Why, what have you observed Sir, in our art Seems so impossible? _Surly_. But your whole work, no more! That you should hatch gold in a furnace, Sir, As they do eggs in Egypt. _Subtle_. Sir, do you Believe that eggs are hatch'd so? _Surly_. If I should? _Subtle_. Why I think that the greater miracle. No egg but differs from a chicken more Than metals in themselves. _Surly_. That cannot be. The egg's ordained by nature to that end, And is a chicken _in potentiâ_. _Subtle_. The same we say of lead and other metals, Which would be gold if they had time. _Mammon_. And that Our art doth further. _Subtle_. Aye, for 'twere absurd To think that nature in the earth bred gold Perfect in the instant: something went before. There must be remote matter. _Surly_. Ay, what is that? _Subtle_. Marry we say— _Mammon_. Ay, now it heats; stand father; Pound him to dust. _Subtle_. It is, of the one part, A humid exhalation, which we call _Materia liquida_, or the unctuous water; On the other part a certain crass and viscous Portion of earth; both which concorporate Do make the elementary matter of gold; Which is not yet _propria materia_, But common to all metals and all stones; For where it is forsaken of that moisture, And hath more dryness, it becomes a stone; Where it retains more of the humid fatness, It turns to sulphur, or to quicksilver, Who are the parents of all other metals. Nor can this remote matter suddenly Progress so from extreme unto extreme, As to grow gold, and leap o'er all the means. Nature doth first beget the imperfect, then Proceeds she to the perfect. Of that airy And oily water, mercury is engendered; Sulphur of the fat and earthy part; the one, Which is the last, supplying the place of male, The other of the female in all metals. Some so believe hermaphrodeity, That both do act and suffer. But these too Make the rest ductile, malleable, extensive. And even in gold they are; for we do find Seeds of them, by our fire, and gold in them; And can produce the species of each metal More perfect thence than nature doth in earth.