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CHAPTER II.

Of the Philosophic or Subtle Work.

Omnia in omnibus primum, omni Tertio tradidit (ex omni primo secundo) omnia in omnibus primum secundum, ut inde omnia in omnibus, et omnia, catholicè, agnosceret, cognosceret ac possideret.-Enigma Khunrath, Amph. Sap.

S there are three reigns or grand distinctive distributions of the kingdoms of Nature, so we are informed that in the Philosophic Work, preceding her, there is a threefold order of legitimate operation and a relation of Causal sequences which merits especial note. For these three operations, which are in fact so many degrees through which the Spirit passes from conception to manifestation, are perplexed by the Adepts in their records, and reserved strictly under the Master Key of their Dilemma, in order that the mysteries of this most venerable science might not be discovered to the profane. And shall we, who have hitherto presumed so far on their indifference as to break the preliminary signets and unloose so many covertures of occult learning, more audacious still, approach those final cerements unannealed, and with a full discovering hand expose before all indiscriminately the Art of simple Nature, which the ancients kept so holily, and which the Wisest in modern times have deemed it unprofitable to reveal? The unworthy alone would have it so; the intelligent lovers of truth would bewail nothing more than a desecration of it in incapable hands; nor will they be offended or grudge the additional pains which a conscientious reserve may occasion them to discover, by a theoretic conduct, the ultimate Art of Life.

The tradition of the Preliminary Practice, as it has been delivered by each one following his own. guide independently, may be regarded as it were

a track in the sands easily changeable, and where we ought to conduct ourselves rather by the polar star-light than by any footsteps which are seen implanted there. Besides the confusion of the tracks which the many wayfarers have left is so great, and one finds so many different paths and wilful deviations, that it is almost impossible not to be led astray from the right road, which the Star alone points out for all and each one by his proper sight beholding it. The wilful confusion of the Hermetic doctrine has doubtless checked many aspirants; some in the beginning, others in the middle of their philosophic career, have been disappointed; many even with a perfect knowledge of the preliminary work, and having the true Matter in Hand also and means of purification, are said to have faltered in defect of the ultimate theory whereon to proceed; some, even when they understood this, having already approached through much labour and contemplation towards the end of their journey, having the Final Purpose also in mind, have been entangled by the snares and pitfalls which their predecessors had dug in the midway between them and the fulfilment of their destined course. I vow sincerely to you, says Eudoxus, in that introduction of his to the Six Keys, that the practice of our Art is the most difficult thing in the world, not in regard to its operations, but in respect of the difficulties which are in it, to learn it distinctly from the books of the philosophers. For if, on the one side, it is called with reason a recreation and play of children; on the other, it requires in those who search for the Truth a profound knowledge of the principles and of the operations of Nature in the Three Kinds: Thus Norton says

Greate neede hath he to be a clerke
That would discerne this Subtill Werke:
He must know hys first filosophie,

If he trust to come by Alkimie.

It is a great point to find out the True Matter and proper Subject of this work; even for this we must pierce through a thousand obscure veils wherewith it has been overspread: we must distinguish it by its proper idea and name, among a million of pseudonymes and abstruse appellations, whereby the Adepts have chosen to express it: we must learn to understand the properties of it, in order to judge of the possibility of the miracles alleged ; and before we can imagine into the abstruse Original of Nature, we must reflect profoundly and patiently, in order to discriminate the secret Fire of the Wise, which is the only agent granted by Art to purify and dispose Nature to a sacrifice of her last life. This, we must know, and the Divine Law that succeeds to animate her by a revolutionary course. We must learn further how to convert and congeal the new-born Quintessence or mercurial water into an incombustible fixed unguent, and, by the entire revolution of its body, to awaken the occult Light to Life.

And to effect this, moreover, adds our author of The Triumph, you must make the conversion of the Elements, the separation and the reunion of the Three Principles; you must learn how to make thereof a white Mercury and a citrine Mercury, and you must fix this Mercury and nourish it with its own blood, to the end that it may be converted into the fixed Sulphur, which is the Stone of Philosophers.

These are the fixed principles of the Hermetic Art, in which there is no variableness but in their discovery, which, having already discussed, we proceed to redeem our promise of a more subtle application to practice; and this, without incurring too great a responsibility on ourselves, may we trust be intelligibly conceived from such succeeding evidence as it is expedient only to afford.

We read, in the Egyptian Fable of Isis and Osiris, that they were sister and brother, and being

conjoined in marriage likewise, that their kingdom was cruelly divulsed and usurped by their brother Typhon, who in a malignant and envious spirit killed Osiris, cut his body into pieces and scattered his members to the four winds. Isis however, recollecting these, preserved them in a chest which floated on the Nilotic waters in safety until the period arrived for a restitution; when the king was thenceforth resuscitated, and came forth invulnerable from his ashes, and far more powerful than he was before, to the enjoyment of his dominions and rightful throne.

Now in this fable, already explained in part, Plutarch, with the Adepts also being witnesses, is profoundly couched not only the principiating action of Intellect but the methodical art of the same subtle Antecedent to bring itself, by begetting a supernatural offspring, into natural effect. And since it is requisite, according to the ancient Metaphysics, to consider the doctrine of Causes from its Principle, and causes are said to subsist in a fourfold respect, one of which they assert to be essence, the subsisting as a certain particular thing, and cause and principle form the First Why; but the second cause is matter and that which subsists as a subject; A Third is that whence the beginning of motion is derived; and The Fourth is a cause opposite to this, viz., THAT for the sake of which the inquiry subsists, and the Good which is the end of generation.1

Hence, referring this Peripatetic scheme of investigation to the art of Wisdom for realisation, we may conceive the whole intellectual relationship; and how the speculative Motive of the First Cause is finally produced in reversionary order from the Third, in whom it becomes efficient, by the Second into the Fourth; as it were a triplicate Being of Thought, Will, and Understanding, which, resting in the sole vision of its 1 See Aristotle's Metaphysics, book i.

only begotten perfection, desires not to surpass itself; but, perceiving itself indeed to be the Final Object of its own First Cause, is good, according to the words of the Stagyrite, and the end of spiritual generation.

These, then, are the universal principles which it has sometimes been deemed expedient in practice to represent, and these are their several relations:

Primus dicatur in quo sensus dominatur.
Sensibus æquato gaudet Natura Secundo.
Tertius excedit, cujus tolerantia lædit.

Destructor sensus nescit procedere Quarto.

And, as respects the operation of these, viz., of the natural, unnatural, and the supernatural Fires, they should be quickly lighted, says the Adept,2 lest one should put out the other, or that this should stifle that: over all which the Fourth, partaking of the aerial fiery element, supervenes for the accomplishment of the work. And, as respects the Vessels, the First indeed may be considered to be opaque, the Second less so, and the Third still less so. This last containing truly Him who is to be born; and as the embryo in the mother is protected with a triple covering and sustained within until mature, even so is the metaphysical offspring said to be involved: which, by the birth of Horus in the Egyptian Fable, is accurately represented, when, Typhon being vanquished, the lawful empire is resumed.---Triuna universalis essentia, quæ Jehovah appellatur et ex Uno, divina essentia, dein ex Duobus, Deo et homine, ex Tribus, personis videlicet, ex Quatuor, utpote tribus personis et una Divina Essentia, quem-admodum etiam ex Quinque tribus personis, et duabus Essentiis nimirum, divinis et simul humanus est.3

2 Maieri Symbola Aurea Mensæ, p. 256.

3 Aquarium Sapientum in Mus. Herm. p. 112.