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

by its form (Ze, a certain appropriate celestial influence), coagulates the material water, and passes through a series of fermentative processes (fermentation being the principle of all transmutation), until it has produced that for the production of which it was specially suited. If the seed is metallic, there is generated from it first a dry liquid, which does not wet the hand, viz, Mercury, the mother of all metals. Mercury may be described as the true first matter of metals; for not until the elemental water has become Mercury can it be affirmed with any degree of certainty that a metal or mineral must result from it. Water is, in itself, potentially the seed of either an animal, vegetable, or mineral; but Mercury is metallically differentiated water, Ze., it is water passed into that stage of development, in which it can nolonger produce anything but mineral substances. Mercury, then, is the common seed of gold, silver, copper, tin, iron, lead, etc. ; their difference is only to be sought in the degree of their digestion. The digestive is not any fat sulphur which is brought to bear on them from without; but Mercury contains within itself the active principle of its development, vzz., the inward heat due to celestial influences, causing vitality, and dependent on the fitness of the womb. These heavenly influences are at work throughout the world; but their exact mode of action is determined by the potential nature of the seed; if the inward life be metallic, the course of its development by means of outward agents will also be metallic. Still Mercury develops only where these outward influences (celestial and terrestrial) can be brought to bear. In every other place it will appear a cold, dead, and lifeless substance. But in the centre of its nativity it is quickened by the action of celestial influences, conveyed to it through the medium of air, whence results heat, wherewith life is necessarily associated. Now, the womb in which this Mercury is placed, is either more, less, or not at all suited to it ; and according to the different degrees of this fitness, the substance either remains altogether stationary, or is more or less perfectly developed ; imperfection of development yields the imperfect metals, while by means of perfect development are produced silver and gold; but all metals, though differentiated by the degree of their digestion or maturity, have the same first substance, vzz, Mercury. The dross and impurities which are

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so largely found in the base metals, form no part of the original Mercury, but are added afterwards through some flaw in the process of coagulation, or through the impurity of the place or womb in which their metallic generation (fermentation) takes place But I will now go on to deal with the special subject of this Treatise, vzz., the renovation or multiplication of gold and silver.

G'BIPANDIPE RSS TRE

Of the Generation of Gold and Siawer from the Mercurial Substance, and the Possibility of bringing Imperfect Metals to the same State of Perfection.

To the aforesaid source (Mercury) we trace the birth of gold, and of its sister, silver; they represent this substance brought to perfection by means of digestion. Perfection is of two kinds, inchaotive or complete, partial or entire. Complete perfection (the complete digestion of all crudities and elimination of all impurities) is the ultimate aim of Nature ; and she has reached it in our gold, which with its brilliancy lights up the whole earth. Inchaotive perfection may be so named, not absolutely, but relatively, when compared with essentially imperfect bodies. Those bodies are formally or essentially imperfect in the composition of which the impure predominates over the pure, so that they could never of themselves (by natural development) attain perfection ; this is the case with all metals except gold and silver. But whenever the pure is freed from the corruptive tyrrany of the impure, and obtains the mastery over it, we have inchaotive perfection, though the development of the body may be still incomplete. These crudities and impurities do not originally belong to the metallic substance, and are very well capable of being separated from it ; if they are so purged off before coagulation, we get a perfect metal. But even if they are coagulated together with the Mercury, it is still possible to separate them from it, and thus to perfect the Mercury. It is on this possibility that our Art is based; and its business is to perform this separation. ^ The base metals contain the same Mercury as gold ; if we can free this Mercury from the impurities which hinder its development, it must also go on to