The Great Art

The Great Art page 44
nourished only by rapine; it reduces all to ashes, and destroys all that which the other forms. It is a
parricide; the greatest enemy of Nature; and if we did not know how to oppose obstacles to its fury, it
would destroy all. Is it surprising that the “broilers” 33 see all perish in their hands, their property and
health vanish in smoke, and useless ashes as their only resource?
M. Stahl is not the first, as M. Pott states, who has given reasonable and connected ideas as to the
substance of Fire which is found in bodies; but he is the first who has reasoned concerning it under
the name of Phlogiston 34 . One has seen the sentiment of the Hermetic Philosophers on this subject. It
is only necessary to open their books to be convinced that they know this agent of Nature perfectly;
and that M. Pott states unseasonably that the authors anterior to M. Stahl lost themselves in continual
obscurity and innumerable contradictions. Perhaps he speaks only of the common chemists and
physicists; but in that case he should have made an exception of the Hermetic Chemists, whom he has
doubtless read, and whom he has so happily met, in his Treatise on Fire and Light, printed with the
French translation of his Lithogeognosia. M. Stahl had studied them carefully. He furnishes a proof
of this, not only by having reasoned as they on this matter, but by the great number of quotations
which he has made from them in his Treatise entitled: Fundamenta Chemiœ dogmaticœ et
experimentalis. He gives to Mercury the name Dry Water, name which the Hermetic Philosophers
give to theirs. Basil Valentin, Philalethes, and several others, are quoted in this respect. He even
distinguishes the common chemist from the Hermetic Chemist, (part I,. page 124), by naming the first
Physici communes, and the second Chymici alii. In the same part of the same work, (page 2), he says
that Isaac of Holland, Arnaud de Villeneuve, Raymond Lully, Basil Valentin, Trithéme, Paracelsus,
etc., have made themselves commendable in Chemical Art.
Far from scorning and rejecting as faults, as do so many others, all that these authors say, this able
man contents himself with speaking as they, and says, (p. 183), that they have expressed themselves
in enigmas and allegories, in order to conceal their secret from the people, and that they seem to have
affected contradiction only to place ignorant readers upon the wrong track. He enlarges still more on
this matter, (p. 219) where he calls the Hermetic Chemists by the name of Philosophers. One can
employ this denomination after such a great man. We will have occasion to speak of Mr. Pott, in
treating of Light and its effects.
The proximity of the Water and the Earth causes them to be almost always mingled. The Water
dilutes the Earth; the Earth thickens the Water; from them is formed clay. If this mixture is exposed
to a lively heat, each visible element returns to its sphere, and the form of the body is destroyed.
Placed between the Earth and the Air, Water is really the cause of the revolutions, the disorder, the
tumult, and the ruin which we remark in the air and the earth. It obscures the air by black and
dangerous vapours, it inundates the earth: it carries corruption into both, and by its abundance or
scarcity, it disturbs the order of the seasons and of Nature. Finally, it is the cause of as many
misfortunes as benefits.
Some of the ancients have said that the sun presided especially over Fire, and the moon over Water,
because they regarded the sun as the source of the Fire of Nature, and the moon as the principle of
moisture. This has caused Hippocrates to say, (Lib. I, de Diœtâ.), that the elements of Fire and of
Water could do all, because they contained all.
33 Quack Alchemists.
34 Fixed Fire, Fire inherent to bodies. It is the inflammable matter, or Sulphur-priniciple of substances . . . This quality is
found in all the beings in Nature. It abounds in the fatty or oily parts of the animal, these parts the most susceptible of
inflammation. M. Wipacher, (Dissertation imprimée parmi les Eléments de Chymie de Boerhave), regards the animal spirits
as an igneous matter, to which he gives the name of Automatic Phlogiston.
Pernety, Dict. Mytho-Herm. P.281.
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