Page:Hermetic and Alchemical Writings of Paracelsus Vol I (IA cu31924092287121).djvu/189

 If he has not diligently laboured in alchemy it will avail him nothing, and his labour will be in vain. How the first essence is to be separated from all mineral bodies has been sufficiently explained in the books of the Archidoxis, and need not be repeated here. But as to the separation of minerals, it should be remarked that many things of this kind are separated by means of sublimation, as the fixed from the non-fixed, spiritual and volatile bodies from the fixed, and so throughout all the divisions, as is detailed in the case of metals. With all minerals the process is one and the same, through all the degrees, as the Spagyric Art teaches.

The separation of those things which grow out of the earth and are combustible, such as fruits, herbs, flowers, leaves, grasses, roots, woods, etc., is also arranged in many ways. By distillation is separated from them first the phlegma, afterwards the Mercury, after this the oil, fourthly their sulphur, lastly their salt. When all these separations are made according to Spagyric Art, remarkable and excellent medicaments are the result, both for internal and external use.

But when laziness has grown to such an extent among physicians, and all work and every pursuit are turned only to insolence, I do not wonder, indeed, that preparations of this kind are everywhere neglected, and that coals stand at so low a price. If smiths could do without coals for forging and fashioning metals as easily as these physicians do without them in preparing their medicines, there is no doubt that all the coal merchants would have been before now reduced to extreme beggary. In the meantime, I extol and adorn, with the eulogium rightly due to them, the Spagyric physicians. These do not give themselves up to ease and idleness, strutting about with a haughty gait, dressed in silk, with rings ostentatiously displayed on their fingers, or silvered poignards fixed on their loins, and sleek gloves on their hands. But they devote themselves diligently to their labours, sweating whole nights and days over fiery furnaces. These do not kill the time with empty talk, but find their delight in their laboratory. They are clad in leathern garments, and wear a girdle to wipe their hands upon. They put their fingers among the coals, the lute, and the dung, not into gold rings. Like blacksmiths and coal merchants, they are sooty and dirty, and do not look proudly with sleek countenance. In presence of the sick they do not chatter and vaunt their own medicines. They perceive that the work should glorify the workman, not the workman the work, and that fine words go a very little way towards curing sick folks. Passing by all these vanities, therefore, they rejoice to be occupied at the fire and to learn the steps of alchemical knowledge. Of this class are: Distillation, Resolution, Putrefaction, Extraction, Calcination, Reverberation, Sublimation, Fixation, Separation, Reduction, Coagulation, Tincture, and the like.

But how all these separations are made according to Spagyric and