Nine Books on the Nature of Things

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: crescere and augmentatio.

Read in context: Book 2. Compare artificial transformation in Book 7.

See also: Heat and Moisture, Generation, Art.

Balsam

Balsam belongs to the vocabulary of preservation. Its importance lies in the power attributed to it to hold a body against decay or corruption. It can therefore name a preserving preparation or function more broadly than a particular fragrant material known to a modern reader.

The book does not reduce preservation to one method. Different examples appeal to different conditions and treatments, and some contrast an ordinary preserving substance with another way of maintaining the body. The term should be read within those comparisons. The claimed permanence or medicinal value of a preparation remains part of the historical account.

Passage NTR-B04-P001: “Know therefore that spirit is most truly the life and balsam of all corporeal things.”

Source forms: balsamum.

Read in context: Book 3. Compare life in Book 4 and corruption in Book 5.

See also: Mummia, Quintessence, Life.

Mummia

Mummia appears within the discussion of bodily material, preservation and the powers assigned to it. It should not be flattened into a single modern image of an embalmed corpse. The work’s comparisons distinguish an ordinary material bearing the name from the effects claimed for other preparations.

The historical setting includes ways of understanding flesh and blood as bearers of natural power. A translation can retain this unfamiliar conception without certifying its medical claims or converting the description into a present-day practice. Read what is being preserved, which condition is supposed to be prevented, and what benefit the authorial voice infers.

Passage NTR-B04-P016: “The life of bones is the liquor of mummia.”

Source forms: mumia or mummia.

Read in context: Book 3. Read the surrounding preservation argument in Book 3.

See also: Balsam, Quintessence, Life.

Life

Life is not confined here to visible movement. The work assigns life or a concealed spirit to bodies beyond animals, including metals. Its account asks what makes a thing active in its own way. The term therefore needs a contextual translation rather than a simple equation with the modern category of an organism.

In the discussion of metals, the capacity to flow under fire is related to a hidden fatness associated with sulphur. That example shows how an ordinary material behaviour can be incorporated into a more expansive account of life. The historical explanation should be distinguished from the phenomenon it seeks to explain.

Passage NTR-B04-P001: “To know specifically what the life of each thing is and what kind it is, understand that the life of things is nothing but a spiritual essence, an invisible and intangible thing, a spirit and spiritual thing.”

Source forms: vita.

Read in context: Book 4. Compare the change of powers called death in Book 5.

See also: Sulphur, Fire, Death.

Death

Death is described through alteration, loss of former powers and the ending of a previous nature. In a work concerned with preparations, that ending can make possible another useful condition. The term is therefore not limited to the event of an animal ceasing to live, though bodily death also supplies examples and analogies.

The book’s judgement is local. Some things are valuable while alive and lose their power when dead; others are praised after a crude or earlier condition has been overcome. This allows preparation to be represented as a productive mortification. It does not prove that every dead or altered material is beneficial.

Passage NTR-B05-P001: “The death of all natural things is nothing but the alteration and overthrow of their forces and virtues, the predominance of badness and goodness, the suppression and destruction of the former nature, and the generation of a new and different nature.”

Source forms: mors.

Read in context: Book 5. Read renewed activity in Book 6 and putrefaction in Book 1.

See also: Life, Putrefaction, Resuscitation.

Resuscitation

Resuscitation concerns the renewed condition or activity of natural things. Its elevated language gives this renewal religious as well as natural significance. A reader should nevertheless follow each example before deciding what kind of restoration is being asserted.

The relation to the preceding book is central: if death can mean the ending of a material’s former powers, renewed activity can be described on a corresponding scale. This does not permit an unqualified transfer of every claim to the restoration of a dead human body. The work’s terminology is broad, and its particular objects remain decisive.

Passage NTR-B06-P001: “The resuscitation and reduction of natural things is no small matter in nature, but a profound and great secret, something divine and angelic rather than human and natural.”

Source forms: resuscitatio.

Read in context: Book 6. Read the account of death immediately before it in Book 5.

See also: Death, Generation, Transmutation.

Transmutation

Transmutation is defined through a loss or alteration of former form and the reception of another condition, essence, colour, power or nature. Its examples reach beyond metals. This is why an ordinary craft product can be included in the same book as a more ambitious claim about a tincture.