Second Treatise

...truly truthful, simple, patient, constant, and applying the mind to at least one single thing, etc. Now we must begin concerning the action of nature: Just as nature exists within the will of God, and God created her, or rather imposed her upon every imagination, so nature has made for herself a seed—that is, her own will—within the Elements. She is indeed one, and yet she brings forth diverse things; but she performs nothing without the Seed original: "Spermate"; in this context, it refers to the vital germ or "sperm" of a substance. Whatever the Seed desires, nature performs, for she is like an instrument in the hands of some Artisan Artifex: a skilled craftsman or alchemist. Therefore, the Seed of any given thing is better and more useful to the Artisan than nature herself. For from nature without the Seed, you will achieve only as much as a Goldsmith could without fire, gold, or silver, or a Farmer without grain and seed. Once the Seed is obtained, nature will be ready at hand, whether for evil or for good. She works within the Seed just as God works within the free will of man; and this is a great Miracle, that nature obeys the Seed, not by compulsion but by her own spontaneous will, just as God grants all things that Man desires, not by compulsion but from His own will. Therefore, He gave to Man free will, whether for evil or for good. The Seed, therefore, is the Elixir of each thing, or the quinta essentia the "fifth essence" or quintessence; the purest part of a substance, or the most perfect decoction and digestion of a thing, or the Balsam of Sulfur, which is the same as the Radical Moisture Humidum Radicale: the fundamental life-sustaining fluid in metals and living beings in Metals. Indeed, a great discourse could be established concerning this Seed, but we aim only at our purpose in the Chemical art. The four Elements gene-