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

The Great Art page 79The Art of Medicine, not being able to hinder this loss, and being ignorant of the means of repairingit, has been contented with meeting the accidents which destroy our substance, which come eitherfrom the defects of the organs, or from the intemperateness of the blood, of the spirits, of thehumours, from their abundance or scarcity, whence death follows infallibly, unless an efficaciousremedy is applied, remedy which the Physicians themselves confess to know very imperfectly.Of Philosophical FireThe reason which induced the ancient Sages to make a mystery of their Vessel, was the slightknowledge of the manufacture of glass which one possessed in those times. Later on the manner ofmaking it has been discovered. Therefore the Philosophers have not concealed so much the matterand form of their Vessel. Not so of their secret Fire; it is a labyrinth from which the most skilfulcould not extricate himself.The fire of the sun cannot be this secret Fire; it is interrupted, unequal; it cannot furnish heat,uniform in its degrees, its measure and its duration. Its heat could not penetrate the thickness of themountains, nor warm the coldness of marble and of rocks, which receive the mineral vapours fromwhich gold and silver are formed.The fire of our stoves hinders the union of the miscibles, and consumes or causes to evaporate thebond of the constituent parts of bodies; it is their tyrant.The Central Fire, which is innate in matter, has the property of mixing substances, and ofproducing; but it cannot be that Philosophic Fire so much praised, which causes the corruption of themetallic germs; because that which is of itself the principle of corruption, can be the principle ofgeneration only by accident: I say by accident, because the heat which engenders is internal andinnate in matter, and that which corrupts is external and foreign to matter.This heat is very different in the generation of the individuals of the three kingdoms. The animalpossesses it in a much higher degree than the plant. The heat of the Vase in the generation of themetal must be proportional to the quality of the germ whose corruption is very difficult. It is thennecessary to conclude that as there is no generation without corruption, and no corruption withoutheat, that the heat must be proportioned to the germ which is employed for the generation. 61There are then two heats; a putrifying external heat and a vital or generative internal heat. Theinternal Fire obeys the heat of the Vase until unbound and delivered from its prison, it renders itselfmaster of it. The putrifying heat comes to its aid, it passes into the nature of the vital heat, and thetwo then work in concert.Therefore it is the Vessel which administers the heat suitable to corrupt, and the germ whichfurnishes the Fire suitable for generation; but as the heat of this Vessel is not so well known for themetal as it is for the animal and the plant, it is necessary to reflect on what we have said concerningFire in general to find this heat. Nature has so proportioned it in the matrix, as far as animals areconcerned, that it can scarcely be augmented or diminished; the matrix in this case is a veritableATHANOR.As for the heat of the Vase for the corruption of the vegetable grain, very little is necessary; the sunfurnishes it sufficiently. But it is not so in Hermetic Art. The matrix being the invention of the Artist,must have a fire skilfully invented and proportioned to that which Nature implants in the Vase for the61 Whenever the Stone changes its colour you will gradually augment the fire, until everything remains fixed in the bottomof the vessel.” (Isaac of Holland.)