Sal Lumen and Spiritus Mundi Philosophici

Otherwise each thing would have to produce something unlike itself: a human would generate a tree, a plant make an ox, and a metal an herb. I say this only with regard to the specification of things. For if we consider this most general genus, as Raymond Lulle calls it, whatever it is given to, it will make its like, because it is Mercury and assumes the nature of everything with which it is mixed. But human art cannot do what is granted to Nature alone. Nature generates and brings forth the species, which art afterwards extends and multiplies, provided the operation begins from the root of the species. All prudent natural philosophers know well how to do this: drawing from the mines this spirit which has already begun to take on a specific character, then duly purifying it and bringing it to perfection, they render it capable of perfecting imperfect things. When these matters have been examined precisely, the experienced and discerning practitioner will draw admirable adaptations from them.