minded searcher might the more easily consider in what degree the Stone differs from Metalls, and Metalls from Elements. For there is a difference betwixt Gold, and Water, but lesse betwixt Water, and Mercury; and least of all betwixt Mercury, and Gold. For the house of Gold is Mercury, and the house of Mercury is Water: but Sulphur is that which coagulates Mercury; which Sulphur indeed is most difficultly prepared, but more difficultly found out. For in the Sulphur of Philosophers this secret consists, which also is contained in the inward rooms of Mercury, of whose preparation, without which it is unprofitable, wee shall discourse hereafter in the third Principle of Salt, seeing here wee treat of the vertue, and originall, not Praxis, of Sulphur. Wherefore now wee have not writ this Treatise that wee would disprove any of the ancient Philosophers, but rather confirm their Writings, and supply those things, which they have omitted: seeing that Philosophers themselves were but men, they could not be accurate in all things, neither is one man sufficient for all things. Miracles also have seduced some men from the right way of Nature, as wee read happened in _Albertus Magnus_ a most witty Philosopher; who writ, that in his times there were grains of Gold found betwixt the teeth of a dead man in his grave. Hee could not find out this Miracle, but judged it to be by reason of the Minerall vertue in man being confirmed in his opinion by that saying of _Morien_: _And this Matter, O King, is extracted from thee_: but this is erroneous, for _Morien_ was pleased to understand those things Philosophically. For the Minerall vertue is placed in its own Kingdome, as the Animall is in its Kingdome, as in the book of the Twelve Treatises wee have distinguished those Kingdomes, and divided them into three Kingdomes; because every one of these without the ingresse of any other thing stands in it self, and is multiplyed. It is true indeed that in the Animall Kingdome, Mercury is as the matter, and Sulphur as the vertue, but the Animall is not Minerall. The vertue of the Animall Sulphur if it were not in Man, it could not congeal the bloud Mercury into flesh, and bones: so also if there were not a vertue of the Vegetable Sulphur in the Vegetable Kingdome, it could not coagulate Water, or the Vegetable Mercury into Herbs, and Trees. So also it is to bee understood in the Minerall Kingdome. These three Mercuries doe not indeed differ in vertue, nor the three Sulphurs, because every Sulphur hath a power to coagulate its own Mercury; and every Mercury hath a power to bee coagulated by its owne proper Sulphur; and by no other that is a stranger to it. Now the reason why Gold was found, and generated betwixt the teeth of the dead man is this, because in his life time Mercury was by some Physitian conveyed into his infirme body, either by unction, or by Turbith, or some other way, as the custome, and manner was, and it was the nature of Mercury