A Short Treatise Called Philosophical Summary

Ein kurtzer Tractat genant Summarium Philosophicum, Nicolai Flamelli

Chapter Outline

The metallic seeds and their four elementary constituents

Winged and wingless dragons and the flying lion

Mercury as mother of the metals and the problem of killing it

Fixed grains in lead ore and the fruit tree analogy

Living conjunction contrasted with the treatment of common metals

The philosophers’ garden and the nourishment of warmth and dew

The assistance of art and the royal Saturnian herb

One practice for white and red and the hatching of the chick

Prayer and the purpose of the summary

A short treatise called Philosophical Summary, by Nicolas Flamel. Anyone who wishes to attain knowledge of the metals and certain understanding of how they are transmuted and changed from one into another must first of all understand from what and how they are formed in their ores. Thus, to avoid error, one must observe the transmutations that take place everywhere in the veins of the earth. For this reason they can also be transmuted outside their ores, provided that they are first made spiritual: that is, brought into their sulphur and quicksilver, which Nature makes. For all metals are formed from sulphur and quicksilver, the two seeds of every metal; one is masculine and the other feminine in kind and complexion. These two seeds, however, are composed of the four elements. The first, masculine one, called sulphur, is nothing other than fire and air. It is a fixed sulphur, like fire, of an unchanging and metallic nature; it is not common sulphur, for that has no metallic substance. The other, feminine seed, called quicksilver, is nothing other than water and earth.

The ancient sages represented these two seeds by two dragons or serpents, one with wings and the other without. The wingless dragon is sulphur, which never flies away from the fire. The winged serpent is quicksilver, carried off by the wind: the feminine seed made from water and earth. For this reason it flies away from the fire in its own time and is unstable within it. But when these two different seeds, separated from one another, are brought together again and united by a triumphant Nature in the book of Mercury, who is the first metal and the mother of the metals, the philosophers call it the flying dragon. A dragon kindled by its own fire gradually casts fire and poisonous vapour into the air as it flies. Mercury does the same when it stands in its proper place in a vessel above the external fire, and that fire is correctly ordered to kindle the inward natural fire hidden deep within it. Then one can see how this external fire, called the vegetable fire, kindles Mercury’s natural fire. Anyone who keeps watch will also see a poisonous smoke or vapour shoot into the air and move through it: foul smelling, harmful, very bitter, kindled, and the worst of poisons. This is nothing other than a dragon’s head, which rises swiftly from Babylon, encompassing two or three miles.

Other philosophers have compared this Mercury to a flying lion and called it by that name because the lion eats many kinds of animal and satisfies its appetite with them, except for those able to resist its fury by force. Mercury does the same: it has the power to strip any metal added to it of its form at once, eating and swallowing it. Yet I remind you that there are two metals, gold and silver, which know how to confront it. It is also known, however, that when this Mercury is kindled, it swallows these two metals as well and hides them in its belly. Nevertheless, whichever of them enters it, it does not consume it. For they are perfect in their nature and more thoroughly hardened than Mercury, which is an imperfect metal, although a substance of perfection is present within it. Common gold, which is a perfect metal, silver also, and all the imperfect metals come from Mercury. All philosophers therefore call it a mother of the metals. And since it is itself formed into something, it follows that a twofold metallic substance is within it: first the substance of the lower Moon, and then that of the Sun, a metal which the others do not equal. Mercury is formed from these two substances, which are present spiritually within its body. As soon as Nature has shaped this Mercury from the two spirits mentioned, it desires to form them perfectly and make them bodily, which cannot take place without it.

When these two spirits rouse themselves and the two seeds awaken, desiring to assume their own body, their mother Mercury must die. When it has thus been killed naturally, it can no longer make itself as living as it was before. Boastful alchemists indeed say and affirm in obscure words that the perfect and imperfect bodies should be made into a flowing Mercury; but there is deception behind this. It is true that Mercury consumes an imperfect metal such as lead or tin and multiplies it in quantity without difficulty. Through this, however, it loses its perfection, so that it is no longer a perfect Mercury. If it were killed by art so that it could no longer make itself living again, it would become a different thing, as happens in cinnabar or sublimate. For when it is congealed by art, whether quickly or slowly, its two seeds assume no fixed body and would not retain one, as otherwise happens in the veins of the earth.

But so that no one errs in this matter: Nature cannot congeal it beneath the earth, even to the smallest extent, without a fixed grain soon appearing, one that brings forth a true germ from Mercury’s two seeds, as may be seen in lead veins. For there is no such vein without a true fixed grain in it, namely of gold and silver, in substance and nourishment. Mercury’s first congelation is the ore of lead, and this is the most suitable for bringing it to perfection so that it becomes fixed. As said above, lead ore is not without a fixed grain of gold and silver; Nature places these grains there. Thus it can multiply and attain perfection and full strength, as I have experienced and can certainly affirm. As long as it remains within its Mercury—that is, is not separated from its ore but kept safely within it, for every metal still within the ore is still a Mercury—it can multiply, provided only that it can obtain substance from its Mercury. But when the fixed grain is taken away and separated from its Mercury, which is its ore, it will be like green, unripe fruit on the tree. When the blossom passes away, the fruit begins to form and becomes an apple. Anyone who plucked the unripe fruit would destroy its first formation, for a person does not have the knowledge to impart substance or ripening as lower Nature can while the fruit is still on the tree and can receive its substance and nourishment from Nature. As one waits for it to ripen, the fruit acquires its flavour and continually draws sap into itself, increasing and nourishing itself until it becomes fully ripe and perfect.

The same holds for gold. When Nature has made its grain and brought it into a Mercury, she nourishes it daily, early and late, increases it and makes it perfect within its Mercury, as it is. One must wait until it receives substance from its Mercury, just as the fruit on a tree does. For know that Mercury is a tree of the perfect and imperfect metals; therefore they can receive nourishment only from their own Mercury. I say, then, that if you wish to gather fruit from Mercury, which is the shining Sun and Moon, and it happens that in some way they are far apart, even without remaining so for long, do not suppose that you will be able to join them together again as Nature originally did, in order to multiply them properly and increase them without alteration. For when metals have been separated from their ore, you find them each by itself, like little fruits plucked too early and unripe, which will never grow large. Nature and experience also teach us, concerning fruit on trees, that when an apple or pear has been taken from the tree, it is folly to put it back on the shoot so that it will grow large and ripe. We know that the more one rolls it about in one’s hands, the sooner it withers. So it is with metals. Anyone who took common metallic gold and silver and wished to bring them into a Mercury would act foolishly. No subtle art could be found for doing this without deceiving oneself, even if one employed many kinds of water or cement or countless other things, too numerous to relate. The effort would continually fail, and one would fare like those who pluck unripe fruit and think of putting it back on the trunk.

Some true philosophers have indeed rightly said that if the Sun and Moon are joined through the true Mercury, they then make all imperfect metals perfect. But most people err in this, having no other thing on earth—whether vegetable, animal or mineral—than these three, which are together in one thing. They fail to notice that the philosophers are not speaking of common gold, silver and Mercury, which are entirely dead and take in no further substance, but remain as they are. None of them can help another to become perfect. They truly are fruit taken from the tree before its time and therefore disregarded. What one seeks is not found within them. They have no more than they themselves require. One must therefore seek the fruit on the tree that still supplies it, fruit which grows larger and increases from day to day for as long as the tree supplies it. This work is a delight to behold. By this means one can begin to transplant the tree without gathering its fruit and set it in another, more fertile and better soil, which may give the fruit more nourishment in one day than it would otherwise have received from another soil in a hundred years.