Fridrichstadt Leisure, or the Chemical Tantalus

without salt, the Moon does not flow into sublunary things, and so sun and salt are the beginning, and are the consummation of the work.

§. 7. And this divine Labor also as it were hands down this secret: that that material which is likened to water should have the nature of the flower of the Solisequium sunflower, and be chosen; as that flower rejoices in the sight of the sun, so this water not only rejoices in the sight of the Sun, but desires to be converted entirely into the Sun, and anxiously and with full powers desires to enter into an indissoluble bond with it. The flower which we hail as the sunflower is said to have an intrinsic consensus with the sun and to be vivified by its presence or light. The philosophical water also has the same sympathy with the sulfur of the philosophers: for as soon as they approach one another, they rush into mutual embraces, and if these two could remain united, it would be their highest pleasure, and they are not separated from each other except by the violence and tyranny of Vulcan, yet not without plunder.

§. 8. This Holy labor, which is instituted in the sanctuary of Nature, mandates that the student of Chrysopoeia should take up the material which we can call hermaphroditic with the highest justice, and it is even so in act. For the material which is seen to be water is earth, and the earth which is believed to be earth is water. The earth performs the office of water; the water performs the office of earth, if the regimen of Vulcan is instituted according to the rules of art. If you see water, you may call it sulfur; if you see earth, it is also sulfur, and these two are one, and this one sustains the role of two. Such identity is between these two, that a greater identity is found in no subject of the whole universe. You may traverse the entire economy of the three kingdoms of sublunary things; in one kingdom these two occur, which although they are two, nevertheless in reality are one, which although the eye hails as two subjects, the mind of the adept says is one. What the subtlety of the Logicians says to this very assertion is not heeded. Both subjects are one and the same in the category of substance; these two subjects are one and the same in the category of relation, and they have similar accidents separable from each of them; they have similar properties, communicable to one another. So that here it becomes true that the properties, which are otherwise said to be incommunicable, are communicated to one another, and whatever subject exists strives to communicate its own innate quality to the other equal to it, and the hinge of the thing turns so that the communication of properties may happen, if the work is to be consummated and led to perfection.

§. 9. This holy labor also shows that in this work, leonine