Diotimos Library · Esotericism & Spirituality Collection · Bilingual Edition
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Facing Pages · Branch 245 of 504
23 What the Generation of Minerals Is and Which Principles Constitute Them
German & Latin
1723 pp 186–187Denn wie viel Animalia und Vegetabilia werden täglich durch das Wasser resolvirt, theils durch Kochen zu menschlicher Speise, als zu welcher Zeit auch Dämpffe von ihnen ausgehen, theils werden durchs Feuer verzehret und zum Kochen angewendet, da der grosse Rauch Wolcken-weise durch den Camin ausfährt, in welchem Feuer die Köche nicht wenig animalische Beiner verbrennen etc. und durch das Rauch-Loch jagen. Wie ihnen denn auch die Butter und Schmaltz nicht zu gut ist, wenn das Feuer nicht brennen will. Aus Gesagtem nun siehet man klar, daß die Natur ohne Corrosiv kein Metall machen kan. Denn so die Natur mit einem rohen und corporalischen Saltz-Wasser und Salpeter-Wasser Metallen machte: welches zwar könte angehen, dieweil alle leicht solvirte Erden durch Saltz-Wasser alterirt werden: aber da sie die Natur zuvor 100. Jahr arbeiten sollen, würde es hier gewiß 1000. Jahr zu thun haben. Denn wenn das Saltz geistlich und resolvirt ist, so greifft es 20mahl mehr an, als wenn es nur so schlechter Dings in Wasser resolvirt ist.
The Golden Chain of Homer: 23 What the Generation of Minerals Is and Which Principles Constitute Them
1723 pp 186–187How many animals and plants are daily dissolved by water! Some are cooked for human food, releasing vapours as they cook; others are consumed by fire and used for cooking, while great smoke issues cloud-like through the chimney. Cooks burn no small number of animal bones in that fire and send them through the smoke-hole; butter and fat, too, are not too good for them when the fire will not burn. From what has been said it is now clear that nature can make no metal without a corrosive. If nature made metals with raw, corporeal saltwater and nitre-water—which might indeed be possible, since saltwater alters all readily soluble earths—where it otherwise had to work for a hundred years, here it would certainly have a thousand years’ work. For when salt is spiritual and resolved, it attacks twenty times more strongly than when merely dissolved in water.
Socrates
Reading The Golden Chain of Homer · 23 What the Generation of Minerals Is and Which Principles Constitute Them · B1C23S029 · 1723 pp 186–187
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Socrates will begin with this book and its sources.About This Reading Edition
The two-book alchemical work of 1723 in German with a new English translation, 399 notes, eight historical diagrams, chapter outlines, keyword essays, a glossary, bibliography, subject index, and 400 discussion questions.
Historical Text and Translation
Anonymous, Aurea Catena Homeri. Frankfurt and Leipzig: Johann Georg Böhme, 1723. Traditionally attributed to Anton Joseph Kirchweger; the attribution remains uncertain. Historical diagrams from the Stiftung der Werke von C. G. Jung copy digitized by e-rara.
About Diotimos Editions
This historical edition credits Diotimos Editions as its English translator.
Rights
The supplied edition identifies the 1723 German source and historical diagrams as public-domain material. Its new English translation and editorial apparatus are published with the site owner’s authorization. The complete original files are retained unchanged.