The Final Conclusion for Understanding Raymond Lully's Testament or Codicill and his other Books, and also the Argent-Vive on which the whole intentional Intention does Depend, which is otherwise called .

But our Secret Philosophical Water is compounded of three Natures, and it is like to a Mineral Water, in which our Stone is dissolved, and therein it is terminated, Whitened and rubified. For it is not joined to the work, unless essentially moistening the parts of the dissolved Stone, whose Phlegm preserves the whole Work from combustion (or burning), by the means of the Artists Industry.

But know that all its substance, that is the phlegmaticall, is by decoction separated from the whole Compound, but our Phlegm is the middle substance, and the first Water of Mercury, in which the beginning of the Stone is, that is, its dissolution, neither does it enter with it, although they embrace one another with the Bond of Nature, unless as a Phlegm moistening the parts of the things, and not generating nor augmenting; Whence the radicall moistures are the essential parts of the Stone imbibed in the things themselves, of which alone the parts of the things consist, therefore by it, it is augmented and nourished. But it is the truly germinating (blooming, sprouting, or growing) Nature, which the more it is decocted with the Phlegm; in its Vessel, by a Fire forcing (or stirring) is the more ingrafted into (or fastened with) all and everyone of the Parts, it is adorned, and so made fitter that manifold Fruits may be generated out of it: For this is called the middle nature, and the Stone, Mercury, Arsenick, and the noble spirit partaking of both extreams, the White Sulphur and the Red, binding up Mercury and converting it into better Silver than that of the Mine. But the Phlegm in which is our Sulphur is decocted, which is called Gold, is that in which the humid Air in the substance of Mercury is spiritually intercepted, until its middle part also be condensed into Water, by the means of the Action of Heat of the Body. For the Metallick Body as an active Virtue works like a male, and this because it is proper to it, because its Heat is inclined in a humid, which when it enters into the pores of Cold Mercury it is passive and is altered by little and little, and so also that which is digested by a natural Heat, it is totally (even in the smallest particles) dissolved into Water, because it is the property of every Element to have in itself a contrariety and to act on its contrary; but the parts which are not dissolved into water are in the form of an Argent Vive Amalgamated with a Body, which cannot be dissolved unless they be more subtilized by sublimation. And therefore Lute (or close) if you would dissolve it by coldness, then the more coagulate it. But the Heat of the Body does indeed digest and dissolve Mercury, as well as is condensed into water, with its parts of Mercury, otherwise dissolved. And so our Phlegm of which essential substances it consists, which Essences of the Elements are indeed mutually so directed, so that the most of each of them, with the most of the other, and the least of one with the least of the other, is altering one another, by (or with) their qualities. Whence Alexander says: That they make a mixture of the Elements, because the Elements work some certain Effects better in mixture, than simple. And this by reason that in such mixture the proper Essence of the Elements do remain, which are the proper operative Powers, as appears by our Philosophical Water, which is called metalline, because it is generated out of a Metallick Kind only.

For in this water by Sulphur then is the middle disposition, which is between softness and hardness by the (means) mediation of which, there is made a passing from the softness of Argent Vive, to the most perfect hardness of a metal. Whence I say itis made by a determinative dissolution, which partakes of the two contraries: Nor is this an essential disposition of Argent Vive and Sulphur in their substance or Nature? but only a part of them? form whose alteration of the Essential Parts, they come unanimously (or together) into an earthly middle substance.

Therefore it receives a certain fixation, as a Spirit of fixation, the nearest to the Rest (or repose) of fixation, because when it is fixed, its phlegm is separated by desiccation from the whole generated Compound.

Therefore to receive (or get) the phlegm, condense Air by the hot and the dry, and rarify the dry, and you shall have the hot and moist; the Aeriall Vapours is spiritually received in the matter of Gold, and of other things mixt, and therefore they are the sooner dissolved into it. But our Water after its separation by the Alembick is in Colour clear as common Water, and in the beginning of its Operation by the filtre, it is pale in Colour like the height (or tops) of the Chaff (or rather the Beard) of Wheat, the Cause of which is the digestion converting the Body to citrinity, and before it is separated by the filtre it is black; the Cause of which is the Terrestrial Corruption of the obscure Body covering the brighter parts of the Spirit in a corrupt form, although it be not so.

And after its compleat decoction, which is done by rarefaction, it is hiddenly White, which Whiteness indeed is nothing else but the Spirit let loose from the body and carried by the phlegm: But the phlegm is varied in colours; but as often as the Spirit is carried so often also is the phlegm, because the phlegm is not Varried but in form. For the Spirit of every decoction is varried in Colour, and certainly the matter also is augmented in weight, in Virtue, and in power.

For when the black is imbibed with water after separation by the filtre, the black matter grows white upon the Porpohry.

But the substance of this Water is the bright and illuminating Spirit of the Bodys, which in the Book of Nature was united to the metals and coagulated by fire, that is by the mineral Virtue; and when it is coagulated it is found (to be) partaking of two Natures and extreams, for it is partly fixed and partly Volatile, and therefore it is called the medium in which the fixative (or fixing) Virtue is, and while it is fixt and follows (or takes after) the proper nature of a metal. For this is called Sulphur, and a hard liquor sublimed after the manner of a Spirit into a Powder, for there can never be made a liquability in any Spirit. For this is generated from the substance of two contrary moistures, as to heat and coldness and of one kind as to their Root, the one of which is SOL, and the other Argent Vive in one degree. But in another degree it is LUNE and Argent Vive; yet this Argent Vive differs in a certain degree when it is joined with SOL, since it is not argent vive in its own nature, because it has other stronger Virtues, which are those of Heat.

Argent Vive as a passive matter is joined with SOL as an Agent; but SOL is not joined with Argent Vive, as the male with the female; but on the Contrary, because in reality the middle nature of Argent Vive has dominion over the matter of gold, and corrupts it, as if it acted upon it like a male; but it not only corrupts it, but altering it enters into the fixt and hot humidity of SOL with the Spirit, (its Spirit) and this by the mediation of that Spirit in which the Bud (the Sprout or Growth) if both of them is carried.Whence SOL is not joined to Argent Vive, nor Argent Vive to SOL, but by the middle substance , nor does the one love the other, but by such a disposition akin to nature; of which one substance, that is, that of Argent Vive exceeds the substance of SOL in a four-fold part (or proportion) because it is colder than SOL; because the active Powers are greater in SOL than in LUNE in the beginning of the Confection of (or making) the Stone.

Yet the quantity of the matter of SOL does not in truth exceed the price of one piece of Gold; but it exceeds more in the weight of the LUNE matter, because it is of a more terrestrial nature and of a weaker Power, and it is therefore strengthened with the nature of gold, and without it, it is weakened. For LUNE, this according to all (Authors) it be cold, yet it is hot in some certain degree, but it has not so great a power, that it can act on the passive matter of Argent Vive, unless it be assisted by a more active matter, and therefore the Earth of Sulphur is prepared with Arsenick, as argent vive with our Sulphur. But the preparation of Sulphur is, that if it be boiled with its Oil, with a little of the ferment, it will within 8 days return into a most red Powder tinging Silver into Gold.

FINIS.