The reason for the rapid fertility has been stated above: plants draw and seize nitre very eagerly and abundantly, but because of salt’s fixity they cannot receive so much of it. Since salt, together with earth, has the upper hand over nitre, its attraction makes the volatile portion of rain or dew into nitre. Plants draw part of this to themselves; salt fixes another part into salt by the earth’s central and solar heat, thus increasing its magnetic quantity and quality. It therefore continually increases and diminishes. It replaces from below and above what the plant has seized. To prevent all nitre from becoming salt, nature sends down abundant volatile dew and rain, especially after prolonged sunshine, when the earthly nitre or seed is already being reverberated too strongly. Then the abundant volatile comes—that is, rain—from which salt very eagerly draws the volatile nitre and tends to fix it. But the plants have been greatly dried by the sun and are therefore also continually eager to draw that nitre to themselves. Thus they forcibly snatch nitre away from the salt. The salt is partly increased and partly deprived of it, and this proceeds without ceasing in an eternal circulation, so to speak, until the Creator changes his order.

If alkali or salt gained the upper hand—it is the true principle of minerals with respect to fixity—it would produce nothing but minerals, stone, sand, and infertility instead of plants. The volatile is set against it to prevent this. Someone will say: “He contradicts himself. He says salt makes nitre fixed and turns it into salt; then the volatile, or rain, comes and makes the alkali into nitre. Yet he has said that one extreme does not act upon the other without a middle, and here he goes against himself.” Such a reader has not paid proper attention. I answer: earth is never empty of nitre. Though salt fixes it, it does not fix all of it at once. Its middle therefore remains: the volatile of nitre attaches itself to corporeal nitre, which attaches itself to alkali or salt. Each attracts the other, and each is the other’s magnet, as I have already said. From this the reader now sees vegetable generation and growth as far as this little treatise permits. Whoever wants a fuller explanation should seek it from the learned and the botanists, who will give an account both generally and in particular.

Vegetable seed is therefore a coagulated water and, when dissolved, a slimy water, as in animals: hence it is a vegetable Gur. This further shows that everything is born from water and reduced again to water, thereby meeting its death and passing away, as will be clearly described in the second treatise on anatomy. This is a brief account of vegetable generation. As their anatomy reveals, plants consist of much volatile matter, less acid, and still less alkali. Nevertheless, this entire constitution—volatile, acid, and alkali alike—is more acidic or contracting than animal substance. This can be perceived in their volatile burning spirit, which always carries a slight astringency. Their acid or vinegar needs no proof, since it is plainly astringent; their alkali, however, nearly agrees with animal alkali. That this is so is evident. They must have more volatile matter than acid, or they could not grow so quickly, so tall and large, and upward: that is their motion. The volatile must outweigh the acid, and the volatile itself is also of an acidic kind. If the astringent acid gained the upper hand, they could not grow upward in this way, but would remain more “by the air,” or even become minerals, since being strongly acidic is especially characteristic of the mineral kingdom.

Vegetable acid is somewhat less abundant, yet powerfully astringent and strong. We can see this in how firmly it contracts and coagulates many trees and herbs, making them so hard, woody, and tough that iron and fire can scarcely overcome them. Their strong acid is also shown by how firmly and immovably they cling to the earth. If their volatile overcame the acid, as it does in animals, they would be much more mobile. This can be seen in plantings, where the volatile has a considerable upper hand and is no longer as astringent as in immovable plants possessing a strongly astringent acid. That they nevertheless have a motion is plain: they grow from day to day and week to week, increasing in length, thickness, and size. Increase and growth are a motion, though differing by many degrees from animal movement. Vegetable alkali is fixed, not so astringent, as with animals. Anatomy demonstrates this. These are the nobler parts of every vegetable. Although they have other parts, the rest are referred to these three: subtle phlegm to the volatile, coarser phlegm and oil to the acid, charcoal or the dead head and ashes to the alkali. Let the reader again observe that one plant has more essential and nobler parts than another, just as animals, according to each one’s predestination, have more or less volatile matter, more or less acid, and likewise alkali.

The reader should also observe that plants and animals can be brought wholly into a volatile condition, or into pure acid and alkali, according to how the process is conducted. If they are distilled without fermentation, one obtains almost nothing but phlegm, having only a very fleeting smell according to the subject; after that comes an abundant acid, while the alkali remains in the dead head. But when the material is fermented and putrefied, it yields volatile matter of better quality and in greater quantity. Again the reader sees that the distinction lies in volatile, acid, and alkali, or between volatile and fixed, and that the volatile can be made entirely fixed, and conversely the fixed entirely volatile. These principles therefore differ not essentially but accidentally. If something is very volatile, it is called the volatile; if a little more fixed, acid; if wholly fixed, alkali. Yet all comes from one root and stem: a volatile chaotic water and the spirit hidden volatily within it. Through putrefaction and fermentation that spirit, like Proteus, transforms itself into so many thousands of shapes, according to which it receives different names and designations. This chapter is becoming rather long because I continually insert incidental matters, though they are not entirely beside the point. If they do not serve one person, they serve another, and many a reader is glad to find a doubt resolved.

To return to my purpose, I shall recount some virtues of this kingdom. Every practitioner should mark what follows as a principal point. Many chymists have laboured and long contended to make the mineral kingdom homogeneous with the animal, so that it might be received as agreeable, pleasant, and sweet, free of all corrosiveness, for nourishment and preservation and for curing and healing ailments. They see that, in its anatomy by fire, the mineral kingdom becomes extremely sharp, biting, corrosive, and poisonous, and is thus directly contrary and opposed to the animal kingdom, heterogeneous with it and highly harmful. To bring this into a pleasant condition, they have always employed alkalized burning spirits, digesting and circulating them upon it, burning them off, and undertaking many similar things. Yet the irksome labour and great expense have not given satisfaction. So that my heart may now be revealed and my faithfulness toward my neighbour perceived, I shall offer here, in theory and practice, my labour and sweat, so that each person may obtain at least a hundredfold more satisfaction than before. First, however, to make the distinction clearer, I shall set out the customary, common practice of chymists: how they generally sweeten, edulcorate, or dulcify corrosives, supposing thereby to attain their purpose.

The customary edulcoration and sweetening of all corrosives has hitherto used most highly rectified or alkalized spirit of wine. This was digested and circulated upon the corrosive precipitate for a long time, poured on and drawn off several times, or else simply burned away from it six, seven, or nine times. Then it was said: “It has been corrected and sweetened.” But the result showed that they administered such a corrected preparation to the human body with trembling and danger. I shall now set out my own edulcorations, with their reasons and a demonstration of why no corrosive can properly be sweetened without a middle. Throughout this treatise I have repeatedly taught and explained the axiom that one cannot pass from one extreme to the other without a middle. Let every chymist mark this point well and keep it in mind day and night if he wishes to make progress in chymistry. All philosophers and bachelors may know this axiom by heart; yet in practice they cannot determine what is an extreme and what is a middle. From this the world is full of error, though the distinction is easy to recognize and find. A practitioner should know each thing’s nature and kind, and can readily see whether something is fixed or volatile.

The volatile part, especially spirit of wine, escapes with a weak fire through the tallest flask and the alembic. This proves its extreme volatility. By contrast, at that degree of fire no corrosive rises with it, even if it has been made into a spirit and driven over volatily—for example, aqua fortis, spirit of nitre, salt, or sulphur, or their oils. These do not rise through so tall a flask, and pass through a retort only with great difficulty and a strong fire. From this a practitioner should learn that, compared with spirit of wine’s extreme volatility, such spirits are of a fixed kind. Being more fixed, they are contrary to spirit of wine and constitute an extreme. We can see and conclude that a middle is lacking. The practitioner should seek it, and it is easily found if homogeneous nature is considered more closely. Observe how slowly and in feeble drops a corrosive rises over, and conversely how quickly, in a little stream, spirit of wine runs into the receiver. A practitioner must recognize a very great difference between these, as practice also shows.