Thesauri et armamentarii medico-chymici appendix [...] Testamentum Hadrianeum

While that vain search dwells upon remote natures and clouds itself and the art itself with black shadows; hold fast to these naked truths of ours: shake out the mineral veins, dig out what nature brings to you in her nearby bosom. Here you will find that which is the only matter materia prima of our stone, the first origin of such great goods (although vile in external appearance). Here is that sacred fountain, this blessed Lymph liquid or water of the wise, the Mercurial glory, the fertile Flower of gold, the single bridal chamber and noble seed of the noble spouses. Just as there was one matter of things which the nourishing right hand of Jehovah created—one chaos, one beginning for all—from which all things that the whole world contains were commanded to come forth by the power of the supreme God, so our stone has come forth from a similar single mass. It comes from a mass that is compact and confused, in which those four seeds of the elements of created nature lie hidden, and from which maternal womb that noble offspring of nourishing nature and art is finally born. As there is one and the same mother of our stone, so she is the first mother of the metals, which it is necessary to know. She is capable of forms, through which every species is seen, as many as have been led forth from the deepest bosom of the earth over which that sevenfold order of the Planets the celestial bodies corresponding to the seven metals presides. But behold, one is stronger than all these, if any of the forms of the metals are to be dissolved by art...