Diotimos Library · Esotericism & Spirituality Collection · Bilingual Edition
Sal Lumen and Spiritus Mundi Philosophici
Treatises on the True Salt and the Universal Spirit of the World
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Facing Pages · Branch 120 of 251
Book Two · Chapter 3
French
1621 pp. 142–144 · scans FR162, FR163, FR164Car apres que le souverain auteur de toutes choses eut disposé la confusion qui estoit dedans le cahos, il feit que les choses superieures demeurerent pures & subtiles, & les inferieures ordes & grossieres: d’autant que le naturel des substances est de s’eslever vers le lieu de leur origine: & celuy des excrements de s’affaisser & rabattre vers le centre. De là vient que le pur qui est dans les animaux & vegetaux esleve & recherche le haut, les faisant eslever & croistre jusques à ce qu’il soit delivré des masses excrementeuses qui l’engluent & attachent à la corruption mortelle, & qu’il puisse atteindre le lieu où il en soit plus esloigné, afin d’y vivre sans alteration ny defaillance. De là vient que les creatures plus spirituelles & subtiles habitent les lieux hautains comme plus espurez, & vivent d’aliments convenables & pareils à leur naturelle substance. Mais celles qui sont plus corporelles habitent les bas lieux, & demeurent parmy les feces & immondices qui ont leur siege és lieux inferieurs: c’est pourquoy elles sont infectees & gastees, vivant de ce qui est embrouillé & meslé parmy les lies du monde. Car tout ce que la terre & les autres elements (qui sont les receptacles de ces impuritez) peuvent produire, est corrompu & souillé, engendrant par consequent corruption & souillure en tout ce qui en est alimenté: au moyen dequoy le sang acquiert une mauvaise disposition, qui cause la malignité des humeurs, aux uns plus, aux autres moins, selon la portee de l’inquinament des parents, & la quantité abusive de l’usage des choses corruptibles desquelles procede la cause de la destruction & mortalité. Car si la terre & ce qu’elle engendre estoient aussi remplis de pureté que le Ciel, tous les animaux vivroient de la mesme vie que vivent les hostes celestes.
Sal Lumen and Spiritus Mundi Philosophici: Book Two · Chapter 3
1621 pp. 142–144 · scans FR162, FR163, FR164For after the sovereign author of all things had ordered the confusion within chaos, he ordained that higher things remained pure and subtle, and lower things filthy and coarse: for substances naturally rise towards their place of origin, while excrements sink and fall towards the centre. Hence the pure part in animals and plants rises and seeks the heights, making them rise and grow until it is released from the excrementitious masses that clog it and bind it to deadly corruption, and can reach a place farther from them, there to live without alteration or failure. Hence the more spiritual and subtle creatures inhabit lofty places as being more purified, and live on food appropriate and similar to their natural substance. But those that are more corporeal inhabit low places and dwell amid the dregs and filth that have their seat in the lower regions. That is why they are infected and spoiled, living on what is tangled and mixed among the world’s lees. For everything that earth and the other elements, which are the receptacles of these impurities, can produce is corrupted and defiled, and consequently engenders corruption and defilement in everything nourished by it. Through this the blood acquires a bad disposition that causes malignity of the humours, more in some and less in others, according to the extent of the parents’ contamination and the excessive quantity of corruptible things consumed, from which the cause of destruction and mortality proceeds. For if earth and what it engenders were as full of purity as Heaven, all animals would live the same life as the heavenly inhabitants.
Socrates
Reading Sal Lumen and Spiritus Mundi Philosophici · Book Two · Chapter 3 · Book Two · Chapter 3 · Unit 9
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Socrates will begin with this book and its sources.About This Reading Edition
The complete French text of 1621 with a new English translation, all three books, preliminary texts, nine concluding sonnets, original errata, 299 annotations and the complete supplied study apparatus.
Historical Text and Translation
Clovis Hesteau de Nuysement, Traittez de l’harmonie et constitution generalle du vray sel, secret des Philosophes, & de l’Esprit universelle du Monde. Paris: Jérémie Périer and Abdias Buisard, 1621. The governing witness is the BnF/Gallica reproduction, ark:/12148/bpt6k656273. The reproduced privilege is dated 6 November 1620; the separate eighty-page Poème philosophic of 1620 is outside this edition.
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This historical edition credits Diotimos Editions as its English translator.
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The historical text printed in 1621 is in the public domain. The supplied 2026 French reading text, new English translation, introduction, notes and complete study apparatus are published with the site owner’s authorization.
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