Two Treatises on the Nature of the Elements and the Fifth Essence

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I communicate those things which I myself have drawn and received from Nature (Natura). Believe for certain that I am showing and offering to you that which has lain hidden from many until now: which, however, unless you rightly understand my mind, you yourself will by no means know for what uses it is destined. Because of your imprudent petition, I am forced to involve this very thing in silence, lest I create danger for my very self. But when my soul shall have emigrated from the prison-house of my body, then all things shall be brought forth into the open and into full light. I profess nothing new: that about which I discourse has already existed for more than ten centuries.

I shall write, therefore, concerning the common Elements (Elementa vulgaria); since these things are best known to you; so that you may thus arrive at a deeper understanding of the Remnants, that is, of the Element of Earth (Elementum Telluris). For Earth does not consist of so simple a nature as Fire (Ignis), Air (Aër), and Water (Aqua), but it is impure, as if it were the excrement of the others. We find, I say, in the Earth, and in the remaining Creatures of the earth, fully and perfectly the four Elementary Bodies, by the help of which, we [begin] to perfect our work (opus nostrum) [...]

catchword: gimur.