Albert Poisson
"It has often been repeated that alchemists worked blindly, this is a serious error, they had very rational theories which, put forward by the Greek philosophers of the second century of the Christian era, were maintained almost without alteration until the 18th century.
At the basis of Hermetic theory, we find a great law: the Unity of Matter. Matter is one, but it can take various forms and in these new forms combine with itself and produce new bodies in indefinite number. This raw material was still called seed, chaos, universal substance. Without going into further details, Basile Valentin posits the unity of matter in principle. “All things come from the same seed, they were all originally born by the same mother” (Char de triumph of antimony). Sendivogius, better known under the name of Cosmopolite, is more explicit in his “Letters” “Christians,” he says, “want that God first created a certain first matter... and that of this matter by way of separation , having been taken from simple bodies, which having then been mixed with each other, by way of composition served to make what we see...
There was in creation a kind of subordination, so that the beings the simplest ones served as principles for the composition of the following ones and these of the others,” he finally summarizes everything he has just said in these two propositions “ Savoir: 1° the production of a raw material that nothing has preceded; 2° The division of this matter into elements and finally through these elements the manufacture and composition of the Mixes ” (Letter XI°). By Mixed he means any kind of compound body.
D'Espagnet completes Sendivogius, by establishing the indestructibility of matter, he adds that it can only change form. “.... Everything that bears the character of being or substance can no longer leave it and by the laws of nature it is not permitted to pass into non-being. This is why Trismegistus rightly says in the Pimander that nothing dies in the world, but that all things pass and change” (Enchiridion phisicæ restitutæ).
Naturally he admits the existence of a raw material. “The Philosophers have believed,” he says, that there was a certain raw material, prior to the elements. » This hypothesis, he adds, is already found in Aristotle. He then examines the qualities that metaphysicians have attributed to matter. Barlet informs us on this point: “The universal substance is all everything internally without distinction of gender or sex, that is to say, large, fertile and imprinted with all sensitive things in the future” (Barlet: La teotechnie ergocosmique ). Which amounts to saying that primary matter does not contain any bodies in action and represents them all potentially. Generally it was accepted that the raw material is liquid, it is water which at the origin of the world was chaos.
potential forms... This uniform body was aquatic and called by the Greeks υλη, denoting by the same word water and matter. (Philosophical letter). Further it is said that it was fire which played the role of male in relation to female matter, thus giving birth to all the bodies which make up the universe. As we see, the hypothesis of raw material was the very basis of Alchemy, starting from this principle, it was rational to admit the transmutation of metals.
Matter first differentiated itself into sulfur and mercury, and these two principles united in various proportions to form all your bodies. “Everything is composed of sulphurous and mercurial materials” says the Christian Anonymous,
Later a third principle was added: salt or arsenic, but without giving it as much importance as sulfur and mercury. These three principles in no way designated vulgar bodies. They represented: certain qualities of matter, thus sulfur in a metal represents color, combustibility, the property of attacking other metals, hardness, on the contrary mercury represents brightness, volatility, fusibility, malleability. As for salt, it was simply a means of union between sulfur and mercury, like the vital spirit between the body and the soul.
Salt was introduced as a ternary principle, especially by Basil Valentin, Khunrath, Paracelsus, in a word by the mystical alchemists. Before them, Roger Bacon had spoken about it well, but incidentally without attributing any special qualities to it, without paying much attention to it; on the contrary,
Paracelsus raged against his predecessors who did not know salt. “They believed that Mercury and Sulfur were principles of all metals, and they did not mention even in a dream the third principle” (The Treasure of Treasures). But salt is of very little importance and even after Paracelsus, many alchemists passed it over in silence.
Sulfur, Mercury and Salt are therefore only abstractions, convenient to designate a set of properties, was a metal yellow or red, difficult to fuse, it was said that the Sulfur abounded in him. But we must not forget that Sulfur, Mercury and Salt derived from the First Matter: “O wonder, Sulfur, Mercury and Salt make me see three substances in a single matter” (Light emerging by oneself of Darkness Marc Antonio)." [Theories and Symbols of the Alchemists The Great Work by Albert Poisson]
See Also