Prolegomena.

...and since then) Abraham, Moses, and Solomon performed many wonders with them, yet the full extent of their virtues they never fully understood; nor indeed has anyone except GOD, the Maker of all things in heaven and earth, blessed forevermore.

For through the Vegetable Stone original: "Vegitable"; in alchemy, this refers to a substance believed to hold the power of life and growth, the nature of man, beasts, birds, and fish may be perfectly known, along with all kinds of trees, plants, flowers, and so on. One may learn how to produce them and make them grow, flourish, and bear fruit—how to enhance their color and scent whenever and wherever we please. This can be done not only instantly, for the sake of the experiment original: Experimenti gratia, but daily, monthly, and yearly, at any time and in any season; yes, even in the depth of winter. And therefore it is likely that the walnut tree which anciently grew in Glastonbury Churchyard—which never put forth leaves before St. Barnabas’s Day June 11th, which was the Summer Solstice in the Old Style calendar, yet was then fully loaded with them—as well as the hawthorn there, so famous for shooting forth leaves and flowers at Christmas, together with the oak in the New Forest in Hampshire that bore green leaves at that same season, may have been the results of experiments made with the Vegetable Stone.

Besides the masculine part of it, which is refined to a Solar Quality refers to active, hot, and life-giving alchemical properties associated with the Sun, and through its intense heat will burn up and destroy any creature, plant, etc., there is that which is Lunar and feminine. If immediately applied, it will temper the heat with its extreme cold. Similarly, the Lunar Quality refers to receptive, cold, and stabilizing properties associated with the Moon numbs and freezes any animal or living thing unless it is quickly helped and released by the heat of the Sun. For though they are both made from one natural substance, they have contrary qualities in operation. Nevertheless, there is such a natural cooperation between them that what the one cannot do, the other both can and will perform.

Nor are their internal virtues any greater than their outward beauty. The Solar part has such a brilliant, transparent luster that the human eye is hardly able to endure it. And if the Lunar part is exposed outdoors on a dark night, birds will flock to and circle around it like a fly around a candle, and submit themselves to be captured by hand. This leads me to believe that the stone which the ancient hermit (being then 140 years old) took out of the wall in his cell and showed to Cornelius Gallus in the year 1602 was of the nature of this Vegetable Stone. For, upon opening the golden box in which it was enclosed, it spread its beams all