Marsilio Ficino on the alchemical art
Item 7 from Ms. Sloane 3638.
Transcribed by Justin von Budjoss.
This text is a translation of a Latin
text, Marsilius Ficinus, 'Liber de Arte Chemica', which was printed in the
Theatrum Chemicum, Vol 2, Geneva, 1702, p172-183. It is not entirely
certain if this text was actually written by Ficino, or was later ascribed to
him.
"An unknown concerning the Chymicall Art.
But Lucerna Salis affirms him
to be Marcilius
Ficinus, an Italian of the Dukedome of Florence
or
Tuscany, in the year 1518."
Chapter 1.
Of the generation of metals in the bowels of the earth.
The opinion and determination of all who philosophize rightly is
the same: that all metals are generated by the vapour of sulphur, and of argent
vive. Because when the fat of the earth being heated, finds the substance of
water somewhat globulous, it as well by its natural virtue, as by the rays of
the celestial bodies and the endeavor of heaven, as according to the purity or
impurity of each, consolidated it in the veins of the earth into those most
beautiful bodies, gold, silver, copper, tin, iron, and lead.
Chapter 2.
Of Nature and art.
But there are in the arch of
this world, two efficient causes, Nature and art. Nature daily produces and
generates new things. But art by conception, making an impression of the
similitudes of those things upon herself, does in an admirable manner prosecute
the footsteps and delineations of Nature. So that if the wit of man do not
sometime assist in some things, it is evident that Nature herself had gone
astray from her operation. Or art sometimes does by the help of Nature, correct,
supply and in a manner (especially in this magnificent discourse of mineral
things) seems to exceed Nature. Which has already been long since consecrated to
perpetual memory by those ancient Philosophers.
There are two sorts of
Philosophers. Some only searching into Nature by herself, have in the monuments
of their writings delivered the virtue and power which sublunary things have, as
well from the elemental qualities, as from heaven and the stars; as the
physicians are. And some others who have described the natures of animals,
trees, herbs, metals, and precious stones. But others truly are more glorious,
penetrating most sagaciously and sharply not only into Nature, but finally into
the arcanum itself of Nature, and into her more inward recesses, have by a truer
title assumed to themselves the name of philosopher. But because Nature produces
all metals out of two things sulphur and Mercury, and has left us the superior
bodies generated out of them, with the inferior bodies, certain is it is that
the industrious may make the same out of her three operations, and reduce the
inferior bodies to the Nature and perfection of the superior bodies.
Chapter 3.
Refutes an opinion of some in this art, and the philosophical
art is laid down in a very few words.
And because by most of the
studious in philosophy it is granted that metals themselves are generated of
sulphur and Mercury, some have judged that sulphur and Mercury, since they are
the root and matter of metals, ought to be taken and so long decocted, until
they were conglutinated together into a metallic body. These truly had they
descended deeper into nature's sanctuary, would never have come to such foolish
opinions. For though sulphur and Mercury were as it were the root of metals
before the first coagulation, yet now they are not, since they are brought to
another nature: whence it remains that there cannot be made out of them any
metallic body. Since also the chain is unknown, by which Venus and Mercury
copulated together in due proportion. Wherefore they are not to be taken, but
rather that which is out of them fully decocted in the womb of the earth, and
that truly the most pure; whose like you will not find in a vegetable
nature.
It is evident that all little trees, flowers and small herbs are
produced from water and the union of a subtle earth. And if you endeavor to
produce a tree or an herb, you must not take earth or water, but rather that
which is from them, as a scion or a seed, which being committed to the bosom of
the earth, the parent of all things, and cherished with a nutriment of their own
nature, and called forth by the darting of the solar light, do in due time break
out into the superficies of the earth, into the species of a tree or an herb. In
like manner that divine art teaches how to take the seed our of the more perfect
body; which being put into the philosophical earth prepared by art and
continually decocted by a temperate heat into a white or red powder, is said to
have converted the inferior bodies into the nature of the superior.
Chapter 4.
Delivers why the Philosophers have sought for this art ,not
moved them to it, and this question is resolved: why the spirit in metals cannot
propagate its like, since the spirit of everything is the author of
generation.
But we readily affirm that the inspiration of God was
the chief cause why those ancient philosophers searched after this science. For
the philosophers seeing that all vegetable and animal things, as also other
things, do by a certain spirit of their own multiply themselves, and that a
transmutation is in this inferior world made by the air, which seemed in a long
time to corrupt all particular things, and that their nature changed itself by
the motions of another thing: There arose among them this question: namely why
the spirit in metals could not propagate its like, since out of one scion there
grew many, and out of one little grain almost innumerable grains did multiply
themselves. It was at length decreed by the divine oracle, that the spirit was
withheld by a grosser matter, which spirit if it were separated by a certain
sublimation at the firesn and being separated were preserved in its own
connatural seat, it might as a seminal virtue, without any untruth, generate its
like. From hence the philosophers thought to bring the light and lustre of the
most perfect body into the inferior bodies since they had found that they
differed among themselves only according to the decoction, either greater or
less, and the mercury was the first original of all metals, with which mercury
extracting the metallic part of gold, they brought gold to the first nature.
Which reduction indeed since it is easy and possible, it was by the philosophers
concluded that a transmutation in metals is easy and possible. And when these
primitive philosophers had reduced gold into the first matter, they made use of
the celestial influence, that it might not be made a metal again such as it was
before. Afterward they purified its nature, separating the unclean from the
clean. Which being done they called that thing, the transmuting stone of the
philosophers. For the making whereof several operations have been invented by
several philosophers, that that might be completed by art which was left by
Nature; since Nature herself is always inclined toward her own perfection.
Chapter 5.
Treats of what the philosophers stone is, and discourses first
of its first part.
And because the philosophers had so obscurely
set forth this science in strange involvings of words and shadows of figures,
the stone of the philosophers was doubted by a very many men. Which it is of
what things made? But if you will mind diligently, we divide the stone into two
parts. The first part we say is terrestrial Sol, wherein both the ancient
philosophers and the more modern do plainly agree with me in their testimonies
in the Turba. Without terrestrial Sol the physical work is not perfected. Since
they all assert that there is no true tincture without their Æs brass because in
that there is the most pure sulphur of the wise, in which sage Nature contains
her seed. And as the sun diffuses and darts down most lively and penetrating
rays on this elementary world: So the stone of the philosophers being by a
physical operation made out of gold, the son, as I may say, of the sun,
disperses itself into other metals, and will forever equalize them to himself in
virtue, color, and weight. And because all metals, we deservedly take gold
before others. For since we would make gold and silver, it is necessary to take
the same. Man is generated out of man, a tree from a tree, and herb produces an
herb, and a lion a lion; since each thing according to the temper of its nature,
which they call the completion, generates and produces its like. Yet the
philosophers more truly do not make gold or silver, but Nature cleansed by the
skill of the operator.
Chapter 6.
Treats of the second part of the stone, where the spirit is
compared to the most glorious virgin Saint Mary.
We say the mercury
vive is the second part of the stone. Which since it is living and crude, is
said to dissolve the bodies themselves, because it naturally adheres to them in
their profundity. This is the stone without which Nature operates nothing.
Whence the philosophers advise us not to work but in Sol and mercury; which
being joined make up the stone of the philosophers. Who therefore can deservedly
praise the merits of mercury, since it is he alone who maketh gold thin and who
has so great a power, that he can reduce Sol itself into the first nature? Which
power nothing else in the world is discerned to have. It is thus said of the
mercury which the wise men seek for, is in mercury. Mercury destroys all
foliated Sol: it dissolves and softens it, and takes the soul out of the body.
If it be sublimated, then there is made aqua vitae. If any one therefore ask
you: What are the stones? You shall answer, that Sol and mercury are the
physical stones. But these stones are dead on Earth and operate nothing, but
what is by the industry of men supplied to them.
I will propose you a
similitude of gold. The ethereal heaven was shut from all men, so that all men
should descend to the infernal seats, and be there perpetually detained. But
Jesus Christ opened the gate of the ethereal Olympus, and has now unlocked the
kingdoms of Pluto, that the souls may be taken out; when by the co-operation of
the holy spirit in the virginal womb, the virgin Mary did by an ineffable
mystery and most profound sacraments conceive what was the most excellent in the
heavens and on the earth; and at length brought forth for us the saviour of the
whole world, who out of his super abundant bounty shall save all who are able to
sin, if the sinner turn himself to him. But she remained an untouched and
undefiled virgin: whence mercury is not undeservedly compared to the most
glorious saint the virgin Mary. For mercury is a virgin because it never
propagated in the womb of the Earth and metallic body, and yet it generates the
stone for us; by dissolving heaven, that is, gold, it opens it, and brings out
the soul; which understand you to be the divinity, and carries it some little
while in its womb, and at length in its own time transmits it into a cleansed
body. From whence a child, that is, the stone, is born to us, by whose blood the
inferior bodies being tinged are brought safe into the golden heaven, and
mercury remains a virgin without a stain, such as is was ever before.
Chapter 7.
Determines why the philosophers have hidden this knowledge:
where the praise of the art is set down, and he inveighs against Zoilus the
Carper as the philosophers.
But Hamul in Senior declares the chief
cause why the philosophers have delivered this art down to posterity and the
sons of wisdom, by uncertain similitudes and obscure allegories: that they might
attribute it to the glorious God who might reveal it to whom he would, and
prohibit it from whom he would. Rasis also in the book, 'The Light of Lights',
reports: For if I should explain all things according to what they are, there
would be no further occasion of prudence, but the fool would be made equal to
the wise man. We read also in the end of the Turba: For unless the names were
multiplied in this physical art, children would deride our knowledge. Wherefore
we do not much value those who cavill at our divine art as adulterate; from
which the most famous philosophers used to take all the knowledge of almost all
things; as heretofore the statuaries did the thefts and the threads of our art,
from the statue of Polycletus. It would also be most absurd to suspect that
those ancient philosophers of venerable authority, especially in this discourse
of natural things, have delivered down anything of falsehood to posterity, who
employed their chiefest labour in inquiring after truth, although they ascended
not to the sublimeness of the saving nature of faith, and the greatest height of
the divine essence. Who therefore, but Zoilus, would not praise this science,
and particularly favor it? From whence almost all the arts of these detractors
are taken: from which so many colors very useful for the art of picture drawing
derive their beginning, I say nothing of the art of money making: I pass by the
learned distillation of the physicians, whereby they use to draw out the virtue,
which they call a Quintessence. Which shall I say of those brazen vessels
wherewith we make lightening and thunder among men? If they did but use them
only against the sacrilegious enemies of the christian faith.
Besides the
science of the stone is so sublime and magnificent, that therein almost all
Nature and the whole universe of beings is beheld, as in a certain clear looking
glass. For it is like a lesser world, where there are the four elements, and a
fifth essence, which they call heaven in which another most noble essence has
placed its seat, which some philosophers have used to compare (with reverence be
it spoken) to the omnipotent God, and the most holy and undivided Trinity. Which
is neither of the nature of the heaven, nor of the natures of the elements: and
they have called it by a particular name, the soul, the middle nature. And as
God the maker of the world: so this essence, which is called by the title of a
God, is everywhere in the whole world, it is, in the physical glass. And as the
omnipotent God is immense in the procreation of its like, even to the last end
of the greater world. For then the generative nature shall be taken away from
every procreating thing. From which words one skillful in Nature may gather,
that the stone can tinge many parts; whereby also many other difficulties may be
removed. Then out upon Aristarchus who blushes not to profess himself an
interpreter of the divine writings, and yet feareth not with his most impudent
railing to attack this knowledge of a Nature created by God; than which, next
after the sacred writings, God has conferred on this world nothing more
magnificent and more sublime.
Tell me by the immortal God, what is more
unjust than for men to hate what they are ignorant of? And then if the thing do
deserve hatred, what is of all things more shallow? What more abject? Or what
greater madness and potage is there, than to condemn that science in which you
have concerned yourself just nothing at? Who hast never learned either Nature or
the majesty of Nature, or the property or the occult operations of metals. The
councellour also babbles and crokes, and the pettyfoggers of the law, the
greatest haters of philosophy, who with the hammer of a venal tongue coin
themselves money out of the tears of the miserable: who shipping over the most
sacred of laws, have by the intricacies of their expositions persecuted all the
world with their frauds. But why do I go after jeers and satyrs? Let these
crabbed fellows and their followers remain perpetually in their opinion, who
know nothing. Which is honest, which is pleasant, which is delightful, which
lastly is anything elevated above a vulgar doctrine: and who have attained at
nothing glorious and famous, but perhaps at some plebian business from the black
sons of Cadamus. But to which purpose are these? I have made the choice of this
stone of the philosophers familiar to me; and I very often call it the only
Minerva, and the greatest pearl of all occult philosophy, or of magic, not
indeed of the superstitious, but of the natural. Yet it seems in the opinion of
the unlearned to degenerate far from a better study: which is decreed and
ordained by the divine will.
Chapter 8 and 9.
Treats of the first essence of all things: and it is
here discussed what Nature is, what the soul the middle nature, what the soul of
the world, where that very great error is confuted of philosophers asserting the
world to be an animal, and it is disputed that there is only a human soul; by a
participation or likeness of which, there seems to be a brutal soul. And that
the sun is the eye of the world and the heart of heaven.
I have now
a mind, candid reader, to procure you something concerning the secrets of
Nature, both out of philosophical, and the theological magazine. Since I have
perceived that many of the ancients as also of the more modern have taken great
pains in searching after Nature, nobody but one beside himself will deny that
those things will be of use to the whole academy and exercise of philosophy. But
here the cradle of Nature is to be looked for a higher, do not therefore think
it pious, if I make a digression a little further than perhaps this undertaking
may require.
The most glorious God, the contriver, and the ineffable author
of all things, before the beginning of the world, wanting nothing, but
all-sufficient to himself, and forever remaining in the most profound retirement
of his divinity, being out of his most abundant beauty willing, that the things
from all eternity foreknown should proceed into existence, created in the
beginning a certain essence of them, in rough draughts, as I may say, as yet
unformed, which Moses, he whom I am to stile the fountain and chief president of
the philosophy of the philosophers, does sometimes call a void and empty earth,
sometimes an abyss and water, but Anaxagoras a confused chaos. Others have
rightly termed it, the mother of the world, the foundation and the face of
Nature. Within whose womb when all things lay undistinguished and undigested,
nor more conspicuous in their proper forms, the artificial creator, did by the
intervening spirit of God exactly and regularly drawn and describe this visible
world, according to copy and the similitude of the intelligible world. Hence he
with shining fires most workman-like adorned the heavens hung up on high, and so
ordered and digested the motion of them, and of the stars, that they should in a
wonderful manner run about the arch of heaven, for the formation of the
varieties of the seasons succeeding one another; and that by their motion and
light they might warm, cherish and preserve in their beings the inferior things.
Therefore he laid the inferior things beneath the superior, as an egg to be
hatched under a hen, or as a woman to be made fruitful by a man. Into which he
from the beginning inserted certain seminal reasons, that they might, taking
their opportunities, multiply themselves, as I may say, with a perpetual
fertility and offspring. But God wrought out his compacted being of the world by
certain harmony and musical proportion alleyed to one another, that which are in
the superior world are in the inferior also, but in a terrestrial manner: that
which likeness are in the inferiors, may also be seen in the superious, in a
celestial manner indeed, and according to the cause.
To which you may perhaps
apply the opinion of Anaxagoras, holding that everything is in everything.
Wherefore it is agreeable that God should rule and fill up all which he created.
Nor do we therefore say that God does fill up all things, that they should
contain him, but that they rather should be contained by him. Neither is it to
be thought that God is in all things so that each thing according to the
proportion of its bigness may contain him, that is the greater things the more,
and the lesser the less. But God so filleth up all things that there is not
anything where he is not. And we therefore understand within all things, but not
included without all things, but not excluded: and therefore to be the interior,
that by his uncircumscribed magnitude he may include all things. Therefore St.
Dennis says: That all things may be affirmed of God, since he is the author and
governor. On the contrary, that all things are more truly denied of him, since
he is nothing of those things which he created. Which seems to me more
acceptable and more certain, as well by the variable course of this world, as
for the unsearchable abyss of his most exalted divinity. For God has placed the
greatest distance between him and the created things. But God is truly immense
and ineffable, not to be discovered, not to be understood, above all
imagination, above all thought, above all understanding, above all essence,
unnamable, to be by silence alone proclaimed in the heart: the most powerful,
the most wise, the most clement: the father, the world, the holy spirit; and
altitude incomprehensible, a trinity indivisible, an essence immutable. Whose
image is all Nature, though the eye never be so intent. Who is the unity of all
creatures, and main point, and the only one; who is stronger than all power,
greater than all excellence, better than all praise. Whom the divine Plato made
to inhabit in a fiery substance, meaning, that is, the ineffable Splendor of God
in himself, and love around himself. Whom others have asserted to be an
intellectual and fiery spirit; having no form but transforming itself into so
ever it would and co-equalizing to all things universally. Who in a manifold way
is as it were joined to his creatures. Again going forth from that his infinity
eternity and omnipotence, he by a ferverent love, sincere faith and solid hope
may be imbosomed in the purified minds of men. Let whom be blessed for all
thousands of thousands of ages.
We said a little before that God was
unnameable, whom Martinus Capella says that Arithmetica saluted by a proper
name, when going to salute Jove, she with her fingers folded down into them,
made up seven hundred, ten and seven numbers. But what that most noble number
means, and its division into its members, the Arithmetician knows; not he who
inquires into the mercantile way of numbering but into proportions. In this
number we discover all numbers, and every proportion both musical and
geometrical. Add something of greater moment. That in these numbers the name of
God is most exactly found. Whose most holy and forever adorable name is in this
fullness of time set down in five letters. When in the time of Nature it was
written with three, and of the law with four. We say moreover that God has every
name, because all things are in him, and he is in all things: as shall hereafter
be disputed of, and yet has no name, because a fitting name cannot be given to
the divine majesty. But how much mystery and strength number has in itself, I
easily believe the Pythagoreans knew very well, who called one number Pallas,
another Diana, another the father, another the mother, and finally one the male,
and another the female: and those who had the greatest knowledge in the numeral
science, applied the monas the united to God the creator: But the dias or
duality to matter: to forms themselves the virgin trias or three: then to man
and to his life hexas and heptas the six and seven. But the eneas or ten they
not a miss did very handsomely apply to all creatures.
But to return to the
purpose, hear Dionysius repeating: That God is in all things, or all things are
in God, as numbers are in unity, as in the center of the circle are all the
right lines: and as the soul is the strength of the members. Because as the
unity is the common measure, fountain and original of all numbers, and
containing in itself every number entirely cojoined, is the beginning of all
multitude. But guiltless of all multitudes is always the same and immutable; so
in like manner are created things toward the creator. And as an individual soul,
is the ruler of its body, and the whole present to the whole body, and to every
part of it: so God is everywhere in this world and fills and governs, and
perpetually preserves it by the virtue which he daily infuses liberally into
created things out of the eternal fountain of his spirit. From whence we rightly
by a certain similitude of the soul, do call the God of Nature or the power of
God, by which he maintains all things, a soul, a middle nature, or the soul of
the world. Not that the world itself is an animal, which we may explode from the
entrance into christian philosophy, partly in the christian metaphysick, and
partly in this consideration of the stone.
But sublimeness of the Nature
hereof requires to be composed in a loftier style; we have here chosen a lower
sort of speech; and we place the soul of the world chiefly in the sun. For there
is nothing in the soul of the firmament, beside a soul, which represents a
greater similitude of God than light itself. Since everything does challenge to
itself so much of God, as I may say, as they are capable of light. And since
nothing is more conspicuous bright-eyed than the sun, many of the platonicks
chiefly imitating Orpheus herein have termed the sun, the eye of the world.
Because all things were seen and shown themselves in it as in a certain most
bright mirror. Hence Heraclitus says, that all things would perish, should you
take the sun out of the world. What is this small body of ours, if the soul be
away? No vein having a pulse is to be felt there, there is in it no show of
sense, no vital breath nor any respiration therein. Wherefore it also seemed
good to some to call the sun the heart of heaven. Because as in the heart there
is the only fountain of blood moistening and reddening the other members of the
human body, and infusing a vital motion: So there seemeth to be in the sun the
vegetation and preservation of all, as well inferior as well as superior things.
Because he by this light inspires as it were, life and heat into inferior
things. But light is a certain simple of single action converting all things
unto itself by an enlivening warmth, passing through all beings, carrying their
virtues and qualities through all and dispersing darkness and obscurity. Phoebus
therefore resides in the middle with his refulgent locks, as king and emperor of
the world, holding a scepter of the government: in whom that there is all the
virtue of the celestials, nor only Iamblichus, but many others have confirmed.
And also Proclus says: At the sun's aspect, that all the powers of all celestial
things are gathered together and collected into one, which we believe are
gathered together and collected into one, which we believe are at length through
his fiery breathing have spread over this lower world. This also may be even a
mighty argument to you: that the sun approaching toward us, the earth grows full
of herbs and ripens, but when he departs it withers. But I now delight to make
some comment on the infancy of Nature.
Chapter 9.
Of Nature.
We affirm Nature to be a certain power
implanted in things producing like things out of like. For Nature generates,
augments and nourishes all things. Wherefore it has in itself the names of all
things. An animal is from Nature; a stone, wood, a tree, and the bodies which
you see are from Nature and her maintaining. Nature is the blood of the
elements, and the power of mixing which brings to pass the mixtures of the
elements in everything in this sublunary world, and has imprinted on them a form
agreeable to their species, by which that thing is distinguishable and separated
from each other thing. Nor is Nature of any colour, yet a partaker and efficient
of all colours: also of no weight, nor quality, but finally the fruitful parent
of all qualities and things. What is therefore Nature? God is Nature, and Nature
is God: understand it thus: out of God there arises something next to
him.
Nature is therefore a certain invisible fire, by which Zoroaster taught
that all things were begotten, to whom Heraclitus the Ephesian seems to give
consent. Did not the spirit of the Lord, which is a fiery love, when it was
carried on the waters, put into them a certain fiery vigor? Since nothing can be
generated without heat. God inspired into created things, when it was said in
the generation of the world; increase and be ye multiplied, a certain
germination, that is, a greeness, by which all things might multiply themselves.
Whence some more profoundly speculative, said that all things were green, is
called to grow and increase, and that greeness they named Nature. But Aristotle
says: That motion being unknown, Nature is unknown, since it is now volatile and
in a continual motion of generation, augmentation and alteration, which at
length in the latter end of the world, shall be stable and fixed. Because God
will then take away from things that virtue and power of generating, and will
place it in the most inward treasure of his omnipotence, where it was from
eternity. I therefore had a mind to call this virtue of generation and of the
preservation of things, the soul of the world. Not that the world is an animal,
as the Platonick accounts and the testimonies of the Arabian, Egyptian, and
Chaldean Astrologers seem to approve. For the Philosophers maintained the world
to be an animal, and the heavens and the stars to be animals, and the souls of
things to be intelligent, participating of the divine mind. Moreover that a God
or certain soul presided over everything and that all things were full of Gods,
was the opinion of Democritus and Orpheus and of many of the Pythagoreans: to
whom they ordained divine honours. And to the same they dedicated prayers and
sacrifices and revered them with diverse sorts of worship. Besides they reduced
all such souls into one soul of the world. They likewise referred all their Gods
unto one Jove. This Aristotle and the Aristotelian Theophrastus, this Avicenn,
Algozeles [al-Ghazzal]; this the Stoics and all the Peripateticks do confess,
and with their utmost power have endeavoured to prove. I do not doubt but that
from hence sprung all the error of gentilism: from hence the fictions of the
poets, the diabolical sacrifices and sacreligious victims. Hence the Egyptian
land did in their chapels worship and adore some certain animals and other
prodigious monsters. Who will not say therefore that the philosophy of the
heathens is vain? Which was most miserably ruined by this common error, and by
many others: where the philosophers seemed to me to be most like the beehives,
or children busying themselves with bottomless vessels to drain a great
well.
Yet we may think them worthy of forgiveness since there had not shined
to them the true light, Jesus Christ the saviour. Therefore it behooves the
Christian Philosopher whose authority is graver, and judgement more certain to
bring within the verge of the Catholick Church, which things so ever seem to
make for the obligation of the nature of the faith as being possessed by unjust
heirs: after the manner of Virgil who said he gathered Gold out of the dunghill
of Ennius. Also like little bees, while they suck out the sweetest among the
flowers of Hymettus and Hybla for the sake of making honey. Who is there who
would not bewail with tears, the untimely death of Picus of Mirandolla, whom the
fatal sisters have particularly envied to our Age. Who had he little longer
enjoyed life; would have trimmed up with new beauty, the tattered and begging
philosophy, blotting out all of its errors. Yet let everyone highly praise the
lawful Philosophy, whose foundation is Nature, or the world, and which
prescribes manners and virtue to man. Which does correct for you the first
youthful years and rudiments of your life. Which challenges to itself the
interpretation of Nature, and the search of things the most abstruse from our
eyes. Most worthily true to which the scanning of divine and human things should
be referred. We thereby as much as we can by the divine favour and by natural
light inquiry into the recesses of the world, into the earth and the tracts of
the seas, and the high heavens. This describeth heaven and the immeasurable
multitude of stars, as also the journey of the golden haired sun, and the
laborious eclipses of the moon. This, with a geometrical staff, describes the
ways of the stars.
This teaches the Aeolian bellows and whispers of the winds,
which
Hippotades does with his scepter rule.
Why the mass of the earth does
stagger, what makes
The rainbow's arch, and hoary snows and frigid
frosts.
What breeds the dew, the lightning, what the hollow
Fleeces of the
clouds, the swellings of the Earth,
And the three forked thunderbolt.
What gathers showers, what the glazen hail; What are the seeds of gold, what
of Iron; whence cruel thunder, whence the fountains of continual waters take
their beginning, and such like other things. Let tender youths in their minority
learn that philosophy; and everywhere avoid the doting fables of those
philosophers who hold the world to be animal, and that it consists of
innumerable animals, and those divine. What is more vain, what is more idle? For
what else is it to say, the sun is animated, or the celestial bodies are
animated, and participating of the divine mind, than to fall into an evil
heresy, and the abominable falsehood of idolatry? Neither is it to be granted
(witness St. Augustine) that those sidereal globes doe live by certain minds of
their own, and those intellectual and blessed. I doe certainly know that only a
human soul is divine light, created according to the image of the word, the
cause of causes, and the first pattern; markest with the substance of the seal
of God: and whose impression is the eternal word. By a participation of which we
believe the brutal soul to subsist, taken out of the bosom of Nature, seeming to
have a slender similitude and small footstep of a rational Soul, as the echo is
the image and resemblance of a living voice. But let others look after the
vegetable soul.
The theological doctors admit intelligences movers of the
orbs; not that they inform the orbs themselves, or (according to the opinion of
St. Jerome) make them intellectual and sensible, but to assist them in moving.
Though also those orbs might (the divine Will so commanding) be voluble of their
own accord. Yet the omnipotent God out of his ineffable bounty, would have
second causes to preside over this worldly fabric, that whosoever does move
themselves, does also give to others the power of moving. Whence also he also
deputed angels for the custody of human souls, though he also primarily guarded
himself. Yet it is not to be thought that such like Intelligences are
necessarily applied to turn the spheres, as if they could not be turned about by
their own rotation; when some busy men do in like manner frame that heavenly
machine of copper or brass, fixing the earth in the very middle. Then they
afterwards with certain little wheels affix the other elements, also the orbs of
the stars and heavens, whereby they endeavor exactly to express the motion of
the planets and the face of heaven. There are other curious men who endeavor to
frame clocks and also certain mills which should turn perpetually. If man can
imitate the divine method, who would not believe that those sidereal globes by
their own power may be wheeled about?
But what shall I say of the vain
astrology, which our Picus of Mirandolla, famed in all sorts of learning, has
sometime since by forcible reasons overthrown? Tell me, why astrologer, why
refer you all things to heaven? Why do you romance about the natures of the
stars and the signs, and of the motions of the planets? Who can by no means
guess at the force and property of even the least terrestrial thing? Why should
you fear the constellations and the stars, or rather lie? Who cannot by
dimensions comprehend any little earthen body. What is more ridiculous, what
more absurd, that have not in the ninth or tenth heaven to catch at such
figurations and images of lines, or at the figures of the eighth heaven from the
wandering application of the stars? What power do you think such imagined images
have? What do the triplicities, what do the aspects of those stars and the rest
of such like books void of the truth and virtue pretend to? Although such
motions and the natures of the stars, and various applications of things to one
another should seem to have some signification, yet I am persuaded man cannot
well know them unless it were shown to them by some miracle from heaven. Hence
St. Jerome thus derides astrologers and nativity calculators. These are they who
lift up themselves against God's knowledge and all which is acted in the world,
promising themselves a fictitious science, they refer to rising and setting of
stars. These are they who are vulgarly called mathematicians, and think human
affairs to be governed by the course and ways of the stars: and when they
promise safety to others, know not their own punishments. I, while I was yet in
the city Agrippa played thus upon the Astrologer. In my opinion it commonly
happens to those Astrologers, as it did to Thales Milesius heretofore, who when
he went out of his house to gaze at the stars, is said to have fallen into a
ditch underneath him. Who when he ridiculed an old woman, being laughed at by
her, he returned home with shame. Wherefore, O Christian philosopher, send away
into perpetual banishment beyond the Caspian mountains, such like foolish
chattering of Astrology, and its daughters Geomancy, Hydromancy, Pyromancy,
Necromancy, Soothsaying, and many other such dotages with what other vulgarly
resembles them and do not attribute to his creatures the glory of the omnipotent
Lord God. Now let us see what Nature the philosophers inquired after.
Chapter 10.
What the Philosophers, and what sort of Nature they would
have: where the spirit is said to be the ethereal chariot of the
soul.
The stone which the philosophers do seek is an invisible and
impalpable spirit; it is a tincture and a tinging spirit: which indeed another
visible and palpable spirit has hidden in its innermost bowels. Even so the
Philosophers have left us the same spirit undiscovered, under the veil of
Ænigmas that the stone is a fifth separated from four. It is the bond of the
elements, the medium and the chain, which has made the elements of God agree,
and which in the womb of the earth conglutinated Sulphur and Mercury into a
metallic body. And because such a bond, as is in the earth, since it is
invisible cannot be had, the philosophers sought after it in the more perfect
body. The Philosophers do therefore inquire after the generative Nature, which
may be able to generate metals, that they cleanse it, and make it a hundred
thousand times more potent in tincture than it was at first in Nature. And they
accustomed themselves to call it a living fire, or the living fire of Nature, or
by a secret word, The Soul of the Middle Nature. And as physicians distinguish
man into body, spirit, and soul, in like manner the philosophers have divided
the stone into those parts. Sometimes the spirit is the life of the soul, the
soul is the life of the spirit. Again those two are the life of the body. The
spirit is also the tie of the soul and the body, and as it were the ethereal
chariot or vehicle of the soul, which spreads abroad the virtue of the soul
through the whole body. You may also understand the four elements, when the
philosophers affirm that the stone consists of body, spirit, and soul. For the
water is spirit; also Air: the middle Fire, as I may say, is spirit. The earth
we call not spirit but body, because it is the retainer, the matter and the seat
of the other elements.
Chapter 11.
Teaches that solution is necessary, by which the generative
spirit is brought out of the body.
But such a tie cannot be easily
had, by reason of the most strong compactedness of gold itself, except by
solution, which is the foundation and beginning of this noble science, in which
the arcanum of all Nature does consist. It is the treasure of this affair. 'Tis
is which lifts up the poor man from the dunghill and equals him to kings and
princes. Whence the philosophers demand why the bodies, that is, gold and gilver
are dissolved. They answer: That the pure may be separated from the impure. For
the body is for this reason dissolved, that the earth itself may be cleansed in
the profundity. Which Nature could not, because she operates simply [or singly].
And in that cleansing the impediments of the tincture is away, so that it may
innumerably propagate its like. But if so be that this propagation of its like
be made by the spirit, since every spirit is the author of generation, and it is
hindered by grosser matter, we say that solution is necessary, by which gold may
be made living, and as I may say, spiritual, and be reduced into the first
Nature, that is into the spirit of the water, and the vapour of the earth, that
there may at length be had such a sulphur and a mercury with us, out of which
metals are generated, in the womb of the earth. But solution is perfected when
you shall have separated the soul and the spirit of gold. But because with
philosophers gold is the most temperate body, having equal parts of hot, cold,
moist and dry. Therefore it may with the more difficulty be corrupted and
dissolved by reason of the equal agreement and proportion of the elements.
Therefore there must a disagreement be made among the elements by contrary
elements: and this discord makes a solution and mortification of the body: which
being done there is made a cleansing mundification of Nature, which nevertheless
cannot be done without a physical separation of the elements. But the elements
of the body must be so separated, that the generative nature may remain in its
flower and bud. That if anyone should burn that flower, and separate the
elements from one another, the generative sperm would be lost; nor would any
creature be able to join them anymore, so as they should generate. This is the
truest consideration of the philosophers. If any out of his own fancy consider
otherwise, he is indeed a natural fool, and makes syllogisms against Nature.
Chapter 12.
Disputes of hidden things in the art, and about threefold
separation.
But ye sons of wisdom, there are three solutions in the
physical work. The first is of the crude body: the second is of the physical
earth: the third we place in the Augmentation. There are also in the solution
these three hidden things: the weight, the measure of time and fire. Wherefore
if you know the weight of mercury and gold, and the measure of time, how long
solution is in the making, and in a temperate fire, you have solution: which
ought to be made in the secret Furnace, and a little larger glasses. Wherefore
diverse fires are to be procured, and so different parts to be put in glasses;
that you may at last endowed with divine favour, find it out. You must also
distinguish in this admirable work the days, months and years of the
philosophers. The philosophers affirm, that if you, you may make the trial in
three natural days. That if you are of a sprightlier wit, say they, you may
distinguish it in twenty four hours. They in philosophy have appointed two
nights and three days. Beseech the greatest and highest God that you may be
worthy to the last red day. The philosophers also lay down three keys, solution,
conjunction, and fixation. Or if you profoundly understand them, three
separations. First there is made the separation of the soul from the body by the
spirit. Secondly the grimes themselves, which have shown themselves in the
solution, are separated from the soul and spirit. Lastly the spirit shall be
separated from the soul and this happens in the fixation of Nature: so that
hereafter and here I shall have told you so great secrets, that it cannot be
believed. I do faithfully affirm two keys in the whole circle of philosophy. The
first indeed which opens the body may be distributed into several keys. For what
thing soever shall dissolve gold and reduce it into a spirit is called a key,
though only one among others be the most powerful and natural key, as I wrote in
chapter 8. And such a thing is called the stone. The second key which shuts up
and does retain and coagulate the tinging spirit, we term the earth alone, which
all philosophers have called the principle Stone. But of the crow's head we
freely profess, that all the philosophers from the beginning of the world have
had so little, that it can hardly be believed. Yet the miserable Philosophasters
have thought that blackness which appeared in the superficies, out of the
superfluity of the mercury and the body to be the crow's head.
Chapter 13.
Treats of the praxis of the stone, of its first solution, and
separation: where the arcanum of Nature, otherwise most abstruse, is laid open
to a son of wisdom, in which Lucifer falls out of heaven.
'Tis now
time, O son of wisdom, to turn my pen to the practical part, where I would first
warn everyone given to philosophy, that all kinds of salts, allums, and of many
other and of foreign things are in vain, and bring with them nothing moment or
efficacy. Likewise that all common solutions and vulgar sublimations are
adulterate works and belong nothing to the true and natural science of the
philosophers. Wherefore I judge those mountebanks are to be avoided who with
their dealbations and rubifications have cheated almost all the world, in whom
there is no vein of philosophy, which is warm, and who are rather to be esteemed
false philosophers, since nothing is dearer to philosophers than the truth:
nothing more foul than falsehood and deceit. Whereby it comes to pass that there
are fewer philosophers, than you have perhaps believed. Now let us descend to
the praxis, which we will divide into two works. In the first mention shall be
made of the first solution, and of separation and distillation. In the second we
will treat of conjunction and fixation, where consideration will be had of the
most secret augmentation, which you will find in no book in the world. But here
I have a mind to bring in the degrees of all the work wholly. For first we
compound, the compound we putrefy, the putrefied we dissolve, the dissolved we
divide, the divided we cleanse, the cleansed we unite, and so the work is
accomplished. But to speak of these, each particularly, shall be our labour. But
the philosophers are of opinion that in the praxis of the stone less than a
twelfth part of mercury aught to be taken. But there is also among them a trial
of the dissolved body, if it be squeezed through a leather.
Some also of the
more modern have thought, that solution may be made in a shorter time if a long
pounding or grinding of the gold by itself were first made by a certain mill or
in a mortar. First therefore let the copper be purified with common salt
prepared or with any other fitting thing, that its most subtle substance may be
had. Let some parts of this purified water be mixed very well with one part of
the most fine Gold, reduce into leaves or thin spangles, and let them be put in
a long glass with a hollow belly, stopped with little pieces of cloth, and with
the sign of the cross, and let the glass be covered with ashes, up to the
superficies of the water, and let a very small heat be given, that the matter
may not seem to ascend, but remain live with the gold, and let that equally
balance heat be kept so long a while, until in the water of mercury there out
upon it a certain vaporous and subtle earth, which in a wonderful colour is wont
to be known when it is to be extracted. But the sulfur itself shines like a
rainbow through the waters, yet not with all colors, like the rainbow in this
greater world. The arch is itself of the rainbow stands half in the pure liquid
and fluent water, and half upon the earth. Hence the whole property of and its
natural similitude is shown by the iris, the rainbow: nor is the rainbow seen in
heaven, but when the sun shines, which also uses to be followed by rain. But
mists or thick clouds coming on, the sun itself, and also the arch of the
rainbow is hidden. It pleased the natural philosophers to thus explain the
rainbow: when the sun colours a moist and hollow cloud, and is thick like a
looking-glass, and intersects the middle of its orb: which comes nearer to our
divine and admirable science. Yet it is not to be thought that the Sulphur
itself grows black when you extract it, as some have thought. The copper being
at length extracted, you shall distill the water, in which there is the soul of
gold or the metallic mercury of gold, with a slow heat, so that three core
minutes may be counted between drop and drop. And that distilled water is
called, our living water, which enlivens all bodies, and is composed of two
natures: understand spirit, soul, and ferment, because the spirit is the seat of
the soul, and its retaining bond. And this water is called by many names, the
most sharp vinegar, lune, the woman's sperm, or the feminine menstruum, heaven,
mercury, the hair of the red man, that is, the spirit of Sol, that is of gold:
But the Sulfur is called the body, the male Sol, the male sperm, earth and
mercury. But these distillations are necessary, by which mercury is purified
from all terrestrial feculence, and Lucifer, that is, the uncleanness and the
accursed earth falls down out of the golden heaven, and here a separation is
made of the grime from the soul, as I disputed in chapter 12. Here a lofty
similitude: heaven, that is, gold was pure in the original but when it was
dissolved it showed corruption. Therefore the fist evil was in heaven, while as
yet there was corruption and Lucifer, after whose fall heaven was so cleansed
that no angel can now fall down out of the golden heaven. But if so be that
Lucifer had had within himself, a soul of a middle nature, or a God, he could by
no means have been thrust down to the infernals.
Chapter 14.
Disputes about the second part of the praxis, where there is
a more secret dispute about the fire and the colours: and these questions are
resolved: Whether heaven ought to descend to the earth: Or the earth ascend into
heaven: Or whether both ought to remain beneath heaven?
Where the spirit is
compared to an angel, who seems to descend with a human soul into a
body.
There now remains the second part of the physical praxis, the
far harder indeed, and far more sublime. In which we read that all the nerves of
wit, and at length all the races of the mind of many philosophers have
languished. For you would with more difficulty make a man revive, than put him
to death. Here the work of God is required. It is indeed the greatest mystery to
create souls, and frame an inanimate body into a living statue. Do you not think
it is the business of a sprightly Wit to reduce the soul to the spirit, then the
spirit to the soul, then again those two to the body? In this body of ours, it
is requisite to know, how much the spirit is, how much the soul, and how much
the body. Furthermore how much of the soul the middle nature, is in the spirit,
and how much in the body, that by this you may join as it were two natures of
the same kind, and akin to one another in due proportion. We ought therefore to
join two waters, the Sulphur of Gold, and the soul and body of its Mercury, Sol
and Lune, the male and female, two sperms, heaven and earth, and two, as I may
say, Argent vives, and out of which alone the philosophers say their stone is
made; which pitiful fellows mistake for crude mercury. But that mercury is all
metals, male and female, and an hermaphrodite monster in the very marriage of
the soul and the body, which I call solution; and the putrefaction of the
philosophers. The earth of gold is dissolved by its own spirit, which you shall
discover in these proportions. The body must be dissolved in the subtlest middle
air: The body is also dissolved by its own heat and humidity; where the soul,
the middle nature holds the principality in the colour of blackness all in the
glass: which blackness of Nature the ancient Philosophers called the crows head,
or the black sun.
From whence a certain person advanced this proposition. I
saw three circles encompassing one another, three suns in the firmament having
three faces, that is, a black, a white, and a red sun. That blackness was also
called by the name of all black things; after which all the colours of the
world, which can be conceived by wit, use to appear, which at length are brought
to a true whiteness, as to a center and principle point. In white there are all
colours, and from that the rest seem, as I may say, to be coloured. White and
black by Nature herself are colours, and indeed the extremes, out of the
manifold mixture and proportion of which with one another we believe the middle
colours, as they are called, to arise. We hold also that from the confounding
black and white together there is prepared a certain redness. But that whiteness
we call the white stone, the white sun, the full moon, and calcined Lune, white
silver, the white earth, fruitful, cleansed and calcined, the white Calx, and
the Salt of the metals, and the calcined body, and we call it by many other
names. It is moreover called the living earth, and the living and white Sulphur,
when the soul has been reduced into the body, and the Impediment removed. Here
we resolve this question: Whether the earth ought to be airy or fiery? We say
both at once. If so be it were only fiery, it would be burned into the ashes of
the dead. But if only airy, being made volatile it would vanish away in tinging
metals.
But what shall I say of the fire whereby the dissolution of the Earth
is made? Behold the heat in the bowels of the earth, which Nature alone
supplies: where you seem as it were to perceive none; which being then excited
by the sun's heat, does in the metal-breeding mountains by ascending and
descending for many cubits coagulate everywhere the thicker water, and together
with the fatness of the earth associates them into one body. But since Nature
does scarcely sometimes in five hundred years effect her operation, and so long
an enjoyment of life is not granted us, nor we permitted to live beyond the
elephant, or to the year of Plato, as they call it; the philosopher allows a
greater degree to the fire, that he may in a shorter time emulate Nature as his
guide. Wherefore you with good reason will say that he excels in a particular
happiness of disposition, who can show you the fire agreeable to, or of,
Nature.
The philosophers call their natural fire a bath, or their sun, or
horse dung; which some make with wood, or any other matter; but we with coals,
especially in a furnace fitted for this purpose. The stone is also to be made in
a threefold earthen vessel, that there may a slower fire be had, very much like,
I say, to the heat of a hen, while she sits on her eggs. And with that heat the
dragon, that is the earth of Gold, mortifies himself, when he gives elements and
spirits out of himself. On the contrary he revives himself, when he hath
received the spirits again unto himself. Wherefore he is compared to Jesus
Christ, who voluntarily offered himself to death for us, and afterward by his
own power, by the glory of his resurrection, restored himself to life never
anymore to die. We also say in this place that the dragon spews out of himself
all obscurity and venom, and that he afterward imbibes it and is whitened. And
because we have said above that heaven ought to be joined with earth, there
arises this question: whether heaven ought to descend to the earth, or the earth
ought to ascend up to heaven? It is most certain that the earth cannot ascend,
unless heaven first descends, but the earth is said to be sublimed up to heaven,
when being dissolved in its own spirit, it is at length made one thing with it.
I will satisfy you with this similitude: the son of God descending into the
virgin, and there flesh, a formed man is born, who when he had for our salvation
shown us the way of truth, having suffered and died for us, after the
resurrection returneth into the heavens. Where earth, that is, humanity, was
exalted above all the circles of the world, and placed in the intellectual
heaven of the most holy trinity. In the like manner when I die, my soul assisted
by the grace and merits of Christ returns unto the vital Fountain, from whence
it hath descended. The body returns unto the earth, which being at length
purified in the last judgement of the world, the soul coming down from heaven,
leads away with itself to glory. But because it is requisite that the soul
should ascend to heaven, another doubt offers itself: that is whether the spirit
ought to pass with the soul to heaven, or whether both ought to remain beneath
heaven? We have said that the spirit is in this world the bond of which it
retains the soul; but when the stone shall have arrived at the first whiteness,
there will be another world far more excellent than the former, where the spirit
shall remain in the middle, the soul in heaven, and the body in the bottom.
Understand the earth to be the heaven of the soul, contrarywise the soul to be
the heaven of the body. And because the spirit has enfeebled the body in
solution, they both do penance, and the soul is purged by the spirit, and
likewise is the body. Only the soul cleansed from feces ascendeth up into the
heaven, and the spirit goes away with its grimes. If so be that that spirit
should stay with the soul and the body, there would be a perpetual corruption
there, nor would there be made a right agreement and equality of the elements.
This spirit you may fitly liken in some things to an Angel who uses to descend
with a human soul (when it is infused into the middle point of the heart, and
from thence into all parts of the little body.)
We make also the body, soul
and spirit speak by the way of dialog, the spirit saying to the soul: I will
lead thee to eternal death, to hell and to the darksome house. To whom the soul:
Thou spirit o my life; why do you not bring me back again into the bosom from
whence by flattery you took me out? I thought myself bound to you by kindred: I
truly am your friend, and will bring you to eternal glory: But the body thinks
that by reviving it, he makes it glorious. To whom the spirit: I will truly do
it, but miserable I, I am forced to be gone when I shall have placed you above
all precious stones, and made you blessed. Wherefore I beseech you when you
shall have arrived at the throne of the kingdom, to be sometimes mindful of me.
To whom the body at length gave innumerable thanks, that he had given it a most
excellent being, by which he beheld God as in a looking-glass, and promised to
remember him; and congratulates on the chiefest parts or share in the throne of
the kingdom.
Chapter 15.
Explains this proposition: In the shade of the sun is the
heat of the moon; and in the heat of the moon is the cold of the sun. Likewise
how it is known in the moon, the sun ought to shine. What the shade of the sun
and the moon is, and that it is necessary that the sun and the moon and likewise
heaven and earth be joined, and makes mention of the citrine
Aurora.
We said in the foregoing chapter, that Sol and Lune ought
to be joined. We believe you know what Sol is, lastly what Phoebe herself.
Cynthia, that is, Luna opens Phoebus, Sol. Phoebus shuts and coagulates his
sister, that is Luna. In the very marriage of Sol and Lune understand this
proportion. In the shade of Sol, is the heat of the moon. And in the heat of the
moon is the cold of Sol. For when the humidity of Luna has received heat and
light from Sol, Sol is said to enter into Luna, at whose entrance Luna revives,
increases and begins to grow warm, but Sol to grow cold and moist; because he
hath received water to himself and hath lost heat and dryness, whereby losing
his share of light, he becomes dark. But when Luna shall go into Sol, Sol
himself begins to revive, and Luna bereft of brightness grows thin and is
obscured. From whence I assert that the shade of Sol is the coldness and
moisture of Luna, but that the shade is the day of Luna. Take the shade
therefore from Sol, and his whole light is everywhere dispersed. Yet think not
that Luna can take light from the sun in one little space of an hour, but the
body is dissolved by little and little. In the beginning when Phoebe is joined
to Sol, she is set on fire by him, who being enkindled is seen to shine by
degrees before midnight; but when she has filled up her whole orb, she uses to
enlighten all the night. Who decreasing again and growing dim for want of light,
the heat of Phoebus begins to be vigorous. Where you will plainly know in Luna
when Sol ought to shine, if carrying with you the meaning of my writings, you
run it over inwardly in your mind; though it may also be understood by other
industry. When Luna, that is, the white stone shall begin to grow citrine and
red, it is a token of Sol shining. The beginning of redness is Aurora. Who would
not call Aurora citrine? Tithonia, that is, Aurora seems to be bound to this
common office to redden the air, and with the first light to show the rapid
journey of Phaeton, that is, of Sol. Where at length yellow Eous pours out the
quick sighted light from the eastern climate, which seems to be the soul. But
that, as it is argued above, it is necessary that Sol go into Luna, then Luna
into Sol, we discover two intermediate impediments in heaven, Venus and Mercury,
which being taken away there will be a wonderful copulation of them, which being
done, Luna will no more lose her light, but shine with lustre of her own. And
Sol, in a like manner: and the last day of the former world will come, after
which there follows another world, and another life, where there will be either
a perpetual day with those above, or a perpetual shade with those below: And
fire will descend from heaven and shall again ascend up to the golden heaven,
that is, shall tinge the imperfect.
Chapter 16.
Of the augmentation it self of the stone, both of the
ancients and the modern Philosophers: and it is concluded that there is but one
day and one night. Again seven days from the seven lords of the
world.
It now pleases me, O son of wisdom, to bring that physical
pinnacle into the happy work. Then move the oars, spread the sails abroad, give
a swift and prosperous wind, the safe haven is to be looked for. After our stone
is made white, we call it our begotten son: though now a child it is a perfect
man, consisting of a body and soul; yet it is not able to get another progeny,
unless it be first bred up with a nourishment of its own nature, until it
arrives at an age mature for generation. We have received from these ancient
philosophers, who operated in Nature only, that their living water was divided
into two parts. Who when they had with one part of the water attained to the
fixed whiteness, they rubefied it with the other part of the water which was
reserved, or perhaps with fire alone. Others in the red stone, because it hath
ascended to the highest degree, and cannot be increased by itself, have begun
again those works, which they accomplished before, dissolving that redness with
the other part of the water, which they had reserved, they again reduced it into
the first essence, as I may say. And they worked almost in all things as from
the beginning, but truly with a greater industry both of the fire and of the
labours: and I believe this repetition to be the truer and the greater
augmentation.
Wherefore also the first philosophers used a longer time in
finishing the stone. Which their successors and posterity used to end in the
course of a year, so that they augmented the white stone (by which they would
tinge into silver) with a lunar sperm throughout the whole, or by adding to it
other spirits, namely white ones drawn out of tin, and lead by sublimation.
Moreover they rubified the white stone with the solar sperm, or other reddish
spirits out of iron and copper. And this you may judge was done not amiss, since
those inferior bodies have much tincture in them. If so be you should take what
is the more perfect out of those bodies and should add it to the more perfect
body, what doubt is there that the whole would be made perfect? And such like
inferior bodies are called spirits when we say: Dissolve the body, that is the
stone already made, and join the spirits. They are also called children when we
say: children play with the stone, when they make it greater in weight and
virtue. Whence also we in other works know the urine of children of four years
old to be the water of the four inferior bodies; which since it is called the
aqua fortis of the Philosophers, is said to dissolve gold: out of which things
we do not deny but that a certain stone is made.
The mineral stone we
distinguish in three ways. The stone of the Philosophers is made out of gold
alone and Nature alone; and that is the more sublime; which is by the
philosophers reported to cure all sicknesses. The second is the simple stone,
when the root only, and the sulfur of gold or silver is in the end augmented by
the spirits of the inferior bodies. Where these weights set down in the lesser
Turba are discussed: One to three, or two to seven, wanting only a golden or a
silver sulphur.
The three red spirits are reduced to the golden, the three
white ones to the Silver sulphur. Now there are two sulphurs and seven spirits
out of which the number nine proceeds and is made up: Concerning which most men
have even unto this day, made foolish comments. We say that the sulphurs of all
the metals with their spirits make up the third stone. It is by the most prudent
in philosophy thus determined that the stone can tinge innumerable parts. That
every spirit is multipliable, but no body. And since our stone is made extremely
volatile, and as I may say, spiritual and all fiery, and nourished in the fire
by a long decoction, and very often repeated by very many solutions and
coagulations, why may you not believe that that stone can tinge innumerable
parts? If you with judgement do inwardly apprehend the way of Nature and her
admirable properties. The more often you shall have dissolved it into the white
Sol, and again coagulated, the more it will tinge. Also the more wives a man
shall have taken, the greater issue he will have.
And a certain philosopher
says this: If you shall have given it tincture, it will tinge as you would have
it. Which may also be seen in corn and seed, since out of one little grain many
are produced, out of which often repeated, there uses to arise at length a rich
crop. Nor will this be a lesser argument, if to the sun and moon first conjoined
you add their children; that is, the inferior planets, and the planets are the
lords of the world, who govern all this mighty mass. What should hinder it, but
that the stone composed of all ye metallic things may by tinging the whole
world. The same is also manifest concerning the stone out of Gold only, because
Sol is the Lord of the other planets, and the rest of the planets take from him
a golden lustre. From whence it may be concluded that there is but one day and
one night in the whole age of the world. Again seven days from the seven
planets, and those days one day; because the sun is one: the brightness of the
sun, is day, which shining on you, all trouble and calamity does fly away from
you.
Chapter 17.
Explains certain obscure proportions laid down in the books
of this science.
The Samian Pythagoras when he received scholars
into his college to be instructed, is said in the first place to have given them
this command; not to publish to the vulgar any of those things which were
treated of in their schools. Wherefore he made his hearers be silent for the
space of five years, that it might not be lawful for them either to ask their
master, or discourse of those things among themselves. Which custom the
Pythagoreans following, at length their memory failing, they begun to put into
writing those things which they had learned of their master, as well concerning
the principles of things, as concerning divine things: so that the secret marrow
of those things should be hid in the sacred obligations of numbers. Which that
Plato also did (who by doubtful similitudes and mathematical figures hid his
precepts is shown by his epistle which he writ to Dionysus concerning the nature
of the first being. We must write, says he, by ambiguities and Ænigmas, that if
the book happen to be cast away by sea or by land, he who should read might not
understand it. This I also judge gave occasion to the poets to make their
fables, whereby, least things sublime should pass away to the unworthy mob, they
laid up the sweetest food of philosophy under the essential bark of little
fables. We read that the Egyptians to preserve their determinations, in their
holy places, hid them in letters difficult to be known, that is in certain
figures of animals, as being the print or sign of Nature. If I well remember
there was the effigy of a vulture. A dragon drawn into a circle, and biting his
own tail, made out the image of the running year. Do not some more curious
people endeavor to ascribe everything to it's proper character, whereby there
might be a more hidden remark of that thing. Thereby it comes to pass that those
ancient philosophers were of opinion to deliver this divine art under more
obscure words. The cause you'll find in chapter 7.
Wherefore I thought it
requisite and worth the while, if I should explain to you, as to a son of
philosophy, some obscure propositions, by which you may easily canvas others
which occur. The philosophers say that their stone is found everywhere, in the
mountains and in caves. From that proposition evilly understood, I am persuaded
that all the errors were derived down to posterity, who works in blood, eggs,
hair, and other vain and foreign things. Do you understand it thus. As the
celestial sun itself, by its rays is everywhere in this greater world: so this
terrestrial Sol, that is gold, is everywhere in the whole glass, that is, in the
lesser world: in the mountains, that is, in the head of the glass and in heaven:
and in the caverns, that is the bottom of the glass and in the earth. They say
the stone is bred in two mountains: in heaven the mountain and in the earth,
another mountain, understand it in the glass. Furthermore they affirm their
stone to be in all things: that is, in all metals, which are their things. The
stone also is in everything, that is, Nature is in everything. And because
Nature has in itself all names, and Nature is all the world, therefore the stone
has many names and is said to be in everything: although one is nearer than
another: since the philosophers demand the generative nature alone of metals.
Whence they say that the rich; that is, the perfect bodies, that is the gold and
silver have that nature, as well as the poor, that is, the imperfect metals. Yet
the nature of gold or of silver is the more perfect, and the more permanent in
the fire, than the rest of the metals. The Philosophers also seek a fixed and a
permanent thing, which may govern all the world, namely, Sol and Lune. From
whence they anciently call the Sun the lord of the world: in whom there is life
to heal all things, who by his motion makes day and night, and illuminates the
whole world with his brightness. Wherefore Sol says, I am the stone; or in me is
the stone. The philosophers also say: That the work of the stone is the work of
a woman, and the play of children. The woman is sometimes the earth, sometimes
the Mercury, which seems to perfect the whole work. The children play with the
stone, that is, the three elements with the earth, or the inferior bodies play
with the golden stone, when they augment it in the end. Likewise, children play
with the stone and cast it away, that is, ignorant and unskillful folks cast
away the earth itself in the bottom, when they have made sublimation. Some
Philosophers have compared the work of the stone to the creation of the world.
Likewise to the generation of man, and to his naturalness.
But the more
modern philosophers have hidden this knowledge not only in new words, but also
in painted images. I have seen painted by a most goodly pencil, A naked virgin,
of a tender age, with hair like ivory, black eyes, white and red cheeks, whose
breasts were milky, very smooth and round. And that virgin was in all the beauty
of he body so excellent and so handsomely adorned with all the endowments of
Nature, that she might be thought most worthy of a royal bed, and with whom also
all Philosophers, both the ancient and the modern might be deeply in love. Such
as the poets use to describe Venus, or Juno, or any other beautiful maid or
damsel. But that nymph had in her hands hung down, two mighty burning torches,
and under her right foot there was a golden stone out of whose bosom a certain
golden fountain ran forth into many little veins. Under her left foot there was
a silver stone, vomiting out of itself a silver flame. On the right hand Titan
himself was painted, with his rays sparkling all round about. On the left were
described the Horns of Phoebe: there flew about certain birds partly upward into
the air, partly downward to the earth. At the Virgin's back you see there has
grown up a tree replenished with diverse apples and flowers, which you would
take to be the Tree of Life planted in the Garden of Paradise, if you did taste
its flavor and liveliness. Hermes is described in his philosophical mitre,
evidently the chief of all the philosophers, sitting in a chair, holding two
tables on his knees; in one whereof there were delineated both the globe of the
Sun and the horned Moon; under whom there were two birds drawn into a circle
mutually swallowing one another; whereof one, the uppermost was painted with
wings, the other without. In the other table there were painted three
changeable-coloured circles, in the middle of which was the image of the Moon,
to whom two suns, one of them darted out one ray, the other two: and nine eagles
flew about Hermes' Chair, having in their feet, bended bows, from which
feathered arrows were shot down unto the Earth. Has not one Ulmannus a Friar
Minorite of the order of St. Francis with a most admirable dexterity woven out
our science in his own country's language and mother tongue? And by Christ's
passion proved it most true? Where there is seen that double shaped Image,
partly male, partly female, that hermaphroditical monster, carrying in its hand
a scepter of imperial majesty: and many other things of that kind are seen in
the books of the philosophers.
Chapter 18.
Shows that the stone can cure all sicknesses: since all
Nature is in the sun, and the sun in Nature, and especially in the
stone.
But that the stone can cure all sickness, of these all the
books of the philosophers are full. Yet I will according to my best ability
study to demonstrate it. All Nature is in the Sun, and the Sun in Nature.
Therefore we may catch his spirit in all things, but especially in gold. And
when Nature is sick, that stone cures Nature. In propagating gold Heaven has
taken the greatest pains; likewise the Sun itself, and Jupiter. The Sun has put
all his endowments into it, by reason of its fiery virtue and brightness. But
Jupiter whom the physicians call the patron of life, has infused into it
temperance and an equality of the elements. By these gifts Gold is made so
incorruptible, that no fire can by destroying act upon its substance and virtue.
To these are added the solution of Gold, the purification of its Nature, and a
long nourishment in fire, by which it has obtained a wonderful and almost divine
operation. If so be you should take in victuals or in drink the weight of a
grain of mustard seed, it by its celestial vigor would preserve in an equality
the oil and fire of life, and would temper and tie together the elements of your
body in peace. Which being tempered, the soul would abide with the elements and
man would remain always sound, until that end which the omnipotent God has
ordained by reason of the disobedience of our first parent. There was in
Christ's body so great an affinity, and so great a binding together of the
elements, because he was liable to sin, as also by reason of the wonderful union
of the divine essence, that he had never died naturally, had he not for the sake
of redeeming, man willingly desired death. Render him perpetual thanks for
creating you, for redeeming you from the infernal regions with his precious
blood, and for bestowing on you so great a gift as this. Whereby you may lead a
long life and have health in happiness, for which chiefly our stone is to be
sought after. I say nothing of the plenty of riches, with which a man by this
art most fully and copiously abounds. If having the Aurum potable or the golden
liquor, you shall dissolve that stone in aqua vitae drawn out of malmsey wine,
or some other falernum, that is, rich wine.
Chapter 19.
Repeats the Philosophical praxis, where the divine skill of
the stone is often times all of it set down in short sentences.
Mix
the masculine prince with Mercury in a twelfth proportion in respect of the
prince. Put it to a slow fire and continue it, until the mercury dissolving the
bodies there appear aloft. A Venus swimming, which extracts until nothing of the
body remains in the bottom, and you have the first part of the physical work.
The second part of the work is sulphur, put that in a glass without water, and
by distilling the water of the body, in which there is the soul of Lune. Join
this water with the sulphur, and permit a many times, one to arise sometimes
with the other, sometimes to be depressed: until Venus shall have conceived her
water, which is done in a most white color, and you have the elixir to the
white. The third part of the work is: You shall make citrine with a strong fire,
the most white, earth which you have obtained: afterward you shall rubify it by
the force of fire, and it is the elixir to the red.
Of another way of
working: Still I have a mind to contain in short, and with admirable art that
divine knowledge. Dissolve the body, take the Sulphur, cleanse it, sublime the
spirit, join the spirit with the sulphur, and you will have the physical art. In
every perfect alchemical work, though never so small, it is necessary to have
the spirit and sulphur of Gold. The spirit tinges with a golden colour. The
sulphur gives the weight of Gold, and coagulates. If it wanted either, the work
would be nothing. Then say and speak the greatest truth, that all the secret of
Nature lies hid in the Venus of the physical Gold. Wherefore it is wont to be
called the coagulation; when it is said: take that coagulum from the body, and
you have a magistery, than which there is not a greater in Nature. Likewise
cleanse the coagulum, and destroy the impediment, and you will tinge. But
because a dirty cloth, not compared to sulphur, cannot be washed without water.
To wash is to dissolve, to dissolve is to purify, the water is mercury, it is
the key. It alone does open the body, and whitens the sulphur, which being
whitened, it recedes with uncleanliness. I would say you were admirably learned
if you should be able to remove it, the uncleanliness, it is the impediment and
eternal death. Wherefore it shall not go to heaven, as above in chapter 14 I
have plainly demonstrated. And I say unto you by God the creator of heaven, it
is one of the greatest secrets. Furthermore, the very knowledge of the stone is
no other thing than the purification of the earth, or of Nature. The earth
cannot be cleared from feces and purged, unless through the middle or center it
shall have received the water unto itself. And this comprehends the whole art in
short, if you have understood Nature. You may of yourself by divine grace
discover many things like unto these. Praise God for all ages of ages.
The
end of my Consideration.
Quere if hereby he affirms himself
to be an Adept. But there
may
be many reasons unknown to us:
I question not but the Inquisition
was
the reason of his suppressing his name.
Now there follows
the 20th Chapter:
Chapter 20.
Lays down the Questions put by Illardus the Necromancer to
the devil, concerning the stone of the Philosophers.
A certain
Necromancer, Illardus by name in the province of Catilania put these questions
to the devil.
Whether the stone of the Philosophers can be made, to
convert the imperfect metals into Gold and Silver, fire being the
judge?
All metals are essentially in Gold, with their earths in a
manifold color. Out of its earth with its own essence the stone is made, which
by its Nature takes all uncleanliness away, and being projected on the imperfect
metals, fixes them forever.
What and what kind of a essence is that?
It is a soul, a middle
nature, which permits one form to be converted into another.
In what manner does the soul, the middle nature, act?
Neither
angels, nor men in any wise inwardly behold or comprehend it by their acutest
understandings. Because this is proper to God who reserved this to his own
majesty.
Can man make the stone?
Whatever God has created, having a
property, it is possible for man to act upon it, but it is very hard to make the
stone, yet it may be made.
The soul, the middle nature has it a body?
The colour of Gold is
the body of the soul, the middle nature.
By what way can the colour be separated from Gold?
The soul, the
middle nature, with its heat and moisture does divide and cojoin both together.
The colour of Gold, is it white, or black or of what sort?
It is
white to man's sight, but in spirit it is blue.
In what manner, and out of what is color made?
Nature makes it out
of a pure earth and pure water.
Is there a colour in all metals?
Not only in metals, but also in
all the elements there is a hidden Color.
Of what virtue, or power is the stone?
The stone can purify all the
imperfect metallic bodies from all leprosy, so that they shall be perpetual even
to the last judgement. It cures human bodies of all sickness, until a natural
death.
Of what sort, and what thing is the soul of a human body?
It is the
living fire of a heavenly life, and hath in itself, the soul, the middle nature.
By the soul, the middle nature, God is called the creator of all things which
are in the world.
Had Virgil the stone?
Not only did he have it, but many
Philosophers had it, and have written in diverse ways about it under obscure
names and may operations.
How and why is it called the stone?
I tell you that the stone is
its name, and there is no permission given me to let you know more.
In what time can the stone be brought to an end?
Twelve months are
necessary from the first day of the beginning. In thirty days and earth is
generated out of lead, or the nature of the earth makes lead grow. In one
hundred days argent vive grows in water. In sixty days complete there grew an
air out of tin complete. In the other days of the year, fire grows from gold. In
the moment of the year ending, the soul, the middle nature, descends from heaven
into this earth, and mortifies the superior and inferior powers. The image of a
manifold victory to consume the war in the heart of the belly of them, even to
the perpetual judgement of fire. I will tell you no more.
