Plants are preserved by the preservation of their seed.

"In like manner," the alchemist's argument proceeded, "there must be a seed in metals which is their essence; if I can separate the seed and bring it under the proper conditions, I can cause it to grow into the perfect metal." "Animal life, and human life also," we may suppose the alchemist saying, "are continued by the same method as that whereby the life of plants is continued; all life springs from seed; the seed is fructified by the union of the male and the female; in metals also there must be the two characters; the union of these is needed for the production of new metals; the conjoining of metals must go before the birth of the perfect metal." "Now," we may suppose the argument to proceed, "now, the passage from the imperfect to the more perfect is not easy.

It is harder to practise virtue than to acquiesce in vice; virtue comes not naturally to man; that he may gain the higher life, he must be helped by grace.
Therefore, the task of exalting the purer metals into the perfect gold, of developing the lower order into the higher, is not easy.

If Nature does this, she does it slowly and painfully; if the exaltation of the common metals to a higher plane is to be effected rapidly, it can be done only by the help of man." So far as I can judge from their writings, the argument of the alchemists may be rendered by some such form as the foregoing.

A careful examination of the alchemical argument shows that it rests on a (supposed) intimate knowledge of nature's plan of working, and the certainty that simplicity is the essential mark of that plan.
That the alchemists were satisfied of the great simplicity of nature, and their own knowledge of the ways of nature's work, is apparent from their writings.
The author of _The New Chemical Light_ (17th century) says: "Simplicity is the seal of truth....