Agrippa: The Philosophy of Natural Magic, Chapter XIV — Of the Spirit of the World, What It Is, and How by Way of Medium It Unites Occult Virtues to Their Subjects · 2 of 2 · tr. Henry Morley; L. W. de Laurence ed.
Chapter XIV, Section 1b
And we know how to do that, and have seen it done; but we could make no more Gold than the weight of that was out of which we extracted the Spirit; for seeing that [ gold ] is an extense form, and not intense, it cannot beyond its own bounds change an imperfect body into a perfect; which I deny not, but may be done by another way.
Themes
◆Alchemical Workpraxis
The transformation of base substance — outer matter or the inner soul — into a purified, perfected, or 'gold' state; the magnum opus as both laboratory practice and spiritual allegory.
The passage explicitly discusses transforming an imperfect body into a perfect state through the Spirit of the World, mirroring the core goal of alchemical transformation.
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