A New Light of Alchemy

21I concede that this art is nothing for the unworthy. To lovers of virtue, true investigators and children of learning, however, I most earnestly commend it. I affirm it is true, altogether true. Several times I have demonstrated it in actual practice before people worthy of that spectacle, of both high and low condition. Yet this medicine was not made with my own hands. I received such things from a friend, entirely genuine nevertheless. I have sufficiently instructed seekers how to investigate it. If my writings do not please them, let them read other authors' easier works, with this caution: whatever they read, let them always compare it with nature's possibilities. Let them attempt nothing contrary to nature, nor believe, even if written in philosophers' books, that fire does not burn, for that is contrary to nature. But if it is written that fire has the power to dry and heat, this should be believed because it happens naturally. Nature always agrees with sound understanding, and nothing in nature is difficult; all truth is simple. Let the seeker also learn to recognise which things in nature are nearer to one another. I think this can be learned more easily through my writings than through others. I believe I have written enough, until someone else comes to write the entire recipe, like making cheese from milk. That I am not permitted to do.