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

p. 16

splaces, this or that metal is gradually formed. Only few parts of the earth are suitable for such generation—how, then, can they be multiplied above the earth? Every person of average intelligence knows that in the case of congealed water, or ice, the water, before it becomes hardened, is more plentiful in some places than in others. Before its congelation, it exists in small quantities in brooks and ditches, while more considerable veins of it are found in lakes and rivers. Afterwards, large quantities of ice are seen where there was much water; but it would manifestly be absurd to say that the ice must have grown or multiplied in the lakes and rivers, because they contain greater masses of it than ditches or brooks. In the same way, the metals do not necessarily grow in the mountains, because in some places they exist in larger quantities than in others. ^A certain portion of any metal can never be increased in quantity by the action of an inherent principle ; and herein minerals differ from vegetables and animals. A vegetable seed, such as an acorn, virtually contains within itself the trunk and the leaves of a tree, though they cannot at a given moment be discerned with the eye. But metals always remain exactly the same in their composition, though they be dissolved with strong waters. An ounce of silver can never become more or less than an ounce of silver. For nothing can be multiplied by inward action unless it belong to the vegetable kingdom, or the family of sensitive creatures. But the metals are elementary objects, and possess neither seed nor sensation. Hence we conclude that all multipliers of metals should be forbidden to exercise their fraudulent trade. For when a metal has once been generated, it is never added to by growth. Nevertheless, we have known one metal to be transmuted into another of a different kind by means of the cognate nature of their substances ; so, for instance, iron has been changed into bronze. But nothing can produce real silver or gold except the Medicine of the Philosophers. Hence the falsehoods affected by the multipliers are eschewed and shunned by all true Sages. But all honour and reverence is due to the genuine Art of sacred Alchemy, which is concerned with the precious Medicine that has virtue to produce pure gold and silver. Of this an example exists in a certain city of Catalonia, which Raymond Lullius is supposed to have drawn up. It consists of a series of seven images, and is designed to

EHE ORUDEANLAIP, QI ALCHBITY. jj

shadow out the way of truth. "Three of these pictures represent matronly figures of solid silver, and four of them represent men of gold in flowing garb. On the hems of their garments appear certain letters, the meaning of which I will proceed to expound.

• * | was once an old iron horse-shoe "—such is the inscription on the garment of one woman——" but now I am the purest silver."
• * [," says another woman, * was iron smelted from the ore, but now I am become pure and solid gold." * I," says a third, * was once a battered piece of copper: now L am all silver." The fourth figure says: *I was once copper, generated in a vile place, but at the bidding of God I have now become perfect gold." *I,"says the fifth figure, * who was once fine and pure silver, am now more excellent gold." The sixth figure proclaims that it was during 200 years a leaden pipe, but is now known by all for honest silver. TThe seventh says: * A wondrous thing has happened to me—I have become lead out of gold. But certainly my sisters are nearer than I."