Simya Nedir: Libavius'un Tanımı

ALCHEMIA is the art of perfecting magisteria and extracting pure essences from mixtures by separating the body. Since these two offices are commonly understood by the term "laboring," it happens that it can also be named the art of laboring well, or of the segregation of the pure from the impure by way of juice and the mode of fusion or solution, on account of the excellence of this part, whence the name of the art is also judged to have arisen. It has its origin in nature, which the first artisans strove to imitate by industry, and that especially in the beginning in extracting juices from mineral veins and purifying them, in which manner nature itself produces pure metals and juices from mines, so that they may even be seen today protruding from their veins. Thus, in the past, it was of great value in metallurgy. Now it serves medicine rather, and labors not only in minerals, but also in animals and vegetables for human uses and the preservation of health, although it also contributes many ornaments of life. The first inventor of this is believed to be that Tubalcain known in sacred writings, whom they call Vulcan. For he is written to have been the first to labor in metallurgy, which is a part of Alchemy. In Egypt, Hermes, or Mercurius Trismegistus, was its celebrant, having discovered the noble transmutation, from whom certain things of the art still have their name, such as the vessel of Hermes or the pelican, the birds of Hermes, the Hermetic seal, etc. From him, the art itself is called the art of Hermes, and is understood to be transmutatory. In our time, Paracelsus added it to the highest things in his confidence and begat the peculiar faction of the Paracelsians.