The works of the highly experienced and famous chymist, John Rudolph Glauber

by Johann Rudolf Glauber

This similitude of the Seed of a Vegetable, and of a Bird, doth not a little enlighten my mind and give me encouragement to believe: I do therefore firmly believe that there is hidden an abundance of colour not onely in yellow Gold, but also in white Silver it self too, insomuch that I do assuredly perswade my self, that a constant and most high Tincture may easily be prepared out of Gold and Silver, and that it is a very difficult matter to prepare a permanent Fire-brooking Tincture out of the imperfect Metals and immature Minerals (though they also hide within their inside bowels most exquisite colours) by reason of that imperfection and unripeness which they lie under.

Answer.

Your judgment and opinion is true. For although, the lesser Metals, as also the Minerals themselves too do hide within their bowels, the most high colours, and though those very colours may easily be separated from their unprofitable bodies, yet notwithstanding there is requisite to such operations a long space of time, great expence, and hard labour, viz. to make such Tinctures constant, permanent, and fixt by the common Fire of Wood and Coals. But yet he that knows the secret Fire of the Philosophers, will easily give unto such Tinctures that constancy in the Fire that is requisite, which otherwise, and by the common Fire, will very difficultly and hardly ever be effected. For example, common water will always remain water, and therefore will never be brought into a stony or metallick nature by the Fire of Wood or Coals. But a thing may be easily reduced unto that which it was before: If an hard Stone be turned into pure water, it may be reduced (even by the help of the common Fire) out of that same Water into a more pure Stone, and so is it likewise with a Metal, if treated with the same operation.

But yet I do not deny but that even any common water, or any Stone may be changed into a Metal, but then I say, it must be done by the help, not of the common Fire, but of the Fire of the Wise Men, by which Fire, even the Waters are wont to be changed into Metals in the Earth: For all Metals and all Stones have their rise out of the Water, and were at first Water. Whosoever therefore doth well and throughly know this secret Fire, which the Philosophers have always with their utmost diligence and care concealed, he may work upon all the first beings of Gold and Silver, as common Sulphur, Mercury, Antimony, Arsenick, Auripigment, Cobolt, and others of that kind, and transmute them into red and white Tinctures. But if he has no knowledge at all of the same, let him in God’s name apply himself onely to fixt Gold and Silver, and having volatilized them, turn them into Water, and again turn this same Water into a fixed Stone, which if he brings but to pass, he enters upon the nearest way, and will be a master of that which he bestows his labour in the search of.

Question 12.

If this be the most compendious way of getting the Philosophers Tincture, viz. out of those known Metals, as fixt Gold and Silver; Why do some of the Philosophers write that their Sol and Lune is not that common and well known Gold and Silver, and that as well the Poor as the Rich have that Sol and Lune as is theirs, and may easily prepare the Tincture it self there out of; so that (it seems) all such as busie themselves in the searching after that most eminent Medicine in the common Gold and Silver, do extreamly err?

Answer.

These Philosophers that reject the common and well known Gold and Silver, were clearly ignorant of the knowledge of making of the Tincture out of them, which had they but known and well understood, they would not so confidently have affirmed such a thing in their Writings. But forasmuch as they knew but that one way of making the Tincture our of the volatile Minerals, and that that way of making it with fixt Gold and Silver was unknown unto them, they could not mention unto us any other way than their own; whereas though there are not a few of the Philosophers, that on the other hand commend unto us the common Gold and Silver, and reject all the other Metals. Nor is the number too very small, of such as do confess, that the Tincture may be made of the more imperfect Metals, and volatile Minerals, but yet with this caution, that one subject is much easier, speedier, and better to operate upon than another is.

No Man can all at once clearly know and apprehend every thing, and therefore it would be much; better for a man to judge onely of the things he knows, and not censure the things he is ignorant of, that so the World may not by this means be stuft with so many Writings which thwart one another. Some there are who perswade themselves, that (when they do at long run arrive by many turnings and windings unto the wisht for place) there is no certainer, nor more compendious way than that which they took in making their Journey. Hence it is, that the Writings of the Philosophers are so involved with intricate opinions, out of which no body can well free himself, unless the whole knowledge of nature be opened unto him: But seeing the number of such is very small, therefore it must of necessity follow, that they who err are very many, and that they who become masters of the truth, are but a very few.

Question 13.