Leffas

Elements principles and the natural world · A Chymical Dictionary

At a Glance

The word. An unseen earthly vapour credited with the growth of plants.

In the book. Leffa concerns the predestination of herbs; Leffas concerns a power through which they grow.

A place to read. The historical definition below, 1650 dictionary, unnumbered definition page 29; facsimile PDF page 357.

Historical Definition

Leffas is a hidden, seething vapour of the earth through which herbs and plants grow.

Meaning

Growth is assigned to something active within the earth rather than to its inert bulk alone. The vapour is occult because it is hidden; boiling or seething describes its activity. The entry offers a generative explanation, not simply another word for an already formed herb.

A reader should preserve the relation expressed by through which. The vapour enables growth, but the definition does not say that a plant and this vapour are interchangeable names for the same visible object. Nor does it identify the vapour with a specific modern gas.

Use in the Book

Leffa concerns the predestination of herbs; Leffas concerns a power through which they grow. Matrices rerum and Microcosmus place other kinds of generation within a vocabulary of containing elements and worlds. They help recover the scale of the account without erasing the particular earthly setting of Leffas.

Places to Read

Leffa. A term for the predestination assigned to herbs.

Matrices rerum. The elements considered as matrices of things.

Microcosmus. The human being named as a little world.

Historical source: 1650 dictionary, unnumbered definition page 29; facsimile PDF page 357 — Facsimile

Sources. A Chymical Dictionary 1650, 1650 dictionary, facsimile PDF page 357, Leffas

See also. Leffa; Matrices rerum; Microcosmus