understand it.

Nor can this secret be truly learned either from a master at all, but practice reveals it by the instinct of nature. See the Scholium and Lumen de Lumine. (37) This may again remind the reader of the passage from Democritus, where, describing the universal experiment, he says that that method of working with nature is the most effectual that makes use of manacles and fetters, laying hold on her in the extremest degree. And this constriction, according to the scholiasts teaching, is not made by chance, but by means of the affinity which is between the body and its spirit, as Maier also alludes, in his Emblems --- Naturam natura docet, debellat ut ignem; for they both proceed form one fountain, though, of the two, the agent, because it vivifies and holds the particles of the matter together, is repesentatively superior in operation, to compel the Protean Hypostasis of Nature to enter into his true Form. Nam sine vi non ulla dabit praecepta, nequw illum Orando flectes: vim duram et vincula capto Tende. Doli circum haec demum frangentur inanes. See the Georgics,lib. 4, 397; Maieri Atalanta Fugiens Emblema, xx; Democritus in the Fable of Proteus; Aquarium Sapientum Enigma; and the Scholiast on Hermes. (38) The bodies of the metals, explains our Scholiast, are the domiciles of their spirits, which when they are received by the bodies, their terrestrial substance is by degrees made thin, extended, and purified, and by their vivifying power, the life and fire hitherto lying dormant is excited and made to appear. For the life which dwells in the metals is laid, as it were, asleep (in sense), nor can it exert its powers, or show itself, unless the bodies (i.e., the sensible and vegetable media of life) be first dissolved and turned into their radical source; being brought to this degree, at length, by the abundance of their internal light, they communicate their tinging property to other imperfect bodies, transmuting them into a fixed and permanent substantive. And this, he adds further, is the property of our medicine, into which the previous bodies (of the spirit) are reduced; that, at first, one part thereof will tinge ten parts of an imperfect body, then one hundred, then a thousand, and so infinitely on. By which the efficacy of the creative word is wonderfully evidenced, Crescite et multiplicamini. And by how much the oftener the medicine is dissolved, by so much more it increases in virtue, which otherwise, without any more solution, would remain in its single or simple state of perfection. Here there is a celestial and divine fountain set open, which no man is able to draw dry, nor can it be exhausted should the world endure through an eternity of generations. --- See the Scholium; Introit. Apert. Cap. 8; Trevisanus Opusculum circa finem. (39) The fixed watery Form of the philosophic matter, which Hermes here apostrophies, is the same as was before celebrated only more mature; this is the fountain which Berhard Trevisan mentions, of such marvelous virtue above all other fountains in the world, shining like silver and of caerulean clearness. It is the Framer of the royal elements, says Hermes, i.e., it draws to itself the rubified light of its internal agent permeating the same throughout the whole essentiality. Separate, says Eiraneaus, the light from the darkness seven times, and the creation of the philosophic mercury will be complete, and this seventh day will be for thee a Sabbath of repose; from which period, until the end of the annual revolution, thou mayest expect the generation of the supernatural son of Sun, who comes about the last age into the world to purify his brethren from their original sin. --- See the Scholium, Trevisanus, end of his Opusculum; New Light of Sendivogius, 10th Treatise; and the Introit. Apert., cap. 3, etc. (40) The same catholic nature, which in its preternatural exaltation appears so very precious in the eyes of the philosopher, is in the common world defiled; abiding everywhere in putrefactions and the vilest forms of life. It is likewise despised by mankind, who are, for the most part, unconscious even of its subsistence, much ore are they not ignorant of the method of exculpating it and handling their life to good effect? Hermes, indeed, gives instruction, as did Moses also, but under a veil, which it may be hardly expedient to look through at this stage of our investigation. We have signified from the