or Auripigment, or Citrine Arſenicum, or red alone, or the like: we ſhould neuer effect it, becauſe ſith nature doth neuer perfect anything without equall commixtion of both, neither can well: from theſe therefore, as from the foreſaide Argent-uiue and Sulphur in their nature we are excuſed. Finally, if we ſhould chooſe them, wee ſhould mixe euerie thing as it is, according to due proportion, which no man knoweth, and afterward decoct it to coagulatiō, into a ſolide lumpe: and therefore we are excuſed from receiuing both of them in their proper nature: to wit, Argent-uiue and Sulphur, ſeeing wee know not their proportion, and that wee may meete with bodies, wherein we ſhall find the ſaide things proportioned, coagulated & gathered together, after a due manner. Keepe this ſecret more ſecretly. Golde is a perfect maſculine bodie, without any ſuperfluitie or diminution: and if it ſhould perfect imperfect bodyes mingled with it by melting onely, it ſhould be Elixir to red. Siluer is alſo a body almoſt perfect, and feminine, which if it ſhould almoſt perfect imperfect bodyes by his common melting onely, it ſhould be Elixir to white, which it is not, nor cannot be, becauſe they onely are perfect. And if this perfection might be mixed with the imperfect, the imperfect ſhuld not be perfected with the perfect, but rather their perfections ſhuld be diminiſhed 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
