Friedrichstadt Leisure or the Chemical Tantalus

A printer's ornament depicts stylized leaf patterns arranged symmetrically.
bring forth the Sun; without salt the Moon does not flow into sublunary things, and thus the sun and salt are the principle, and they are the completion of the work.

§. 7. And this divine Labor also as it were hands down this secret: let that matter which is likened to water be chosen, having the nature of the sunflower, so that just as the flower rejoices in the sight of the sun, so this water not only rejoices in the sight of the Sun, but desires to be converted entirely into the Sun, and anxiously and with full strength desires to enter into an indissoluble bond with it. The flower which we salute as the sunflower is said to have an intrinsic agreement with the sun, and to be vivified by its presence or light. The philosophical water also has the same sympathy with the philosophical sulfur: for as soon as they approach each other, they rush into mutual embraces, and if these two could remain united, it would be their greatest pleasure and they are separated from each other only by the violence and tyranny of Vulcan fire, yet not without plunder.

§. 8. This Holy labor, which is instituted in the sanctuary of Nature, commands that the student of Chrysopæa take up a matter which we can call hermaphroditic by the highest right, and it is also [so] in act. For the matter which is seen to be water is earth, and the earth which is believed to be earth is water. The earth performs the office of water; the water performs the office of earth, if the regimen of Vulcan is instituted according to the rules of art. If you see water, you may name it sulfur, if you see earth, it is also sulfur, and these two are one, and this one sustains the place of two. Such is the identity between these two, that a greater identity is found in no subject of the whole universe. You may run through the entire economy of the three kingdoms of sublunary things, in one kingdom these two occur, which although they are two, yet in reality they are one, which although the eye salutes as two subjects, the mind of the adept however says it is one. What the subtlety of Logicians says to this very assertion is not attended to. Both subjects are one and the same in the category of substance: these two subjects are one and the same in the category of relation, and have similar accidents separable from both; they have similar properties, communicable to each other. So that here it becomes true, properties which otherwise are said to be incommunicable, these are communicated to each other, and each subject strives to communicate its own innate property to the other, its equal, and the hinge of the matter turns so that the communication of properties may occur, if the work is to be consummated and brought to perfection.

§. 9. This holy labor also shows that the leonine original: "leoninam" prevails in this work