Chemical-Philosophical Treatise on Natural and Supernatural Things

of a vaporous body transmutes it together with augmentation in the microcosm. Do not, therefore, marvel at what the Highest has permitted and nature labors to perform.

I do not think that there will be a lack of those from whose faith these things will be completely alien, who will spurn and revile such mysteries as being removed from their intellect; let them remain rude donkeys and insipid men, until illumination follows, which is granted to no one without the will of GOD, but is suspended until His permission. But experienced and skillful men, having finished with much sweat of the brow, will not defraud me with their testimonies, and will consolidate the truth so that they will truly approve all my writings and judge them to be as true as heaven and hell are truly proposed to the elect and the damned according to the merit of evil and good. I now write not only with my hand, but by the impulse of my mind and heart, because many feigned and most arrogant Doctors will persecute these mysteries with hatred, envy, reproach, disgrace, and contumely, attacking them to the very marrow, which seeks its beginning and origin from the center. But I certainly know that the time will come, when my bones have long since rotted into marrow, when men will want to vindicate me in the grave and gladly, if it were possible, recall me from the dead; but in vain. Therefore I have left my writings to them, to which their faith will have the seal of truth, testifying of my supreme will, which I did not envy the poor and all seekers of mysteries, although it would have been least fitting for me to publish so many writings; yet without injury to my soul, I could not but cast the blink of an eye through the cloud, so that the day might be observed and the dark night with a turbid and cloudy storm might be driven away.