Two Dialogues on Alchemy

...these aforementioned natural principles, that is, through sulfur and quicksilver original: "argentum vivum," literally living silver or mercury, can perform the true generation of metals. Since, therefore, nature possesses its own specific natural seed for the generation of metals, approaching closely to the point where it may be converted into the nature of metal, it will be necessary for the preparation of the Elixir Elixir: the supreme alchemical substance, often synonymous with the Philosophers' Stone, believed to transform base metals into gold and heal the body, which is a metal surpassing all others in perfection, that this be accomplished by means of some specific natural seed. Without such a seed, only God, the creator of nature, can generate anything; such as making bread from stone, or a woman from the rib of a man.

DEMO: It is the opinion of all Philosophers that the four elements are the principles of all mixed things. You also agree with this opinion in Book 1, chapter 6, by saying that the different preparation of metals is the cause of the diversity of species. Therefore, are the principles of art and nature present in every elemental thing, and can they be taken from every thing?

GEBER. If you understand me correctly, I am saying that the elements of the Philosophers' Stone Philosophers' Stone: the legendary "lapis" or goal of alchemy, capable of perfecting base metals into gold are not the most remote elements By "remote," Geber means the basic, raw states of Earth, Air, Fire, and Water before they have begun to specialize into mineral forms, nor are they the same as the elements of other things. For these elements of the Philosophers' Stone have been altered and transmuted from their first nature. They have acquired a "near" nature and property so that they can now be transmuted into metal, which is a quality that does not apply at all to the elements of other things.

DEMO: I shall therefore take common vitriol, which is the natural seed of metals, and through distillation I will extract that double vapor original: "duplicem illum fumum," referring to the acidic and metallic fumes released when heating sulfates, which I will convert with a tempered fire into the substance of sulfur and quicksilver. In this way, I will imitate nature.

GEBER. This vitriol is a principle too remote from our art. I wrote in Book 1, chapter 8, that we cannot imitate nature in its primary principles. Furthermore, at the end of Book 3, chapter 2, I showed that nature is least imitable in sulfur, arsenic, and mercury. This means we cannot avoid or even disguise the things generated by nature, nor can we bring them to perfection in that manner. Because these vapors are naturally very subtle, they are brought to perfection by a tempered heat over a thousand years. We, however, desiring to shorten such a long time by using intense heat, find that everything is instead resolved into smoke.