Epistola de lapide philosophorum (Letter on the Philosopher's Stone, 1559)

...whence or in turn they ought to follow, from the things posited and others which [it is] possible that is because through their operation [it] had come that man could exit from these. Of certain opinions [it] ought to be done to live upon, or they were [some] doubts, with the greatest vigor, one of the ferment from one fire. Furthermore man as written above, so that the name of the month in individual operations, we may be held entirely [to the] nature [not] in the least in the operation of man, born from the matter proceeding from man, [furthermore] it might exist. Man: who to place [the] sperm in a matrix well closed, separate [they] proceeded, and the medicine with moist heat, very temperate, and continued, to the devotion of the act that is to say [this] is we ought, just as through the spirit of the metals it understands: which in turn ought to be changed closed in the mode of a ventricle [p.] and afterwards in the glasses however [it] produces the essence as will be said below. Concerning these admixtures, or generations, or concerning the circumstance of what modes, and forms Aristotle in the second [book] of generation, and corruption, as above abundantly, and separately explains. For as [to] the doctrines of his sons, preaching the mode, the opportunity [is] added here and there by the natural facility itself. Because time was in this second science, and in them also [of others] truly [of others] many masters of [others] [were] to pass, [he] here disdained [this] to the art itself, to experience naturally and to sweat in the invention of this such great testament. And [it is] the truth to know my whole necessary process of this matter & of administration, which in these royal modes, digestions we need: namely decoction, purgation, liquefaction. Wherefore, and in what quality [it] ought to be [done] from individual [matters] in the commixture he declared. Namely first with the stone, just as [it was] said above to the extreme purity, we ought to expose [it], [and] to extenuate in a glass vessel, small, and [of] very good glass, [so that it] retains in the matrix place, sealed well with the Seal of Hermes in its neck, and just as through circumspection: we ought to place that same thing in hot and moist putrefaction, and equal to all in measure which it absorbs [the] animal vapor from horse dung or vapor. In the conjunction of which, [being] more content with the spermatic matter or the intellect [having been] put in, to first do pure [things] and afterwards to dissolve in water [of others] more clearly to be taken, and to be placed. In which generation, and within forty days [the] blackness nigredo will appear within man, which [is] also the sign of this commixture, which is called by writers the crow's head. Afterwards however there the signification, it dissolves in water within other 30 days as [it would] be said to be very beautiful to see. And now the elements of these, with the marriage in water. Which that [matter] thoroughly [at] the time [is] caused to be distilled from the water, to work in it concerning the infant and it will appear, although, know that most truly the truth conquers, and deserves to obtain its place: because through the words from the humectation, the seventh digestion [it] is seen to demonstrate [it] was the conversion of the elements of earth into water. This earth is, [by] nature