A Defense of the Introduction to a True and Unheard-of Physics

They confuse this primordial [water] with the water of the Great Flood original: diluvii which Peter mentions later, in a confused sense; nonetheless, the matter from which and through which the Earth has existed since olden times quite clearly presupposes Helbig’s Opinion on the Unity of the Element, since it consisted of only One and a Single Water, or Element. Indeed, that water which, in the Great Flood, increased into a vast quantity of its own aqueous particles to bring destruction upon the flesh living on the Earth, is not, nor was it, that First Water (called viscous by the Philosophers Helbig’s "viscous matter" refers to a thick, life-giving primordial substance, distinct from common liquid water.) from which and through which the Earth has existed since olden times: for the earth did not consist in the water of the Flood, but perished in it.

§. 12. Of the same ilk original: Ejusdem farinæ, literally "of the same flour." is what the anonymous author adds below, saying: Therefore, I judged it more beneficial for the Hermetic Republic The "Hermetic Republic" refers to the international community of alchemists and natural philosophers who followed the teachings attributed to Hermes Trismegistus. to retain the terms and sometimes the metaphors of the Philosophers, explaining them at the same time, rather than devising new and more obscure ones. Yet, how much the terms of the Philosophers and their metaphorical names mislead not only students of Hermetic matters, but even the Doctors of the Hermetic science themselves, entangling them in wandering errors so that no one [is able] to extricate himself...