Revelation and Declaration of Basilius Valentinus

reunited with its MERCURY the quicksilver principle by the OIL the sulfurous principle, as you will see hereafter more amply.

And to better make understood of what being, matter, & form is this SPIRIT of MERCURY; I say that its Being partakes of the SPIRIT; its matter of the BODY; & its form of the SOUL: Which must be understood as an incomprehensible thing, these words will indubitably be harsh & strange to many, because they give birth to extraordinary thoughts.
It is very true that these words are extraordinary, that is why they also require men of extraordinary Spirit to understand them, in truth they are not as easy to understand, as is to the Peasant the method of driving his Plow well, & those who are not versed in this science will not understand them, although inconsiderately they imagine the contrary, I esteem him instructed in the true SCIENCE, who after the word of GOD, & the Mysteries of the salvation of his SOUL, has learned to well know by good principles & well-reasoned foundations, the NATURE of sublunary things, which comprise in themselves the Minerals, Vegetables, & Animals: so that the light of a true & solid knowledge, dissipates & makes vanish the obscurity of ignorance, & that we may discern the good from the bad, or the right from the wrong.

It is not necessary to know the first