Chemical Letters to Excellent Philosophers and Physicians in Germany

I judged that it should not be the work of one, as it requires the labor of many. If you also ascribe these parts to modesty, you will have done your duty. If, moreover, you are well-versed in the reading of authors and know the true laws of sciences to be handed down, you will not think that I am doing what has already been done, and seeking what has long since been finished and perfected. Read these things of ours, understand, and judge. When you have compared them with the rest, you will recognize the difference. You will desire, furthermore, I suppose, or at least you will expect a particular commentary on oils, waters, limes, and the rest. Indeed, you will be all agape for the golden art. I, however, would give you hope that I might teach about these things, one by one, as much as is right. You see to it that you use fairness in judging. If GOD prolongs my life, you will receive those as well. If your mind is eager to know sooner, I bid you approach men who are eminent in that matter and consult their monuments. Thomas Aquinas performed praiseworthy labor in chrysurgia gold-working for his brother Reinald; likewise Alan and Bernhard the Count for the physician of Bologna. Nothing is more evident in that kind than the Rosary of Arnold, the crowd of philosophers, Richard, and others. You will also be able to run through a certain tincture and manual of Paracelsus. For in these are the precepts of the ancients. John Dee of London and Geber mock the gaping crow. But if you complain that you cannot understand them either, use the conversation of learned