XVIII

of a sweet-smelling solvent menstruum, this is understood because the soluble salt, as we said, is bitter and foul-smelling. Thus some have compared it to the stench of graves, and have also called it assa foetida a strong-smelling resin, although after its solution it does not smell. The solvent menstruum, however, has a pleasant odor. Furthermore, they sometimes say the matter is sweet, and sometimes bitter; sometimes that three pounds in the work are enough, and sometimes that a thousand pounds do not suffice, and so forth. And thus the wise are called contradictors by the inexperienced, because they understand nothing of this science. For the remote matter the raw material is certainly sweet, but the proximate matter the prepared material, namely the salt, is bitter. Of the remote matter, a thousand pounds are indeed barely enough. But of the proximate matter, namely the salt, three pounds are truly sufficient. Hence Sendivogius says in his 50th Letter Note well: "The mercurial substance should be chosen together with the universal spirit, in which state it can be found nowhere except in our unique subject, from which once it is separated, it is most bitter original: "amarissima"." (And this is the salt). "But if concerning the remote subject, the second matter, namely that from which the universal spirit and the bitter salt are extracted, it is sweet, and so forth." Likewise, Lullius in Book 1 of his Newest Testament, where he described almost everything by the names imposed on our salt, says among other things that "it is congealed air, and a bitter alkaline salt," and thus he agrees with Sendivogius in his Epilogue cited above. But the same Lullius in chapter 26 in the second Book there, at the end of the chapter, adds that "the Stone is sweet," speaking of the first chaos the initial unformed state of the matter.