Theatrum chemicum, praecipuos selectorum auctorum tractatus de chemiae et lapidis philosophici antiquitate, veritate, iure, praestantia, & operationibus, continens: in gratiam verae chemiae, et medicinae chemicae studiosorum ... congestum, et in sex partes seu volumina digestum; singulis voluminibus, suo auctorum et librorum catalogo primis pagellis: rerum vero & verborum indice postremis annexo. Volumen primum [- sextum]

...as the same one says, unless it is constrained by cultivation, it seems to change into mint. He says this.

Albertus, book of minerals 3, chap. 2: "The first matter of metals is an unctuous, subtle moisture, which is incorporated, strongly mixed with subtle earthy matter, so that the greater part of each is not only with the greater part of each, but also in the greater part of each."

Aristotle, book 3 of Meteorology, chap. 15, says that metals are made from aqueous vapor and dry exhalation, which are quicksilver and sulphur. But all metals, to return to the point, are made from one and the same proximate matter, namely, from quicksilver and sulphur, which everyone asserts. They differ, however, in form, that is, in purity and cooking or digestion. The spoiling of accidents, or the corruption of the essential forms themselves, and the introduction of others, is possible, and in those having a symbol, the transition of one into another is easy. Wherefore there is a transformation of metals. For just as the generation of the elements is circular, so also is that of metals from one into another: which Hermes Trismegistus and other philosophers assert. "And the elements are generated and corrupted in turn among themselves: they have therefore a common primary matter among themselves, and the same. But they differ in form and species." Albertus on minerals, book 3, chap. 6: "Between those having a symbol in matter, and in virtues and natural powers, transmutation into one another is easy." The same, book 3, chap. 6.

And it should not move you that Titelmannus writes in his compendium of natural philosophy, book 1, chap. 24, about the celestial matter, because of the perfection and power of the most powerful form in informing, which was given to it from the beginning, that it cannot pass from form to form, since the natural agent is lacking, which could either impress another upon it or take away its own. For he does not therefore conclude that the same happens to lower natural things. For he says in chap. 25 that it does not have a similar occasion, since privation is not the true effective cause by itself of the transmutation from form to form, but only the occasion and the cause without which not: for unless there were in the matter the privation of absent forms, and unless it were apt to have them which it does not have, it would never be transmuted from form to form. He says, however, that the true and efficient cause of this transmutation is the natural agent, which, predominating, impresses upon the matter the impressions contrary to the existing form, and those suitable to the form which it itself wants to introduce, and thus makes it pass by its active virtue from form into form.

Let them repent, I pray, who dare to overturn nature herself, the most skillful parent of all things, and all philosophy, and who ignorantly laugh at this natural Chemistry, the better, admirable, and hidden part of philosophy, primarily necessary to the human race, the rival of its mother nature, which is occupied with the natures, causes, and hidden virtues of things, especially of the mineral genus.