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3. This is the Intention, and the essential point of the Operations of this Key, which
terminate at the generation of a new substance infinitely nobler than the First.
4. After the Wise Artist has made a spring of living water come out of the stone, and has
pressed out the vine of the philosophers, and has made their wine, he ought to take notice
that in this homogeneous substance, which appears under the form of Water, there are
three different substances, and three natural principles of bodies -- Salt, Sulphur and
Mercury -- which are the spirit, the soul, and the body; and though they appear pure and
perfectly united together, there still wants much of their being so; for when by distillation
we draw the Water, which is the soul and the spirit, the Body remains in the bottom of the
vessel, like a dead, black, and dredgy earth, which, nevertheless, is not to be despised; for
in our subject there is nothing which is not good.
5. The philosopher, John Pontanus, protests that the very superfluities of the Stone are
converted into a true essence, and that he who pretends to separate anything from our
subject knows nothing of philosophy; for that all which is therein superfluous, unclean,
dredgy -- in fine, the whole compound, is made perfect by the action of our Fire.
6. This advice opens the eyes of those, who, to make an exact purification of the
Elements and of the Principles, persuade themselves that they must only take the subtile
and cast away the heavy. But Hermes says that power of it is not integral until it be
turned into earth; neither ought the sons of science to be ignorant that the Fire and the
Sulphur are hidden in the centre of the Earth, and that they must wash it exactly with its
spirit, to extract out of it the Fixed Salt, which is the Blood of our Stone. This is the
essential Mystery of the operation, which is not accomplished till after a convenient
digestionand a slow distillation.
7. You know that nothing is more contrary than fire and water; but yet the Wise Artist
must make peace between the enemies, who radically love each other vehemently.
Cosmopolite told the manner thereof in a few words: All things must therefore being
purged make Fire and Water to be Friends, which they will easily do in their earth, which
had ascended with them. Be then attentive on this point; moisten oftentimes the earth
with its water, and you will obtain what you seek. Must not the body be dissolved by the
water, and the Earth be penetrated with its Humidity, to be made proper for generation?
According to philosophers, the Spirit is Eve, the Body is Adam; they ought to be joined
together for the propagation of their species. Hermes says the same in other terms: "For
Water is the strongest Nature which surmounts and excites the fixed Nature in the Body,
that is, rejoices in it."
8. In effect, these two substances, which are of the same nature but of different genders,
ascend insensibly together, leaving but a little faeces in the bottom of their vessel; so that
the soul, spirit, and body, after an exact purification, appear at last inseparably united
under a more noble and more perfect Form than it was before, and as different from its
first liquid Form as the alcohol of Wine exactly rectified and actuated with its salt is
different from the substance of the wine from whence it has been drawn; this comparison
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