Beneath and within all these coverings of outward properties, taught the alchemists, is hidden the secret essence of all material things. “. . . the elements and compounds,” writes one alchemist, “in addition to crass matter, are composed of a subtle substance, or intrinsic radical humidity, diffused through the elemental parts, simple and wholly incorruptible, long preserving the things themselves in vigour, and called the Spirit of the World, proceeding from the Soul of the World, the one certain life, filling and fathoming all things, gathering together and connecting all things, so that from the three genera of creatures, Intellectual, Celestial, and Corruptible, there is formed the One Machine of the whole world.”[29] It is hardly necessary to point out how nearly this approaches modern views regarding the Ether of Space.
[29] Alexander von Suchten: Man, the best and most perfect of God’s creatures. A more complete Exposition of this Medical Foundation for the less Experienced Student. (See Benedictus Figulus: A Golden and Blessed Casket of Nature’s Marvels, translated by A. E. Waite, 1893, pp. 71 and 72.)
The Growth of the Metals.
§ 20. The alchemists regarded the metals as growing in the womb of the earth, and a knowledge of this growth as being of very great importance. Thomas Norton (who, however, contrary to the generality of alchemists, denied that metals have seed and that they grow in the sense of multiply) says:—
“Mettalls of kinde grow lowe under ground,
For above erth rust in them is found;
Soe above erth appeareth corruption,
Of mettalls, and in long tyme destruction,
Whereof noe Cause is found in this Case,
Buth that above Erth thei be not in their place
Contrarie places to nature causeth strife
As Fishes out of water losen their Lyfe:
And Man, with Beasts, and Birds live in ayer,
But Stones and Mineralls under Erth repaier.”[30]