Page:The Mirror of Alchimy (1597, mirrorofalchimy00baco).djvu/16

6 or Auripigment, or Citrine Arenicum, or red alone, or the like: we hould neuer effect it, becaue ith nature doth neuer perfect anything without equall commixtion of both, neither can well: from thee therefore, as from the foreaide Argent-uiue and Sulphur in their nature we are excued. Finally, if we hould chooe them, wee hould mixe euerie thing as it is, according to due proportion, which no man knoweth, and afterward decoct it to coagulatiō, into a olide lumpe: and therefore we are excued from receiuing both of them in their proper nature: to wit, Argent-uiue and Sulphur, eeing wee know not their proportion, and that wee may meete with bodies, wherein we hall find the aide things proportioned, coagulated & gathered together, after a due manner. Keepe this ecret more ecretly. Golde is a perfect maculine bodie, without any uperfluitie or diminution: and if it hould perfect imperfect bodyes mingled with it by melting onely, it hould be Elixir to red. Siluer is alo a body almot perfect, and feminine, which if it hould almot perfect imperfect bodyes by his common melting onely, it hould be Elixir to white, which it is not, nor cannot be, becaue they onely are perfect. And if this perfection might be mixed with the imperfect, the imperfect huld not be perfected with the perfect, but rather their perfections huld be diminihed by the imperfect, & become imperfect. But if they were more then perfect, either in a two-fold, foure-fold, hundred-fold, or larger proportion, they