Preface.

Your Princely Grace understands such matters better than I can write of them; therefore, I will speak here only of the Philosopher's Stone original: "Lapide Philosophico"; the legendary substance capable of transmuting base metals into gold and granting long life, which to the majority of people is known by name alone.

For although it is the highest jewel original: "kleinot" that is granted to man by God the Lord—aside from eternal salvation original: "seeligkeit"—and for which reason Theophrastus referring to Paracelsus, whose full name was Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim calls it a Balsam in this first Treatise on account of the human body; nevertheless, it remains cast under the bench an idiom meaning neglected or treated with contempt. There are few people, even among the learned and highly intelligent, who do not laugh when it is mentioned, as if it were an empty fiction and