A Chymical Dictionary

Fermentum

Elements principles and the natural world · A Chymical Dictionary

At a Glance

The word. A fixed agent credited with communicating its nature and fixedness.

In the book. Elixir is properly described as a ferment whose smallest part turns a whole mass into its own kind.

A place to read. The historical definition below, 1650 dictionary, unnumbered definition page 22; facsimile PDF page 350.

Historical Definition

Fermentum is a fixed matter that reduces another matter to its own nature and fixedness.

Meaning

The ferment is defined through both its condition and its action. It is fixed, and it is said to bring another matter into its own nature and fixedness. The relation between agent and subject is therefore central; the entry does not simply use ferment as a general word for spontaneous change.

“Nature” identifies the kind or character communicated in this account. “Fixedness” adds a condition that is explained more directly under Fixatio, where something that flies in fire is made to endure it. Keeping both words visible prevents the entry from being narrowed to only a change of appearance.

Use in the Book

Elixir is properly described as a ferment whose smallest part turns a whole mass into its own kind. That definition adds a relation of quantity and a claim about a mass. Fermentum itself does not state a ratio. Tinctura concerns tinging a body with colour, while Lapis Philosophorum is described through a high terrestrial virtue giving tincture. The entries overlap in an interest in communicated effects, without becoming a single universal definition.

The comparison also guards against importing a familiar everyday sense of fermentation into every passage. This entry’s distinctive claim is the communication of a fixed matter’s own nature to another matter.

Places to Read

Elixir. A transformative ferment, or a thing’s essence.

Fixatio. An operation defined through resistance to loss or flight in fire.

Lapis Philosophorum. The philosophers’ stone defined through supreme terrestrial power and its imparting of tincture.

In This Edition

The modernised definition retains the causative language as a historical account. It does not supply ingredients, conditions or evidence for a successful conversion. A longer text must establish what its author calls the ferment, what it acts upon and what outcome is claimed.

Historical source: 1650 dictionary, unnumbered definition page 22; facsimile PDF page 350 — Facsimile

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

See also. Elixir; Fixatio; Lapis Philosophorum; Tinctura