Fridrichstadt Leisure, or the Chemical Tantalus

differ, and between them there cannot forever be a bond so indissoluble that the power of Vulcan cannot easily break it and so separate them from each other that two distinct entities remain, endowed with distinct attributes and predicates. Indeed, they think they are of such disparate condition and modification that one could more quickly combine oil and water into one indissoluble body, and more quickly mix heaven with earth; and this is the mind, indeed this is the decree of the Philosophers and doctors of the school, against which no one dares to mutter or whisper, unless he wants to be struck and shattered by the thunderbolt of the anathema of ignorance and lack of knowledge. But let them abound in their own sense, and embrace a frog in place of Diana.

§. 3. That water and Earth play both parts, indeed that water is also the genital field to which the prolific and fruit-bearing seed must be committed, and so this very seed, committed to this field, is dissolved into insensible atoms (even though that watery material is a collection of innumerable bubbles and dissolves itself into innumerable bubbles with a light motion, it is known. This assertion of ours perhaps provides a hypothesis for the Patron of bubbles, who instituted a new physics from a collection of bubbles, but he seems to labor from a bubble of an excessively fervent genius), and that the philosophical field converts this very seed into its own substance, in the space of a moment by puttingrefying, we are taught by the faith of experience. Wherefore the student of Chrysopoeia gold-making must here imitate the farmer, who, before he sows, is solicitous about obtaining a fertile field and good seed. And thus let the Philosopher know the philosophical field and the seed, and he will apply his labor. Imbued with this knowledge, let him cast in his seed in the name of God, and having implored His help. But what the field or the seed is, the Adepts teach; these are to be read incessantly.

§. 4. This divine labor also teaches those that three millstones are required, or organs carefully imitating the grinding of millstones. The first millstone observes the same rite that the field observes, to which the seed is committed. This field grinds the seed committed to it by puttingrefying into a mucilaginous material, not unlike porridge, having abolished its former form and figure, which then begins to germinate. In the same way, the philosophical field grinds and as it were putsrefies the seed committed to it. This field we call the millstone. We will speak below about the grinding of the two millstones. Nature itself, the best guide of all in this work, shows these organs, imitating the millstone, as the light and companion. I call Nature the guide because she leads the pious, honest, and diligent student to embrace this material.