Preliminary Notes on Newtonian Alchemy

or

De Principia Alchemica

1. Hypotheses
   1. All metals, in their kind, are infinitely multiplicable, and have in themselves a capacity of being transformed from the imperfect into the perfect.
   2. In all imperfect metals, and no perfect metals, there is an external and coagulated sulphur which is not metalline, but distinguishable from the internal kernal of mercury.
   3. There is of all metals, the possibility of being transmuted by reduction into their first, Mercurial matter.
2. The Principal Materials of the Work
   1. Of all metallic and metalline sulphurs, only two are of use in the work, which two have their Mercuries essentially united to them.
   2. Who understands these sulphurs and mercuries will find one pure red, the other pure white.
3. If a man's principals be true, and his principles according to Art, his event will be certain; to wit, the true mastery.