Theatrum Chemicum Volumen Secundum

DEFENSE

...is distinguished by the causes of metals—namely, its matter, its form, and its efficient cause the force or agent that brings a thing into being—more so than the other composite bodies original: "mista corpora"; things made of a mixture of the four elements of the world.

The remote matter of metals.

Therefore, the remote matter original: "materia remota"; the most basic, underlying ingredients of a substance of metals, just like that of all other bodies, is (as has been stated) earth, water, air, and fire. It is the unanimous opinion of all philosophers that metals draw their origin from these. For the matter of a single element could not have been sufficient for the generation of composite bodies; rather, it was necessary for those four elements to have been blended and poured together to provide a suitable foundation and substrate for things. Although these first principles of things are the remote matter of metals, they are nevertheless more closely related to metals than they are to plants or sentient beings. This is because these four elements are perceived by the senses as if they were the primary and natural offspring of metals, and indeed of all inanimate things.

The intermediate matter of metals.

The intermediate matter original: "materia media" of metals within the bowels of the earth is that which, by the power of the efficient cause, passes from the first mixing of the elements into a sort of middle state, which is not yet the proximate matter. This intermediate stage is something like an unformed thing and does not have a certain "species" in nature; the ancient authors have not handed down a specific description of what this state is.

The proximate matter of metals.

But the proximate matter original: "materia proxima"; the final stage of matter before it becomes a specific substance like gold or iron of metals is that which is perfected by the efficient cause without the intervention of any other changes, and most closely takes on the metallic form. It is not yet a metal, but it possesses a form different from a metal, and the metallic form arises from it through a single final transformation.

Aristotle’s opinion on the proximate matter of metals.

However, regarding what that proximate matter actually is within the mines of the earth, there have been various opinions among those who have written on this subject. Aristotle The Greek philosopher (384–322 BCE) whose theories on the four elements and "exhalations" dominated medieval science says that the matter of both the "sublime" things above the earth and the "inferior" things generated in the bowels of the earth is a twofold exhalation. One is an exhalation from the earth, which is dry and hot; the other is a vapor from the water, which is cold and moist. It is not, however, that the dry exhalation is entirely without moisture, nor the moist vapor entirely without dryness; rather, dryness prevails in the former and moisture in the latter. He says, therefore, that the dry exhalation is the source of "fossils" in this period, "fossil" referred to anything dug out of the ground, such as types of stones that cannot be melted, sandarac original: "sandaracha"; a reddish arsenic ore, sulfur, ochre original: "achra", red chalk original: "rubrica", and others of that kind. But he says that metals belong to the vaporous exhalation. He claims that this vapor, before it is turned into water, is coagulated by the dry exhalation and becomes metal. For this reason, all metals contain dry exhalation and can be set on fire and consumed by heat—with the exception of gold alone.

The opinion of the Alchemists.

The Alchemists, however, say that the proximate matter of metals is quicksilver mercury and sulfur; they argue this because quicksilver...