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More fierce then Fire burning the Body,Dissolving Metals into Water Mineral,Which Night for darkness in the North we do call.For with their Homogeneity, they have withal such a Contrareity inopposite qualities, that they do no sooner feel the Fire, but they are stirredup to Work, and boiling and circulating in a continual Ebullition or Vapour,they do mingle their homogeneal qualities together: by reason of whichthere is a strange medium, of an unnatural Fire and a putrefying Bathingendred, then the Sulphur or Fire of the Gold, which is the Fire of Nature,and the Sulphur of the Water, do embrace one another, and these two makean unnatural Fire, in which the Humidity appears, and the Sulphur beinghidden to the eye, appears in its effects only to sight, and that is, it burns,destroys and conquers the Bodies, which common Fire never could do,making them to be no Bodies, but a Fume of Mineral Vapour; and in thisOperation the Elements are confused, and make our Chaos which is voidand dark, for here the Lights of the World are eclipsed, the Sun is darkned,and the Moon sheweth not its light: which watrishness of the Compositions,for its abundance of moisture, and privation of light, we call Winter, andNight, and the North Latitude of our Stone.But yet I trow thou understandst not utterly, the very secret of PhilosophersDissolution,Therefore understand me, I counsel thee wittily,For the truth I will tell thee without delusion,Our Solution is caused of our Congelation;For Dissolution on the one Side corporal,Causeth Congelation on the other side spiritual.When once thou hast the true mastery of our Dissolution, thou needest takeno care for Congelation, for governing it on with thy Fire, thou shalt attainCoagulation without any laying on of hands. Therefore saith Ricardus,above all things it is wonderful, that in our work, Calcination, Dissolution,Sublimation, Putrefaction, Separation, Conjunction, Death and Purification,should be performed in one Vessel, and one linear decoction, withoutlaying on of hands: for verily the Dissolution of the Body thickens theSpirit, as it is in Water in which Gum or such a thing is dissolved; for byhow much the one is dissolved, the other is congealed: this proves thenaturality of our Work, for as a grain of Corn is in the bowels of the Earthsoftened with moist Vapour, and swelleth thereby, this Vapour is alsoterminated by the fermental odour of the Grain, and so both grow uptogether into Stalks and Ears.100