A whole world within a single stone

Alchemical writings began to appear in German under the name Basil Valentine towards the end of the sixteenth century. The author behind the name cannot be identified securely from a biography. The Twelve Keys arrange the work on the philosophers' stone in a sequence of images and explanations. In the tenth key the speaker considers what the one stone is supposed to contain. His point of departure is something small, introduced by the intimate word “our.”

What the tenth key enumerates

In our Stone, as composed by me and by those who have long preceded me, are contained all elements, all mineral and metallic forms, and all the qualities and properties of the whole world.

– Basil Valentine, The Twelve Keys, 1893, p. 347.^[1]

The enumeration then grows beyond the bounds of any one substance. First come the elements, then mineral and metallic forms, and finally the properties of the whole world. Each step alters the nature of what counts as a content of the stone. Forms and qualities now take their place beside materials. One might break a specimen open and examine its inclusions. The abundance that concerns this writer would scarcely be discovered by that procedure alone. It belongs to his understanding of the kinship among very different things.

How much one word can contain

The word “our” also says something about his readers. Someone already acquainted with the work in question will hear more here than a description of a mineral specimen. A newcomer can use the movement of the list as a guide. It leads from materials through their possible shapes to the qualities those shapes may carry. In a few lines one modest object acquires the task of making an entire set of relations in nature available to the imagination.