But since they are no more to be found in the seed itself, we can explain their presence in the plant only by assuming the existence of a primary element common to all the substances contained in the cress, and also to all those by which we environed it.

Thus the air, the distilled water, the brimstone, and the various elements which analysis finds in the cress, namely, potash, lime, magnesia, aluminium, etc., should have one common principle floating in the atmosphere like light of the sun.
"'From this unimpeachable experiment,' he cried, 'I deduce the existence of the Alkahest, the Absolute,--a substance common to all created things, differentiated by one primary force.

Such is the net meaning and position of the problem of the Absolute, which appears to me to be solvable.

In it we find the mysterious Ternary, before whose shrine humanity has knelt from the dawn of ages,--the primary matter, the medium, the product.

We find that terrible number THREE in all things human.