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Preface.

Dear Reader, Honored in Chemical Wisdom and Truth.

It is more superfluous than necessary to have the first class of the present Touchstone original: Probier-Stein; a stone used to test the purity of gold and silver. Here, it is a metaphor for a book that tests the truth of alchemical claims. reprinted anew, since the same should already be sufficiently well-known; however, because at this time the second class—serving as the Register of the Sophists In alchemical context, "sophists" were considered "false chemists" or fraudsters who lacked true spiritual and practical knowledge.—is to be shared and made known to the Sons of the Alchemical Art of Wisdom; and since in the meantime various other treatises have come into our hands which belong in the first class; and above all, because this first class, before it could be properly finalized, was published quite prematurely against our knowledge and will, un-