Page 14 - Compound of Compounds

Chapter 1

Of the formation of metals in general
by sulphur and mercury

We have observed that, to the best of our knowledge, the nature of metals is to be
generated by Sulphur and Mercury, broadly speaking. The difference in coction and
digestion alone produces the variety of the metallic species. I have observed by my
own experience that in a single selfsame vessel, that is to say in the same vein, nature
had produced silver and many other metals, disseminated here and there. In fact, we
demonstrated clearly in our Treatise on minerals that the generation of metals is
circular; we easily transform them the one into the other following a circle;
neighbouring metals have similar properties. For this reason silver is more easily
changed into gold than any other metal.

Indeed, there is hardly anything more to be changed in silver than its colour and
weight, which is easy because an already condensed substance augments more easily in
weight. And since it contains in itself a yellow-white sulphur, its colour too will be easy
to transform.

It is the same thing with the other metals. Sulphur is their father and Mercury their
mother, so to speak.

Truer still, in the conjunction Sulphur represents the sperm of the father and
Mercury stands for a coagulated menstrue that form together the substance of an
embryo. Sulphur alone cannot engender, nor the father alone. As the father begets of
his own substance mixed with menstrual blood, likewise Sulphur engenders with
Mercury, but alone it produces nothing. By way of this comparison, we mean that the
alchemist must first remove from the metal the specificity that Nature gave it, then
proceed as Nature proceeded, with the preparation and purification of Mercury and
Sulphur always following the example of Nature. Sulphur contains three moist
principles.

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