Chemical Letters to Excellent Philosophers and Physicians in Germany

PREFACE.

You possess a chemical paper, yet you neither exercise it yourself nor share it with others. How do you differ from the judgment of the miser? You fear that the secret may cease to be a secret, and that it may be tainted by impure hands. The more you fear, the more you degenerate from the primeval image of God. It ought not to have been, in your judgment, that God from eternity revealed a silent mystery to the world, because it ceased to be hidden and has been poorly treated by many. O you foolishly wise man. How many days do you think the world will remain? You will have blessed yourself if, with your chemical secret paper committed rather to moths and dust than to a brother human, you appear before the tribunal of Christ the anointed one. You will have achieved much if you enrich us of a few ages with short interest. To whom, however, will you leave that magisterium master-work or alchemical secret upon your death? To the worthy or the unworthy? Do not dread the unworthy; while you live, publish and manifest it to the worthy. Your heirs will not search through worm-eaten and dusty pulpits, but through coin chests. Your secret, however, will perhaps even reach more dishonest things, and you will not be praised from that. This will be your profit, and neither will you fly through the mouths of men while alive, nor will you be understood to have existed once you are dead. But let us leave canine filth to the dogs. Furthermore, there will not be lacking unjust judges who will unjustly cry out that I seek revelations for free, and will offer, with money, conditions of silence confirmed by an oath.