SECTION III.
Know my Son, that the philosophers bind up their matter with a strong
chain, that it may contend with the Fire; because the spirits in the
washed bodies desire to dwell therein and to rejoice. In these
habitations they verify themselves and inhabit there, and the bodies
hold them, nor can they be thereafter separated any more.
The dead elements are revived, the composed bodies tinge and are
altered, and by a wonderful process they are made permanent, as saith
the philosopher.
O, permanent watery Form, creatrix of the royal elements; who, having
with thy brethren and a just government obtained the
tincture, findest
rest. Our most precious stone is cast forth upon the dunghill, and that
which is most worthy is made vilest of the vile. Therefore, it behoves
us to mortify two Argent vives together, both to venerate and be
venerated, viz., the Argent vive of Auripigment, and the oriental Argent
vive of Magnesia
O, Nature, the most potent creatrix of Nature, which containest and
separatest natures in a middle principle. The Stone comes with light,
and with light it is generated, and then it generates and brings forth
the black clouds or darkness, which is the mother of all things.
But when we marry the crowned King to our red daughter, and in a gentle
fire, not hurtful, she doth conceive an excellent and supernatural son,
which permanent life she doth also feed with a subtle heat, so that he
lives at length in our fire.
But when thou shalt send forth thy fire upon the foliated sulphur, the
boundary of hearts doth enter in above, it is washed in the same, and
the purified matter thereof is extracted.
Then is he transformed, and his tincture by help of the fire remains
red, as it were flesh. But our Son, the king begotten, takes his
tincture from the fire, and death even, and darkness, and the waters
flee away.
The Dragon shuns the sunbeams which dart through the crevices, and our
dead son lives; king comes forth from the fire and rejoins with his
spouse, the occult treasures are laid open, and the virgin's milk is
whitened. The Son, already vivified is become a warrior in the fire and
of tincture super-excellent. For this Son is himself the treasury, even
himself bearing the
Philosophic Matter.
Approach, ye Sons of Wisdom, and rejoice; let us now rejoice together,
for the reign of death is finished, and the Son doth rule. And now he is
invested with the red garment, and the scarlet colour is put on.
It happen'd that a great number of them being invited to a Feast where Kisna was also present, they were so full of wantonness, as to stamp upon the precious Flowers call'd Majstou and CafsoMa (affording a most delicious Tincture for «»»ng) with their Feet. Not contented thus, it being a Moonlhiny Night, they contrived to ridicule the famous Prophet Ruehi, whom
they saw sitting very thoughtfully under a Tree. For this purpose they
put a Basket under a certain Man's Clothes, dresi'd like a Woman, and
carrying her to Aucbi, ask'd him, whether this Woman was to bring
forth a Male or Female Child? He not minding them the first time, they
pulPd him by the Arm j and ask'd him the fame Question in a very rude
manner a second time j when being as.it Wereawaken'd out of his
Pensivehcfs, he told them, he sltould bring forth an Iron Bar which
should break all their Skulls. He had no sooner said these words, but
the difguis'd man was aeized with most intolerable Pains, which
did not cease till he had brought forth an Iron Bat. Being amaz'd at so
odd an Accident, they had recourse to Kisna, who ordered them to go to the Village of Perwatspatang, seated
upon the River, where they should find a Stone; wherewith they must rub
the Iron Bar till it was redue'd to Pouder, and then throw it into the
RlvCr. They did as they were ordered, but no sooner had they thrown the
Pouder of the Iron into the Water, but the whole River was fill'd with
Reeds or small Canes, as if it had been a Forest: They gave an account
of it to Kisna,who told them it was well.
It happen'd upon another
Festival, that the young Tribe beirig merry together, one of the
Company took up one of these Reeds from the ground, and striking another
over the Head in jest, he taw him drop down dead before his Feeti The Friends of the deceased raking up another such Reed, struck the other young Fellow eves trie Head, who like-
The scientific or
philosophic matter is
an imaginary homogeneous substance which is none of the real kinds of
matter, but is the hypothetical substance of which the real things are
supposed to be variations. What, then, is the homogeneous matter of
science? The scient does not know ; he has no definition of it: it may
be atoms; it may be vortex-rings in ether; it may be mathematical points
acting as centres of force. In fact there are two ways of regarding
matter: matter is nothing, or matter is something unknown. Matter = o,
or matter = .r. Either of these may be true; and the supposition of
either demolishes materialism. There is no third alternative. Now for a
philosophy the unifying principle must be real, and must be
intelligible. If it is not real, if there is no such thing, then the
philosophy collapses: it is wholly a delusion. If it is real, but quite
unknown, a mere
x, the unknown cannot serve as a connecting
principle by which our human minds can in thought unite things together.
A philosophy is a sort of explanation; a way, at least, of conceiving
the world. To say that the world is
x and terms of
x, leaves us just where we were before—in the presence of an unsolved problem.
