Essatum essentiale

Qualities powers and relations · A Chymical Dictionary

At a Glance

The word. An essential power attributed to vegetable and mineral subjects.

In the book. Corpus locates virtues within a subject; Formæ rerum can mean the virtues of things.

A place to read. The historical definition below, 1650 dictionary, unnumbered definition page 21; facsimile PDF page 349.

Historical Definition

Essatum essentiale is the essential [nature] and power present in vegetables and minerals.

Meaning

The original phrase “the essentiall, and power” is compressed and grammatically awkward. The bracketed nature is an editorial aid to reading that incomplete construction; power and the two stated fields, vegetables and minerals, are explicit in the text. The supplement does not name a separate ingredient or an additional principle.

The term concerns what a subject is said to possess or express, rather than a visible form named by colour or shape. The definition supplies no extraction process under this heading.

Use in the Book

Corpus locates virtues within a subject; Formæ rerum can mean the virtues of things. Essentia quinta adds an account of extraction and purification. Those parallels help readers distinguish a statement about essential efficacy from a statement about how a selected matter is prepared.

Places to Read

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

Essentia quinta. Quintessence described through extraction, purification and claimed incorruptibility.

Formæ rerum. Forms explained through received celestial influences or active virtues.

In This Edition

The grammatical clarification is editorial. The accompanying original wording remains the authority for the source’s compressed form, and no additional doctrine is inferred from it.

Historical source: 1650 dictionary, unnumbered definition page 21; facsimile PDF page 349 — Facsimile

Sources. A Chymicall Dictionary 1650, s.v. Essatum essentiale

See also. Corpus; Essentia quinta; Formæ rerum