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THE FIRST BOOK OF ALCHEMY

ON ENCHERIA.

CHAPTER I.

Alchemy is the art of perfecting magisteries, and of extracting pure essences from mixtures by the separation of the body.

Because these two duties are commonly encompassed by the term "laboring," it happens that the art may also be called that of "laboring well," or of the segregation of the pure from the impure, through the form of juice and the manner of fusion or solution, on account of the excellence of this part, from which the name of the art is also judged to have been derived.

It takes its beginning from nature, which the first craftsmen studied to imitate with diligence, and that especially in the beginning in extracting mineral juices from the vein and purifying them, in which manner nature herself pours out pure and unadulterated metals and juices from minerals, so that they may even be seen standing out from their veins in the light of day. Therefore, it was formerly of greatest importance in metallurgy. Now it rather serves medicine, and does not work only upon minerals, but also upon animals and vegetables, for human use and the defense of health, although it also confers many ornaments of life.

That the Jewish nation was not without knowledge of this is perhaps indicated by that precious nard-water with which the Savior was anointed.

(Its first inventor is believed to be that Tubal-cain known in the Sacred Scriptures, whom they call Vulcan. For he is written to have been the first to work in metallurgy, which is a part of Alchemy. In Egypt, its celebrated practitioner was Hermes, or Mercurius Trismegistus, by the discovery of noble transmutation, from whom certain things of the art still have their name, such as the vessel of Hermes or the pelican, the birds of Hermes, the Hermetic seal, etc. In Mesue, there are the pills of Hermes, the hiera of Hermes, etc. From him also the art itself is called Hermetic, and is understood as the transmutatory art, which Geber the Mauritanian encompassed in precepts. The first Arabs and Persians are read to have adapted it to medicine and to have made distilled liquors. Whence Avicenna is said by Sorsanus to have studied Alchemy, and he himself makes mention by name of correcting water through sublimation and distillation. Rhazes, Mesue, Abulcasis, and others follow him, among whom many chemical matters are found; and Mesue by name also attributes the preparation of resolved oils to the Alchemists. In our time, by reliance on it, Paracelsus has mixed the highest with the lowest, and brought forth a peculiar faction of Paracelsists. Whence Paracelsianism is a certain monstrous boasting, forged from ignorance and science and rashness, mixing medicine with Alchemy, and thereby perverting all sciences.)