the alchemists speak of philosophical mercury and philosophical gold, they mean something in man and something in God that finally turns out to be the One. “By this symbolism the alchemists escape the difficulty of treating the subject in ordinary language. The learner must always return to nature and her possibilities for the sense of the derived symbols, and to it the hermetic masters also continually direct him.” (H. A., pp. 232 ff.) If the true light has risen in the hearts of the seekers, kindled from within (although apparently by a miracle from without) “the sulphur and mercury become one, or are seen to be the same, differing only in a certain relation; somewhat as the known and the unknown (and the conscious and the unconscious) are but one, the unknown decreasing as the known increases, and vice versa.” (H. A., p. 235.) One alchemist teaches: “Consider well what it is you desire to produce, and according to that regulate your intention. Take the last thing in your intention as the first thing in your principles.... Attempt nothing out of its own nature [then follow parables that grapes are not gathered from thistles, etc.]. If you know how to apply this doctrine in your operation as you ought, you will find great benefit, and a door will hereby be opened to the discovery of greater mysteries.” Actually there is a greater difference between one who seeks what he seeks as an end, and one who seeks it as a means to an end. To seek knowledge for riches is a very different thing from seeking riches (or independence) as an instrument of knowledge. In the study in question the means and the end must coincide, i.e., the truth must be sought for itself only. (H. A., p. 238.) In the book, “De Manna Benedicto,” we read: “Whoever thou art that readest this tractate, let me exhort thee that thou directest thy understanding and soul more toward God for the keeping of his commandments, than toward love of this art [sc. its external portions], for although it be the only, indeed the whole wisdom of the world, it is yet powerless in comparison with the divine wisdom of the soul, which is the love towards God, in the keeping of his commandments.... Hast thou been covetous, profane one? Be thou meek and pious and serve in all lowliness the glorious creator; if thou art not determined to do that, thou art employed in trying to wash an Ethiop white.”