Two Dialogues on Alchemy

...dissolves it, and mixes this with it. Because of this, I said in Book 1, chapter 12, that the water flowing through the passages of the earth finds a substance that can be dissolved from the earthly substance. This is washed sulfur original: "sulphur lotum", which is the fatness of the earth. The water dissolves it and joins with it uniformly so that a single natural substance is made from both. This mixture, through successive decoction decoction: a process of heating or "cooking" a substance in a liquid to extract its essence or ripen it in the mine, is thickened and hardened, and it becomes metal. If it happens sometimes that I rebuke the opinions of others, I rebuke them according to the literal sense. For we have often put first that which ought to have been put last.

DEMO: If all metals are generated from sulfur and vitriol vitriol: a group of glassy sulfate minerals, such as copper or iron sulfate, used in alchemical transformations, transmuted through long decoction into another substance of sulfur and quicksilver original: "argenti vivi," meaning mercury, then why is there such a diverse variety of them?

GEBER. It comes from the diversity of the mineral site and the accidents accidents: in philosophy, these are non-essential qualities like color or smell that can change without changing the core nature of a thing that come upon the primary mineral matter. It also comes from the diversity of the washed sulfur and the different levels of heat, which digests the metallic matter in various ways.

DEMO: Can these accidents that come upon the matter be removed?

GEBER. All accidents coming upon the primary metallic matter can be separated by art. I showed this clearly in the introduction to the Book of Investigation original: "libri investigationis." Geber refers to one of his foundational texts on the chemical properties of metals., in the chapter on the preparation of very sharp vinegar, and at the end of that same book. I say furthermore that even the undigested parts can be digested.

DEMO: These explanations are enough for me regarding the declaration of natural principles. Now we must deal with the principles of the art: how the principles of nature are also the principles of art, and in what way art can imitate nature?

GEBER. In Book 1, chapter 5, I said that the craftsman must know the principles of this art and the principal roots, which are part of the substance of the work. He who does not know the principles will not achieve the goal. Therefore, you should know that those transmutations and generations which nature makes by means of some seed can also be done by art through the intervention of some seed. Saint Thomas Thomas Aquinas (c. 1225–1274), a dominant theologian who also wrote on natural philosophy. Alchemists often cited him to prove their craft was consistent with Church teachings. also affirms this in the third book of Meteorology by saying that alchemists, through already...