Basilius Valentinus Redivivus or the Resurrected Basilius Valentinus or the Shining Star of Alchemy

art treats of nothing other than the hidden sciences of the wise, etc. Therefore, there belongs to the understanding and learning, as a most necessary requirement, world-wisdom philosophy, to which no one will deny the title of a noble art. How much more noble and certain must Alchemy be, since philosophy, and especially physics, is counted as only one necessary part; and one can rightfully say: Art has no enemy except the ignorant.

BASILIUS in his ♁ Antimony Triumphal Chariot writes the following of such criticizing ignoramuses:

Oh inexperienced man, judge not so rashly of this noble art, and do not condemn that which you can grasp neither through your reason nor through common learning. These despisers of the art appear to me much like the fox in the fables of Aesop, who would have gladly enjoyed some pears from a tree standing before him, but when he saw the impossibility of reaching them, he scolded their sourness and despised them to the utmost, of which he had not yet felt the slightest taste, and thus could judge neither of their bitterness nor their sweetness; all despisers of the art may take this to heart.

Those who understood its value better have written and spoken of the excellence of the art: