[A] There is no need to suppose a metonymy. The conscience is a guide which education easily perverts. Therefore, supposing it to be really the instrument of the alchemists, it may eminently stand in need of purification, and, except in the most general matters, is at best an uncertain guide.
[B] “L’Alchimie et les Alchimistes,” p. 93.
ON THE PHYSICAL THEORY AND PRACTICE OF THE MAGNUM OPUS.
The physical theory of transmutation is based on the composite character of metals, on their generation in the bowels of the earth, and on the existence in nature of a pure and penetrating matter which applied to any substance exalts and perfects it after its own kind. This matter is called The Light by Eugenius Philalethes and by numerous other writers. In its application to animals, it exalts animals; in its application to vegetables, it exalts vegetables, while metals and minerals, after the same manner, are refined and translated from the worst to the best condition.
All the elements which enter into the composition of metals are identical, but they differ in proportion and in purity. In the metallic kingdom, the object of nature is invariably to create gold. The production of the baser metals is an accident of the process, or the result of an unfavourable environment.
The generation of metals in the earth is a point of great importance, and must be well studied by the amateur, for without this, and the faithful imitation of Nature, he will never achieve anything successful. It is by means of the seed of metals that their generation takes place. Their composite character indicates their transmutable quality. Such transmutation is accomplished by means of the philosophical stone, and this stone is, in fact, the combination of the male and female seeds which beget gold and silver. Now the matters or elements of this stone, and the prima materia above all, are concealed by a multitude of symbols, false and allegorical descriptions, and evasive or deceptive names.
According to Baron Tschoudy, all who have written on the art have concealed the true name of the prima materia because it is the chief key of chemistry. Its discovery is generally declared to be impossible without a special illumination from God, but the sages who receive this divine favour and distinction have occasionally perpetuated its knowledge by the instruction of suitable pupils under the pledge of inviolable secresy. The author of L’Étoile Flamboyante supplies an immense list of the names which have been applied to this mysterious substance under one or other of its phases. “As those that sail between Scylla and Charybdis are in danger on both sides,” says D’Espagnet, “unto no less hazard are they subject, who, pursuing the prey of the golden fleece, are carried between the uncertain rocks of the philosophers’ sulphur and mercury. The more acute, by their constant reading of grave and credible authors, and by the irradiant sun, have attained unto the knowledge of sulphur, but are at a stand in the entrance of the philosophers’ mercury, for writers have twisted it with so many windings and meanders, and involved it with so many equivocal names, that it may be sooner met with by the force of the seeker’s intellect than be found by reason or toil.”
The prima materia has been defined as a fifth element, or quintessence, the material alpha and omega, the soul of the elements, living mercury, regenerated mercury, a metallic soul, &c. It is designated by such allegorical names as the Bird of Hermes, the Virgin’s Son, the Son of the Sun and Moon, the Virgin’s Head, Azoth, &c.
Where it appears to be seriously described the adepts are in continual contradiction, but it is generally allowed to be a substance found everywhere and continually seen and possessed by those who are ignorant of its virtues. “Although some persons,” says Urbiger, “possessed with foolish notions, dream that the first matter is to be found only in some particular places, at such and such times of the year, and by the virtue of a magical magnet, yet we are most certain, according to our divine master, Hermes, that all these suppositions being false, it is to be found everywhere, at all times, and only by our science.”[C]
In similar terms, we are told by the “Commentary on the Ancient War of the Knights,” that the matter of the art, so precious by the excellent gifts wherewith Nature has enriched it, is truly mean with regard to the substances from which it derives its original. “Its price is not above the ability of the poor. Tenpence is more than sufficient to purchase the Matter of the Stone.... The matter is mean, considering the foundation of the art, because it costs very little; it is no less mean if one considers exteriorly that which gives it perfection, since in that regard it costs nothing at all, in as much as all the world has it in its power, says Cosmopolite, so that it is a constant truth that the stone is a thing mean in one sense but most precious in another, and that there are none but fools that despise it, by a just judgment of God.”