CHAPTER II

QUALIFICATIONS OF THE EXPERIMENTER

You must know, my dear friend, that whoever wishes to experiment, should be acquainted with the nature of things, and should not be ignorant of the motion of the celestial bodies. He must also be skilful in manipulation in order that, by means of this stone, he may produce these marvelous effects. Through his own industry he can, to some extent, indeed, correct the errors that a mathematician would inevitably make if he were lacking in dexterity. Besides, in such occult experimentation, great skill is required, for very frequently without it the desired result cannot be obtained, because there are many things in the domain of reason which demand this manual dexterity.