Page:Hermetic and Alchemical Writings of Paracelsus Vol I (IA cu31924092287121).djvu/259



[In the Geneva folio of 1658, which is by far the largest, as it is also the best, collected edition of the works of Paracelsus, there are many treatises included which conspicuously overlap each other; and further, there are many treatises, independent in themselves, which are devoted to precisely the same subjects. For example, the Philosophia Sagax occupies, and at equal length, a similar ground to the Explicatio Totius Astronomies, and the latter is substantially identical with another astronomical interpretation included in this translation. It is much after the same manner that the Economy of Minerals corresponds to the Liber Mineralium, but, having regard to the metallurgical importance which, from the Hermetic standpoint, attaches to both these works, it has been thought well to include in an appendix the treatise which here follows.]

INCE I have considered well beforehand, and come to the resolution of writing about minerals in general, all that relates to minerals, and everything bearing on the generation and nature of minerals, I would have you know before all else, that not a few persons have the priority of myself in publishing on the origin of minerals. When I read their works, I found that they were involved in many errors. As far as one can judge from their writings, they have never fully understood what the ultimate matter was. Now, if the ultimate matter be not understood, what, pray, will happen to the first matter? Whoever can describe the beginning will probably be certain about the end and ultimate. What is a theologian who is ignorant of the end? What is an astronomer who is full of boasting, indeed, but without experience of light? Since, then, these authors are detected as in a state of hallucination about the end, that is, the ultimate matter, how will they be more worthy of credit about the beginning? I repudiate their writings and their letters; this is not the foundation. But, in order that you may have proof positive in a short space as to my possessing much greater dexterity for writing about this matter than those my predecessors had, I will first of all explain to you the ultimate matter of minerals, so that you may plainly know on what basis I treat this subject, and hence may more rightly understand