Nine Books on the Nature of Things

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.