The Hartlib Papers

I noted with a speciall Asteriske or noat, those very numericall syllables or words, (as thinking they did conteyne a mystery in them,) above 2. or 3. yeare, before I understood it, not withstanding that he really calls a spade a spade. Nay I further professe honestly to you, that upon a deepe consideration of some of Glaubers writings & other discourses, I mett with when I was in Holland, it pleased god to discover the thing so clearely to me, that I sett downe the very thing in my Adversaria, as a matter further to be weighed & experimented, & yet understood it not, nor was the better for it. The like I did a third time viz since my comming into Ireland, & yet I apprehended not the consequence of it: nor should have beene ever able to have applyed any of these hynts, so as to have made any vse of them vnlesse God had (as he did) further as it were imposed the consideration of it upon me, by bringing my observation to a non plus, upon a kinde of fortuitous experiment made by me, which I speake even to this End to shew; that the Lord hath his seasons, & that it is not of him that wills, or of him that runnes, but of God only who in this as in more higher things enlightens whom he will. For I finde by my owne writting, that I was as neare it in Holland, & the full cleare & perfect knowledge of it was possible for a man to be. If that had beene the Lords season, to open it, so that I cannot say it comes by reading of Bookes. Concerning the further operations upon the Philosophical matter, viz extraction, nutrition, sublimation, exaltation & purification; These also are not written so largely or plainely by any one though, by some more plaine then another. Yet not to be understood, if the 2. first great Keyes be not understood. The coagulation, fixation, augmentation. [ie?]. many have writt largely, but of this I have had no experience. The last thing & the maine thing, is their Science Axiomes & Principles, which whosoever vnderstands not well & distinctly, will make little of their sayings. And indeed [catchword: this]

this is your<H: the> Manly part of the whole thing. As by which a man is led into a new System, of knowledge, & to see a Harmony in things not possible to be discerned by him before, which was well (though Laconically ynough) noated by Hermes in the very first Sentence of his famous Table. Of this also some have written with much pleasur & clearely others more breifly & obscurely, & it was in this particular; I commended your Frankenberg, whose writings seeme to me, to be much more allied to their Principles, then anything I could ever discerne in Böhmen. In Generall I shall commend first Basilius Valentinus, as having least Tricks, & most solidity of knowledge, whom also Helmont seemes to preferre above or before Paracelsus. There is another a Countryman of our owne: next & before all others, I commend Paracelsus, who was a cleare & Rationall man, though intoxicated now & then partly with the sight of his owne knowledge, & partly through the extraordinary opposition & reproach he mett with, Yet he is not any where to be trusted, when he tells you of his practize or setts downe this or that Recipe. Bernhardus Trevisanus, Morienus, Sendivogius, Arnoldus, Rogerius Baconius, Artesius, Flamellus, & other have writt each of them in their kinde well, & some anonimous Authors, that I have mett with, have writt much better: and truly if you will sett a side his Clavicula, I should putt Lullius with the last though one of the best here & there/for his Phylosophy./.