PREFACE

...working the matter produced by the four properties of the four elements The four qualities—hot, cold, moist, and dry—which combine to form Earth, Air, Fire, and Water., which generate in their mixture the metallic force, under the influence of their respective planets.

All this is well described by the master of nature ARISTOTLE, in the fourth book of his Meteorology original Latin: Meteorologicorum. This work was highly influential in the Middle Ages for its theories on the formation of minerals and metals underground., when he says that QUICKSILVER is a matter common to all metals. But it must be known that the very first thing in Nature is the compound matter of the four elements.

In acknowledging this property of Nature, the Philosophers called their Matter MERCURY original: MERCURIUS, or QUICKSILVER.

How this MERCURY takes the perfect form of Gold, silver, or other metals through the working of nature need not be mentioned here. The teachers of Natural Philosophy describe it sufficiently in their books.

Upon such is based and founded the ART In alchemical texts, "the Art" refers specifically to Alchemy itself—the human imitation and acceleration of natural processes. of the Philosopher’s Stone; for it originates in Nature, and from there follows a natural end in a proper form, through proper and natural means.