A New Light of Alchemy

7When things have been purified, therefore, make fire and water friends. They will readily become so in their own earth, which ascended with them. You will then perfect the work sooner than nature, if you have joined them well according to nature's weight: not as they were before, but as nature requires and you need. In every composition nature puts in more of the other things than of fire. Fire's portion is always the smallest. But nature adds external fire as she pleases to stir the internal fire, more or less, for a long or short time. According to whether fire overcomes or is overcome, perfect or imperfect things result, in minerals as in plants.

7.2External fire does not enter the depths of the composition in actual substance, but only in power. The internal material fire is sufficient for itself, provided it has nourishment. External fire is its nourishment, like wood in relation to elemental fire, and it grows and multiplies according to that nourishment. Take care, however, lest too much external fire arrive. Someone who eats too much, beyond his capacity, is choked. A great flame devours a small fire. External fire should multiply and nourish, rather than devour; in this way things are perfected. Cooking, then, is perfection in all things. In this way nature adds power to weight and perfects it.

7.3But because it is difficult to add to a compound, requiring very prolonged labour, I advise you to remove as much superfluity as is needed, or as nature requires. After removing the superfluities, mix the remainder. Nature will then show what you sought. You too will recognise whether nature joined the elements well or badly, for everything consists in their conjunction.