The Hermetic Museum, Vol. I — trans. A. E. Waite (1893)

wisdom where it cannot be found, because Nature has not placed it there. And, truly, the working even of common mercury is so wonderful that it has misled some who supposed themselves to be adepts in this art. The following is a case in point. I knew a man who.succeeded in giving to his amalgam an orange colour, but he could not get it any nearer to the colour of gold. At last this clever chemist determined to increase the heat of the furnace, thinking that this would have the desired effect of more intimately combining the various ingredients. But alas! the alembic burst, the gold was hurled into the fire, and almost changed from its nature by the still volatile mercury. Hence it appears that the mercury (which is its body) so strongly affected the gold in its minutest particles as to reduce it to a tincture, although several colours were obtained by the action of the heat on the melted mass. If that good man had taken to heart Arnold's words in the * Flower of Flowers," he would never have made that experiment. For the said Arnold makes reference to those who adopt this method in the following terms : * They knew that mercury is the elementary principle of the metals, and that they are produced through its digestion by - the heat of sulphur ; they therefore sublimed mercury by itself, then fixed and consolidated it, again melted it and did again coagulate it: but when they came to examine the alembic, they found no gold, etc." Therefore we cannot believe that common quicksilver is the substance ofthe Stone. At the same time I do not deny that it is indispensable both to the philosophical chymist and to the physician.

We have carefully sought the substance of our stone in the animal and vegetable world, among stones, lesser, intermediate, and greater minerals, but in vain. We must now see whether we can find it in the metals, and if so, whether in all or only in some. It is a well-known fact (to which Roger bears witness, Spec., cp. iii.), that all metals are generated outof sulphur and quicksilver, and that nothing will become one with them, or change.them, but what originates in themselves ; since a thing can be developed and improved only by that which belongs to its own nature (Richard, cp. i.).

I need not say that the Great Artist has ordained that throughout the whole of Nature things should generate and

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produce only that which is like them, so that, for instance, a horse can never be the offspring of a man. * As brute animals," says Basil Valentine, **cannot multiply after their kind by way of generation except by virtue of their common nature ; so you cannot expect to obtain the Blessed Stone, but out of its own seed, out of which it was made from the beginning. Now to find the. seed you should diligently consider for what purpose you require the Store. You will at once see that it can be obtained only from the metallic root from which God has ordained that the metals themselves should be generated. Moreover, there is a great conformity between the generation of the metals and the Stone. For in both sulphur and quicksilver (containing that salt which is their quickening soul) are indispensably required ; nor can any useful metal be generated until these three (making up the metallic substance) have been combined ; for in the composition of metals there must be nothing which has not been obtained from a metallic source" * No external thing, says Draco, ** which is not derived from these two [sulphur and mercury]has power to produce or transmute metals. On this account we must select a metallic substance for the production of the Stone" We must next briefly enquire whether it is to be found in imperfect metals. Many imagine that the substance of the white (tincture) may be elicited from tin or lead, and that of the red out of copperoriron,orboth. This idea is doubtless owing to a misconception of the words of the Sages. For Geber (lib. forn. cp. ix.) says : * The mass for fermentation we generally gain from the imperfect [base] bodies" Therefore we lay it down as a general rule that the white paste may be extracted from Jupiter and Saturn, the red from Venus, Saturn,and Mars. And Basil. Valentinus says (Lib. de phys. et hyperphys.), that the tincture Is prepared out of a conjunction of Mars and Venus. Acain (Triumph. Antimon.), he uses these words : * After this tincture of the Sun and Moon comes the tincture of Venus and Mars