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A Tract of Great Price
A Tract Of Great Price
Concerning The Philosophical Stone.
Published By A German Sage In The Year 1423,
Under The Following Title:
The True Teaching Of Philosophy
Concerning The Generation Of Metals
And Their True Origin.
A Tract Of Great Price
Concerning The Philosophical Stone.
Chapter I
All temporal things derive their origin, their existence, and
their essence from the earth, according to the succession of time. Their
specific properties are determined by the outward and inward influences
of the stars and planets, (such as the Sun, the Moon, Etc.) and of the
four qualities of the elements. From these combined circumstances arise
the peculiar forms, and proper substances, of all growing, fixed, and
generating things, according to the natural order appointed by the Most
High at the beginning of the world. The metals, then, derive their
origin from the earth, and are specifically compounded of the four
qualities, or the properties of the four elements, their peculiar
metallic character is stamped upon them by the influences of the stars
and planets. So we are informed by Aristotle in the fourth book of his
Meteor., where he says that quicksilver is the common substance of all
metals. The first thing in Nature, as we said before, is the substance
which represents a particular conglomeration of the four elements which
the Sages call Mercury or quicksilver But this quicksilver is as yet
imperfect, on account of its gross and earthy sulphureous nature, which
renders it too easily combustible, and on account of its superfluous
watery elements, which have all been collected together out of the four
elements by the action of the heavenly planets. This substance is
composed of a hot sulphureous earth, and a watery essence, in such a way
that the sages have called it imperfect sulphur.
Now, since Nature is always striving to attain perfection and to
reach the goal set before her by the Creator of all things, she is
continually at work upon the qualities of the four elements of each
substance; and so stirs up and rouses the inward action of the elements
by the accidental heat of the Sun, and by natural warmth that there
arises a kind of vapour or steam in the veins of the earth. This vapour
cannot make its way out, but is closed in; in penetrating through fat,
earthy, oily, and impure sulphureous substances it attracts to itself
more or less of these foreign and external impurities. This is the
reason that there are seen in it so great a variety of colours before it
attains to purity and its own proper colour.
Those mineral and metallic substances which contain the largest
proportion of efficacious sulphureous and mercurial vapour are the best;
and each quality of the four elements has its own peculiar operation and
transmuting influence in such a conglomeration of various substances --
their action being roused by the sulphur of the earth and the outward
heat of the Sun. Through these agencies the Matter is often dissolved
and coagulated, till that which is pure, or impure, is borne upward; and
this is the work not of a few years, but of a great length of time.
Nature has to purge away the peculiar characteristics of all other
metals before she can make gold; as you may see by the fact that
different kinds of metal are found in the same metallic vein. This fact
may be explained in the following manner. When the sulphureous and
mercurial vapours ascend they are mixed, and united by coction, with the
aforesaid substance. If those sulphureous vapours are earthy thick, and
impure, and the heat of the Sun, or their own natural heat, have too
sudden and violent an effect, the substance hardens, with all its
sulphureous impurities before it can be purged of its grossness, and it
becomes more like metallic sulphur. If the quicksilver is hardened, the
whole mass takes the form of some metal, according to the influence of
the particular planet with which it is penetrated. For Nature first
combines the four elements into some substance or body, which then
receives its specific properties through the influence of some planet.
Such is the origin of copper, tin, lead, iron, and quicksilver. But it
is not essential that I should here describe at length the specific
composition and distinctive properties of each of the imperfect metals;
they are all mingled in various proportions of impure sulphur and
inefficacious quicksilver. Nature, as I said, is ceaselessly at work
upon these imperfect metals purging and separating the pure quicksilver
from the impure, and the pure sulphur from the impure, until all their
grossness is removed and they become what God designed that they should
be, viz., gold. But if these vapours float upward in their original pure
condition, with their inward pure and subtle earth, without becoming
mixed with gross, earthy, and sulphureous alloy, and if they succeed in
breaking forth into the open air before they become hardened into a
sulphureous mass, they remain quicksilver and are not changed into any
metal.
If, however, this pure quicksilver floats upward in a pure mineral
earth, without any gross alloy, it is hardened into the pure and white
sulphur of Nature by being subjected to a very moderate degree of gentle
heat, and at length assumes the specific form of silver. Like all the
other metals it may still be developed into gold if it remain under the
influence of its natural heat. But if the same pure, unalloyed
quicksilver be subjected to a higher degree of natural heat, it is
transmuted into the pure red sulphur of Nature and becomes gold
without first passing through the stage of silver. In this form it
remains, because gold is the highest possible stage of metallic
development.
Quicksilver is the mother of all metals, on account of its coldness
and moistness; and if it be once purified and cleansed of all foreign
matter it cannot be mixed any more with grossness of any kind neither
can it be changed back into an imperfect metal. For Nature does not undo
her work, and that which has once become perfectly pure can never become
impure again. Sulphur on the other hand is the father of all metals, on
account of its heat and dryness. In the following chapter we shall refer
to this difference, and speak more in detail about quicksilver.
Chapter II
There is, then, in all metals true mercury and good
sulphur in the imperfect as well as in the perfect metals. But in the
imperfect metals it is defiled with impure matter and stands in need of
maturing. Hence you see that all metals may be changed into gold and
silver, if the golden and silver properties that are in them be freed
from all alloy and reduced by gentle heat to the form of silver or gold.
Those metals, indeed, which have been torn up by the roots, that is to
say, that have been dug up from their own proper soil in the veins of
the earth, can no longer proceed in that course of development which
they pursued in their native abode; yet, as much as in them lies, they
strive to be perfected. Now the Spirit of Truth, who imparts all true
knowledge, has taught the Sages a Medicine or Form, by which all the
impurities of the imperfect metals may be removed, and the perfect
nature, or true mercury, which is in them, transmuted into gold and
silver.
Chapter III
But we must now proceed to say a few words about the method of
preparing this Medicine, by which the imperfection is removed from
imperfect metals through the mediation of perfect mercury, and the mode
of gold and silver is developed in them.
I find that the writings of the Sages are all about gold, silver and
quicksilver, which it is said must be reduced to the form which they
wore before they became metals; that is to say, the form which they wore
perhaps some thousands of years ago. But the operation of Nature is
progressive, not retrogressive. Hence it is a great mistake to suppose
that the work of Nature can be reversed by dissolution in aqua fortis or
by the amalgamation of gold or silver and quicksilver. For if the metal
be plunged in a solvent, if water be distilled from it, or if
quicksilver be sublimed from it, it still remains the same metal that it
was before. The specific properties of a metal cannot be destroyed so as
to obtain the first substance. Yet Aristotle says that metals cannot be
changed unless they are reduced to their original substance.
Chapter IV
What we have said in the last chapter shows that Alchemical Art
cannot be concerned with the subjecting of gold, silver or quicksilver
to chemical processes. Nevertheless, that which you read in the books of
the Sages is most true and we shall see in the following pages in what
sense it is to be understood, that our Art is in gold, silver and
quicksilver. But it is clear that our art can make no use of quicksilver
such as may be obtained from the metals by means of any kind of
artificial process, such as dissolution in aqua fortis, or amalgamation
or any other method of chemical purification.
If then, this is not the right substance or original mercury, it is
clear that it is not to be found in the metals. For even if you melt
two, three, or four metals together, yet not one of them can give the
others any aid towards attaining perfection, seeing that itself stands
in need of external aid. And even though you mix some imperfect metal
with gold, the gold will not give up its own perfection for the purpose
of succouring the other for it has nothing to spare which it might
impart to the imperfect metal. And even if the imperfect metal could
assume the virtue and efficacy of the gold, it could only do so at the
expense of the gold itself. In vain, then, shall we seek in metals the
Medicine which has power to liberate the perfect mercury contained in
imperfect metals.
Chapter V
Again, we read in the books of the Sages that quicksilver and
mercury are the original substance of all metals. These words are true
in a certain sense. But by many beginners they are supposed to mean
ordinary quicksilver. Such an interpretation, however, makes nonsense of
the dictum of the Sages. For ordinary quicksilver is an imperfect metal
and itself derived from the original substance of all metals. The Sages,
indeed, say little about the origin of their mercury but that is
exactly because they use the name of mercury or sulphur, for the first
substance of their perfect metals. If common mercury were not a metal,
there would be no metal corresponding to the celestial influence of the
planet Mercury as gold and silver receive their specific properties from
the influence of the Sun and Moon. Now, as it is one of the metals the
other metals cannot be derived from it, much less can their properties
be derived from it or from themselves, although the real perfect mercury
is quite as abundant in mercury as in any other metal. Nor can common
sulphur be the first substance of the metals, for no metal contains so
much impurity as common sulphur; and if it be mixed with any metal, that
metal becomes even more impure than it was before, and is even
partially, or wholly, corroded.
Chapter VI
Again, the Sages affirm that quicksilver, or mercury, is the
spirit of the specific nature of metals, collected out of the four
elements by the influence of the Planets, and the operation of Nature in
the earth -- and that from it is developed either gold, silver, or some
other of seven metals, according to the peculiar effects of the
predominant planetary influence.
Hence ignorant alchemists have supposed that all this is true of the
common quicksilver, because it amalgamates with all metals, and is soft
and volatile. But why should its volatile properties prove it to be no
metal? According to this definition, we might deny the metallic
character of tin, lead, and other metals, because they do not remain
fixed in a fierce fire -- though one can stand a greater degree of heat
than another. If, again, any substance is to be called the first
substance of metals because of the facility with which it amalgamates
with them, copper would have a better claim to be so regarded, since it
enters into a closer union with gold and silver than mercury, and shares
both their fusible and malleable nature. But that is no final union, for
it admits of separation; and quicksilver may, with the greatest ease, be
separated from the metals with which it has amalgamated. A true union of
metals can only take place in the original substance which is common to
all. We do find amalgams of three or even more metals; but then this
union was consummated in the first substance, which is one, and
the whole amalgam would have been developed into gold, if its natural
growth had not been retarded by gross, sulphureous, arsenical, and
earthy impurity, which is found among metals when purified. The metals
which we dig up out of the earth are, as it were, torn up by the roots,
and, their growth having come to a standstill, they can undergo no
further development into gold, but must always retain their present
form, unless something is done for them by our Art. Hence we must begin
at the point where Nature had to leave off: we must purge away all
impurity, and the sulphureous alloy, as Nature herself would have done
if her operation had not been accidentally or violently, disturbed. She
would have matured the original substance, and brought it to perfection
by gentle heat, and, in a longer or shorter period of time, she would
have transmuted it into gold. In this work Nature is ceaselessly
occupied while the metals are still in the earth; but she takes away
from them nothing save their superfluous water and the impurity which
prevents them from attaining to the nature of gold, as we briefly showed
in the second chapter.
Chapter VII
It is clear, then, that the final union of metals, or their
perfection, cannot be attained by the mingling of any specific metals;
that the metallic substance becomes useless for our purpose, as soon as
it assumes a specific form; but that, at the same time, all metals have
a common origin, or Matter, which is one thing, flowing out by the
operation of nature, who ever desires the most perfect form which her
own essence and her condition will admit. And this is the form of gold,
highest and best of all that belong to the metallic mode. If, then the
purest form of this substance which it is possible for Art to prepare
with the help of Nature, be added to the imperfect metals then it
overcomes what is impure in these, for it is not the impure, but the
pure matter which is like unto it. But you must not suppose that this
power belongs to common gold; common gold has its own specific form,
which it is unable to impart to other metals. The power of gold is
sufficient only for preserving its own excellence; but our prepared
substance is much better and more honourable than gold, and has power to
do that which gold cannot do, viz, to change the common matter of all
metals into gold.
Chapter VIII
From what I have hitherto said, one ignorant of alchemy might
suppose that the teaching of the Sages is altogether false and
untrustworthy. Therefore I must now proceed to tell you how it may truly
be affirmed that our Art is concerned with quicksilver silver, and gold,
or with quicksilver and sulphur, and in what sense mercury is the spirit
of the metals. I will first speak about quicksilver, and at once premise
that this word is not here taken to mean that common quicksilver which
is one of the metals, but the first substance of all the metals, and
itself no specific metal at all. For a metal must have derived its
distinctive properties through planetary influences; nor can any one
metal be the first substance of all metals. This quicksilver is neither
too hot, nor too cold, nor too moist, nor too dry; but it is a
well-termpered mingling of all four. When perfectly matured quicksilver
is subjected to external heat, operating thereon, it is not burned but
escapes in a volatile essence. Hence it may well be called by the
philosophers a spirit, or a swift, and winged, and indestructible soul.
So long as it is palpable and visible it is also called body; when
subjected to external cold it is congealed into a fixed body, and then
these three, body, soul, and spirit, are one thing, and contain the
properties of all the four elements. That outward part which is moist
and cold is called water, or quicksilver on account of its inward
heat it is called air; if without it appear hot and dry it is fire, or
sulphur; and on account of its internal coldness it is also styled
earth. In this way quicksilver and sulphur are the original
substance of all metals; but, of course, I do not mean that the
substance is prepared by mixing common sulphur and quicksilver. The
sulphur and quicksilver of the Sages are one and the same thing, which
is first of the nature of quicksilver, or moist and watery and is then
by constant coction transmuted into the nature of sulphur, which may
Most justly be described as dry and igneous.
Chapter IX
But I wish to confine my discourse to the quicksilver and
sulphur of the philosophers, from which all metals derive their origin;
and it is according to the Sages a heavy earthy water mixed with very
subtle white earth, and subjected to natural coction until the moist and
the dry elements have become united and coagulated into one body --
through the perfect mutual adjustment of all the elementary properties,
and by the accidental operation of cold. This is the substance which is
used for the purposes of our Art, after it has been perfected and
purified by gentle coction, and freed from its earthy and sulphureous
grossness, and the combustible wateriness of the quicksilver. It is then
one clear, pure and indestructible substance, proceeding from a duplex
substance, exhibiting in their greatest purity and efficacy the united
properties of quicksilver and of sulphur. In art the operation is
similar to Nature. Hence the Sages have justly affirmed that our Art is
concerned with quicksilver, gold, and silver. For in its first stage the
substance resembles quicksilver which is sublimed by gentle natural
heat, and purified in the veins of the rocks in the form of a pure
vapour, as we explained above. To it we know add silver and gold, and
that for the following reason, because we cannot find anywhere else in
any one thing the metallic power needed for rousing the sulphur of the
quicksilver, and coagulating it, except in gold and silver For the Sage
cannot prepare our quicksilver unless it be first removed from the
earth, and separated from the potency of its natural surroundings; and
all these natural influences can be artificially supplied only by the
addition of gold and silver. Our Art then has to find a substitute for
those natural forces in the precious metals. By them alone it is able to
fix the volatile properties of our quicksilver, for in them alone do use
find the powers and influences which are indispensable to our chemical
process. You should also bear in mind that the silver should be applied
to our quicksilver before the gold, because the quicksilver is volatile,
and cannot with safety be subjected all at once to great heat. Silver
has the power of stirring up the inherent sulphur of the quicksilver,
whereby it is coagulated into the form of the Remedy for transmuting
metals into silver, and this coagulation is brought about by the gentle
heat of the silver. Gold requires a much higher degree of heat and if
gold were added to the quicksilver before the silver, the greater degree
of heat would at once change the quicksilver into a red sulphur, which,
however, would be of no use for the purpose of making gold, because it
would have lost its essential moisture; and our Art requires that the
quicksilver should be first coagulated by means of silver into white
sulphur, before the greater degree of heat is applied which, through
gold changes it into red sulphur. There must be whiteness before there
is redness. Redness before Whiteness spoils our whole substance.
Chapter X
The quicksilver of the Sages has no power to transmute
imperfect metals, until it has absorbed the essential qualities of gold
and silver; for in itself it is no metal at all, and if it is to impart
the spirit, the colour, and the hardness of gold and silver, it must
first receive them itself. It is with the first substance of metals as
it is with water. If saffron is dissolved in water, the water is
coloured with it, and if mixed with other water, imparts to that water,
too, the colour of saffron. Unless the first substance, or quicksilver,
is tinged with silver and gold, and coagulated by their efficacy, it
cannot impart any colour, or coagulate the 'water or) first substance
which is latent in the imperfect metals. For it is essentially a spirit.
and volatile. and if it be added to imperfect metals, it cannot act upon
their water, or undeveloped first-substance, because that is partly
fixed by their coagulated sulphur. But if the first-substance has been
fixed by means of gold and silver it has become a fixed and
indestructible water: and, if added to imperfect metals. takes up into
its own nature their first substance, or water, and mingles with it. By
this means all that is combustible and impure m them is driven off by
the fire. And herein is the saying true which was uttered by the Sage
Haly: The spirit (i.e. quicksilver is not coagulated, unless the body
'i.e., gold and silver' be first dissolved." For then gold and silver
become spiritual. flowing, capable of being assimilated by the common
substance of all metals, and of imparting to it their own metallic
strength and potency. And even though this new substance be fusible in
the fire, yet, when it cools again, it still remains what it was, nor is
it ever again converted into a permanent spiritual substance. It is the
quicksilver, then that constitutes the chief strength and efficacy of
our Art; and he that has no quicksilver is without the very seed of gold
and silver from which they grow in the earth.
Epilogue
We have sufficiently explained that quicksilver is the first
substance of the metals, without which no metal can become perfect,
either in Nature or in our Art. But we do not yet know where to look for
it, and where to find it. This is the great secret of the Sages, which
they are always so careful to veil under dark words that scarcely one in
many thousands is thought worthy to find the philosophical Mercury. Many
things have been written about it; but I will quote the words of one
philosopher which I consider as the most helpful: In the beginning, he
says, God created the earth plain, simple, rich and very fertile,
without stones, sand, rocks, hills, or valleys, it is the influences of
the planets which have now covered it with stones, rocks, and mountains,
and filled it with rare things of various colours, i.e., the ores of the
seven metals, and by these means the earth has entirely lost its
original form, and that through the following causes:
First, the earth which was created rich, great, deep, wide and broad,
was, through the daily operation of the Sun's rays penetrated to her
very centre with a fervent, bubbling, vaporous heat. For the earth in
herself is cold and saturated with the moisture of water At length the
vapours which were formed in this way in the heart of the earth became
so strong and powerful as to seek to force a way out into the open air,
and thus, instead of effecting their object, threw up hills and hillocks
or, as It were, bubbles on the face of the earth. And since in those
places where mountains were formed the heat of the Sun must have been
most powerful, and the earthy moisture rich and most plentiful, it is
there that we find the most precious metals. Where the earth remained
plain, this steam did not succeed in raising up mountains; it escaped,
and the earth. being deprived of its moisture, was hardened into rocks.
Where the earth was poor, soft, and thin, it is now covered with sand
and little stones, because it never had much moisture, and, having been
deprived of the little it possessed, has now become sandy and dry, and
incapable of retaining moisture. No earth was changed into rocks that
was not rich, viscous, and well saturated with moisture. For when the
heat of the Sun has sucked up its moisture, the richness of the earth
still makes it cohere, although now it has become hard and dry; and
earth that is not yet perfectly hard is even at the present time
undergoing a change into hard stones, through ,the diligent working of
Nature. But the steam and the vapours that do not succeed in escaping,
remain enclosed in the mountains, and are day by day subjected to the
maturing and transmuting influences of the Sun and the planets. Now, if
this vaporous moisture become mixed with a pure, subtle, and earthy
substance, it is the quicksilver of the Sages; if it be reduced to a
fiery and earthy hardness, it becomes the sulphur of the Sages. This
enquiry opens up the way of finding our quicksilver, or first substance
of the metals, but though it be found in great quantities in all mines,
it is knows only to very few. It is not silver, or gold, or common
quicksilver, or any metal, or sulphur. The Sage says: It is a vaporous
substance out of four elements, watery and pure, and though it is found
with all metals. it is not matured in those which are imperfect. Hence
it must be sought in the ore, in which we find gold and silver." And
when again he says, " If this quicksilver be hardened, it is the sulphur
of the Sages." he means that this can only be done by means of gold and
silver, which it takes into itself, and by which it is sublimed and
coagulated through its own natural gentle coction, under the influence
of the Sun's heat, and in its own proper ore.
O heavenly Father, shew this quicksilver to all whom Thou biddest
walk in Thy paths!
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