Marengus — Secrets of Chemical Pallas Revealed, ca. 1700

and fortified with its sulfur, or animal sulfur, or the medium substance of common mercury, as will be more clearly stated in its place.

Some things worthy of knowledge are declared

When the Philo-chemists say, "our gold and our silver are living," they mean by the name of gold the sublimated golden sulfur itself. By the name of silver, they mean gold itself, calcined and dissolved in the water of the medium substance. Here these two—namely, sublimated golden sulfur, the foliated earth of gold, and the water of the medium substance animated by the Sun—are called the living gold of the philosophers and their living silver. Commonly they are called sulfur and quicksilver, male and female, Sun and Moon, Father and Mother, husband and wife, Groom and Bride, hot and cold, oil and water, red man and white woman, King and Queen. Therefore, when they say "our gold," they must be understood as speaking of sublimated golden sulfur, which is living gold, made alive and active. Similarly, for the quicksilver of the philosophers, one must accept the water of the medium substance animated by the Sun. Some, however, understand by living gold and living silver the metallic sulfur itself sublimated, since it consists of revived gold and its own mercury or quicksilver, or from the element of earth and the soul of the Sun.

The Stone is called triangular in being, and quadrangular at least in quality. It is triangular in being because it consists of spirit, soul, and body. It is quadrangular because it contains the four universal elements, or at least their properties or qualities. It can also be called quadrangular in being because of the four chemical elements of which it physically consists.

The roots of the Stone are water and earth, that is, mercury and the calx of the Sun. For according to the method of the ancients, two things sensibly enter the composition of the Stone from the beginning: namely, mercury

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excellently purged, which is called water, and the calx of the Sun, well cemented, calcined, and pulverized. These must be excellently mixed, so that from these two, one mercurial substance is made. For nature rejoices in nature, and nature is amended by nature. Indeed, the calx of the Sun is made subtle by mercury, becomes spiritual, and is reduced to its first and mercurial nature, exalted and sublimated. On the contrary, the mercury is fermented by the calx of the sun, coagulated, fixed, and rendered a body. Thus, while the body is dissolved, the spirit is coagulated.

By the ancients, the Stone was called sulfurous mercury, because in the beginning it is mercury impregnated by the sun. Hence they said: receive the heat of the Sun and the spirit of the Moon, that is, the water of Mercury and the sulfur from gold. From these, the mercury is made alive, while the sulfur of the Sun tints, congeals, and fixes. The roots, therefore, are water and earth. Those things which are born and composed from these are air and fire.

From these two components, calcined gold is a body in act and a spirit in potential. Through mercury, it is rendered spirit, or mercury in act. Mercury, the purifier, is spirit in act and a body in potential, provided that through gold it is fixed into the Stone and becomes a body in act.

Mercury therefore opens, calcines, subtilizes, dissolves, and makes the body volatile, giving it wings. Sulfur, by its action and its heat, digests the quicksilver, ferments it, coagulates it, and fixes it, and gives it the best tincture.

The philosophers' gold is said to be extracted from the quicksilver of the philosophers. This happens when the quicksilver of the philosophers, or mercury animated by the sun, is sublimated with the earth of gold into sulfur or into foliated earth. Or, the volatile parts of gold are called the quicksilver of the philosophers.

By the name of living water, or water of life added to a terrestrial substance, or permanent water, comes arsenic. By the name of arsenic, foliated earth is understood. Also, by the names of living water and incombustible oil,