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econgealed with the fermental virtue of this seminal essence of Gold, thatit becomes together with the Body, one new Body perpetually united.So that although our Water be volatile when it is first taken, yetnotwithstanding after it hath first made the Body no Body, but a Spirit, inwhich spiritualizing the Virtue or Tincture is augmented; after that theBody by Congelation, makes this no Spirit but a Body, by which the fixityis advanced mightily, so that both will endure all Fire.For it is not only an apparent union that is made, but real, so real that theSpirit and the Body pass one into another, penetrating each othersdimensions, the Spirit being one with the Body, and the Body being theSpirit, the Form swallowing up the Matter in unity, so that all becomesreally Tincture.And therefore Philosophers give this definition,Saying this Conjunction is nothing elseBut of dissevered qualities a Copulation,Or of principles a Coequation as others tells.But some men with Mercury that Apothecaries sells,Meddleth Bodies that cannot divideTheir Matter, and therefore they slip aside.Of this Operation Philosophers make a great Mystery, and speak of it veryhiddenly, in respect to the terminus of it, which they call the hour of theStones Nativity, in which they say many marvels will appear, for all thecolours that can be invented in the World will be then apparent.Some say their Conjunction is our reconciliation of Contraries, a makingfriendship between Enemies, because in that time the volatile is stillascending and descending upon the fixt: this by them ascribed toContrariety.Others measuring all sublunary things by the rules of Symmetry andAmetry, do ascribe this Operation (which they for similitude sake compareto a Duel) to the over-prevailing of one principles qualities above thequalities of the other, and therefore they define Auriety to be theAnaticalness of the four Elements in mixture, each in his quality actingproportionable to the resistance of its contrary, & vice versa. But this is butan Entanglement, in which the Chymist stumble upon School AcademicalPrinciples: I had rather embrace their Secret, as for Operation; but forPhilosophy, jump with that noble Bruxellian, whose promised Treatiseswhen the World shall enjoy, I suppose they will be the profoundest piece ofPhilosophy that ever was revealed to the World: which I admire not somuch for his Experiments, of none of which I am ignorant, nor Paracelsus132