Spirit, soul and residue in the testament · Lexicon

From the book

Centrum Naturae Concentratum

Attributed to Ali Puli · Diotimos Editions · 2026

Orientation

At a Glance

The wordIn the closing key, spirit is butter or spirit of antimony, soul is sulphur or red tincture, and earth is the salt-containing residue. These are local explanations of the poem, not universal definitions for the collection.
In the bookThe verse first assigns agency—spirit governs, soul cooperates—then the prose identifies materials and the seat of Bacchus. A containing residue and what it contains must not be made synonymous.
In this editionThe dry-vapour qualification remains visible. The last sign in passage 27 is mercury, while the bracketed tartar-sign name in passage 28 is a modern editorial representation.
A place to readThe Last Testament of a Father to His Beloved Son · Passage 25 beside passage 28: read the poem’s verbs before using the prose key to identify their subjects.

Meaning

The testament’s closing explanation assigns Geist, Seele and Erde local material referents. Spirit is the spirit of Saturn, explained as butter or spirit of antimony; soul is sulphur or the red tincture; earth is the residue containing salt and associated with Bacchus’ seat. These are the father’s own resolutions of his preceding verse. The words also occur elsewhere in the collection in theology, anthropology and natural philosophy, but those other senses cannot be substituted without checking their respective subjects and relations.

Use in the book

The verse gives the reader a small order of actions: spirit governs, soul works with it, and earth must not be forgotten as the seat of Bacchus. The prose key later names the associated materials, but the verbs remain important. Cooperation is not identity; the soul accompanies the governing spirit, while the less conspicuous residue retains its place. Reading verse and key together makes the poem a compact account of material agency, not merely a decorative mythology or a free-standing psychology of body and mind (The Last Testament of a Father to His Beloved Son · Passage 25; The Last Testament of a Father to His Beloved Son · Passage 28).

The spirit’s identification depends on two earlier qualifications. The sages’ Saturn has already been distinguished from common lead, and butter has already been equated with spirit of antimony. The closing Spiritus Saturni joins those local relations. It is not simply a spirit of ordinary lead, nor an unrestricted name for every volatile substance elsewhere in the volume. The interpretation is controlled by this testament’s sequence of naming statements (The Last Testament of a Father to His Beloved Son · Passage 11; The Last Testament of a Father to His Beloved Son · Passage 19; The Last Testament of a Father to His Beloved Son · Passage 28).

Soul is both sulphur and red tincture in the gloss. The father calls it a vapour or mist and adds a Latin qualification: it is indeed vapour and smoke, but dry. The qualification should be retained rather than translated away as an inconsistency. It describes how the text wishes the named material to be understood, drawing its comparison with common sulphur. It does not establish a modern gas, aerosol or exact chemical species. The lexicon can explain the cluster Dunst, Nebel, vapor and fumus while leaving its historical physical account visible. (The Last Testament of a Father to His Beloved Son · Passage 28.)

Bacchus is interpreted as tartar or wine stone in The Last Testament of a Father to His Beloved Son · Passage 27. His preserving role concerns the soul and sulphur of gold, which are said not to be lost with mercury. The Last Testament of a Father to His Beloved Son · Passage 28 then places Bacchus’ seat in the remaining residue that contains salt. A name can thus refer to a material in one clause and to a containing location through an associated phrase in another. Tartar, salt and residue should not be collapsed into one undifferentiated synonym: the source says what is in what and what remains after separation. This local relation is sufficient for interpretation; the dangerous operational details need not be reproduced. (The Last Testament of a Father to His Beloved Son · Passage 27–The Last Testament of a Father to His Beloved Son · Passage 28.)

The main treatise’s human body, spirit and soul have a different immediate subject and different sources of nourishment. The recurrence of the three names permits comparison, but it does not imply that the human soul is antimonial tincture. Likewise, the J. J. F. proposition that fire is the soul of air and air the spirit of water belongs to another local relation. Cross-reading is useful when it follows what acts upon, contains or nourishes what; it becomes misleading when shared vocabulary is treated as proof of unchanged referents.

Places to read

The Last Testament of a Father to His Beloved Son · Passage 19, paragraph 1German“Butyro oder Spiritu ♁ii, welches einerley ist” The earlier equivalence prepares the final identification of spirit.
The Last Testament of a Father to His Beloved Son · Passage 25German“Der Geist regiert, die Seele wirckt mit” The verse differentiates governance from cooperation.
The Last Testament of a Father to His Beloved Son · Passage 27German“Bacchus ist der [Weinsteinzeichen] oder Weinstein” The prose identifies a poetic name with tartar; the bracketed sign label is editorial.
The Last Testament of a Father to His Beloved Son · Passage 28German“& est revera vapor & fumus, sed siccus” The Latin qualification preserves the distinctive claim of dry vapour and smoke.
The Last Testament of a Father to His Beloved Son · Passage 28German“des Bacchi Sitz ist die Remanenz” The seat is the residue, not simply another name for the active spirit.

Translation in this edition

The final source sign in passage 27 is mercury, not antimony. This matters for the object of the father’s claim about preservation and loss. At passage 28 the readable German uses [Weinsteinzeichen] for the printed tartar mark and preserves the salt sign ⊖ separately. English earth is therefore interpreted through the explicit residue clause, not silently expanded into a modern earth element. The closing references to a commentary on universal medicine remain historical locators whose exact editions have not been established here.

The Latin sed siccus, “but dry”, qualifies the vapour-and-smoke description at The Last Testament of a Father to His Beloved Son · Passage 28. Keeping the qualification prevents a smoother translation from concealing the historical account’s unusual physical claim. It is not necessary to identify a modern gas or aerosol in order to explain what the sentence says.

“Bacchus’ seat is the residue” makes the residue a containing location in the prose key (The Last Testament of a Father to His Beloved Son · Passage 28). Earlier, Bacchus himself is interpreted as tartar or wine stone. The difference between the figure and his seat is small in wording but substantial in sense: a location, its contents and the named agent should not all become one synonym.

Printed forms

Attested forms: Geist (The Last Testament of a Father to His Beloved Son · Passage 25 — 1682 p. 79); Seele (The Last Testament of a Father to His Beloved Son · Passage 25 — 1682 p. 79); Erde (The Last Testament of a Father to His Beloved Son · Passage 25 — 1682 p. 79); Spiritus Saturni (The Last Testament of a Father to His Beloved Son · Passage 28 — 1682 p. 80); Butyrum (The Last Testament of a Father to His Beloved Son · Passage 19 — 1682 p. 76); Sp. ♁ii (The Last Testament of a Father to His Beloved Son · Passage 28 — 1682 p. 80); Tinctura (The Last Testament of a Father to His Beloved Son · Passage 28 — 1682 p. 80); Dunst (The Last Testament of a Father to His Beloved Son · Passage 28 — 1682 p. 80); Nebel (The Last Testament of a Father to His Beloved Son · Passage 25 — 1682 p. 79); vapor (The Last Testament of a Father to His Beloved Son · Passage 28 — 1682 p. 80); fumus (The Last Testament of a Father to His Beloved Son · Passage 28 — 1682 p. 80); siccus (The Last Testament of a Father to His Beloved Son · Passage 28 — 1682 p. 80); Remanenz (The Last Testament of a Father to His Beloved Son · Passage 28 — 1682 p. 80); des Bacchi Sitz (The Last Testament of a Father to His Beloved Son · Passage 28 — 1682 p. 80). Their local senses and relationships are explained above; inflected forms and historical signs are retained.