A New Light of Alchemy

Although the header reads "On Mercury," the text continues the discussion of "Nature" from the previous page, illustrating how Mercury was often viewed as the primary "nature" or "spirit" that alchemists sought to understand.

...[engaged in] things, could hardly have imagined with our own wits. This happens because Nature and the Generation of things original: "Generatio rerum." The natural process by which things are born, grow, and are transformed. in the world now seem cheap and simple to us. And therefore, we direct our intellects not toward things already known, but toward those things which cannot, or can hardly, be done.

Wherefore it also turns out for us that we can more easily devise subtle things—and imagine things which the Philosophers original: "Philosophi." Here referring to the ancient alchemical authorities. themselves did not know—than arrive at the true course of Nature and the meaning of the Philosophers.

And thus the nature of humans is fashioned: it neglects those things it knows and always seeks others. This is even more true of human intellects, to which Nature is subject. For example, you see any craftsman original: "artificem.", when he has already arrived at the highest perfection of his craft, he either seeks other things, or misuses his skill, or plainly stops.

So also noble Nature always acts, even into the Iliadus Iliadum: In Paracelsian philosophy, this refers to the ultimate state or the "final limit" of a thing's natural development. itself—that is, the Final Limit—and afterward it ceases. For there was instilled in Nature a certain permission from the beginning, so that through its complete course it might reach better things and find full rest, toward which it [tends] with every effort...