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The lesser elixir

Circulatum minus and vegetable kingdom

Circulatum minus; Vegetable Kingdom; Circulatum majus

Circulatum names the circulated preparation; minus and majus distinguish lesser and greater.

From the book

Aphorismi Urbigerani

Baro Urbigerus · Diotimos Editions · 2026

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Orientation

At a Glance

  • The wordCirculatum names the circulated preparation; minus and majus distinguish lesser and greater. Vegetable names a kingdom of nature, not only edible plants.
  • In the bookThe lesser work shares the greater preparation’s claimed persistence through repeated use, but not its unrestricted domain. Its three ways have their own sequence and conclusion.
  • In this editionThe reading supplies “preparation” to make the Latin technical name intelligible and preserves the author’s explicit restriction to one kingdom.
  • A place to readLesser I–IV (1690, pp. 61–64), where the name, its scope and the transition from universal to particular property are explained.

Meaning

Circulatum is the book’s technical name for a preparation whose powers, the author says, survive repeated employment. The lesser work itself explains the word rather than leaving its meaning to an etymology: however often the preparation is used in an extraction or experiment, it loses nothing of its quality or property (II). Minus means lesser, but the distinction is not simply a smaller quantity or an unfinished degree of the same substance. It is expressly a difference of scope. The greater preparation commands all three kingdoms; the lesser is restricted to one.

Vegetable in this account covers the kingdom of growing plant substances, including gums, oils and tree balsams. Its historical boundaries should be read from the examples: coral is placed in the vegetable comparison at XXI. The reader should therefore neither reduce the word to food vegetables nor silently impose a modern biological classification on every case.

Use in the book

The companion address places this lesser work beside the preceding one, not in its place. The author offers it so that lovers of the sciences may preserve their health while pursuing their desires. He asserts that a skilful artist who understands the rules can bring it to perfection within a philosophical month. Those promises establish the companion’s intended usefulness and its rhetoric of accessibility; they are not independent evidence that the work succeeds.

The three lesser ways appear at III, V and VI. The first begins with Diana’s undetermined tears and their determination; the second with an unnamed plant of the noblest degree; the third with a fixed vegetable salt and its own volatile sulphurous spirit, assisted by a medium. These are not to be substituted one for one for the grand work’s three ways. Their relation is made explicit at the level of principles and transformations, but their numbered descriptions and immediate subjects differ. In particular, the “Plant of the noblest Degree” remains unnamed. Its standing alone or being supported by others does not warrant inserting a species into the text.

At XVIII the completion of the salt’s spiritualisation and union gives the operator the lesser elixir, also called a vegetable menstruum. The following claims concern its extraction of plant essences, the separation of pure from impure, medicinal employment and recovery for reuse. The term therefore joins an asserted power to a defined range of subjects, not merely an operation performed once.

The closing aphorisms qualify without simply abandoning that range. The preparation can draw a tincture from metals without separating all their principles (XXIV). Further regenerations are then credited with further powers, with gold and silver expressly excepted at one stage (XXVI). Finally, the author rejects the inference that a regenerated vegetable menstruum is thereby a means of producing the grand elixir (XXIX–XXX). Keeping these statements together prevents “lesser” from being read either as wholly powerless outside plants or as secretly identical to the universal elixir.

Places to read

  1. Grand Elixir · Aphorism XCVIOriginalThe grand elixir is credited with wonders in animal, mineral and vegetable kingdoms alike.
  2. The Companion AddressOriginalThe lesser work is offered in relation to health and the continuing pursuit of the greater work.
  3. Vegetable Elixir · Aphorism IOriginalThe opening definition restricts the elixir to the vegetable kingdom.
  4. Vegetable Elixir · Aphorism IIOriginalRepeated efficacy explains circulatum; scope explains minus and majus.
  5. Vegetable Elixir · Aphorism IIIOriginalThe first lesser way begins from Diana’s tears.
  6. Vegetable Elixir · Aphorism IVOriginalUnion with prepared vegetable earth turns the tears’ universal property into the particular property required by the lesser preparation.
  7. Vegetable Elixir · Aphorism VOriginalThe second begins from the unnamed noble plant.
  8. Vegetable Elixir · Aphorism VIOriginalThe third employs the vegetable salt, spirit and medium.
  9. Vegetable Elixir · Aphorism XVIIIOriginalCompleted union supplies the lesser elixir and menstruum.
  10. Vegetable Elixir · Aphorism XXIOriginalCoral is placed within the historical vegetable comparison, showing that the category does not simply reproduce modern taxonomy.
  11. Vegetable Elixir · Aphorism XXIVOriginalAn effect on metals is distinguished from full separation of their principles.
  12. Vegetable Elixir · Aphorism XXVIOriginalA second regeneration is credited with wider powers, with gold and silver expressly excepted.
  13. Vegetable Elixir · Aphorism XXIXOriginalThe capacity of regenerated vegetable menstruums does not establish the grand elixir.
  14. Vegetable Elixir · Aphorism XXXOriginalThe universal and specified preparations are assigned different appropriate beginnings.

In this edition

The modern reading uses “lesser circulated preparation” and “greater circulated preparation.” As note 91 explains, “preparation” is supplied for readability; it is not a separately printed Latin noun. The English title’s “Vegetable Elixir” and the Latin Circulatum minus are alternative names in this work. The reading translates “Physick” as “medicine” at I, preserving the historical therapeutic claim without turning it into a recommendation. Its “plants” often renders the historical plural “Vegetables,” while “vegetable kingdom” retains the organising category.

Historical forms and local uses:

Circulatum minus [printed Latin technical name] — The lesser circulated preparation, restricted initially to the vegetable kingdom. (Vegetable Elixir · Aphorism I; Vegetable Elixir · Aphorism XVIII)

Vegetable Kingdom [printed English phrase] — The domain for which the lesser elixir is specified. (Vegetable Elixir · Aphorism I)

Circulatum majus [printed Latin technical name] — The greater preparation, contrasted with the lesser through its command of all three kingdoms. (Vegetable Elixir · Aphorism II)