A New Light of Alchemy

Preface by the Author to the Treatise on Sulphur

1The Author's Preface to the Reader

1.2Kind reader, since I am not permitted to write more openly than the ancient philosophers, perhaps my writings will not satisfy you, especially when you have so many other philosophical books at hand. Yet believe me: I have no need to write books. I seek neither profit nor empty display from them, and therefore have no wish to publish my identity. I have already made public, for your benefit, more than seemed sufficient to me. I intended to reserve the rest for my Harmony, where I have set out natural matters at greater length. Nevertheless, at my friends' urging I have had to write this treatise on sulphur. I do not know whether anything needed to be added to my earlier work. Indeed, if so many philosophers' writings fail to satisfy you, this one will not satisfy you either. Above all, if nature's daily operation does not provide you with sufficient examples, no examples will help. If you considered maturely how nature operates, you would not need so many volumes of philosophy; for in my judgment it is better to learn from the teacher, Nature herself, than from her pupils. In the preface to my little book of Twelve Treatises, and also in its first treatise, you have enough about the many great books found in this art: they now hinder seekers more than they help. It seems so, because the philosophers' writings have grown from Hermes' tiny tablet into so great and misleading a labyrinth, and decline daily towards an eclipse. I believe this was done only by knowledgeable but envious people. An ignorant person does not know what should be added or removed, unless perhaps an author's handwriting cannot be read properly. If the absence or addition of a single word greatly helps or harms any science, it does so above all in this one.