figuratively, lest those divine mysteries, by which nature is illustrated, should be discovered to the unworthy; which thou, if thou

knowest how to know thyself, and art not of a stiff neck, mayest easily comprehend, who art created after the likeness of the great world, yea after the image of God. Thou hast in thy body the anatomy of the whole world, and all thy members answer to some celestials; let, therefore, the searcher of this Sacred Science know that the soul in man, the lesser world or microcosm, substituting the place of its center, is the king, and is placed in the vital spirit in the purest blood. That governs the mind, and the mind the body; but this same sol, by which man differs from other animals and which operates in the body, governing all its motions, hath a far greater operation out of the body, because out of the body it absolutely reigns; and in this respect, it differs from the life of other creatures which have only spirit and not the soul of Deity (5). Such are the distinctive assertions of one esteemed an adept by his contemporaries, and who professes to ground them also on his own manual experience in the proto-chemistry of Hermes. And, whether they be entirely credited or not, these may help to elucidate the words of Trismegistus, where, in the first chapter of the Golden Treatise, he says, --- that the work is both in us and about us; and that the whole mystery is comprehended in the hidden elements of his Wisdom (6). And Geber, in the same sense, where he declares that he who in himself knows no natural principles, is very remote from this sacred science, because he has not the true root in him whereon to base his labor and intention (7). Observe, therefore, and take heed, says Basil, that all metals and minerals have one root from whence their descent is; he that knows that rightly needs not destroy metals in order to extract the spirit from one, the sulfur from another, or salt from another; for there is a nearer place yet in which these three, viz., the mercury, slat and sulfur --- spirit, body and soul --- lie hid together in one thing, well known, and whence they may with great praise be gotten. He that knows exactly this golden seed or magnet, and searcheth thoroughly into its properties, he hath the true root of life, and may attain to that which his heart longs for; wherefore I intreat, continues the monk, all true lovers of mineral science, and sons of art, diligently to inquire after this metallic seed, or root, and be assured that it is not an idle chimera or dream, but a real and certain truth (8). It was from such an internal intimacy, and central searching of the mystery, that the Paracelsian Crollius tells us he came to know that the same light and mineral vapor, which produces gold within the bowels of the earth is also in man, and that the same is the generating spirit of all creatures (9). And Albertus Magnus, in his book of Minerals, after asserting that gold may be found everywhere, in the final analysis of every natural thing, concludes by showing that the highest mineral virtue nevertheless resides in man; for fire, which is the true aurific principle in the life of all, burns more than all glorious in him erect. --- Our Mercury is philosophic, fiery, vital --- which may be mixed with all metals and again be separated from them; it is prepared in the innermost chamber of life, and there it is coagulated, as the Hermetic phrase runs, and where metals grow where they may be found (10). Remember how man, ys most noble creature In Erths composycion that ever God wrought, In whom are the fowre elements proportioned by nature, A naturall mercuryalyte which cost right nought, Out of hy myner by arte yt most be brought; For our mettalls be nought ells but miners too, Of our Soon and Moone, wyse Reymond seyd so (11). And though the philosophers have chosen to say little about it, on account of the shortness of this work, as Maria says, yet they themselves found out these hidden elements, and themselves increased them. And thou, oh, Man, cries the Arabian Aliphili, even thou art he who through the breath and power of the water and earth in thyself, conjoinest the elements and makest them one; and thyself not knowing what a treasure thou hast hidden in thee, from the coagulation and consent of these powers, producest an essence, called, by us, the expert, the great and miraculous mystery of the world; that is the true fiery water. --- Eschva mayim, Erascha mayim, yea, it surmounts in its power, the fire, air, earth and water; for it dissolves radically, incrudates even the mature, constant, and very fixed, fiery