One of these philosophical ways and procedures for preparing the stone or tincture is clearly, though very briefly, contained in the following ancient verses:

If you dissolve the fixed and make the dissolved fly, and fix the winged thing, it will let you live secure.

To this the following should be added:

Make Mercury through Mercury, through mercurial water.

To answer the fourth and last objection also: the rule cited is and remains true in itself.

Yet the objection makes sufficiently evident that this philosopher does not know what the Hermetic art and gold-making described above are. He understands neither the causes nor the principles of things, and has not learned to investigate their interiors. He must make do instead with the mere outward appearance of this or that thing.

If, by contrast, one knows both how to consider the causes of things speculatively and theoretically and trace them back to their true origin—what the world-renowned Andreas Kellæus calls philosophizing rightly and wisely—and how to resolve particular things practically into their principles, one will judge the matter very differently.

At various places above we have sufficiently considered universal and particular natures, together with the causes and principles of things. In particular we have demonstrated and proved rainwater’s universal power, both from principles and from effects.

If we now trace particular things physically back to their beginning, as was done in Part One, and on this occasion leave animals entirely aside as irrelevant to our purpose, we may begin with plants. Taking the beautiful carnation as our example, we pass from the flower to the plant and from the plant to the seed.

Yet a philosopher ought to know more about this than a gardener. We therefore proceed further, from the seed to the earth and from the earth to water.

Even this is not enough. Suppose, therefore, that we proceed both physically and theosophically: we trace not only the flower to the plant and the plant to the seed, as already mentioned, but the seed to the word, “Let the earth bring forth.” Again, we trace not only the seed to earth and earth to water, but both water and the word, “Let the earth bring forth,” to God’s universal and substantial Word.

Suppose also that we turn to minerals and metals, which arise from the elements without any particular seed. The Mercury, sulphur and salt already mentioned, colostrum, mine vapours, Metallferck, the gur found in mines, and other such named substances are all, in their respective cases, elements specified towards minerals and metals: a mineral water and an unripe metal or mineral. This may be shown and inferred from the earlier account of Bier’s water and from other experience. We trace these substances not only to the elements already discussed, but trace those elements in turn to God’s universal and substantial Word. In this secondary order the elements themselves operate and specify themselves without any particular word or command.

We then discover the true cause of all things, the true principle that of itself communicates being to another. For, as quoted above, Christ the Lord himself says in chapter three of John’s Revelation that he is “the beginning of the creation of God.” The pagan philosophers gave the principle such a name, yet did not recognize it themselves, and may not even have known what they intended by that expression.

As for investigation of interiors and practical work, I have so far used the carnation as my example, and shall not yet depart from it.

Since almost every young girl knows that the carnation grows from its own seed, there is nothing further for me to report here except this: when such a little seed is opened, nothing is found in it but a little water and earth. This sufficiently testifies that the seed was originally created from those elements and arose from them.

It is, however, entirely untrue that a universal medicine can be prepared from such waters or waters of that kind. They are not elements but things constituted from elements. More was said about this in Part One; for brevity I refer back to it, both on this point and on minerals and their so-called reduction to first matter.

To continue the preceding purpose: it might not be inappropriate to say more here about stripping off our subject’s coarse coat and laying it bare. For the reasons just mentioned and others, however, I shall leave the matter at what has been said in Chapter Two of this part and elsewhere. Concerning rainwater, I likewise appeal to the statement in Part One that by breaking it down and opening it, a splendid spirit, oil and salt may be obtained. I appeal especially to the projection already mentioned as performed with such an oil, to the other examples cited above, and to Sperling, who says: “Against the experiments of writers, no authority prevails.”

Moreover, Sennert answers in a matter of the same kind with Aristotle’s own words: “To seek reasons and dismiss the senses is a certain weakness of mind.” A person who will heed neither the reasons nor the examples and the senses must therefore suffer from a double weakness. Water contains the root of metals and of the essence of gold, and tincturing gold has been obtained from rainwater, as both points have been demonstrated and shown above.

Not to mention that the opponent repeatedly referred to virtually contradicts himself. On the strength of the rule cited, he denies that gold arises from water, yet proposes to assign its origin to earth. Who does not see that water is a nobler body than earth? As to weight, observe that it comes precisely from water. If an earth is calcined and thrown onto water, it will not sink until it has first drawn itself full of water again.