_Of the solution of the Stone compounded._
The Philosophers moreouer haue taken great paines in dissoluing, that
the body and soule might the better be incorporate, for all those
things that are together in contrition, assation, and rigation, haue
a certaine affinitie and alliance betweene themselues, so that the
fire may spoyle the weaker of nature, till it vtterly fade and vanish
away, as also it again returneth vpon the stronger parts, vntil the
bodie remaine without the Soule. But when they are thus dissolued
and congealed, they take the parts one with another, as well great
as small, and incorporate them well together, till they be conuerted
and changed into one and the same thing. And when this is done, the
fire taketh from the Soule as much as from the body, neither more
nor lesse, and this is the cause of perfection. For this cause it is
necessary (teaching the composition of Elixir) to afford one chapter
for expounding the solution of simple bodyes and soules, because bodyes
doo not enter into soules, but do rather withhold and hinder them from
sublimatiõ, fixation, retention, commistion, and the like operations,
except mundification go before. And thou shalt know, that solution is
after one of these two wayes: for either it extracteth the inward parts
of things vnto their Superficies, and this is solution (an example
whereof thou hast in Siluer that seemeth cold and drie, but being
dissolued, and that his inwards appeare, it is found hot and moyst) or
else it is to purchase to a body an accidentall moysture, which it had
not before, and to adde hereunto his owne humiditie, whereby his parts
may be dissolued, and this likewise is called solution.