8. Ascend with the highest wisdom from earth to heaven, and thence descend again to earth, and bind together the powers of things superior and things inferior. So shall you compass the glory of the whole world, and divest yourself of the abjectness of humanity.
9. This thing has more fortitude than fortitude itself, since it will overcome everything subtle and penetrate everything solid.
10. All that the world contains was created by it.
11. Hence proceed things wonderful which in this wise were established.
12. For this reason the name of Hermes Trismegistus was bestowed upon me, because I am master of three parts of the philosophy of the whole world.
13. This is what I had to say concerning the most admirable process of the chemical art.
These oracular utterances are so vague and obscure that an enthusiast may read into them almost any meaning he chooses; but there seems a general consensus of opinion that they refer to the ‘universal medicine’ of the earlier alchemists. This, however, is of no great importance, since it is certain they were invented by some ingenious hand as late as the fifteenth century. Another forgery of a similar kind is the ‘Tractatus Aureus de Lapidis Physici Secretis,’ also attributed to Hermes; it professes to describe the process of making this ‘universal medicine,’ or ‘philosopher’s stone,’ and the formulary is thus translated by Thomson:
‘Take of moisture an ounce and a half; of meridional redness—that is, the soul of the sun—a fourth part, that is, half an ounce; of yellow sage likewise half an ounce; and of auripigmentum half an ounce; making in all three ounces.’
Such a recipe does not seem to help forward an enthusiastic student to any material extent.