Two stories in this volume turn on the same test. Here Philalethes, disguised as a merchant, offers a goldsmith 600 pounds' worth of silver and is told "This silver is artificially prepared."; he slips away, "leaving the silver in the hands of the goldsmith". Fifty pages on, Helvetius takes his transmuted lead to a goldsmith who calls it the finest gold he has seen, and then to an assay. Philalethes makes the goldsmith's suspicion his proof, since only made silver could be told from mined silver; Helvetius makes the goldsmith's approval his. Either verdict can be enlisted. The two also meet elsewhere: Philalethes announces that Elias the artist is at hand, and Helvetius names his visitor the Artist Elias.
The Hermetic Museum, Vol. II — trans. A. E. Waite (1893)
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page 84
The translator’s English as printed (A. E. Waite). The original-language text is not held; names are romanised as the translator printed them.
one ; surrounded as we are on every side by the cruel greed and the prying suspicion of the multitude, we are doomed, like Cain, to wander over the earth homeless and friendless. Not for us are the soothing influences of domestic happiness; not for us the delightful confidences of friendship. Men who covet our golden secret pursue us from place to place, and fear closes our lips, when love tempts us to open ourselves freely to a brother. Thus we feel prompted at times to burst forth into the desolate exclamation of Cain: * Whoever finds me will slay me" Yet we are not the murderers of our brethren ; we are anxious only to do good to our fellow-men. But even our kindness and charitable compassion are rewarded with black ingratitude— ingratitude that cries to heaven for vengeance. It was only a short time ago that, after visiting the plague-stricken haunts of a certain city, and restoring the sick to perfect health by means of my miraculous medicine, I found myself surrounded by a yelling mob, who demanded that I should give to them my Elixir of the Sages ; and it was only by changing my dress and my name, by shaving off my beard and putting on a wig, that I was enabled to save my life, and escape from the hands of those wicked men. And even when our lives are not threatened, it is not pleasant to find ourselves, wherever we go, the central objects of human greed. . . . I know of several persons who were found strangled in their beds, simply because they were suspected of possessing this secret, though, in reality, they knew no more about it than their murderers; it was enough for some desperate ruffans, that a mere whisper of suspicion had been breathed against their victims. Men are so eager to have this Medicine that your very caution will arouse their suspicions, and endanger your safety. Again, if you desire to sell any large quantity of your gold and silver, you will be unable to do so without imminent risk of discovery. The very fact that anyone has a great mass of bullion for sale would in most places excite suspicion. This feeling will be strengthened when people test the quality of our gold ; for it is much finer and purer than any of the gold which is brought from Barbary, or from the Guinea Coast; and our silver is better even than that which is conveyed home by the Spanish silver fleet. If, in order to baffle discovery, you mix these precious metals with alloy, you render yourself liable, in England and Holland at least, to capital punishment; for in those countries no one is permitted to tamper with the precious metals, except the officers of the mint, and the licensed goldsmiths. I remember once going, in the disguise of a foreign merchant, to a goldsmith's shop, and offering him 600 pounds worth of our pure silver for sale. He subjected it to the usual tests, and then said : * This silver is artificially prepared." When I asked him why he thought so, his answer was: *I am not a novice in my profession, and know very well the exact quality of the silver which is brought from the different mines" When I heard these words I took myself away with great secrecy and dispatch, leaving the silver in the hands of the goldsmith. On this account, and by reason of the many and great difficulties which beset us, the possessors of this Stone, on every side, we do elect to remain hidden, and "will communicate the Art to those who are worthily covetous of our secrets, and then mark what public good will befall. Without Sulphur, our Mercury would never be properly coagulated for our supernatural work ; it is the male substance, while Mercury may be called the female; and all Sages say that no tincture can be made without its latten, which latten is gold, without any double speaking. Wise men, notwithstanding, can find this substance even on the dunghill; but the ignorant are unable to discern it even in gold. The tincture of gold is concealed in the gold of the Sages, which is the most highly matured of bodies; but as a raw material it exists only in our Mercury ; and it (gold) receives from Mercury the multiplication of its seed, but in virtue rather than in weight. "The Sages say that common gold is dead, while their's is living; and common gold is dead in the same sense in which a grain of wheat is dead, while it is surrounded by dry air; and comes to life, swells, softens, and germinates only when it is put into moist earth. In this sense gold, too, is dead, so long as it is surrounded by the corporeal husk, always allowing, of course, for the great difference between a vegetable grain and metallic gold. Ou grain is quickened in zoazer only ; and as wheat, while it remains in the barn is called grain, and is not destined to be quickened, because it is to be used for bread making—but changes its name, when
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