The Most Secret Rosary of the Philosophers

but not all brass is gold; because there is no consequence from genus to species. Thus all gold is red sulfur, but not all sulfur is gold, because there is nothing of the corruption of sulfur in gold. Our stone, therefore, according to the diversity of its operation, has to convert quicksilver into the truest silver, or also into the purest gold, as will be evident in the following.

Here, therefore, stop your step, ceasing to seek another stone, and foolishly consuming your money, and inducing perpetual sadness in your mind; because you shall reap what you have sown, because an evil tree cannot make good fruits; do not, therefore, put flies and beetles into your work, nor eat of the son whose mother is corrupted, but eat a piece of the fatter meat, since it is a great folly to make your work from the worse when it can be made from the better. Therefore, use a venerable nature, abandoning the plurality of dark names, because they impose diverse names on this thing, relative to the diverse colors appearing in the work. For when it is raw, it is called