In that writing, among other things, he expressly admits that when his Gold of the Breeze is placed in the sun it becomes pale and loses its colour. This sufficiently shows that it is no Hermetic philosophical gold. He therefore also bears the name Hermes wrongly and vainly hopes to attain the philosophers’ stone.

Furthermore, although Part One said that wind and air are the philosophers’ world-spirit, this must be understood only in a relative sense. It is known that there are different regions of the air. Both tinctures, of fire and of water—the ferment and Azoth—belong to the philosophical work. One alone is not enough, as will be mentioned below, and, once and for all, both must be drawn from a single root.

Nevertheless, I wish to praise B.’s diligence and curiosity and not despise his medicine, so far as the Gold of the Breeze and World-Spirit are concerned. I acknowledge with the author of the Revelation of Divine Majesty that wind and air contain no few mysteries. But B., I say again, lacks the true secret by either route. I pass over the fact that Inferior Astronomy considers it fanciful to collect air with special instruments.

As for May dew, although in some respects it can be compared more closely with the subject of the Hermetic art than rainwater can, it is nevertheless not that subject so often mentioned.

It may also be known that even simply distilled May dew gives great help in feverish illnesses.

I also wished to observe in this chapter that, since water can undergo equal balancing, we may infer that at the very beginning it too was, as often stated, a uniform water, although raw, rather than a confused chaos or a jumble. For through art we can improve nature but cannot change it. Every end testifies to its beginning, just as every beginning testifies to its end.

This is not impaired by the fact that the elements separated from water are contrary and opposed to one another and to water, or by the rule that there is no return from privation to possession. Their present disproportion, contrariety and opposition are accidental, not substantial. The elements are disproportionate and opposed only in their qualities and accidents, not in their essence. The equal balancing and perfection of our magistery are accomplished solely, as stated before, by removing superfluities, according to the familiar saying: “Nothing is to be added, nothing diminished; only superfluities are to be removed.”

The magistery, however, can no more be returned to its former form and rawness than flour can be made into grain again. The axiom quoted above—that there is no return from privation to possession—thus remains true.

I shall now conclude this chapter with the following question, which accords with my purpose and which I also consider necessary in itself.

Namely: should the words recorded in Dr Helvetius’s Golden Calf, spoken to him by the so-called Elias the Artist—that the entire philosophical work is accomplished in four days, in an open fire and in a crucible—be understood literally?

There is no doubt that many have adopted this opinion, understand those words literally and are thereby misled. One man who wished to persuade himself that he possessed considerable understanding of our philosophy and art even insisted on this opinion against me with the greatest vehemence. But what a great error! What gross ignorance of nature! If we consider nature even a little, we find that in all three kingdoms it operates by degrees, not by leaps, gently and without violence. It also accomplishes everything in time and brings forth nothing before its time.

To come directly to the point without further digression, I leave everyone free to believe or disbelieve that I have correctly described the matter of the stone. Anyone of sound reason will at least agree with me that it is, once and for all, an entirely raw matter. By contrast, it is beyond doubt that the philosophers’ stone is the most perfect essence and, as already stated, the noblest and most precious thing on earth apart from the human soul. How, then, can it accord with reason and nature that such raw matter should be brought to its more-than-perfection in four days under a uniform and maximally strong degree of fire?

Yet I do not wish to accuse either Dr Helvetius or the practitioner in question of lying. Rather, I say that both spoke the truth, but in this philosophical manner: by the four days are meant the four principal colours. In the same way, and according to this philosophical mode of speech, I too can boast—God be thanked—that I saw the perfected stone, or red king, completed in three days, since strictly speaking there are only three principal colours.

The practitioner is also quite right when he says that the philosophers would not reveal how soon the work is completed, for this cannot be stated precisely. Nature indeed keeps its time and brings forth nothing before it: one cannot, for example, reap in spring or gather grapes in summer. Yet experience shows that fruits and grapes ripen earlier or later in one season than another, according to how much or how little the sun shines. So it is with this work. Depending on the operator’s diligence or negligence, and on whether the governance of the fire is conducted rightly or wrongly, the work is completed sooner or later—or may even be entirely spoiled.