Complete Works, Vol. V

and then things washed in such water are vehemently dried and cooled. And such waters—which possess the qualities of diverse elements in power and not in act—alchemists strive to make beyond measure, so that through them they may dry and coagulate what they wish to transmute; for this reason, they have books written on the septem aquis seven waters.

Sometimes, however, the earthy force apprehends the water in such a way that the cold now expresses the moisture, and the dry terminates the matter within itself, while the transparency of the water remains. For the permeability of water does not belong to it insofar as it is cold or moist or possessing both qualities, but insofar as it agrees with the celestial body; and therefore, it agrees with the substance of water before the active and passive qualities according to nature, because it is more common to the elements than any of the active and passive qualities. And when the coldness

and dryness of the earth operate in this way, the proximate effects of these are necessarily induced into the water, which are hardness and coagulation; and then a permeable stone is made.

Sometimes, however, it overcomes more, inducing the substance of the water to opacity and the nature of earth; and then from water, an opaque stone is made, and perhaps a very black one, such as certain pebbles found abounding on the banks of rivers, which nevertheless are sometimes generated from earthy matter, as we shall show later. As we have said concerning earth, so it must be understood to happen concerning the qualities of all the elements; and it must be added that the power of the element is material, the celestial power is instrumental, and the formal power is that of the mover; and that what results from all of these is the power infused into the matter and the place of the stones, as has been said sufficiently in the preceding pages. Therefore, concerning the causes from which the generation of stones is known in general, let it be determined in this way.