Die geheime Naturlehre der hermetischen Wissenschaft

-cient sages. He has placed the first things last and allowed contradictions to flow in. The resolution and comparison of these are provided by various sayings scattered here and there in express words.

Furthermore, Pagesius should be noted. He has much truth, but even more falsehood. According to the teaching of all the wise, it is true in Pagesius that the true Mercury original: "Mercurius", as the immediate principle of minerals and metals, is a warm moisture or a wet and warm vapor. However, it is false that it is to be sought in a moist and cold well of elementary water. It must rather be taken from a warm, moist substance, which is our known matter. Furthermore, Pagesius teaches an exaggerated and mysterious way to extract and prepare the Mercury. However, one has no other rule for this than the simple distillation a process of vaporizing and condensing of the Magnesia the raw material of the alchemical work. By this, the spirit and the oil are raised at the same time, un-

*) In this work, everything shall be treated according to the principles of the Cabala a system of mystical interpretation believed to be divinely revealed to the first ancestors, which was without doubt infused by God himself into our first parents.