THE PEARL BEFORE SWINE

This is
THE PHILOSOPHERS’ STONE,
set forth to the world in its mathematical elements;

through that narrow chink
by which at least these things about the Pearl may be known from it;

by that shell
which cannot be trampled underfoot,

by the Author.

[Device with the motto: “Festina lente” – “Make haste slowly.”]

Basel,
printed at the press of the brothers E. & J. R. Thurnisius,

1726.




Translated from the book:
Margarita Coram Porcis Hoc est Lapis Philosophorum in Mathematicis suis Elementis Mundo expositus; eâ rimâ, quâ ab eodem Margarita haec saltem nosci; Eâ Conchâ, quae conculari nequeat, Per authorem

To the most disgraceful descendants of the sordid Boeotian race,
he sends greeting.

It is, beyond doubt, something new and unheard-of among you that there has been a man who has laboured to bring to light the mathematical principles of the Philosophers’ Stone; rarer still that it should have been a pleasure to anyone to dedicate to you theses written on this subject. For since most authors in their dedications care more for what is their own than for what belongs to others, it would have been useless in my case, the author’s above all as a chemist to have dedicated my theses to a nation which scarcely looks after its own affairs, much less those of others. Cease to marvel at the novelty of the matter, good sirs! The work which I am attempting has been undertaken at least for the sake of leisure.

I too should like, after your manner, for a while, if it pleased the gods, to sit quietly with my scraps or my enjoyments, removed from every desire either of knowing or from the lust of ruling, besides that by which, as absolute despots of your dung-heaps, you set snares for the brute beasts that are your subjects, tear off their skins, and roast their flesh. Such indeed is wont to be the life of a purely natural man; and nowhere on earth will it be possible to lead it more safely than where that kind of life flourishes by public authority, as it does among you.

But since between Us and you, O tranquil nation, the distance of condition is no less than that of manners, and since among your gold-lovers it is not easy to attain to a state of tranquillity save by the mediation of gold, what wonder if I have applied some meditations and labours to obtaining it? They will cease, I promise, as soon as I have reached my goal, which at least is this: that it may be granted to me, a man, to live as a man among my own kind. Farewell, men; and see also that those like yourselves may fare well.

FIRST THESIS

1. That the spirituality of bodies, that is, their agility and activity, greater or less, is situated chiefly in their greater or lesser, easier or more difficult extensibility, no one, I think, in his right mind and who has paid even a little attention to physical effects will nowadays deny.

2. Hence air, of all the bodies that touch and surround us, is without doubt the most extensible, and, penetrating all the corners of the Macrocosm and Microcosm, is also the primary agent of all generation and corruption.

3. What air accomplishes throughout the whole globe of earth, that in the generation or corruption of metals is performed, for the most part, by Mercury, their proper agent, the shaper and the figment, according to the diversity of the earthy covering that it puts on.

4.
This same Mercury, at first a mere vapour of its own nature, known among miners under the name of the ethereal liquor “Metall-Ferch”, when it is coagulated, by means of a portion of metallic earth as yet ill-cohering with itself, to such a degree that it at least becomes palpable, then shows that appearance of a liquid and trembling metal which we call common Mercury, quicksilver. When a portion of sulphur is added, there is produced from it that red concretion which they call cinnabar. Next there follow, according to the difference of the earth with which it is coagulated, in their several order, the minerals and metals, of which two are, beyond all doubt, the purest and most constant gold and silver: the latter being compounded from a smaller portion of Mercury than gold, and from a larger portion of salt and earth; the former, however, being pre-eminently endowed with Mercury, by the weight and digestion of which element alone these two metals differ from one another.

5.
The truth of this thesis is clearly proved by the analysis of metals, by which, when it is rightly carried out, I, Robert, have learned by experience from labours performed with my own hands that each of them can at length be reduced to Mercury, salt, and earth, whether sulphureous or not. Moreover, with my own hands I have come to know the salt of the Moon, [combined] with common Mercury melted, to convert this same [substance] into Luna (silver), and conversely that metallic Mercury, melted together with Luna, is converted with its whole weight into Sol (gold). Whether with gain or without, I shall disclose to him whose ears I touch.

6.
And when these things have been duly weighed, I judge that one can now form a sufficiently safe opinion about the composition of metals; although I readily confess that, as regards the conversion of the four baser metals, I have not yet carried out all the experiments I desire, being for the most part distracted by envious, treacherous, and most unwelcome occupations. This at least I have observed: that Mercury, in proportion as it is more or less set in motion in the metallic mass, by this motion of its own more or less subtilizes or separates the coarse and earthy dregs, and thus produces a metallic concretion that is purer or more gross.

7.
If you duly complete the Chymical Work of this last day, you will be near to the Chymical Sabbath. I will therefore point out its stages.

1. Seek for yourself Mercury and Metallic Salt, the purest and at the same time the most fixed that is, the most constant in the fire that you can find, the former for the soul, the latter for the body.

2. For the matrix of these principles choose for yourself gold, having shaken off from it the crude earth, as a useless burden, of all the metals least burdened with earth, most rich in mercury, and therefore most highly extensible and cohesive, because only very few heterogeneous particles, interspersed between the Salt and the Mercury, are in it.

3. Separate these particles, few though they be, by scattering them into gold previously divided into atoms, into such a body as cannot be assimilated to the metallic Salt and Mercury nor overcome by them; when this has been done, that body will snatch down with itself to the bottom the earthy part of the gold and will leave on the surface pure Salt and Mercury, which thereafter will never of themselves be able, in any age, to return into metal.

4. Now set this Salt and Mercury in motion, by means of an external fire, one against the other with continual circular movement, so as to wear down and subtilize more and more their atoms. By this simple mechanism their extensibility, and together with extensibility their efficacy, will be increased, as the effect, God granting it, which will shortly follow, will teach you.

5. When they refuse any longer to move in a circle and settle down to the bottom, this will be for you a sign of a degree of homogeneity such that it will suffer no alteration from an external fire.

6. Cast it in, therefore that is, melt it together with any baser metal whatsoever; in this way that body, exceedingly homogeneous and extensible, will overcome the less homogeneous and extensible one, and will assimilate it to itself into a purer metallic nature, whose lower degree is Luna (silver): for that same body, which by reason of lack of metallic earth could not of itself return into metal, when it has now seized upon the earth of a baser metal, will with its own agility wear this down and changes it into a more subtle nature, which is nothing else than making a purer metal out of a more impure one. If it please you to go yet further, add to your metallic Salt and Mercury, already coagulated into a fixed stone, a new portion of the same principles, proportioned to them; in this way you will obtain the golden Stone, which is to be increased in quantity and quality as many times as the principles do not refuse coagulation – which at length, because of its extreme spirituality, must necessarily come about.

8.
But this purification and elaboration of the principles just indicated holds good not only in metals and minerals. I know, as a witness myself “with my own hands and my own eyes” (αὐτόχειρ καὶ αὐτόπτης), that the same process takes place in animals and vegetables with an analogous effect; nor can all those genuine chemists be ignorant of it, who have at least devoted constant labour to Medical Spagyrics – that is, to that separating and combining art whose aim is the preparation of medicines somewhat more noble than those that are commonly sold.

9.
For the very same power which purifies and universally restores all metallic bodies also purifies and renews all animal bodies, in so far as they are still capable of any restoration. Since these, for their order to subsist they need many mechanical organs, which the metals lack; it is not the office of the Philosophers’ Stone to restore these organs – that is the work of the Creator alone – but at most to preserve them.

Therefore, if you were to give the very Stone of the Philosophers to such sick people in whom the vital organs are utterly ruined or worn away, it would be to no purpose. Hence the precept of the Adepts about renovation in at least the fiftieth year of life, while the organs are still vigorous, is to be observed, etc.

Conversely, since remedies in our body can endure no force of actual fire, medicinal tinctures do not absolutely require that degree of fixation which metallic tinctures need, although it cannot be denied that, when endowed with it, they act more excellently. To one who understands this it will afterwards not be difficult to recognize all those chemical mountebanks who, without noticing this Stone remarkable as it is stumble upon it, and then make promises which quite surpass the powers of all creatures.

Moreover, on this very principle rests the rule of discrimination in chymical medicines themselves; and no one can prepare these completely unless he thoroughly knows the preparation of the Stone.

For all those common salts, elixirs, essences, tinctures, spirits, etc., are at the least so many fumes armed with unfolded stings, as those spagyrists truly know to whom it has been granted to employ such encheireses or solvents as note well extract nothing but the ethereal parts of simples, with which are mingled, leaving behind all the coarser elementary dross.

Since, however, such chemists are indeed rare, what wonder that there is so frequent a complaint about the rags or ineffectiveness of common Galenic and “chymical” medicines?

But hand off the tablet, enough! You have already seen, at least through a crack, the genuine chymical Pearl; if you are wise you will grasp it, and not trample it underfoot.

The End.