From the book
A Chymical Dictionary
Gerhard Dorn and John French · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordAn essential power attributed to vegetable and mineral subjects.
- In the bookCorpus locates virtues within a subject; Formæ rerum can mean the virtues of things.
- A place to readThe historical definition below, 1650 dictionary, unnumbered definition page 21; facsimile PDF page 349.
Historical definition
Essatum essentiale is the essential [nature] and power present in vegetables and minerals.
Meaning
The original phrase “the essentiall, and power” is compressed and grammatically awkward. The bracketed nature is an editorial aid to reading that incomplete construction; power and the two stated fields, vegetables and minerals, are explicit in the text. The supplement does not name a separate ingredient or an additional principle.
The term concerns what a subject is said to possess or express, rather than a visible form named by colour or shape. The definition supplies no extraction process under this heading.
Use in the book
Corpus locates virtues within a subject; Formæ rerum can mean the virtues of things. Essentia quinta adds an account of extraction and purification. Those parallels help readers distinguish a statement about essential efficacy from a statement about how a selected matter is prepared.
Places to read
- Essatum essentialeRead the complete historical definition and its commentary.
- CorpusA body understood as the subject containing a thing’s hidden efficacy.
- Essentia quintaQuintessence described through extraction, purification and claimed incorruptibility.
- Formæ rerumForms explained through received celestial influences or active virtues.
In this edition
The grammatical clarification is editorial. The accompanying original wording remains the authority for the source’s compressed form, and no additional doctrine is inferred from it.
Source note
Historical source. 1650 dictionary, unnumbered definition page 21; facsimile PDF page 349 — Facsimile
Sources. A Chymicall Dictionary 1650, s.v. Essatum essentiale