From the book
A Chymical Dictionary
Gerhard Dorn and John French · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordThe elements considered as matrices of things.
- In the bookElementum provides the book’s separate account of elemental essence.
- A place to readThe historical definition below, 1650 dictionary, unnumbered definition page 32; facsimile PDF page 360.
Historical definition
Matrices rerum are the elements.
Meaning
Matrix-language gives the elements a containing or generative role. The definition identifies them directly, without listing a separate series of vessels or bodily organs. A reader should therefore test the elemental meaning before interpreting the plural as anatomical wombs.
Use in the book
Elementum provides the book’s separate account of elemental essence. Limbus and Microcosmus relate the great world to the origin and constitution of man. These entries connect generative language at different scales without making every matrix a human body.
Places to read
- Matrices rerumRead the complete historical definition and its commentary.
- ElementumThe elemental domain described through corruption, transience and change.
- LimbusThe universal world considered as the human being’s seed and first matter.
- MicrocosmusThe human being named as a little world.
Source note
Historical source. 1650 dictionary, unnumbered definition page 32; facsimile PDF page 360 — Facsimile
Sources. A Chymical Dictionary 1650, 1650 dictionary, facsimile PDF page 360, Matrices rerum