T H E O R Y.

...exemplary things Original: "exemplarae." This word completes a thought from the previous page regarding how nature's works serve as models for the alchemist. destroyed and burned, through the destruction of generation, which has turned from corruption into generation, and afterwards from generation into corruption. And similarly, from impure bodies the world is dissolved, and the elements are corrupted; through this corruption, all things made and living by nature exist, and they have been of short duration. This is because nature, in its coarse and corrupted matter, cannot make anything as perfect as it did in its beginning, for it no longer possesses what is needed to continue its first work. Instead, nature makes use of imperfection tending toward corruption, because day by day it finds the nature of the elements less pure; that which it has placed into a work, it cannot improve into a perfect work, but rather it always decreases little by little.

Yet nature always composes according to its ability, and joins together the stronger parts of the bond. And through this teaching, the sons of art "Sons of art" (filii artis) is a traditional term for alchemists or initiates into the "Great Work." can understand the word of the Savior: that at the end of the world He will consume all things, when He comes to judge the age by fire. Namely, all that which is not of the truth of the aforementioned elements, and all that is composed and made of evil and impurity, shall be confounded and cast into the abyss. However, all that which the aforementioned celestial fire finds of the virtues and pure truth above its sphere shall rest vibrantly forever, and it shall come upon the happy saved; and the evil and impure falls upon the damned.

Through this, the consideration can be clarified and declared: that in the end, every thing will go to its own proper place, from where it was first moved. It is also to be understood that this earth, which we inhabit, is not the true element True element: In Lullian alchemy, the physical soil (earth) we touch is a "gross" or "elemented" mixture; the "true element" of Earth is a pure, philosophical principle or "simple" state of matter., but was formed into an element from the true fifth element; afterwards, through the fifth elemental substance of a well-elemented body, the earth of which was formed from the fifth cause. And then you will find a void of formative power, like a body without a soul, and like rot gathered together in one place in matter without form, composed of the aforementioned infection through the reciprocal action of the elements upon one another.

In the center, however, is the pure earth and the true element, which fire will not be able to burn on the Day of Terror Original: "die terroris," referring to the Day of Judgment or the apocalypse., and so it is with the other elements. You, through this clarification, should understand clearly and add the primary material substance, from which all things were formed as one without division. Although we have spoken through the division of things, its species—which is the quintessence—is nonetheless not separated, because you subtract the whole primacy of the composed elements. And you should clearly know that there are three principles of all things, namely: the artificial, the exem-