Corpus

Elements principles and the natural world · A Chymical Dictionary

At a Glance

The word. A body understood as the subject containing a thing’s hidden efficacy.

In the book. Arcanum offers a closely related account: a secret incorporeal virtue in natural things, associated with a life derived from heaven and capable, in the compiler’s account, of multiplication through spagyrical art.

A place to read. The historical definition below, 1650 dictionary, unnumbered definition page 18; facsimile PDF page 346.

Historical Definition

Corpus is the subject in which the virtues of things lie hidden.

Meaning

The dictionary defines a body through its relation to virtues. These are the powers or efficacies attributed to things, rather than moral accomplishments. Corpus is their subject: that in which they are said to reside while remaining hidden. This is a statement about how a thing’s material presence and its activity are related in the book’s explanatory vocabulary.

“Hidden” does not mean that the body is itself invisible. An ordinary visible subject can contain a power whose action or preparation is the focus of a chymical text. Nor does the sentence say that a virtue must be another small body concealed inside a larger one. The definition leaves the manner of containment open.

The word “subject” is important for reading operations. An author may describe working upon a subject in order to obtain, expose or prepare an efficacy attributed to it. The dictionary’s entry names the relationship that makes such language possible; it does not supply a universal process for accomplishing the work.

Use in the Book

Arcanum offers a closely related account: a secret incorporeal virtue in natural things, associated with a life derived from heaven and capable, in the compiler’s account, of multiplication through spagyrical art. Extractum gives a preparative contrast, naming what is extracted from bodily concretion while grossness remains behind. Compositum describes a body in its unseparated condition. These entries help distinguish the original subject, its condition, and a product sought from it.

The definitions also warn against using one rigid sense of body everywhere. Cohos includes what the skin contains in a whole body, but Corpus has no such anatomical restriction. Corpus invisibile identifies the soul while explaining why bodily language can be applied to it. Corpora cœlestia Spagyrorum defines celestial bodies of the spagyrists as astral virtues present in matter. Their differences are part of the vocabulary, rather than exceptions to be erased.

When comparing passages, follow the sequence of claims. What is the subject? What virtue is attributed to it? Is the author discussing that virtue as hidden, as manifest in an effect, or as associated with a preparation? The dictionary provides these distinctions across its entries even when it does not resolve the composition of the subject.

Places to Read

Arcanum. A hidden virtue in natural things, capable in this account of enhancement through art.

Cohos. The contents of the body considered within the boundary of its skin.

Compositum. A compound body considered before separation.

In This Edition

The modernised definition uses “virtues” deliberately. Substituting only “ingredients” would turn an account of efficacy into a list of components; substituting only “properties” could make the account sound more like a modern classification than the source warrants. The commentary explains the term through the dictionary’s own recurring language of powers, preparations and effects.

The word can remain useful even where the underlying identification is uncertain. A reader may understand that an author is contrasting a bodily subject with an attributed virtue without yet knowing which historical substance the author means. Keeping that distinction open is more faithful than supplying an unsupported chemical formula.

Historical source: 1650 dictionary, unnumbered definition page 18; facsimile PDF page 346 — Facsimile

Sources. A Chymicall Dictionary 1650, s.v. Corpus

See also. Arcanum; Cohos; Compositum; Corpora cœlestia Spagyrorum; Corpus invisibile; Extractum