The Summary of Physics Restored

69From those two denser natures, namely earth and water, nature draws her elements, from which she fashions her vessels and bodily organs. For their mixture produces mud, and mud is the immediate matter of generated things: it is like a chaos in which all the elements are present confusedly and potentially. The first parent of humankind was created from mud, and all generation thereafter proceeded from mud. In the generation of animals, mud is formed from seed and menstrual matter, and from it the animal. In the production of plants, seeds first pass through putrefaction into subtle mud and are then made firm into a plant's body. In the generation of metals, mud arises from sulphur and mercury perfectly mixed and dissolved into a fatty water; from it metallic bodies are hardened through long cooking. In the philosophical dissolution of metals and the creation of the philosophers' secret, mud is first brought forth when the seed of each parent has been purified and mixed.