Preface.

...added an epistle of my late brother, namely his Judgment on the Allied Hermetic Duumvirs original: "Judicium de Duumviris Hermeticis Foederatis"; 'Duumvirs' refers to a pair of men holding joint office or authority, likely referring here to a specific pair of alchemical authors, and their epistle The Trumpeter original: "Buccinator"; a title often given to works that "proclaim" or "sound the trumpet" for a specific doctrine, since such a thing is no longer easily obtainable; it has, however, been diligently translated from Latin into German.

As for the present work, among these twelve ancient philosophers, one is clearer than the other, yet they agree fairly well on the primary Work. In several places, the work is described obscurely enough that one has good reason to read through it more than once with careful consideration; and it caused me no little trouble to extract the meaning in several places, especially where the scribe used few commas and other divisions, and also employed various unknown abbreviations, so that one sometimes did not know whether this or that turn of phrase belonged to what came before or after. This was particularly true where the old monkish style original: "Mönchs-Stylus"; a term for medieval Scholastic or ecclesiastical Latin, which later scholars often found difficult or grammatically non-standard was very prominent in the Latin manuscript; for example, using "It is unfolded" original: "Explicet"; a common medieval manuscript term indicating the end of a roll or book instead of "It is the end" original: "Finis est", etc. Regarding this, the learned Reyher likely referring to Samuel Reyher (1635–1714), a prominent polymath and professor known for his works on law, mathematics, and alchemy is well able to provide sufficient information.

As for the Philosopher’s Stone original: "Lapidem Philosophorum", or "Sophorum", or the Stone of the Wise, it is indeed a "stone of stumbling" a biblical reference to a hurdle or something that causes ruin to the unwary upon which many a man has shattered his head, fortune, honor, and property; and when it comes down to it, yet little