THE FIRST TREATISE

For that reason can Art In alchemical texts, "Art" specifically refers to the practice of Alchemy—the human skill used to manipulate and perfect natural substances. produce extraordinary things out of the aforesaid natural beginnings such as Nature of herself would never be able to create. For unaided Nature does not produce things whereby imperfect metals Base metals like lead or tin, which alchemists believed were "unripe" versions of gold. can in a moment be made perfect, but by the secrets of Our Art this can be done.

Here Nature serves Art with Matter, and Art serves Nature with suitable Instruments and method convenient for Nature to produce such new forms; and although the before mentioned Stone The Philosopher's Stone. can only be brought to its proper form by Art, yet the form is from Nature. For the form of every thing be it living, growing, or metallic, comes into existence by virtue of the interior force in matter—except the human soul.

But it must be borne in mind that the essential form A philosophical term referring to the core identity or "soul" of a substance that makes it what it is. cannot originate in matter unless it is by the effect of an accidental form External qualities or conditions—such as heat, moisture, or color—that influence a substance without being part of its core essence., not by virtue of that form, but by virtue of another real substance, which is the Fire or some other accidental active heat.

By way of allegory A symbolic story used to explain a complex or spiritual process., we take a hen’s egg; in this the form of the chicken can not take shape, without the presence and aid of accidental form, which is the inter-mixture of the red The yolk. with the white, by virtue of the heat coming from the hatching hen, and although the egg is the