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

45 That is to say of the four Elements, of the Three Principles, of the Fixed and the Volatile and of One unique Matter.E.B.The Great Art page 64for example, you wish to press a metal beyond the perfection which it has received from nature, youmust take your materials from the metallic kingdom, and always a male and a female, without whichyou will not succeed. For you would endeavour to make a metal with grass, or with an animal; just asit would be impossible to produce a tree from a dog or other animal.”This Primal Matter is commonly called Sulphur and Quicksilver. Raymond Lully, (Codicit. c.9,)calls them the two extremes of the STONE and of all the metals. Others say, in general, that the sun isits father and the moon its mother; that it is male and female; that it is composed of four, of three, oftwo and of one 45 and all this to conceal it. It is found everywhere on the earth, on the sea, on theplains, on the mountains, etc. The same author who says that their Matter is unique, says also that theSTONE is composed of several individual principles. All these contradictions are only apparent,because they do not speak of Matter from a single point of view; but in regard to its generalprinciples, or to the different states in which it is found in its operations.It is certain that there is only one principle in all Nature, and that it is the same in the STONE as inother things. It is necessary then to know how to distinguish what the Philosophers say of Matter ingeneral, from what they say of it in particular. There is also only one fixed spirit, composed of a verypure and incombustible fire, which has its seat in the Humid Radical of the Mixts. It is more perfectin gold than in anything else, and only the Mercury of the Philosophers has the property and power ofdrawing it from its prison, of corrupting it and disposing it for generation. Quicksilver is the principleof volatility, of malleability, and of minerality; the fixed spirit of gold can do nothing without it. Thegold is moistened, re-incruded, volatilized and submitted to putrefaction by the operation of Mercury;and the latter is digested, thickened, dried, and fixed by the operation of Sophic Gold, which rendersit by this means a metallic tincture.Taken together, they form the Mercury and the Sulphur of Philosophers. But it is not enough that ametallic Sulphur enters into this Work as a leaven, there must also be one as a sperm or germ of asulphurous nature to unite with the germ of the mercurial substance. This Sulphur and this Mercuryhave been wisely represented with the ancients by two serpents, the one male, the other female,twisted around the golden rod of Mercury. This rod is the Fixed Spirit, to which they must beattached. These are the serpents sent by Juno against Hercules when this hero was still in his cradle.This Sulphur is the soul of bodies, and the principle of the exuberation of their tincture; 46 commonmercury is deprived of it; common gold and silver have it only for themselves. 47 The mercury suitablefor the Work, must first be impregnated with an invisible Sulphur 48 (d’espagnet, can. 30), in orderthat it may be more disposed to receive the visible tincture of perfect bodies, and that it may be ablethen to communicate it with interest.Many chemists sweat blood and water to extract the tincture from common gold; they imagine thatby torturing it they can make it disgorge and that then they will find the secret of augmenting andmultiplying it, butSpes tandem Agricolas vanis eludit aristis.46 This Tincture is extracted from Gold.ALBERT POISSON.47 Gold and Silver prepared for the work were called Sophic Gold and Silver. Except native gold and silver, which aresufficiently pure, these metals were first purified: gold by cementation, or antimony; silver by coupellation, that is to say, bylead.(Jollivet Castelot)48 By dissolving in warm mercury, pure red hot gold in the proportion of one part of gold to seven parts of distilledmercury. See Secreta Alchemiœ of St. Thomas Aquinas.E.B.