Stir into action and tend

Meaning

Stirring into action and tending are limited forms of assistance in the main process-account. Mercurial water, called the fire of wisdom, is the active principle; common fire and art stimulate it. The work is then said to proceed of itself except for care of the fire.

The English ‘stirred into action’ does not necessarily mean mechanical stirring, and ‘tending’ is not equivalent to abandoning the apparatus. The sentence distinguishes a principal agent from its instrumental support. It should therefore be read neither as a promise of wholly unattended work nor as a claim that the practitioner personally performs every transformation named in the ensuing description.