From the book
Heinrich Khunrath’s Magnesia Catholica Philosophorum
Heinrich Khunrath · Diotimos Editions · 2026
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At a Glance
- The wordCommon mercury or quicksilver is the named metallic substance contrasted with philosophical Mercury.
- In KhunrathAt p. 60 quicksilver is included beside silver and gold among the metals whose preparations fail this purpose.
- In this editionThe p. 60 margin prints both leprosus and the uncertain leporosus.
- A reading distinctionThe margin’s express phrase Est n. Mercurius vulgi establishes the referent independently of the uncertain adjoining word.
Meaning
Common mercury or quicksilver is the named metallic substance contrasted with philosophical Mercury. Its liquidity does not make it catholic first matter; Khunrath classes it with the specified materials from which the universal beginning cannot simply be extracted.
Use in the book
At p. 60 quicksilver is included beside silver and gold among the metals whose preparations fail this purpose. The margin addresses it directly, rejecting proposed purifications and separations of its purer substance. The defect is not cured merely by increasing purity: specification remains central to the objection.
Common Mercury reappears among the materials discussed in connection with precipitations, fixations and transmutations at pp. 81–822. That context grants the possibility of subsidiary work while insisting upon its dependence on the right pri-material ground. Exclusion as the universal beginning is consequently not the same as declaring the substance devoid of every use.
The philosophical name Mercury must therefore be tested by its qualifiers and referent. “Of the common sort” is an explicit warning against substituting the familiar substance for the catholic, ensouled Mercury hidden in Magnesia.
Places to read
- 1599 p. 60Quicksilver is included among already specified metals.
- 1599 p. 60 · marginPurifying common Mercury does not overcome the objection.
- 1599 p. 81Common Mercury occurs in a discussion of subsidiary preparations, continued on p. 82.
Translation in this edition
The p. 60 margin prints both leprosus and the uncertain leporosus. The latter remains unresolved; it should not be turned into a new substance or explanatory property.
Source note
The margin’s express phrase Est n. Mercurius vulgi establishes the referent independently of the uncertain adjoining word.