But through long ignorance this was not properly applied, and others could make no use of it. They failed to observe that, through prolonged digestion, metals continually become more volatile and finally distil over to a considerable extent in their own colour. Instead, because the operation involves a corrosive, they rejected it as useless. They were especially troubled that, although the metal is repeatedly dissolved out of the corrosive and adapted to volatility, it still always prefers to become earthy again, since its body is disposed to earthiness. Hence precipitation readily returns metals to their former kind. But if they knew the thing that keeps metal always volatile, mild, and liquid, regardless of any precipitants poured into it, the metal would not assume a metallic condition. It would sooner unite with the precipitants and become a third thing. Note that this thing is not properly found in the mineral kingdom; it must be sought elsewhere in nature. Observe the principal point: through it the mineral attains a nobler alteration, so that not only mineral nature but all other natures too can partake of it without the least danger. You laboratory workers, see how vegetable spirits, waters, oils, and vinegars remain constant in volatility longer than minerals, and animal volatility still more readily. Yet everything, by its inborn and created disposition, strives to become earthy, seeking its place of rest, without which things are never mobile. We see all vinegars dry and become mother; all oils thicken; all waters deposit an earth. If even the most highly rectified spirit of wine finds a subject to cling to, it immediately becomes earthy too. The whole aim of medicinal chymical art in the mineral kingdom is this: the mineral is reduced through its own moistures. Since that reduction is purely mineral and corrosive, it is heterogeneous to vegetable and animal nature. The aim is therefore to correct and dulcify this corrosive condition, transplanting it from mineral kind into vegetable, and from this into animal kind—into vegetable, and from this into animal nature. This is the aim. Otherwise the mineral is heterogeneous and remains so until it undergoes such correction.

Many hundreds, indeed thousands, of laboratory workers have described all kinds of menstrua and radical dissolvents. Each has judged his own the best, despite obtaining poor results. Had they considered nature's ground and rule, they would have found a much nearer route. They have often made such radical menstrua themselves, and these can also be bought everywhere; the difficulty lies only in knowing their application. People commonly describe a menstruum generally called aquafortis or aqua regia, making it from two parts vitriol and one part saltpetre. Or, after calcining the vitriol a little, they mix it with crude saltpetre and distil an aquafortis. It gives them the effect their manner of working produces, but this is not the right route. The reason is that, when saltpetre meets vitriol in the heat, the vitriol contains a burning sulphur contrary to saltpetre. It drives out saltpetre's spirit too quickly, before that spirit can properly attack and dissolve the vitriol. Spirit of nitre passes into the receiver, carrying a little volatile vitriolic sulphur with it, which also accounts for the smell of aquafortis. The difference between aquafortis and spirit of nitre made with clay likewise shows this. What remains is fixed vitriol, so far as saltpetre and fire can make it: it has been fixed rather than dissolved by the nitre, constrained in the fire, flowing and sweating.

The right method is this. Make aquafortis in the common way, or spirit of nitre with clay. Pour one pound of it over one pound of pure vitriol calcined to whiteness, put it in a retort, and slowly distil off the aquafortis by degrees. Do not calcine the vitriol; proceed slowly in sand, only as far as the third degree. If you draw the aquafortis too strongly from the vitriol, you will fix the vitriol rather than dissolve it. Once the aquafortis has distilled over, add one pound of fresh aquafortis and pour them together back upon the vitriol in the retort. Let them dissolve and digest for one day and night, then distil slowly again, reducing only to a third part. The vitriol becomes greasy as butter, like another oil: a regenerated spiritual universal gur. This must be reduced and dissolved again into a liquid vapour if it is to bring another of its kind into the same nature. Therefore take the aquafortis that came over and add another pound of fresh aquafortis, making three pounds to one pound of vitriol. Pour it back upon the vitriol, let it dissolve and digest for a day and night, and slowly distil again by degrees. Most of the vitriol will come over entirely spiritual with the aquafortis. If not all comes over, cohobate until it has all passed without leaving any residue. Once all has come over, drive it over by itself once, twice, or three times. The true radical menstruum is ready to throw and reduce all red stars into first matter and make them like itself. The same may be done with spirit of salt if desired, although it is unnecessary: the preceding preparation resolves all acidic and alkaline subjects, as experience will show. If one wishes to distinguish red from white stars, though it is not essential, use the menstruum of vitriol for the red and of alum for the white. Make a menstruum from aquafortis or spirit of nitre and alum by the method just given for vitriol.

I have now disclosed another manual procedure that many have omitted, neither knowing it nor attending to it. In this stroke I have set down the lesser proposition. You, diligent and well-grounded practitioner, will know how to argue from the lesser to the greater and forge the consequence; otherwise I cannot help you further. At least you have here, if you understand me, a completely clear ground for making fixed things volatile. If you understand it, keep it secret and remain silent, although it stands so open that anyone can enter the door, unless God or their own blindness puts a stick before them over which they stumble. The door is now open: enter the chamber, friend. I nearly erred. Note that I have given you the key to open every lock. Yet no lock is quite like another; though they open by the same means, much varied application and trial will be needed, and some will think the key improperly made for all locks. There is your key, and you have a hand to open the gates and a foot to walk inside. Or must I carry you, like hounds to the hunt? Very well: climb upon my back. I shall carry you through every gate to the naked king in his bed. But beware when the King of Nature comes: danger hangs over your neck. He will be angry; if your mind is full of vice, you are done for. Approach with pure and modest bearing, lest you be charged with an evil conscience and opposing evil. Beware, I tell you, for the king is a lord who searches your heart and kidneys.

Let us first supply a small distinction to make the art easier to understand. By alkalized pieces I mean all highly fixed mineral, embryonated, and metallic sulphurs: ores of gold, iron, and tin, talc, emery, haematite, and countless less familiar things of the same kind. In these, acid has reverberated, coagulated, and fixed strongly, bringing them into a fixed alkaline nature. Without an alkaline being, they are difficult to return to a first state. By acidic subjects I mean all those still dominated by acid and readily dissolved by acid, not strongly alkalized and fixed: lead, bismuth, and other white sulphurs and arsenicals. In the practice of dissolution they show their quality themselves, as I explained in the generation of minerals. What acid attacks, regard as acidic; what alkali attacks, as alkaline; what both attack together or separately, I regard as possessing both natures. Among hermaphroditic subjects I count ores and metals in which acid has begun to become fixed but, through weak digestion, remained halfway: copper, iron, and mercury. Such subjects can be dissolved and treated separately in an acidic spirit and in an alkaline one. This proposition does not apply with the same strictness to the menstruum given above. It applies when subjects are treated with universal menstrua alone, such as aquafortis or spirits of nitre and salt, which, because of their subtle liquidity, suffer some delay upon one subject or another. When specified with the proper vitriolic or aluminous mineral acid, however, they no longer require this precaution.