Collection of Alchemical Treatises

Dissolutions which nature demands and seeks; for nature rejoices in its nature, nature contains nature, and nature perfects its own nature, and nature overcomes nature; and this is in all natural things, provided that two contrary things cannot exist in the same Subject—as Aristotle and Democritus say—for [otherwise] there would be no natural conjunction, as Master Jean de Meun says, except the body and the spirit together, so long as the one resembles the other; the ancient philosophers having hidden this blessed Mercurial Water; the moderns have sought to extract a part of it, thinking to attain the ultimate secret of the said Water, believing they could dissolve into water by the regimen of which De Rupecissa speaks regarding the sublimate and cinnabar and other regimens, and have performed great operations and particularities of

lapis, and Elixirs, and minerals; and because the moderns, having found these good operations, some are content, believing that there were no other Regimen nor menstruum but those, although the contrary is the case. Geber, King of the Indies, wrote a small treatise on it to his son Haaly, and says he gives him a Kingdom, and [how] to make the great philosophers' stone in twenty-four days at the white and at the Red, but notwithstanding he does not set down the manner of making the said Water, nor the long preparation which cannot be completed in less than three months, as I have seen by experience; as also says Master Jean Bressascon d'Orsinou of Bresse, who four years ago made an exposition of Geber in the Italian language, and who says concerning this Epistle that the preparation is long.