Carminative

“ Eight days later their martyrdom begins; they are shaken till the seed falls from the pod; they are stretched in a water-meadow to rot; they are dried in the oven; they are rubbed, beaten, crushed, pounded, combed with iron combs, till nothing is left of their sturdy green grace and rustic beauty, no likeness of the poor handsome female plant, only a mass of loose tow and formless fibre. ”

“ For the hidden primordial elements of metals and stones lie concealed in the earth, as those of herbs and plants do in its outer crust. For the soil dug out of a deep well, where would seem to be no suspicion of a conception of seed, when placed on a very high tower, produces, by the incubation of sun and sky, green herbage and unbidden weeds; and those of the kind which grow spontaneously in that region, for each region produces its own herbs and plants, also its own metals. ”

“ I say life, for I take it that this company admits that a slab of granite is as much alive as any man or woman I see before me. But I have manufactured gold, and I could have manufactured protoplasm if I had devoted my life to that object. My studies have been almost wholly on the inorganic plane. Hence the 'philosopher's stone' came in my way, but not the 'elixir of life.' The molecules of protoplasm are only a little more complex than the molecules of hydrogen or nitrogen or iron or coal. ”

“ Every rank of creatures, as it ascends in the scale of creation, leaves death behind it or under it. The metal at its height of being seems a mute prophecy of the coming vegetation, into a mimic semblance of which it crystallizes. The blossom and flower, the acme of vegetable life, divides into correspondent organs with reciprocal functions, and by instinctive motions and approximations seems impatient of that fixture, by which it is differenced in kind from the flower-shaped Psyche that flutters with free wing above it. ”

“ As there is nothing in nature but by calcination, grinding, and washing will produce a fixed indissoluble matter, distinguished by the name of virgin earth, the properties of which is strictly the same whether produced from animals, vegetables, or fossills, no other difference arising from the process but that some bodys produce it in greater quantities than others, as all animal substances, all fossils of the calcarious kind, such as chalk, limestone, &c. ”

“ For instance, suppose the inquiry to be, from what beginnings, in what manner, and by what process gold or any metal or stone is generated from the original menstruum, or its elements, up to the perfect mineral: or, in like manner, by what process plants are gener­ated, from the first concretion of juices in the earth, or from seeds, up to the perfect plant, with the whole successive motion, and varied and uninterrupted efforts of nature; and the same inquiry be made as to a regularly deduced system of the generation of animals from coition to birth, and so on of other bodies. ”

“ Having extracted the carbon, they combine it with water and with the mineral substances that have been drawn from the soil, and prepare from them the living matters out of which the plant itself builds up its cells, and which, taken up into the body of an animal, is transformed by it into flesh and blood. ”

“ In the theory of evolution, the tendency of a germ to develop according to a certain specific type, e.g. of the kidney bean seed to grow into a plant having all the characters of Phaseolus vulgaris, is its "Karma." ”

“ If therefore thou wilt produce a Metall, thou shalt ferment with a Metall; and if thou wilt produce a Tree, let the seed of the Tree be thy ferment. There is as we said, but one operation, and beside it there is none other that is true. All they therefore are mistaken that say, that any particular thing, besides this one way, and naturall matter is true ”

“ Organisms are preserved because of the more or less complete substitution of mineral for animal matter. Pieces of coal or wood that have been deposited in clay may be washed out, but the small pores and interstices will be seen to be filled with the matrix. When the burial has been in a solution capable of precipitating solid matter, the wood will be found more or less changed according to the nature of the solution and its capacity for alteration. ”

“ A system of revival, or decomposition, is carried on at one pole, and one of abrasion, or more correctly speaking, of composition and solution, at the other. By taking advantage of this very extraordinary power of electricity, we now form vessels for ornament or use, we gild or silver all kinds of utensils, and give the imperishability of metal to the most delicate productions of nature—her fruits, her flowers, and her insects;—and over the finest labours of the loom we may throw coatings of gold or silver to add to their elegance and durability. ”

“ As the fundamental earths lose themselves in pure carbon, in resin, and so in the vegetable world, so the series of corrosive earths resolves itself likewise in remnants of an organic, and that indeed the animal, kingdom. As the pit-coals and resins are associated with the metals and Inflammables, so are the fossil animal remains with the calcareous earth; and thus the voice of the organic world speaks already with force and clearness to those that hearken, from out the stones. ”

“ Granting it is, then shall we say that all vegetable products, although long since uprooted but undecomposed, are possessed of life? Are the cells which compose the well-worn oak-beams of the few remaining wooden walls of Old England still endowed with vitality, and constantly engaged in a struggle for life with the low forms of animated Nature? Then, if this be conceded, might we not assume that fructification of germs is likewise essential to the decomposition of minerals? ”

“ The earthy clods, there herbs, and grains, and leaves,
All sorts dispersed minutely in the soil;
Lastly we ought to find in cloven wood
Ashes and smoke and bits of fire there hid.
But since fact teaches this is not the case,
'Tis thine to know things are not mixed with things
Thuswise; but seeds, common to many things,
Commixed in many ways, must lurk in things.
"But often it happens on skiey hills" thou sayest,
"That neighbouring tops of lofty trees are rubbed
One against other, smote by the blustering south,
Till all ablaze with bursting flower of flame." ”

“ I considered further how that in everything which arises, grows, lives or soars in the four elements named, be it metal, stone, herb or animal, the four natures of the elements, heat, cold, moistness and dryness are mingled. It is also to be noted that the four natures in question are also mixed and blended in the human body in a measure and temperament suitable to the life and nature of man. ”

“ The plant absorbs the crystal, and it becomes a part of a higher organization, which could no more exist without its soul; and if the plant is cut down and cast into the oven, is the organic impulse food for the flames? ”

“ The reader will observe that the fossil vegetables hitherto described belong, with but few exceptions, to the Carboniferous flora; and that the remains of Ferns, Calamites, Sigillariæ, and Lepidodendra, compose in a great measure those prodigious accumulations of mineral fuel, or coal, which supply the luxuries and necessities created by civilization. ”

“ For the truth of this, an appeal is made to the power, pressure, and dissolving operation of the most inert and stupid portions of material substance. An appeal is made also to the activity of the most stupid parts of matter, in the composition of vegetable productions. What regular industry do the solids and fluids exhibit in the formation of a common vegetable? The march of each particle to its destined post is with firm and philosophic step; with constancy and physical zeal. There is no such thing as dead matter; all is alive, all is active and energetic. ”

“ Co-incidentally with the conversion of the mineral constituents of the food of plants into organised structures—albumen, fibre, and such like substances—the light, and the heat, and the various other forces likewise suffer a change. Although the precise nature of the new force into which they are converted is still a mystery—one, too, which may never be revealed to us—still we know sufficient of it to satisfy us that it can only exist in connection with organic or organised structures. ”

“ They tell us that these "infant" plants were followed by those of larger growth, specimens of which are found in layers of rock and clay nearer the surface, and are followed by remains of the "herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after its kind"—for mummies of seed vessels and fruits have been found in coal-fields in many parts of the world. ”

“ And if by the regiment of art there be left any Caput Mortuum in the distillation, it hath, being dissolved in the air, a power to putrify metals being prepared, and mixed with it, in the space of few hours, so as to make them become black, and to grow up like trees with their roots, trunks, and boughs, which by how much the longer they are so left, become the better. ”

“ For the vegetable kingdom alone possesses the power of converting the mineral or the chemical into the living organism by absorption; and here, among the leaves and roots and flowers, that power was sweetly, irresistibly, at work. ”

“ Cataplasms and salves were frequently made of green herbs sodden, pounded, and applied externally.
Gradually, as the years have rolled on, and as the science of chemistry has unlocked the marvellous resources and products of nature, most of these old relics of the days of superstition and witchcraft have been left behind and forgotten, and it remains only for some old black-lettered tome to tell the story and for us to fill in the background to the picture. ”

“ The chemists demonstrate that the or a sort of restoration or resurrection of animals, insects, and plants, is possible and natural. When the ashes of a plant are placed in a phial, these ashes rise, and arrange themselves as much as they can in the form which was first impressed on them by the Author of Nature. ”

“ At one moment they exist as inorganic combinations in the air or the soil, [342] then as portions of plants, then as portions of animals, then they return to the air or soil again to renew their cycle of movement. The metamorphoses feigned by the poets of antiquity have hence a foundation in fact, and the vegetable and animal, the organic and inorganic worlds are indissolubly bound together. Plants are reducing, animals oxydizing, machines. Plants form, animals destroy. ”

“ Thus we are brought to the close of the era denominated carboniferous—a period of gigantic vegetable growth, a period of ferns and conifers, a period of reptiles and fishes, a period having, like that of all organic existences, recorded and unrecorded, a beginning and an end ”

“ Let us fancy that some thousand years ago, a mortal, wandering through an oriental wood, saw a worm falling from a fruit-bearing tree—that he found this little creature had reached the end of one of its stages of existence, and was laboriously engaged in shrouding itself in an unknown substance, like a fine thread of gold, out of which it constructed its tomb ”

“ Bloom Rose.—This is a preparation of carmine for the face and lips. Take a quarter of a dram of carmine and place it in a phial with half a dram of liquid ammonia; keep for a few days, occasionally shaking the mixture; then dilute with two ounces of rose-water, to which half a dram of essence of roses has been added. Draw off and keep a week or ten days, then apply with the corner of a soft handkerchief, taking care that if the color is too bright it is reduced by means of pure water. ”

“ By this means the plant is brought into direct connexion with the relevant spiritual energy, and then left to carry out for itself the necessary process of materialization, instead of being forced by mere chemical additions to the soil first to potentize the substance itself.8
The same principle holds good for man and beast. They also need 'young material' for their nourishment, so that the type active in them - which in animals is the group-soul of the species and in man is the single individual - can express its true form and character. ”

“ They take a flower, burn it, and collect all the ashes of it, from which they extract the salts by calcination. They put these salts into a glass phial, wherein having mixed certain compositions capable of setting them in motion when heated, all this matter forms a dust of a bluish hue; of this dust, excited by a gentle warmth, arises a stem, leaves, and a flower; in a word, they perceive the apparition of a plant springing from its ashes. ”

“ When the necromancer turns farmer, sows a few kernels of wheat in a little tin-box of earth, claps on the cover, sends a few sparks of electricity through it, whips off the lid and shows you the green blades an inch and a half long, in a minute and a half, it is a phenomenon, but not a miracle. ”

“ For ordinary experience shows us on all sides that the operative cause and the material cause are quite distinct: we invariably have on the one side clay, gold, and other material substances which form the material causes of pots, ornaments, and so on, and on the other hand, distinct from them, potters, goldsmiths, and so on, who act as operative causes. ”

“ Microscopic animal life helps the regenerative process, and, together with the minute vegetable life, [146] restores to the organic system myriads of tons of matter, which death and decay would have handed over to the inorganic world. ”