Pernety - A Treatise On The Great Art.pdf - cyjack.com

The Great Art page 41the Fire; the Water preserves the Earth against the violent attacks of the Fire; and acting thus inconcert upon each other, there results from them a harmonious whole, which composes what is calledthe Philosopher’s Stone, or the Microcosm.Of the AirThe Air is light, and is not visible; but it contains a substance which corporifies itself, whichbecomes fixed. Its nature is midway between that which is above and that which is below it; for thisreason it takes easily the qualities of its neighbours. Whence come the changes which we experiencein the low regions, those of cold, as well as those of heat.The Air is the receptacle of the germs of all, the sieve of Nature, by which the powers andinfluences of other bodies are transmitted to us. It penetrates all. It is a very subtle smoke; the fitsubject of light and of shadows, of day and night. A body always full, transparent, and mostsusceptible of foreign qualities, as well as most ready to abandon them. The Philosophers call it Spiritwhen they treat of the Ars Magna. It contains the vital spirits of all bodies; it is the aliment of fire, ofvegetation and of animals, who die when deprived of it. Nothing would be born in the world withoutits penetrating and altering force; and nothing can resist its rarefaction.The superior region of the Air, next to the moon, is pure without being igneous; as has been longtaught in the schools, according to the opinion of some of the ancients. Its purity is contaminated bynone of the vapours which rise from the lower region.The middle region receives the most subtle sulphurous exhalation, free from the gross vapours.They wander in it, and are set on fire from time to time by their movements and the different shockswhich they undergo among themselves. These are the different meteors which we perceive in themiddle region.In the lower region, the vapours of the earth rise and mingle. They are condensed by the cold andfall by their own weight. Thus Nature purifies Water to render it fit for her productions. This is whyone distinguishes the superior waters from the inferior. The latter are near the earth, they aresupported upon it as on their foundation and form only one globe with it. The superior waters occupythe lower region of the air, where they are raised in the form of vapours and clouds, and where theywander at the will of the winds. The air is full of them at all times; but they are manifest to our sightonly in part, when they are condensed into clouds. This is the consequence of creation. God separatedthe waters of the firmament from those which were below. It should not be surprising that all thewaters, united, have been able to cover the entire surface of the earth, and to cause an universaldeluge, since they covered it before God had separated them, (Gen. chap. V.). These humid masseswhich hover over our heads are like travellers, who go to collect the riches of all countries, and returnto benefit their native land.Of FireSome of the ancients placed Fire as a fourth Element, in the highest region of the Air, because theyregarded it as the lightest and most subtle. But the Fire of Nature does not differ from the CelestialFire; this is why Moses makes no mention of it in Genesis, because he had said that Light was createdon the first day.The fire which we use ordinarily is partly natural and partly artificial. The Creator has placed in thesun an igneous spirit, the principle of movement and of gentle heat, such as is necessary to Nature for