PREFACE

[Phi]lalethes (whether that name be at last a true one or merely a persona), then they even decide that his Tincture Tincture: In alchemy, this refers to the "Philosopher's Stone" or the medicinal elixir capable of transmuting metals and healing the body. should be placed among what they call "beings of reasoning reason" original: "Entia rationis ratiocinantis" — A philosophical term for concepts that exist only in the mind and have no objective reality.. I will not now refute this latter assertion at length, as it easily collapses under its own futility and could never find approval among the leading men of the chemical arts chemical arts: "re Chemica" — here meaning alchemy, the predecessor to modern chemistry, whose illustrious names are read everywhere.

But as to why their minds are so hesitant regarding the former point [his identity], I have not yet been able to scent out a true and clear cause. For I think they will grant that all those writings circulated under the name of Philalethes acknowledge a single author; the style of writing is clearly the same, as is the method of treatment, and finally the same principles easily prove it. There are, therefore, among the English themselves those who claim to have collected from papers

written by this author’s own hand, that he should be referred to the French rather than the British if you look at his origin. They believe this was done so that he might hide more safely in France, since it is certain that, by some fate, followers of alchemy are treated very poorly in those lands and are almost severely prosecuted.

However, I myself have seen and heard many men of no low rank in England who strove to claim and assert Eirenaeus for themselves and their country, as being born of English parents but more highly skilled in the French language, in which he composed his most important writings. For those works which Langius and Birrus Joachim Lange and Martinus Birrius were influential editors and translators who helped disseminate alchemical texts in the 17th century. published under that name, elaborated in the Roman tongue original: "Romana dictione" — Latin, are to be regarded entirely as translations. Moreover, who...