PREFACE.

...and the many-named matter original Greek: μυριώνυμος ὕλη (murionymos hyle). This refers to the materia prima or "first matter" of alchemy, which philosophers claimed could be found everywhere and was thus given thousands of different names to conceal its true identity. had crossed the sea. I could, I say, have brought forward and treated many more things of that kind, had I not feared the boredom of my readers, or had the constraints of time not called me back.

But these things will be abundantly sufficient and satisfying to those by whom Basil Valentine A legendary 15th-century alchemical figure, now believed to be a pseudonym for the publisher Johann Thölde. He is famous for his foundational work on the medicinal and chemical properties of metals. has been read with care, whose Triumphal Chariot of Antimony One of the most famous texts in the history of chemistry, describing the extraction of medicinal "essences" from the mineral antimony. no one, so far as I have been able to notice until now, has truly understood. I shall explain that work, God willing, in a commentary on the Diseases of the Chemical Man. For everything taught there concerns remedies for the Philosophical Man In alchemical philosophy, this represents the perfected human state or the spiritual "body" that the alchemist seeks to heal and transform, rather than just the physical body.; and hence it seems to me not at all surprising if that common, literal preparation vulgaris præparatio The "vulgar" or literal reading of alchemical recipes often involved toxic substances; the author warns that without the secret "philosophical" key, these recipes are deadly. is more pestilential than healthful for the race of mortals.

If you profit anything from these matters in the meantime, most kind Reader, I shall rejoice; if not, I would wish you to consider that not all things are written for all people—nor indeed are they understood by all. Farewell.