On Plant Calcination
Aphorism I
The first Calcination, which is imperfect, separates all the volatile from the fixed; but when both are purified, the whole is fixed by the last Calcination, which is perfect.
II
There are some individuals who, for imperfect Calcination, need a bigger fire than others.
III
The method for the extraction of the radical humid consists in the separation of the two spirits, the fixed and the volatile; their purging and their reduction.
IV
The particular method on plants is the digestion, the distillation of burning water, of an aqueous moisture, of an oil by degrees of fire, the purification of the spirit and of the oil, the extraction and purgation of the fixed salt, the fixation of the volatile on the fixed, the multiplication.
V
The virtue of the fixed salt increases with the coagulation of the volatile, and this operation makes the volatile constant and permanent in its action.
VI
Imperfect Calcination is of two types, one is gentle and is done with digestion, the other is violent and without digestion.
VII
The volatile spirit can only be useful for restoring plants when it is made fixed.
VIII
The imperfect Calcination is necessarily required before the perfect one, because it purifies the two spirits.
IX
The two Calcinations are violent due to the excrements, but neither one nor the other is violent due to the pure substance of the mixture. For the semen of the elements and the form of the mixture are not destroyed by them, but, on the contrary, they become more perfect.
X
The semen of the elements which is the very general matter is common to all mixed and is indifferent to any form. But spirits of different natures determine it to the different kinds of mixed.
XI
This very general matter is incorruptible; the particular or specific one is corruptible. Both are separable from the radical humid with the violence of fire.
XII
The particular semen only flies away with the vitrifying Calcination.
XIII
The semen is the subject and the very close matter, which immediately receives the essential form, and the contact of these two principles makes an inseparable union.
XIV
The corruption of the particular semen is nothing other than the expulsion of the spirits which had determined the general matter to the qualities of being of the first compound, and this expulsion is produced by the entrance of other spirits who induce this semen to the qualities of being of such and such a mixed.
XV
Chemical calcination does not destroy or vitrify the ashes; on the contrary, it purifies the particular semen and makes it more perfect.
XVI
The very general semen is made particular by certain volatile particular spirits. This matrix may be stripped by these spirits and induced to another kind of mixed by other particular and volatile spirits of another kind.
XVII
Thus one spirit drives out another, disposes matter to another form and produces in it this form of a new compound. This is the source of the successions of figures in matter, such is the order of the generations and of the corruptions that take place.
XVIII
The ignorant often find themselves frustrated in their experiences by the dissipation of the specific spirits of the subjects they deal with. This happens with the violence of the fire which drives away the specific semen with its spirits, or through the corruption of this semen by mixing other external and extraneous agents stronger than those of the particular mixed.
XIX
Particular or determined semen is of two kinds: the visible and the invisible. The visible semen contains within itself the form of the particular mixed and always produces a mixed of its own nature.
XX
The invisible semen does not contain the form of the mixed, but is indifferent and indeterminate to any mixed. It is the food of the visible semen, and is made particular by the action of this.
XXI
The invisible is volatile and the visible is fixed.
XXII
The invisible semen receives its determination not only from the visible semen which fixes it, but from other external agents who often produce, with the help of their magnetism, imperfect forms and thus imperfect animals are generated.
XXIII
Imperfect animals are so called due to the lack of organs or limbs that are seen in the perfect animals because it is observed that these monsters possess only the organs necessary for life.
XXIV
The general and indeterminate agents cannot conform to the specific nature of the particular semen, because the species of their magnetism is different.
XXV
The common cause does not produce like compounded of like without the semen of like. Thus an animal does not produce an animal of its kind without the semen of its kind.
XXVI
The uninterrupted action of the semen produces the perfect organs in the multiplied species.
XXVII
The semen is the body in which the seed is hidden; it is nourished there by the food that its body prepares for it for as long as this body lasts and subsists.
XXVIII
The seed also remains when its body is corrupted, and then it feeds on foods of a dissimilar nature; therefore, it degenerates and produces a mixed, unlike the first.
XXIX
Thus when the visible semen is separated from the living body, or is corrupted by external agents, the production of a similar mixed is necessarily lacking.
XXX
When the semen or seed body is corrupted, it is changed into another body, and the seed into another seed as well, which produces a different generation. Thus from the degenerate wheat the chaff is generated.
XXXI
Thus to generate like from like, it is necessary to preserve the semen without any corruption, as is seen in the grain of wheat which is preserved and remains without alteration of its species as long as it remains attached to the root of its stem.
XXXII
The grain of wheat when it blossoms is not corrupted in substance, but only altered, and with this alteration the seed is digested and disposed to the generation of wheat.
XXXIII
The Philosophers’ arcana on plants produce admirable effects as seen in the Palingenesis on roses, etc., and from the arcanum of food which preserves life and drives away all disease.