Chapter 3

Since nature cannot be improved except within its own nature, it follows indisputably that the metallic nature cannot, should not, or may not be improved except within its metallic nature, and in no other nature.

Therefore, our elixir The "Great Elixir" or "Philosopher's Stone," a substance capable of transmuting base metals into gold and curing all diseases. must be of the principle original: "Principio." Referring to the foundational origin or starting point of the work., root, and metallic nature, so that the medicine Alchemy often treated the transmuting agent as a medicine for "sick" or "imperfect" metals. may be nobler and more precious than the metals original: "Metalla.". Thus, through the Art Alchemy was commonly referred to as the "Hermetic Art" or simply "the Art.", we achieve in several months what nature requires exactly a thousand years to accomplish.

Since Paracelsus Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim (1493–1541), a Swiss physician and alchemist who pioneered the use of chemicals and minerals in medicine. has described all of this in detail in his Paramiric Writings One of Paracelsus's major works, Opus Paramirum, which explores the causes of diseases and the nature of substances., to which I refer at this place, I will for the sake of brevity leave it at that, and further report how an orderly process is to be established. To this end, I consider most useful the process set down in rhyme by Friar Basil Valentine original: "Fr. Basilii Valentini." A legendary 15th-century alchemist, later identified as a pseudonym for the publisher Johann Thölde. in his book on the great Philosopher's Stone, with which I shall take up the 3rd chapter, wherein the favorable reader should pay diligent attention; the process itself reads as follows:

Chapter 3

A decorative drop cap 'E' features floral motifs, signaling the start of a new section. A stone is found, it is not dear,
From it, one draws a fleeting fire,