THE FIRST TREATISE

For that reason can Art Art In this context, "Art" refers specifically to Alchemy—the human skill used to manipulate and accelerate natural processes. 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 Alchemists believed that base metals like lead or tin were simply "immature" or "diseased" forms of gold; they believed they could "ripen" or "heal" them into perfection. 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, the goal of the Great Work. 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. A common theological safeguard in alchemical texts: while alchemy can transform physical matter and biological life, the human soul is considered a divine creation beyond the reach of material science.

But it must be borne in mind that the essential form Following the philosophy of Aristotle, the "essential form" is the internal nature or identity of an object—what makes a thing what it is. cannot originate in matter unless it is by the effect of an accidental form, not by virtue of that form, but by virtue of another real substance, which is the Fire or some other accidental active heat. An "accidental form" refers to external qualities (like temperature or color) that are not the thing itself but are necessary to trigger a change in its inner essence.

By way of allegory, 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 with the white, by virtue of the heat coming from the hatching hen, and although the egg is the