The Instructed Beginner in Chemistry: A Hermetic Epistle

every created thing. But there is a difference, says Lullius, between salt and salt. Therefore Isaacus Hollandus says in his Minor Work book 1, chapter 123: a stone, namely the salt, can indeed be extracted from all created things in the world, but it is not the salt or stone of the Sages. And in chapter 108 he concludes: there is however a salt which God has poured into our single subject, and it is called the salt of the wisdom of the Sages. Therefore our stone has received its name, namely from this divine salt which appears in the form of a stone, which until now none of the alchemists have known. And to distinguish it from other stones, namely those salts, it is called a salt or stone of the Sages. And because it is extracted in a wonderful way from our wonderful dew that comes from heaven, Job speaks in chapter 38: who has brought forth the drops of dew, and indeed in the likeness of a stone, and so on.

Therefore Sendivogius in the epilogue after the 12 Treatises speaks so highly of our wonderful dew, or universal spirit, and of the salt of nature in our frozen dew, stating there that the same is better than the whole earth. Of which Lullius speaks in his Testament original: "test." chapter 3: it is truly our dew-water composed of the mentioned heavenly vapors through the thickening of its nature, which comes into the aforementioned vapors of the 4 elements. This is a thing which is closer to mercury, and which is indeed found above the earth, but not under the earth, being running, flowing, and heavy. And in chapter 78 he speaks: it is a very fatty substance, gluey, strongly oily, and airy, in whose belly is the fire that we seek.

Therefore, consider well whether our matter can be a metal or any other known mineral? Since it is a dew-water, fatty, airy, and heavy, and is to be found flowing above the earth, as Lullius says.