Inscrutable Chemico-Philosophical Harmonies

ON PRECIOUS STONES.

Albertus Albertus Magnus (c. 1200–1280), a Dominican friar and philosopher who wrote extensively on the natural sciences and minerals. says in the third chapter on stones: although nature is the beginning and origin of art In this context, "art" refers to alchemy, viewed as a method of assisting or accelerating natural processes., it will therefore be most fitting to first know the natural beginning and procreation of metals. In a similar way, Geber, King of Spain original: Geber Rex Hispaniæ. This refers to the author of the Summa perfectionis, a foundational alchemical text traditionally attributed to the 8th-century Arabic polymath Jabir ibn Hayyan, though likely written by a 13th-century European author., says in the first chapter or of his Summa: if anyone does not know the beginning or origin of nature, and likewise does not know the naturalness and formal virtue original: formalem virtutem. The internal "blueprint" or spiritual power that gives a substance its specific properties. of gold, he is far removed from our art; for he has no root upon which to found his intention. And again in the same work he says: he who does not know the origin of the way metals are generated according to the intention of nature—even if he knows the starting point—cannot reach the end of this science; because this art, as the Master of Ferrara Petrus Bonus of Ferrara, a 14th-century alchemist. says in chapter 27, consists in the recognition of the matter of gold and the operation of nature.

Thus, the art imitates nature’s operation as much as it can. For Albertus says in the first chapter of his book on metals original: libro metallorum, referring to his treatise De Mineralibus.: the matter of stones, from which stones are formed, is not far removed from the elements. That is to say, no full transmutation of the elements—namely water and earth, which are the matter of stones—has yet taken place. As this same Albertus posits in chapter 20 of the first book, the matter of stones is, in its first degree, a viscosity original: viscositas. A sticky, glue-like quality believed to bind elemental earth together into solid rock. and an earthy humidity. Thus, coarse stones are generated from earth mixed with a viscous humidity. But the transparency original: perspicuitas. Referring to the clarity and light-reflecting quality of gems. of precious stones comes from their matter being water mixed in some way with a subtle and agile earth, so that a perfect transformation of water and earth has not yet occurred, as happens in the matter of metals.