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ANEXPOSITIONUPON THESecond Gate,Which isDISSOLUTION.The Second Gate Opened,Which isDISSOLUTIONOf Dissolution now will I speak a word or two,Which sheweth out what erst was hid from sight,And maketh intenuate things that were thick also,By virtue of our first Mestrue clear and bright,In which our Bodies eclipsed been of light,And of their hard and dry compaction subtilate,Into their own first Matter kindly retrogradate.Having run through the Chapter of Calcination, I now come to handleDissolution, which as I said before, is the first beginning of the Spiritsactivity, and it is the first half of the Wheel which turns up the Spirit, anddown the Body; the second hath a contrary operation, for it makes the Bodyactive, and Spirit passive: so then Calcination hides the profundity of theBody, which Solution discovereth. It is then nothing else but a boiling ofhard and dry Bodies in our Mercury, in a convenient Fire, so long till theybe dissolved and made thin; then the same Fire makes them fly and flyingthey condense and return in drops on the Body, and moisten it: This isSolution and Sublimation together, for the Water circulating upon theBody, doth soften it, and by often returning both at length bring it to itsown nature of moisture. In this Resolution, according to Artephius, the Sunloseth its colour and is darkned, and the Moon doth not give her light, for98