PART THREE.

should have deterred us; since, soon explaining himself, he adds, Something must be made Nothing, and again, let Nothing become Something: which the unskilled does not attain, that corrupted metals and dross, while they are reduced by the benefit of the art, are improved by this labor, which, although most true, is believed to be true by very few, as he himself says; and he confirms and explains the whole process throughout the entire chapter up to Mercury, saying; Corruption makes the perfect good: the good cannot appear before its concealer: the concealer must be torn away, so that the liberated and conspicuous good may become visible: and that the first of the concealers in which metals are excluded and generated is the mountain, sand, stone, or earth which must be separated by fusion, so that the metals may be pure. Here the metallurgist stops, the other being entirely ignorant of the concealment. Paracelsus, however, adds that each metal is a concealer of the other metals, which the 7 rules impress at length. Hinting that the chemist should not be satisfied when the digger hands him saleable metal, iron, Venus copper, Jupiter tin, Saturn lead smelted from the mine, but that natural philosophy should be consulted further, and it should be seen whether these are pure enough, without an adhering and deteriorating concealer. How great is the difference between a crude and vile mine, a mineral containing metal widely dispersed and surrounded by much stone and filth, and pure and workable metal, is commonly well known: just as great and even greater is the difference between a common imperfect metal and the gold and silver which it holds enclosed in its bosom.