Chemical Letters to Excellent Philosophers and Physicians in Germany

D E D I C A T I O.

ence. As if the craft of gold-making original: "chrysurgia" the art of working in gold were so common that a cobbler, who often has great industry in sewing a shoe or a boot well and skillfully, could learn it at first glance. Indeed, alchemy original: "chrysopoeia" the making of gold, whether it produces true gold, or the most likely or excellent metal, as very many philosophers and craftsmen testify with one voice, is not lacking in the supports of history and experience, and is by no means inconsistent with natural power and truth. For reason also supports it. Therefore, one should not despair of this part of chemistry. But that those who crawl out from mechanical trades and are deserters of workshops—who milk the magnates of money and deceive them through Parachymical vapors—could know it and exercise it properly, how has it ever been believed? I wish I could persuade Princes to alienate themselves from all such people who promise grand things with big words, when yet the matter itself requires few expenses (for Arnoldus referring to Arnaldus de Villa Nova asserts that the whole work costs only fifty crowns; the theorems prefixed to the crowd do not require more than an ounce of pure gold, and are a matter of vanity).