§ 39. Peter Bonus.
In 1546, a work was published entitled Magarita Pretiosa,
which claimed to be a "faithful abridgement," by "Janus Lacinus
Therapus, the Calabrian," of a MS. written by Peter Bonus in the
fourteenth century. An abridged English translation of this book by Mr.
A. E. Waite was published in 1894. Of the life of Bonus, who is said to
have been an inhabitant of Pola, a seaport
of Istria, nothing is known; but the
Magarita Pretiosa is an
alchemistic work of considerable interest. The author commences, like
pseudo-Geber in his
Sum of Perfection, by bringing forward a
number of very ingenious arguments against the validity of the Art; he
then proceeds with arguments in favour of Alchemy and puts forward
answers in full to the former objections; further difficulties, &c., are
then dealt with. In all this, compared with many other alchemists,
Bonus, though somewhat prolix, is remarkably lucid. All metals, he
argues, following the views of pseudo-Geber, consist of mercury and
sulphur; but whilst the mercury is always one and the same, different
metals contain different sulphurs. There are also two different kinds of
sulphurs—inward and outward. Sulphur is necessary for the development
of the mercury, but for the final product, gold, to come forth, it is
necessary that the outward and impure sulphur be purged off. "Each
metal," says Bonus, "differs from all the rest, and has a certain
perfection and completeness of its own; but none, except gold, has
reached that highest degree of perfection of which it is capable. For
all common metals there is a transient and a perfect state of inward
completeness, and this perfect state they attain either through the slow
operation of Nature, or through the sudden transformatory power of our
Stone. We must, however, add that the imperfect metals form part of the
great plan and design of Nature, though they are in course of
transformation into gold. For a large number of very useful and
indispensable tools and utensils could not be provided at all if there
were no copper, iron, tin, or lead, and if all metals
were either silver or gold. For this beneficent reason Nature has
furnished us with the metallic substance in all its different stages of
development, from iron, or the lowest, to gold, or the highest state of
metallic perfection. Nature is ever studying variety, and, for that
reason, instead of covering the whole face of the earth with water, has
evolved out of that elementary substance a great diversity of forms,
embracing the whole animal, vegetable and mineral world. It is, in like
manner, for the use of men that Nature has differentiated the metallic
substance into a great variety of species and forms."
14 According to this interesting alchemistic
work, the Art of Alchemy consists, not in reducing the imperfect metals
to their first substance, but in carrying forward Nature's work,
developing the imperfect metals to perfection and removing their impure
sulphur.
