A New Light of Alchemy

...as a goldsmith would without fire, gold, or silver, or a farmer without grain and seed. Once the seed original: "spermate" is possessed, Nature will be ready at hand, whether for evil or for good. She operates within the seed just as God operates within the free will of man; and this is a great miracle: that Nature obeys the seed, not by force, but by her own accord, just as God also grants all things that man wishes, not by force, but from His own willing. For this reason, He gave free will to man, whether for evil or for good.

The seed, therefore, is the Elixir: In alchemy, the "Elixir" is the perfected substance capable of transforming matter or healing; here the author uses it to describe the potent core of any individual thing. of each and every thing, or the Fifth Essence: Also known as the "Quintessence," this is the purest, most spiritualized form of a substance, transcending the four physical elements., or the most perfect decoction and digestion of a thing, or the Balsam of Sulphur: A term for the oily, life-preserving principle within a substance that prevents it from decaying., which is the same as the Radical Moisture: The fundamental "sap" or innate fluid that maintains the life and flexibility of a substance, particularly in metals. in metals.

A great discourse could indeed be established here concerning this seed, but we aim only toward our purpose in the Chemical Art: Another name for Alchemy, the "art" of purifying and perfecting natural substances through heat and laboratory processes.. The four elements generate the seed by the will of God and the imagination of Nature. For just as the seed of a man has its center, or the vessel of its semen, in the kidneys In early modern medicine, the kidneys were often viewed as central to the reproductive system and the refinement of generative fluids., so the four elements, by an unceasing motion (each according to its own quality:)