The Most Secret Rosary of the Philosophers

Nor do the cold and the dry contradict each other, from which the element of earth is generated; nor do the cold and the moist, from which the element of water is gathered. Thus, the hot and the cold are not joined except through a medium, namely through the dry and the moist, since they do not wish to stand together by themselves, because one blunts the other on account of its contrariety. Therefore, they will stand together through the moist and the dry, since one supports the other. Truly, the hot and the cold gather and disperse like things, but not unlike things, by dissolving and coagulating.

But the moist and the dry are aggregated and dispersed by constricting and moistening. Therefore, simple generation and simultaneous permutation is the operation of the elements. It is therefore clearly evident that all things are generated through the hot and the cold together, and are similarly permuted. For the hot and the cold beget by overcoming the matter. However, when the agents are overcome, it is evident that, according to the part, the violence is done unworthily. Yet not everything is made from everything, but the determined is made from the determined.