Page 44 - Treatise on Salt

than the salt, sulphur, and mercury of the philosophers.

Alchemist. How can it be imagined, that salt, sulphur, and mercury, are
but one and the same thing, since they are three distinct things?

Vision. Now you plainly show, that you have a dull brain, and that you
know nothing of the matter; the philosophers have only one thing, which
contains body, soul, and spirit, they call it salt, sulphur, and mercury,
which three are to be found in one and the same substance, and this
subject is their salt.

Alchemist. Where can one get this salt?

Vision. It is drawn from the obscure prison of the metals: with it you
may perform wonderful operations, and see all sorts of colours; it also
transmute all the vile metals into gold; but it is requisite that this subject
be first rendered fixed.

Alchemist. I have for this great while broken my brain in working in
these metallic operations, without having ever been able to find anything
like it.

Vision. You have always sought it in dead metals, and which have not in
them the virtue of the philosophical salt: as you can not make baked
bread serve you for seed, any more than you can hatch a chicken from a
boiled egg; but if you desire to cause a generation, it is necessary you
should make use of a pure seed, that is living, and has not been spoiled:
since then the vulgar metals are dead, why do you seek for a living
matter among the dead?

Alchemist. Can not gold and silver be revived again by means of
dissolution?

Vision. The gold and silver of the philosophers are life itself, and have
no need of being revived: they may be had even for nothing; whereas the
vulgar gold and silver sell very dear, and besides they are dead, and
remain always dead.

Alchemist. By what means is this living gold to be had?

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