Axioms of Alchemy

1. Whatever may be accomplished by a simple method should not be be attempted by a complicated one.

2. No substance can be made perfect without long suffering.

3. Nature must be aided by art whenever she is deficient in power.

4. Nature cannot be amended except in her own self.

5. Nature enjoys, comprehends, and overcomes Nature.

6. He who does not know motion does not know Nature.

7. Whatever produces the same effect as is produced by a particular compound is similar to the latter.

8. No one ran pass from one extreme to another except through a medium.

9. Metals cannot be changed into other metals without having been first reduced to First Matter.

10. The unripe must be assisted by the ripe.

11. In the Calcination, the Corpus (body) is not reduced but augmented in quantity.

12. In alchemy nothing can bear fruit without having first been mortified.

13. That which kills produces life; that which causes death causes resurrection; that which destroys creates.

14. Everything containing a seed may be augmented but not without the assistance of Nature.

15. Each thing is multiplied and augmented by means of a male and a female principle.

16. The virtue of each seed is to unite itself with each thing belonging to its own kingdom.

17. A pure womb gives birth to a pure fruit.

18. Fire and heat can only be produced by motion.

19. The whole method is begun and finished by only one method: the Boiling.

20. The entire process is accomplished through nothing else but Water.

21. Each thing comes from and out of that into which it will be resolved again.

22. Where the true principles are absent, the results will be imperfect.

23. Art begins where Nature ceases to act.

24. The Hermetic art is not attained by a great variety of methods, for the Stone is only One.

25. The substance of which the Arcanum is prepared should he pure, indestructible, and incombustible.

26. Do not seek for the seed of the Philosopher's Stone in the Elements.

27. The substance of the Philosopher's Stone is mercurial.

28. The seed of the metals is in the Metals, and the metals are born of themselves.

29. Use only perfect metals.

30. That which is hard and thick must be made subtle and thin by Calcination.

31. The foundation of this art is to reduce the Corpora (body) into the Argentum Vivum (Quicksilver or the Living Mercury).

32. In the solution, the solvent and the dissolved must remain together.

33. If the seed is not treated with warmth and moisture, it will be useless.

34. The Earth produces no fruit unless moistened repeatedly.

35. The moistening takes place by the Water with which it has the closest affinity.

36. Everything dry naturally tends to attract the moisture that it requires to become complete in its constitution.

37. A seed is useless and impotent unless it is put in its appropriate matrix.

38. Active heat produces in that which is moist blackness; in that which is dry, whiteness; and in that which is white, a yellowness.

39. The Fire must be moderate, uninterrupted, slow, equal, moist, warm, white, light, all-embracing, enclosed, penetrating, living, inexhaustible, and the same one used by Nature.

40. All operations must take place in only one vessel without removing it from the Fire.

41. The vessel should be well closed, so that the Water may not run out of it nor the Air escape. It ought to be hermetically sealed, because if the spirit were to find a place to escape, the power would be lost. And furthermore should it be closed, so that nothing foreign and impure can enter and become mixed with it.

42. Do not open the vessel until the moistening is completed.

43. The more the Stone is nursed and nourished, the more will it increase.