Chemical-Philosophical Treatise on Natural and Supernatural Things

OF the Spirit of Mercury.

Chapter three.

Although I am accustomed to a peculiar style, which will seem strange to most, there is sufficient cause for me to adhere to my experience, omitting all trifles, because they escape my knowledge, and the eyes always prevail over the ears, and truth never fails to snatch the palm from falsehood. I assert, therefore, that all visible and comprehensible things are compounded from the spirit of Mercury, which is preferred to all earthly things of this universe, and to which everything owes its origin. For in it is found that which can perform all things that the cultivator of art seeks. It is the principle of working metals after it has passed into a spiritual essence, which is pure poison, flying hither and thither, without others, it is an agitating wind, which, being driven from its domicile by Vulcan, is thrust into its chaos, into which it returns and is resolved into the elements,