Manuscript Transmitted to the Serene Duke of Holstein Explaining the Obscure Matters of Alchemists

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It is called Magnesia, because it attracts and draws metals and especially the Sun and the Moon because of their perfection. It is called Dung, because it manures its water, and makes it fruitful and fertile. It is called metallic Being, and truly it is, since metallic bodies are made from it, and have their origin [in it]. It is called the Matter of all forms. For it gives them, perfects and preserves them. It is called Rainbow, because of the various colors that appear in it, as in a Rainbow. It is called Chaos, because all the elements and celestial virtues are confused and indistinct within it. It is called by infinite other names, which are not necessary to explain; because these above are sufficient so that all the rest can be explained for understanding the chemical authors. For they all understand this one and unique universal and catholic matter, by whatever names, like garments, they clothe and array it.

CHAPTER V.

All the chemical Philosophers who have perfected the Philosophers' Stone cry out that there is a unique subject in the nature of things, which has within itself whatever is necessary for it to obtain its ultimate and absolute perfection. For nothing alien or extraneous enters into its composition. It has abundantly what it ought to have for its perfection: only superfluities must be removed, which are its feces, which are not of its nature, and when these feces are separated, only a perennial and continuous cooking is necessary for it, so that it may acquire the ultimate perfection. Nor is common Sun or Moon to be added to it for perfection, because the Stone itself has the Sun and Moon within it, which are joined to it in its center. Whence the Philosophers say: Our Stone cannot be perfected, unless the Sun and Moon are joined together in one subject; which is found in this alone.