A New Light of Alchemy

2In the depths it is the menstruum of the world. When air penetrates it, air draws a warm vapour along with it through the power of heat. This causes the natural generation of the things with which earth, like a womb, has been impregnated. Once the womb has received the proper proportion of seed, whatever it may be, the process advances. Nature works without interruption to the end. The remaining moisture or sperm falls to the side, where heat putrefies it in the earth, and other things are subsequently generated from what was cast aside, sometimes various little animals and worms. An ingenious artist could indeed see many of nature's wonders in this element as in sperm. But he would need to take sperm in which astral seed of a definite weight had already been imagined. For nature makes and produces pure things from the first putrefaction; from the second she produces things much purer, worthier and nobler. You have an example in vegetable wood. In its first composition nature makes wood. When, after maturity, it decays and putrefies, worms and other little animals with life and sight are generated from it. Clearly, what has sensation is always worthier than what merely vegetates, since a much subtler and purer matter is required for organs of sensation.