“From the mixture of the four Elements and of their four qualities, result the three Principles,–Mercury, Sulphur, and Salt. These are the philosophical, not the vulgar.

“The philosophical Mercury is a Water and SPIRIT, which dissolves and sublimates the Sun; the philosophical Sulphur, a fire and a SOUL, which mollifies and colors it; the philosophical Salt, an Earth and a BODY, which coagulates and fixes it; and the whole is done in the bosom of the Air.

“From these three-Principles result the four Elements duplicated, or the Grand Elements, Mercury, Sulphur, Salt, and Glass; two of which are volatile,–the Water [Mercury] and the Air [Sulphur], which is oil; for all substances liquid in their nature avoid fire, which takes from the one [water] and burns the other [oil]; but the other two are dry and solid, to wit, the Salt, wherein Fire is contained, and the pure Earth, which is the Glass; on

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both of which the Fire has no other action than to melt and refine them, unless one makes use of the liquid alkali; for, just as each element consists of two qualities, so these great duplicated Elements partake, each of two of the simple elements, or, more properly speaking, of all the four, according to the greater or less degree of each,–the Mercury partaking more of the Water, to which it is assigned; the Oil or Sulphur, more of the Air; the Salt, of the Fire; and the Glass, of the Earth; which is found, pure and clear, in the centre of all the elementary composites, and is the last to disengage itself from the others.

“The four Elements and three Principles reside in all the Compounds, Animal, Vegetable, and Mineral; but more potently in some than in others.

“The Fire gives them Movement; the Air, Sensation; the Water, Nutriment; and the Earth, Subsistence.

“The four duplicated Elements engender THE STONE, if one is careful enough to supply them with the proper quantity of fire, and to combine them according to their natural weight. Ten parts of Air make one of Water; ten of Water, one of Earth; and ten of Earth, one of Fire; the whole by the Active Symbol of the one, and the Passive Symbol of the other, whereby the conversion of the Elements is effected.”

The Allusion of the Ritual, here, is obviously to the four Worlds of the Kabalah. The ten Sephiroth of the world Briah proceed from Malakoth, the last of the ten Emanations of the world Aziluth; the ten Sephiroth of the world Yezirah, from Malakoth of Brian; and the ten of the world Asiah, from Malakoth of Yezirah. The Pass-word of the Degree is given as Metralon, which is a corruption of METATRON, the Cherub, who and Sandalphon are in the Kabalah the Chief of the Angels. The Active and Passive Symbols are the Male and Female.

The Ritual continues:

“It is thereby evident that, in the Great Work, we must employ ten parts of philosophical Mercury to one of Sun or Moon.

“This is attained by Solution and Coagulation. These words mean that we must dissolve the body and coagulate the spirit; which operations are effected by the moist and dry bath.

“Of colors, black is the Earth; white, the Water; blue, the Air; and red, the Fire; wherein also are involved very great secrets and mysteries.

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“The apparatus employed in ‘The Great Work’ consists of the Moist bath, the Dry bath, the Vases of Nature and Art, the bowl of oak, lutum sapientiæ, the Seal of Hermes, the tube, the physical lamp, and the iron rod.

“The work is perfected in seventeen philosophical months, according to the mixture of ingredients. The benefits reaped from it are of two kinds–one affecting the soul, and the other the body. The former consist in knowing God, Nature, and ourself; and those to the body are wealth and health.

“The Initiate traverses Heaven and Earth. Heaven is the World manifest to the Intelligence, subdivided into Paradise and Hell; Earth is the World manifest to the Senses, also subdivided into the Celestial and that of the Elements.

“There are Sciences specially connected with each of these. The one is ordinary and common; the other, mystic and secret. The World cognizable by the Intellect has the Hermetic Theology and the Kabalah; the Celestial Astrology; and that of the Elements, Chemistry, which by its decompositions and separations, effected by fire, reveals all the most hidden secrets of Nature, in the three kinds of Compound Substances. This last science is styled ‘Hermetic,’ or ‘The operating of the Great Work.'”

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