APOLOGIA

...and of gold, with the art clearly serving as a minister to nature. For even if the immediate starting material original: "materia proxima" from which silver and gold are made by nature alone is different from the material used when art acts as a minister, nevertheless the aim of both nature and art strives toward one and the same end: namely, to attain the form of silver and gold.

Part III. The method of operation.

The second part The author likely means the latter part of his division mentioned on the previous page. will be the method, or way of acting. This belongs to art alone and does not mimic nature indiscriminately, except insofar as it leads to the same goal and end toward which nature leads.

The order of topics to be discussed.

We will therefore treat these three parts of Silver-making original: "Argyropœia" and Gold-making original: "Chrysopœia" in order, through which we will defend our position. Next, we will confirm it with certain experiments. Finally, we will respond to the arguments of Erastus Thomas Erastus (1524–1583) was a Swiss physician and theologian famous for his fierce opposition to alchemy and Paracelsian medicine.: thus the end of this Apologia [Defense] will be reached. But before we investigate the nature of metals, we think it is appropriate to explore nature in all composite bodies—briefly and generally—as this subject is otherwise to be drawn more fully from the Natural Philosophers original: "Physicis".

The nature of all things is recognized by their causes.

Thus it happens that, once the nature of all things is known in general, there is an easier path to penetrating the nature of metals. The nature of all composite bodies is recognized from their causes. For to know something, as Aristotle says in the first book of the Physics, is to know it through its causes.

The causes of things are four.

The causes are the material, the formal, the efficient, and the final. The material cause is that out of which something is made; for in nature, nothing is made except from pre-existing matter or a "subject." The formal cause is that which gives "being" to a thing, and by which the thing receives its name. The efficient cause is the cause that moves matter toward some end. The final cause is that for the sake of which the efficient cause moves the matter.

The division of matter. Remote matter.

There is a division of Matter: one kind is remote, another intermediate, and another proximate. "Remote matter" is said to be that which will undergo many changes and take on many forms before it takes on the form of any of the four types of natural bodies.

The four types of bodies.

These four types of bodies are the composite mineral/mixed, the vegetable, the sensible animal, and the rational or intelligent human. This remote matter is at a great distance from each of these. This is Primary Matter original: "materia prima", which is understood only by the imagination and the intellect, not by the senses. Likewise, the four first principles of things are earth, water, air, and fire. For before those, no other matter can be imagined.

Intermediate matter.

Intermediate matter original: "materia media" is between the remote and the proximate; it is indeed closer to the forms of these four types of bodies...