Chapter I. Section I. Concerning the

it is nevertheless an apparent separation, as one sees in daily distillation, in which the substances corresponding to the aforementioned principia principles are found in the same number, but in a declining degree. Indeed, this must be so, otherwise the sulfur of gold and silver and the necessary ferment agent of transformation for the preparation of the Stone The Philosopher's Stone, the goal of the Great Work. would be sought in vain.

Finally, VII. From the last mentioned principle, God has most closely and immediately made all mixed things in all three kingdoms, according to their genera and species. From the innumerable portion of the mentioned Universal Spirit the life-force pervading all nature, which is boiled to a sulphuric temperature, He has made the seeds or ferments of every genus and species in all three kingdoms, according to the inexhaustible treasure of His ideas, in the air, in the water, and in the earth. From these seeds and the mentioned Universal Spirit, which is only boiled to a mercurial degree, He formed the various individuals or single things, of male and female sex. To the one He gave the particular seeds for the increase of its kind, but to the other He gave a unique menstruum alchemical solvent or uterine fluid and hyle primordial matter as a material principle of its procreation.