Nine Books on the Nature of Things

Discussion Guide

1. How does the distinction between natural and artificial generation affect the role assigned to a practitioner?

2. What does the account of putrefaction preserve, and what does it say has come to an end?

3. When the work compares plant growth with the ripening of metals, what exactly is offered as support for the comparison?

4. Which uses of mercury, sulphur and salt are names of materials, and which explain a principle or function?

5. How does the account of metallic life differ from the account of visibly moving animals?

6. Why can a prepared or mortified condition be valued above a crude or living one?

7. Which ordinary craft transformations are included in transmutation, and what do they establish about the more ambitious claims?

8. How do separation and transmutation overlap, and where does the text distinguish them?

9. What changes when the maker of a signature is a human being, the Archaeus, or the stars?

10. How does the dedication’s demand for secrecy shape the relationship between experience, authority and the reader’s ability to question a claim?