SILVER-MAKING AND GOLD-MAKING

...they think, and they profess that it obtains the force of the efficient cause, following the example of artificial cinnabar, which solidifies from a mixture of quicksilver mercury and sulfur. The opinion of Gilgil. Gilgil the Moor original: "Gilgil Maurus"; an Arabic author often cited in medieval mineralogical and alchemical texts is of the opinion that the most intense heat is the efficient cause, as is seen in glass, which is forged from ashes. The opinion of Albertus Magnus. Albertus Magnus a 13th-century philosopher and theologian who wrote extensively on the "secrets of nature", however, says this efficient cause is the greater power of the celestial sphere, which unfolds natural forms through the motion of the heavens and the qualities of the elements, just as a craftsman unfolds artistic forms with an axe or a hammer. But this opinion of Albertus concerning the efficient cause should be considered and understood as referring to a universal cause rather than a specific one. For this universal cause acts first upon the elements, which after many changes it eventually transforms into the proximate matter the immediate substance from which something is directly formed.

The opinion of Georgius Agricola.

Georgius Agricola a 16th-century German scholar known as the "father of mineralogy", however, follows Aristotle regarding the specific proximate efficient cause, which seems to me to be the truer opinion; for proximate causes are recognized by their effects. Now, metals are natural bodies that are only simply mixed, and they possess nothing beyond that mixture; and the effect of a simple mixture proceeds from the primary powers of the elements alone. How the elements are moved and mixed to produce metals. For the elements are moved and mixed by their own specific qualities. Therefore, heat first mixes them and leads them to the proximate matter of metals, which cold afterward constricts and solidifies.

Furthermore, this opinion is proven by induction. For if it is true, as they say, that iron is born in the clouds from that "double exhalation" In Aristotelian science, metals were thought to form from two types of underground vapors: one moist and one dry thickened by cold and falls to the earth, how much more likely is it that metals are born beneath the earth from that same exhalation thickened by cold?

These are the things I thought should be said concerning the knowledge of the nature of metals, which have solidified by the force of nature alone. Nor is there need for more discussion, either because these things have been explained by many highly respected authors, or because for the [alchemical] art there is a different proximate matter and other efficient causes—though still natural ones—which tend toward the same goal with art as the servant.

The second part of Silver-making and Gold-making.

The knowledge of this proximate matter and efficient cause is the second part in the order of the division of Argyropœia from the Greek: "silver-making" and Chrysopœia from the Greek: "gold-making". These are so necessary that if they are ignored, the art can neither be known nor described. The knowledge of these things demonstrates the way and the path by which one arrives at the desired end. From these same...