Page:Hermetic and Alchemical Writings of Paracelsus Vol I (IA cu31924092287121).djvu/269

 side, are crammed with such as have been mentioned. I should, therefore, be fully competent to write about these. But still it is true that many are hidden in the world about which I know nothing. Yet neither do others know them. It is, indeed, true that many and various things are about to be revealed by God, concerning which none of us has hitherto even dreamed. For it is true that nothing is so occult that it shall not at length be made manifest. Some one will come after me whose great gift does not yet exist, and he will manifest this.

You should know, however, that there are three parts in this Art, to which the perfections of minerals are compared. These three artifices in the nature of the element are congenital with the three primals. For as man has his gifts in the arts, by which he excels, so also Art affords to them in the matter of the three primals. And it should next be understood that no man can bring to perfection any thing or any work by himself, without some one to help him. No one is superior to another save that man alone who knows how to conjoin what should be conjoined. Iron ore, for example, is ready to hand. But what can it do of itself? Nothing, unless there be added one who will fuse and prepare it. Secondly, this is nothing without a smith to forge it. This, again, is of no practical use unless there be someone to buy it and to apply it to its purposes. Such is the condition of all things. The same thing likewise occurs in Nature, where it is not one thing only which makes a mineral. Others must be added, analogous to the fuser, buyer, seller, and user. If Nature does not supply this work, she deputes it to man, as the primal matter whose duty it is to supply what is lacking. Nature, nevertheless, has need of a dispenser, who will arrange and set in order what ought to be joined together, so that what should be done may find accomplishment. One is ordained by God for this conjunction, and that is the Archeus of Nature. He afterwards requires his operatives to co-operate with him, to fashion the thing, and bring it into that condition for which it is appointed. Hence it follows that three things must be taken which reduce every mineral to its appointed end. These are Sulphur, Salt, and Mercury. Those three perfect all things. First of all there is need of a body in which the fabrication shall be begun. This is Sulphur. Then there is necessary a property or virtue. This is Mercury. Lastly, there is required compaction, congelation, unification. This is Salt. Thus at last the thing is brought about as it should be. But it is not every Sulphur which is a body for gold, nor every Mercury for its virtue, nor every Salt for its unification; but just as there are many blacksmiths, one doing this thing, another that, so also here. God, therefore, has appointed that the Archeus should set in order those things which are to be conjoined, just as a baker, cooking bread, joins together what has to be joined, or a vinedresser seeks out and joins what has to be joined for the purpose of cultivating his vineyard. Everything is appointed to its own purpose, and everything finds out what is necessary for its own special purpose. Now, if the Archeus has his lead ore, and it be necessary to form a tree in gold, iron, jacinth,