A New Light of Alchemy

20Saturn said: Watch, then, and learn. He took two quicksilvers of different substance but one root, washed them in his own urine and called them sulphurs of sulphurs. He mixed the fixed with the volatile. Once the composition was made, he placed it in the proper vessel and set a guard beneath it to prevent sulphur escaping. He then placed it in a bath of the gentlest fire, as the matter required, and did everything very well. They therefore made the philosophers' stone, since from proper matter only a proper work results. The alchemist was greatly delighted and took the stone with its glass vessel. Considering its colour, like burned blood, he marvelled and began to dance from excessive joy. As he danced, the vessel slipped from his hands to the ground and broke. Saturn vanished. The alchemist too woke from sleep and found nothing in his hands except the little matches he had made from sulphur. The stone had flown away and is still flying; hence it is called volatile.

20.2Thus the wretched alchemist learned nothing from that vision except to make sulphur matches. Afterwards he abandoned the stone and became a physician. In seeking the philosophers' stone, he acquired a kidney stone. Finally he led the life such alchemists usually lead: most become physicians or soap-makers. This will happen to everyone who approaches the art without a foundation, from hearsay or recipes, by chance and dialectic. Afterwards some, when they fail, say: We are wise men; we hear the grass grow. If the art were true, we would have attained it before anyone else. Thus clothed in shame, lest they be considered unworthy—as indeed they are, and stubborn too— they cry out against the art. This science hates such people and always shows them the beginning at the end.