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CHAPTER I.

Does the Philosophers' Stone exist in the nature of things?

Before we demonstrate what the Philosophers' Stone is, we must inquire whether it exists in the series of things and persists in the nature of things. There are indeed many "little-nosed" ones a Latin idiom for the inquisitive or skeptical, who think they possess a supreme and acute genius, who believe that there does not exist, nor is there in the series of things, anything that transmutes all imperfect metals into true gold, and brings all other deficient things to perfection. But if they had a mind endowed with reason, they would not invent such absurdities. For gold and silver are in the nature of things, and are carried before the hands of all, and are presented to the eyes of all. Since, therefore, gold and silver are in the nature of things, it is necessary that there be something from which gold and silver are made. For they are not created anew by the supreme Creator of things, but are made by nature from a certain and real material. That material, however, from which the Sun gold and Moon silver are made, persisting in nature, can be possessed, and perfected to such a degree that, when joined with gold, it can perfect the remaining imperfect metals with its perfection. For if it makes gold by simple natural cooking alone, enclosed in the veins of mountains; what will it do if it is cooked again perfectly, when joined with gold, by artificial cooking repeated many times in a pure glass vessel, and acquires supreme perfection, so that it penetrates and enters the pores of imperfect metals? Will it not completely banish and propel far away that imperfection? That substance from which the Sun and Moon are made is given, and can be so perfected by chemical art that it perfects and completes the imperfect substance of metals. Therefore he is blind, and truly blind, and does not have a rational soul, who denies that the Philosophers' Stone persists in the series of things. If he cannot give faith to this argument and reason...