Contextual Lexicon

Each entry gives a connected explanation, an exact whole sentence from this translation, and places to read. The quoted passage remains evidence of what the work says; the explanatory paragraphs are modern editorial interpretation.

Generation

Generation is the arising of a thing, considered through the agents and conditions that make it possible. The opening distinction between nature and art is central: the work allows art to intervene in processes whose materials and powers are natural. Its account therefore does not treat an artificial product as automatically outside nature.

Putrefaction is assigned a generative role because the earlier condition can end as another begins. Read the examples of seeds, bodily materials and metals separately before making them instances of one identical process. The homunculus claim is a conspicuous part of this discussion, but it does not stand for the entire meaning of generation.

Passage NTR-B01-P001: “All natural things have a twofold generation: one occurs naturally without art; the other occurs through art, namely alchemy.”

Source forms: generatio.

Read in context: Book 1. Compare growth in Book 2 and resuscitation in Book 6.

See also: Art, Putrefaction, Homunculus.

Art

Art names skilled intervention in natural things. The work’s examples include recognisable craft transformations, so the term is broader than a secret technique for making precious metals. Knowledge of a material, a suitable operation and the condition one wants to obtain are joined in its account of making.

The ordinary examples matter because they offer a familiar basis for a larger argument. They demonstrate that materials can change under human operations; they do not establish every further transmutation that the work claims. A careful reader can distinguish the force of an example from the full conclusion it is asked to support.

Passage NTR-B01-P001: “All natural things have a twofold generation: one occurs naturally without art; the other occurs through art, namely alchemy.”

Source forms: ars.

Read in context: Book 7. Read artificial ripening in Book 2 beside separation in Book 8.

See also: Transmutation, Growth, Separation.

Putrefaction

Putrefaction is the breakdown or alteration of an earlier condition through moist warmth. The book gives it both destructive and productive consequences. Something valued can become harmful, while something initially harmful may be claimed to become useful through preparation. The direction of the change must therefore be read in each example.

The grain placed in earth makes the idea of productive decay intelligible, and the work adds religious authority to that image. This does not make ordinary decomposition a guarantee of regeneration. Putrefaction is best read as one named condition in an argument about change, rather than as a universal instruction to let a substance rot.

Passage NTR-B01-P001: “Putrefaction is the highest stage and the first beginning of generation.”

Source forms: putrefactio.

Read in context: Book 1. Compare the definition of death in Book 5.

See also: Generation, Heat and Moisture, Death.

Homunculus

The homunculus is the small artificial human claimed in the discussion of generation. The episode intensifies the work’s wider question about what art can accomplish under conditions borrowed from nature. Its details belong to the historical claim and are preserved in the translation, rather than replaced by a modern account of reproduction.

The passage is often detached from the book because of its strangeness. Reading it in context makes the issues more precise: a claimed generative power, an artificial receptacle, nourishment, time and the relation between a small product and ordinary human development. None of this amounts to a demonstrated means of making a human being.

Passage NTR-B01-P009: “Through art they obtain their life; through art they obtain body, flesh, bones and blood; through art they are born.”

Source forms: homunculus.

Read in context: Book 1. Read the opening account of generation in Book 1 before isolating this episode.

See also: Generation, Art, Imagination.

Imagination

Imagination is assigned formative power in the work’s account of bodily generation. The text can therefore use it as a causal explanation for an unusual birth or appearance, rather than merely as the private representation of something absent. Its relation to inward stars belongs to that historical understanding of the person.

These assertions can carry blame or stigma, especially when applied to pregnancy. They are not reliable biological explanations and should not be used to judge a parent or child. Preserving the historical argument allows a reader to examine the power assigned to thought without endorsing its supposed bodily consequences.

Passage NTR-B01-P005: “A pregnant woman’s imagination is so effective that, when she conceives seed within her body, she can transform the fetus in various ways, because her inner stars are directed so strongly toward it that they produce an impression and influence.”

Source forms: imaginatio.

Read in context: Book 1. Compare the different work performed by signs in Book 9.

See also: Homunculus, Astrum, Signature.

The Three Principles

Mercury, sulphur and salt are presented as principles through which the generation and condition of metals can be explained. The text connects them to spirit, soul and body. The value of this correspondence lies in the roles assigned within a specific explanation, rather than in an automatic translation of every mention of the words.

The work’s explicit distinction between the soul of metals and common combustible sulphur prevents an easy substitution of the familiar substance for its philosophical function. Particular preparations remain material operations even when they are described through these principles. Keep the account of a material beside the account of what it is said to do.

Passage NTR-B01-P010: “To understand those three substances—spirit, soul and body—clearly and correctly, know that they signify nothing but the three principles, Mercury, Sulphur and Salt, from which all seven metals are generated.”

Source forms: tria principia.

Read in context: Book 1. Read the discussion of metallic life in Book 4 and preparation in Book 5.

See also: Mercury, Sulphur, Salt.

Mercury

Mercury can be a named material and a principle related to spirit. That range is part of the difficulty of the text: a statement about mercury in the three-principle correspondence need not have exactly the same scope as a description of a particular preparation. A familiar name does not remove the need to follow the action and its object.

The account of preparation in the book on death is especially useful for comparison. It asks the reader to value a changed condition rather than a crude material simply because of its name. The medicinal effects asserted there remain historical claims; the principle correspondence does not establish their efficacy.

Passage NTR-B01-P010: “Mercury is spirit, Sulphur soul and Salt body.”

Source forms: mercurius.

Read in context: Book 1. Compare the preparations in Book 5.

See also: The Three Principles, Life, Death.

Sulphur

Sulphur is associated with soul in the account of metals, and it also appears as a material to be prepared. The source itself distinguishes the philosophical function from ordinary combustible sulphur. That distinction is a reason to retain the word and explain it, rather than decide that every occurrence names one modern substance.

The association with ripening, fatness and the bond between other constituents helps explain its work in different passages. These relations should be compared without erasing their local conditions. The present volume’s use of sulphur is also its own historical account, rather than a definition imported from another author’s treatise.

Passage NTR-B01-P010: “What lies in the metal between spirit and body, of which Hermes also speaks, is soul, namely Sulphur, which unites those two contraries, body and spirit, and changes them into a single essence, and so forth.”

Source forms: sulphur.

Read in context: Book 1. Compare metallic life in Book 4.

See also: The Three Principles, Fire, Life.

Salt

Salt is linked to body in the three-principle correspondence. Its role concerns the constitution of a thing, while other passages can speak of particular salts as materials in an operation. A philosophical correspondence and a material name belong to related discussions but should not be treated as identical kinds of statement.

Reading salt as common table salt throughout would make many passages misleadingly familiar. The more useful questions are what body is being discussed, which part is retained or separated, and what the preparation is meant to make available. The historical name can remain visible while those questions determine its local sense.

Passage NTR-B06-P009: “Everything which fumes and evaporates in fire is Mercury; what flames and burns is Sulphur; every ash is Salt.”

Source forms: sal.

Read in context: Book 1. Compare the separations described in Book 8.

See also: The Three Principles, Separation, Elements.

Heat and Moisture

Heat and moisture are conditions through which the work explains growth, ripening and change. Rain and solar warmth give an ordinary example: the earth receives moisture and is then acted on by warmth. The book uses that pattern to make the assistance of art appear continuous with processes in nature.

The same pair also appears in the account of putrefaction, so its presence does not identify one outcome by itself. The material, duration and condition make a difference. Following the analogy carefully means noticing both what it explains and where the text moves beyond the observable example to a further claim.

Passage NTR-B02-P001: “It is sufficiently evident and known to everyone that all natural things grow and mature through heat and moisture, as rain and the sunshine that follows it sufficiently demonstrate.”

Source forms: caliditas, calor and humiditas.

Read in context: Book 2. Read moist warmth and putrefaction in Book 1.

See also: Growth, Putrefaction, Fire.

Growth

Growth is treated together with increase and ripening. The work uses the fertility of earth and the maturing of fruits to argue that suitable conditions can bring a natural thing towards a more developed state. Human skill is allowed a role in supplying or directing those conditions.

Its extension from plants to minerals is an important argumentative step. The work asks a reader to regard an imperfect metal as something that may be brought to maturity, but that comparison should be recognised as a claim about metals, rather than taken as a direct observation of plant growth. The local passage makes the proposed continuity visible.