197 200 208 211 212 216
221 228
239
The Great Art.
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Preliminary Discourse.
DO not expect to have the approbation of those vast, sublime and penetrating minds which embrace ll, which know all without having learned anything, which dis- pute concerning everything, which decide about everything without knowledge of the cause. It is not to such people that one gives lessons; to them belongs the name of sage, rather than to Democritus, to Plato, to Pythagoras and to the other Greeks who were in Egypt to breathe the hermetic air, and who drew from it the folly of which we will treat. It is not for sages of this character that this work is made: this contagious air of Egypt is diffused throughout it; they would run the risk of being infected by it; as the Gebers, Synesiuses, Moriens, Arnaud de Villeneuves, Raymond Lullys, and so many others, simple enough to believe in this Philosophy. Following the example of Diodorus of Sicily, of Pliny, of Suidas and many other Ancients, they would, perhaps, become credulous enough to regard this Science as real, and to speak of itas such. They might become ridicu- lous as Borrichius, Kunckel, Beccher, Stahl, mad enough to make treatises which prove it, and to undertake its defense. But if. the example of these celebrated men makes any impression upon minds free from bias and void of prejudice
18 The Great Art.
in this respect, there will be found, doubtless, men sufficiently sensible to wish to be instructed, as they, in a Science little known, in truth, but cultivated in all times. Proud ignorance and fatuity alone are capable of despising and condemning without knowledge. Not a hundred years ago, simply the name of Algebra kept one from the study of that science and was revolting to the so-called good sense of the savants! that of Geometry is capable of giving hysterics to the scien- tific ‘“Petits-Maitres” of to-day. Little by little one has become familiar with them. The barbarous terms with which they bristle, no longer cause fear; one studies them, one cultivates them, honor has succeeded the repugnance, I might say the scorn, with which they were regarded.
Hermetic Philosophy is still in disgrace and consequently in discredit. It is full of enigmas, and probably will not be freed, for a long time, of those allegorical and barbarous terms whose true meaning so few understand. The study of it is so much the more difficult as perpetual metaphors put on the wrong track those who imagine that they under- stand the authors who treat of it, at the first reading. Moreover these authors warn us that such a Science as this cannot be treated as clearly as the others because of the fatal consequences to civil life which might result from it. They make of it a mystery, and a mystery which they study rather to deepen than to develop. So they continually recommend the reader not to take them literally, to study the laws and processes of Nature, to compare the operations of which they speak with hers; to admit only those which will be found conformable to hers. ...
Ambition and the love of riches are the only motives which influence almost all of those who work to instruct themselves concerning the processes of this Science; it presents to them mountains of gold in perspective, and long
Preliminary Discourse. 19
life to enjoy them. What riches for hearts attached to the blessings of this world! They hasten, they run to reach this aim, and as they fear not to arrive there soon enough they take the first way which appears to lead to it most quickly, without taking the trouble to instruct themselves concerning the true way. They walk, they advance, they believe themselves at the end; but as they have walked blindly, they find there a precipice in which they fall. They then think to conceal the shame of their fall by saying that this pretended aim is only a shadow, which they cannot embrace; they treat their guides as perfidious ones; they finally arrive at the point of denying even the possibility of an effect, because they are ignorant of its causes. What! because the greatest naturalists have lost their night-studies and their works in trying to discover what processes Nature employs to form and to organize the foetus in the maternal womb, to make a plant germinate and grow, to form the metals in the earth, could we with good grace deny these facts? Would we regard as sensible a man whose ignorance would be the foundation of his negations? One would not even deign to take the trouble to make the least proof to convince him.
But wise people, enlightened and skilful Artists have studied all their lives, and have worked continually to arrive at it, they have given up their lives for it: what must we conclude? That the thing is not real? No: from about the year 550, from the foundation of Rome up to our day, the most skilful people worked to imitate the famous burning mirror of Archimedes, with which he burned the vessels of the Romans in the port of Syracuse; they have not been able to succeed; they treated the fact as an allegory; it was a fable; and even the making of the mirror was impossible.