Golden Fleece — Trismosin (Splendor Solis Author), 18th-Century MS

Artifice Artistic skill or technique is nothing other than a single operation and per=
=fect preparation of materials, which wise and
provident Nature has made in the mixing of this work; to which
also belongs the moderate proportion and as=
=sured measure of this operation with a mature judgment and con=
=sidered prudence. For although art can at=
=tribute the Soleil Sun, representing gold and the lune Moon, representing silver before a new com=
=mencement to act like gold, it is only neces=
=sary through the art of the natural secret of mineral
matters to know how they have, in the bow=
=els of the earth, the foundation of their first prin=
=ciples; but it is very certain that art follows
another path than Nature does, having for this purpose
an entirely different and diverse operation. It is suitable
also afterwards that this artifice, proceeding from the
preceding natural roots at the beginning
of Nature, produces exquisite things that Na=
=ture could never procreate by itself; for
it is true that it is not in the power referring to Nature's own unaided capacity of being
able to engender things by itself through which
the metals of nature come to be procreated
almost as imperfect, and which nevertheless
immediately after and as if in less than nothing
can be perfected, by the rare secrets of
the ingenious artist; this proceeds from the tempo=
=ral matter of Nature, and which serves the artifice
of men when she relieves them with her free

means; then again artifice aids her by its
temporal operation, but in such a way that this
accomplished form can afterwards correspond
and make itself suitable to the first intentions
of Nature and to the last perfection of her de=
=signs. And although it must be done
with great artifice, let the stone mentioned
above return to the proper point of its first for=
=m, the essence of which she draws from the treasures of
Nature, just as all substan=
=tial forms of each thing grow in two dif=
=ferent ways, brutallement brutishly, referring to animal or irrational growth or by metals; yet it
is that they all proceed from an interior power
of the matter, except for the soul of man
which is in no way held and does not depend
at all like other things, on this terrestrial
and temporal submission. But take good care
also that the substantial form does not relate
and cannot condescend to the matter, were it not
that it was made by a certain operation of
some accidental form; not however that
this happens by its particular force, but rather
from some other operative substance, su=
=ch as fire or other similar heat
responding nearly to it, perfectly joined,
which must operate there.
We shall take the similarity of a hen's egg,