Inscrutable Chemico-Philosophical Harmonies

...digested, until the humidity is united and mixed with the dryness of the earth, so that they are equally transmuted; and from this quicksilver original: argentum vivum. Today we know this as the element mercury. is made, as Aristotle The Greek philosopher was the primary authority for medieval science; his work Meteorology provided the basis for these geological theories. says. This is the common matter of all metals.

But it is required that it be mixed with sulfur, as the ores of all metals clearly indicate; sulfur is involved in the operation of all metals because it is found in all minerals and ores, although in some ores sulfur and quicksilver are found separately. Nature indicates this so that we may see the materials from which metals are generated, yet their composition is necessary in the generation of metals. Therefore, all ores from which metals come give off a sulfurous stench; and this is a sign that these two—sulfur and quicksilver—join together in the generation, yet remain distinct, so that sulfur acts as the active agent original: actor and quicksilver acts as the matter receiving the action of the sulfur.

It must be known that sulfur and quicksilver join in the generation of metals in the same way as the male and female seed. For the male seed contains the natural active power, which it received from the man as a mediator; this acts upon the blood of the woman, in which the other seed has been mixed through the union of man and woman. For to the woman, as the Natural Philosophers A term for scholars who studied the physical world and "science" before the modern era. posit, blood is provided in the procreation of a child, with which the man's seed is mixed; and finally, from this blood, by means of its active power and natural heat, the heart is fashioned, and it imparts to the heart its generative power, which is similar...