Introduction to the Divine Art of Chemistry

things are not unless they are expressed, therefore the modes of signifying follow them, as the intellect applies its concepts to things by expressing them, in the way they signify. And therefore the intellect, in as much as it is intellect, is always of things that are true. From the opposite, therefore, it is evident that if the intellect knows things not as they are, then there is an inadequacy and obliquity of the intellect to the things themselves. Therefore, the mode of understanding is necessarily not true but false. And these two intellects behave like a habit and a privation. For this reason, an oblique intellect is called intellect abusively, and this is because we lack a proper name for it to express it. If, therefore, the intellect or mode of understanding is unequal and false, then the mode of signifying is necessarily so as well. Since, therefore, the being of things is always true of itself, the intellect that is carried directly over them will always be true, because it directly understands and knows things as they are. Therefore, the mode of signifying will necessarily be true. If, however, it is oblique and false, then it is oblique and false, and thus the mode of signifying is oblique and false, necessarily, and deprived of truth. Therefore, the propositions composed from them will behave similarly, because a statement is called true or false from the fact that a thing is or is not. If, therefore, we posit that the art of Alchemy is really true, then to have and know this truth, it is necessary that the intellect be carried directly over it, and thus the intellect and the mode of understanding is true, and therefore the mode of signifying is entirely true. And because being, truth, and oneness are convertible, as is evident from the fourth book of the Metaphysics Aristotle's work on the nature of being, it is therefore necessary that the intellect and the mode of understanding be carried over Alchemy in one way. Therefore, the mode of signifying will really be one. In many and infinite ways, therefore, it is convenient for the intellect to be turned obliquely upon the knowledge of it, and to deviate from the intellect and knowledge of this unity and truth, as is evident daily in operators and their works. Hence the philosopher referring to Aristotle says in the second book of the Ethics Aristotle's work on moral philosophy that good and right exist in one way only, but evil and oblique exist in many and infinite ways: because good and right stand