The Golden Chain of Homer

300. How are the later particular anatomies expected to follow this universal example?

Book II Chapter 6 What Is Finally to Be Concluded From the Preceding Long Chapter

Read with: II.6.

301. Why does the author supply a separate chapter of conclusions after the long universal operation?

302. What order of preparation, separation and reunion does he want the reader to retain?

303. How are volatile, acid, oil, coal, ash and alkali distinguished?

304. Why is reading and judgment presented as a condition of appropriate practice?

305. How does a homogeneous water differ in its relation to soft and hard bodies?

306. What changes when the general rule is applied to a mineral subject?

307. How does the author describe an ascent through the three kingdoms?

308. Why is a rule useful without becoming a single identical procedure for every material?

309. Which caution in this chapter most clearly limits a literal imitation of the preceding account?

310. How does the chapter connect the universal anatomy with the three particular anatomies that follow?

Book II Chapter 7 the Anatomy of Animals

Read with: II.7.

311. How does the author connect putrefaction with the opening of animal matter?

312. What place do the reported apparitions occupy in his account of animal life and dissolution?

313. How should their evidential status be distinguished from that of a separation into visible products?

314. How are volatile spirit, vinegar, oil and coal related in the anatomy of a liquid animal subject?

315. Why does the order of reunion matter, and what part does phlegm play?

316. What changes when the subject is a hard animal part rather than a fluid?

317. How do nature and art differ in the ends toward which their operations tend?

318. Why does the author worry about retaining oil rather than losing it during purification?

319. What practical problem is addressed by his discussion of preparing material in quantity?

320. How does vinegar serve as a mediator in the transition toward the vegetable anatomy?

Book II Chapter 8 the Anatomy of Plants

Read with: II.8.

321. How does the author distinguish soft vegetable subjects from hard ones?

322. What does the varying proportion of principles reveal about differences among plants?

323. How are the claimed medicinal properties connected with those proportions?

324. What is meant by the volatile vegetable salt in this account?

325. Why does reunion require more than placing the separated portions together?

326. How may missing principles be supplied from universal subjects, according to the author?

327. What relationship does this proposal establish between a particular plant and the wider natural economy?

328. Why does the chapter identify principal subjects for the three kingdoms?

329. How is a subtle oil distinguished from accidental differences among vegetable materials?

330. Which comparison with the animal anatomy makes the vegetable chapter easier to understand?

Book II Chapter 9 the Anatomy of Minerals

Read with: II.9.

331. How does the author explain the particular difficulty of work on minerals and metals?

332. Why does the chapter distinguish several kinds of corrosive or penetrating spirit?

333. How does the sequence of intermediate mineral materials support the larger argument?

334. What is the danger of assuming that one historical symbol always names the same material?

335. How do fixation and volatility depend on the relation between materials rather than on a name alone?

336. What would count, for the author, as a merely superficial dissolution?

337. How does the discussion of mineral substances revise the account of their generation in Book I?

338. Where does the author appeal to experience, and how specific is the evidence offered?

339. Which uncertain reading in the notes most affects your understanding of the passage around it?

340. What does this chapter reveal about the practical limits of the book’s promise of a universal method?

Book II Chapter 10 the Tree of Dulcification and the Mineral Arcanum

Read with: II.10.

341. What does dulcification mean here beyond the everyday idea of making something sweet?

342. How does the opening tree organise volatile, acid and alkaline branches?

343. Why are animal and vegetable spirits placed beside mineral corrosive materials?

344. What relationship does the diagram assert that its printed words alone might leave obscure?

345. How does the author describe the moderation of an excessively active material?

346. Why should dulcification be read in relation to the earlier account of media?

347. What must remain active if moderation is not to become simple destruction?

348. Which sensory descriptions carry explanatory weight in this chapter?

349. How does the diagram change when read as a map of relations rather than as a modern classification?

350. Where does the argument move from an observed alteration to a claim about medicinal suitability?

Book II Chapter 11 Chapter XI and Last: On the Alkahest, or Alka Est

Read with: II.11.

351. What problem is the Alkahest meant to solve within the argument of the two books?

352. How does the author distinguish a universal power from an indiscriminate action on everything?

353. What earlier account of seed, specification or medium helps explain this distinction?