The Story of Alchemy and the Beginnings of Chemistry

"Think most diligently about this; often bear in mind, observe and comprehend, that all minerals and metals together, in the same time, and after the same fashion, and of one and the same principal matter, are produced and generated. That matter is no other than a mere vapour, which is extracted from the elementary earth by the superior stars, or by a sidereal distillation of the macrocosm; which sidereal hot infusion, with an airy sulphurous property, descending upon inferiors, so acts and operates as that there is implanted, spiritually and invisibly, a certain power and virtue in those metals and minerals; which fume, moreover, resolves in the earth into a certain water, wherefrom all metals are thenceforth generated and ripened to their perfection, and thence proceeds this or that metal or mineral, according as one of the three principles acquires dominion, and they have much or little of sulphur and salt, or an unequal mixture of these; whence some metals are fixed--that is, constant or stable; and some are volatile and easily changeable, as is seen in gold, silver, copper, iron, tin, and lead." (Basil Valentine.) "To grasp the invisible elements, to attract them by their material correspondences, to control, purify, and transform them by the living power of the Spirit--this is true Alchemy." (Paracelsus.) "Destruction perfects that which is good; for the good cannot appear on account of that which conceals it.... Each one of the visible metals is a concealment of the other six metals." (Paracelsus.) These sayings read like sentences in a forgotten tongue.