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

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they are very perfect, since they are volatile and are slowly fixed by our cooking, the Philosophers advise that common gold or silver be added to it, so that these volatile metals of our stone may be fixed more quickly, and thus be perfected more quickly. For they cannot obtain the ultimate perfection unless they are perfectly fixed and can suffer the rigor of fire. Nor are common gold or silver extraneous to our Stone, since they are of the same nature as those very things that are intimate to our Stone; which, indeed, since they are perfectly cooked, and natural, and fixed, by perfect fixation they fix, cook, and mature those things that are not entirely cooked, nor fixed, and not entirely mature: and therefore we add them, so that they may mature and be fixed more quickly, and thus be terminated into good more quickly. For Mercury that is fixed and perfectly cooked and mature by nature, added to Mercury that is not fixed, crude and immature, is perfected and terminated into perfect good more quickly: And thus other principles, which are perfectly cooked and mature in gold and silver, by their ultimate perfection perfect and terminate the remaining principles of the same nature, which are uncooked and immature in our Stone, by their addition to that ultimate perfection. Thus, therefore, we conclude and assert that nothing is to be added to our stone, so that it may acquire its ultimate and absolute perfection; except that common gold or silver is to be added, so that it may be terminated more quickly, and arrive at perfection itself: because by their perfection and maturity they perfect the gold and silver more quickly, which are in our Stone in its innermost chambers, and recesses.

CHAPTER VII.

Why is our Stone three and one?

The supreme Creator of all things wanted to leave an image of himself to this created world and to imprint some Symbol of his Trinity and Unity upon some Creature. For every craftsman leaves an image of himself in his works. Thus the supreme Craftsman, by creating the world, wanted to leave an image of himself to his creatures, so that every one of the Philosophers, by exploring and investigating nature,