The first thing to do, then, is to strip off and cast aside those properties of metals which appeal to the senses.
"It is necessary to deprive matter of its qualities in order to draw out its soul," said Stephanus of Alexandria in the 7th century; and in the 17th century Paracelsus said, "Nothing of true value is located in the body of a substance, but in the virtue ...

the less there is of body the more in proportion is the virtue." But the possession of the soul of metals is not the final stage: mastery of the soul may mean the power of transmuting a metal into another like itself; it will not suffice for the great transmutation, for in that process a metal becomes gold, the one and only perfect metal.

Hence the soul also must be removed, in order that the spirit, the essence, the kernel, may be obtained.
And as it is with metals, so, the alchemists argued, it is with all things.

There are a few _Principles_ which may be thought of as conditioning the specific bodily and material forms of things; beneath these, there are certain _Elements_ which are common to many things whose principles are not the same; and, hidden by the wrappings of elements and principles, there is the one _Essence_, the spirit, the mystic uniting bond, the final goal of the philosopher.
I propose in this chapter to try to analyse the alchemical conceptions of Elements and Principles, and in the next chapter to attempt some kind of description of the Essence.
In his _Tract Concerning the Great Stone of the Ancient Sages_, Basil Valentine speaks of the "three Principles," salt, sulphur, and mercury, the source of which is the Elements.
"There are four Elements, and each has at its centre another element which makes it what it is.

These are the four pillars of the earth." Of the element _Earth_, he says:--"In this element the other three, especially fire, are latent....