Manuscript Transmitted to the Serene Duke of Holstein Explaining the Obscure Matters of Alchemists

he should read Hermes Trismegistus, Geber the Arab, Raymund Lull the Spaniard, and many other almost infinite authors, all of whom prove with other arguments and reasons that the Philosophers' Stone exists, and that they themselves made it and held it in their hands: faith must be given to the authority of such great Philosophers; or they must be ascribed to the number of asses, who cannot put aside such absurdities from their minds. Perhaps they would wish to be taught thoroughly so that they might possess this art by which they could make gold and silver at will; let them observe this, I pray: heaven will rather rain gold and pearls before that happens; the Gods sell all things for sweat and labor. And especially this art, in which one must work and sweat most intensely to acquire it. Therefore it must be considered, and firmly believed, that the Philosophers' Stone exists and persists in the nature of things, since the material and substance from which Sun and Moon are made exists, which can be entirely perfected so that, with its art-acquired perfection, it perfects all things that suffer from deficiency: Thus we can conclude that the Philosophers' Stone exists and persists in the nature of things.

CHAPTER II.

What the Philosophers' Stone is in the nature of things.

From the preceding chapter we can gather what the Philosophers' Stone is, since we have asserted it to be the material or seed from which gold, silver, and the remaining metals are made. But this is too obscure for those who have only tasted the chemical art with their lips. Now we must see what this material and this metallic seed is. For that seed is not seen in metals, and hence many who do not see it deny it. For they have an "eyed" brain; they believe only what they see. But Hermes Trismegistus asserts that metals have a seed from which they grow, when he asserts, in his Emerald Tablet, that the things above are...