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 unseen earthly vapour credited with the growth of plants.
- In the bookLeffa concerns the predestination of herbs; Leffas concerns a power through which they grow.
- A place to readThe historical definition below, 1650 dictionary, unnumbered definition page 29; facsimile PDF page 357.
Historical definition
Leffas is a hidden, seething vapour of the earth through which herbs and plants grow.
Meaning
Growth is assigned to something active within the earth rather than to its inert bulk alone. The vapour is occult because it is hidden; boiling or seething describes its activity. The entry offers a generative explanation, not simply another word for an already formed herb.
A reader should preserve the relation expressed by through which. The vapour enables growth, but the definition does not say that a plant and this vapour are interchangeable names for the same visible object. Nor does it identify the vapour with a specific modern gas.
Use in the book
Leffa concerns the predestination of herbs; Leffas concerns a power through which they grow. Matrices rerum and Microcosmus place other kinds of generation within a vocabulary of containing elements and worlds. They help recover the scale of the account without erasing the particular earthly setting of Leffas.
Places to read
- LeffasRead the complete historical definition and its commentary.
- LeffaA term for the predestination assigned to herbs.
- Matrices rerumThe elements considered as matrices of things.
- MicrocosmusThe human being named as a little world.
Source note
Historical source. 1650 dictionary, unnumbered definition page 29; facsimile PDF page 357 — Facsimile
Sources. A Chymical Dictionary 1650, 1650 dictionary, facsimile PDF page 357, Leffas