Marengus — Secrets of Chemical Pallas Revealed, ca. 1700

is born again after about twenty-five years, and is
extracted again by the diggers. Harmonious with this
is what is certain concerning lead, namely that when
placed in a damp place and left there for a long time, it
increases.
And certainly it cannot be denied that metals circulate
with one another and are increased and reborn in the
bosom of the earth; for in minerals a flowing vein is
sometimes seen from one origin, which in a certain part
is pure gold, but in another silver mixed with other
metals, which indeed would be a clear sign that by nature
through various degrees, and diverse and continued
digestions, as well as through greater subtilizations and
purifications of the things composing the metals, that
which is first generated imperfect, thereafter becomes
the best gold.
Nor does it stand in the way that it is said by the
Physicians Natural Philosophers that species are
not transmutable into one another, either because
metals in the opinion of many do not differ in species,
or because they do not differ in adequate and absolute
species, but only in subordinate species and as
incomplete beings with respect to their end, namely with
respect to gold; for the species of a more imperfect
metal is ordered toward gold itself; for indeed the
intention is always the best, which among metals is gold,
but ordinarily in the execution it does not first produce
gold since it may begin from imperfections as from
easier things; however, it does not begin the generation
of metals from them so that it may rest in them (unless
it be hindered), but so that through imperfect degrees it
may arrive at the ultimate complement of gold, and
ascend to the most perfect species of gold through
imperfect, incomplete, and subordinate species of
imperfect metals; just as the formation of a man is
ordered from the vegetable species, then passes to
the species of sensing things, and at last is led to the
perfection of rational things, and then rests, nor
proceeds to any further

species.
Finally, that saying common in the schools of the
Philosophers Alchemists: that an individual of one
species does not pass to another species; is to be
understood with this limitation, unless first the individuals
to be transmuted are corrupted and lose their old
forms; otherwise, absolutely uttered, it is false; for daily
we experience the individuals of food being transmuted
into individuals of animal species: but that metals
can be corrupted and by consequence be able to pass
from one metal into another, will be established from
the things to be said; for the corruption of one is the
generation of another.
Therefore the Creator of all, just as he created roots of
diverse natures for this end, so that whatever it be
might be multiplied according to its substance, so he
did not deny proper seeds to metals, but granted them
Mercury and Sulphur, as their own proper seeds, by
which they might be multiplied in their own minerals,
and successively metals might be produced, while their
mercuries and sulphurs are united to the pure or impure
earths of the minerals, and are fixed with them.
This propagative virtue of metals, however, is not yet
distinguished by its own name, since realisthia
the reality of things is more divine than that of
names; commonly however it is called: mineral force,
metallic virtue, stone-becoming juice, seed of metal,
and finally, propagative virtue, which is in the mercury
and sulphur of metals; whence in the bowels of the
earth, while a certain watery humor and while Mercury
passes through metallic earths, it draws to itself from
them certain purer parts, which are called Sulphur,
which two by the power of internal heat are mixed
with the earths, are digested, and are more condensed
through cold, and perfect or imperfect metals are
made, according as the components are more or less
purged, and joined in due portion: for in gold alone
are found the purest components,