Pretiosa margarita novella de thesauro, ac pretiosissimo philosophorum lapide : artis huius divinae typus, et methodus: collectanea ex Arnaldo, Rhaymundo, Rhasi, Alberto, et Michaele Scoto

There are also those who are so stingy that they would never spend even a penny on this matter, and they think and wish that the stone of the philosophers would just rain down upon them from heaven and be given to them. These dung beetles also desire to fly with the eagle and to be called and named philosophers. For such, therefore, I believe we should pray, that the clouds of dementia may be expelled from their minds and the clouds of greed from their hearts.

Bonus. Would that the ray of divine goodness might shine into their minds, but I see an incurable wound in them, so that it is very difficult and perhaps impossible to cure such an old disease. O, if they would notice that by God's providence everything (especially this most holy work) is ruled and governed, they would not be so foolish. Do they not see, miserable ones, that all who have an abundance of books, money, learning, household, and workers, always work and labor at these things, and yet we see them empty of their purpose? Do not marvel, friend, for a mortal man cannot approach God Himself without God; just as the eye itself cannot see light without light, so without God Himself, the giver, is anyone able to arrive at this, His own great and ineffable gift.

Lacinius. What, I ask, will these harpies be able to respond to these things now?

Bonus. The miserable ones rave, and as if lacking sense and intellect, they do not see how great a difficulty is opposed to all of us regarding this blessed and long-desired stone, so that we seem to be rolling that great rock of Sisyphus up the arduous slopes of a mountain; and when we believe we see the end of such an exalted work, then we slip all the more into the abyss of ignorance, because few are those whom fair Jupiter loves, or whose virtue carries to the stars. Yet when this itself is present, then we shall be very dear to ourselves and to all our friends, to whom we were previously held for mockery and a joke.

Lacinius.