WE DEPLORE THOSE that calibrate reconstitution by their wit and so doubt miracles of hermetic art—objecting about gold how it could not be present within copper, nor silver within galena. Should imponderables be weighed upon their balance? We point out that birds issue from eggs, while caterpillars develop into butterflies. We observe particles of the element water extant in wood, since heating fresh wood begets liquid. Similarly must wood be the home of atmosphere because we note vapor and rising steam, and because we find ash there is earth. Hence, any substance might be transmuted through proportionate realignment of its components. Therefore, what is the Skeptic but a new mouse fumbling through darkness?
WE REPORT HOW substances boast the germ by which they flourish, but among metals—excepting gold—this germ resists maturity. Therefore, all these must anticipate decomposition. Skeptics will cling to their philosophy, the incredulous to incredulity. We decline to quarrel. Who would provide mirrors to the blind or entertain the deaf with music?
WE ARE PERSUADED that lead would turn to gold, granted time, since no metal is conceived immaculate. Nature intends first to create the imperfect, distilling and by degree distilling until she accomplishes perfection, as we observe when beetles or wasps charged with strength crawl out of rotting corpses—albeit misbelievers complain there is fakery, and claim gold could not survive in dross. Yet wise nature labors upward to consummation. Accordingly, the agent to promote such changes must exist. How else could we explain that sweet tractability of blossoms emerging from the rigid husk of insensate seeds? And the phlegmatic worm—what drives him to enclose his body, ultimately to unfold translucent wings?
THAT THE MAGNUM Opus will be accomplished we have no doubt, since God bequeathed His knowledge of alchymistry to Adam through the medium of Raziel by whose grace it was offered to Enoch, whose preserved bones rest in a private apartment of Cheops’ pyramid. And this authority we no more question than we should analyze the mounting architecture of clouds. O, we have listened to merchants discourse at their stalls how spagyric art is but some thaumaturgic dream of wealth—a vacant invention drawn up for simpletons, vainglorious trumpeting, implausible rubefactions. In fact, we hear them dispute under the nascent moon if its diameter be as great or less than that of a cartwheel and amazement overcomes us. We wonder what should distinguish men from transient shades except the alchymic dream. We wonder if they be not deceived by their own infirmity. Which among them would fix one hour toward the health of his soul?
WE RECORD HOW Meister Sendivogius achieved his inimitable work before Rudolph the Emperor by converting quicksilver to gold with the aid of negritic dust—attested by that marble tablet affixed to a wall of the room where transmutation took place, bearing this inscription: Faciat hoc quispiam alius quod fecit Sendivogius Polonus. We have listened to disbelievers object and argue, but like blackbirds which start a tune well enough they do not go far with it. We consider them foolish that turn with intolerant haste from authentic art. Monsieur Desnoyers, that once was Secretary to Princess Mary of Gonzaga, testified for the validity of this inscription. Still, cautious scribes take note how the dust or powder may be either red or black—since we are told by the alchymist’s steward that this was so. And he carried it in a miniature box, and with but one grain he could make five hundred ducats or a thousand rix-dollars. And when he traveled he gave the box to his steward to carry on a chain slung around the neck. But most of this black dust he kept in a secret niche carved into a step of his carriage. And foreseeing any danger he would dress up himself as a valet and mounting the coachman’s seat he took the place of his valet who rode inside, and so they proceeded. And to every question we respond by asking if each gelle of water that passes a mill need be verified by the miller.
WE NOTE HOW Jean Delisle, blacksmith and native to Provence, when he acquired the Philosopher’s Stone permitted visitors to witness an elevation of imperfect mineral to perfection—this miracle attested by M. de Cerisy, Prior of Chateauneuf in the diocese of Riez, who without delay notified the Vicar of Saint Jacques du Hautpas in Paris, expressing his delight that a substance which for generations was thought chimerical had been distilled by a neighboring blacksmith in the parish of Sylabez who could without the slightest difficulty refine silver from rusted buckets and bring forth gold from shovels. M. de Cerisy asserts that now in his possession he has a Nail which is half-iron but half-silver, which he himself created under this blacksmith’s supervision. Scholars write in Latin: Ecce signum. What further proof is necessary?
NOW THE PHYSITIAN Arthur Dee, who was off-spring of Sir John and intimate of Sir Thomas Browne, swears he played at quoits with gold plates that his father once projected in the garret of their lodging at Prague. And he claims how at various times he examined the Philosopher’s Stone. And says about his father that he did often clarify the shells of eggs—for what purpose he never learnt. And we hear that Sir John was much discussed by the playwright Jonson, who called him Alchymist. And also one Robert Cotton alleges how Sir
