Can Transmutation be a Mere Rearrangement?

[Paul Ferguson]

"Empedocles says: “There is no birth of any of all mortal things, nor end in baneful death, but only a mixing and separation of what is mixed; and ‘birth’ is only a name humankind give to these things”. We have always heard of Alchemy as the art of transmutation, but where do alchemists get this statement from?"

https://labyrinthdesigners.org/can-trans...rangement/