a New Chemical light (sulphur) shhh!

GREATSUMMARY Highlights Top 20 highlights automatically generated by GreatSummary Source: User Text The substance is indeed to be found everywhere, but the method of its extraction out of some matters would take a lifetime, and if you begin your search without a due knowledge of natural things, more especially in minerals, you will be wor king in the dark and in blindness. (0) If you wish to produce a metal, your fundamental substance should be metallic; o nly a dog can beget a dog; without wheat you will vainly plough your field; and all your endeavours in this Art will be in vain, unless you take your radical hu mour from a metal. (0) Thus one thing is the mother of all things. (0) Our Art is not a matter of luck or accident, but is founded on a real knowledge, and there is only one matter in the world by which, and of which, the Stone of the Philosophers is prepared. (0) This great fact ought always to be borne in mind in studying the works of the Sa ges; for nothing but mistakes and disappointment can result from a slavishly lit eral interpretation of their books. (0) But for our purpose they must be purged of their impurities, and then recombined ; that which is wanting is added---and thus imitating and assisting Nature, we a rrive at a degree of perfection such as Nature is unable to attain, on account o f the impurities with which her operations are clogged. (0) The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom: never did Sage utter truer word than this; and if we would attain to the knowledge of this glorious science, if we would be able to use it well when we possess it, we must wait on God continu ally, and importune Him with earnest prayer. (0) We have with us God's Ark of the Covenant, which contains the most precious of e arthly things, and is guarded by the holy Angel of the Lord. (0) There is one substance, one Art, one operation It is as erroneous to suppose tha t any of the particular benefits of our Stone can be enjoyed before the Stone it self has been prepared, as it would be absurd to imagine that you can have a bra nch without a root or tree. (0) We will not put our confidence in men or in princes: we will place ourselves in the hands of One who remains unchanged when all earthly power and greatness have passed away. (0) Yet, after all, we must confess that a right knowledge of our Art is p. 147 the gift of God alone, and is granted to diligent students in answer to earnest and importunate prayer. (0) If you would practise our Art, learn first to hold your tongue, and study the na ture of minerals, metals, and vegetables. (0) They seek to attain the end not only without a middle part, but without so much as a beginning. (0) It is a pity that, instead of humbly studying and following Nature, our Alchemis ts are so ready to adopt any fancy or notion that happens to pass through their minds. (0) And the feeling uppermost in our minds is the humbling consciousness of our utte r unworthiness: we do not deserve the very least of His great mercies. (0) It is, indeed, possible to set about our Art in a casual manner; and some who ac tually operate on our quicksilver, begin at the wrong end, and thus fail in brin ging it to perfection, because they are quite in the dark about its real nature. (0) We have repeatedly affirmed that all things earthly are evolved out of three pri nciples. (0) In metals, then, as in all other things, there is only one first substance, but the universal substance is modified in a vast variety of ways, according to the course of its subsequent development. (0) Let our Alchemists have done, then, once for all, with their sophistical methods , to which they ascribe so great an importance---with their dealbations, rubrefa ctions, fixations of the Moon, extractions of the soul of gold,---and let them p

lace themselves under the unerring guidance of Nature. (0) Our Mercury may be obtained from all things, as everything has it; only from som e substances it is more easily procured than from others. (0)