Crude Mercury

Use in the book

At p. 53 it is the Philosophers' one, catholicly hidden in the subject. The later account, offered in response to an objection from Bernard, explains that Nature has already worked upon it a little: body, spirit and soul have been composed and shaped into a catholic mass, the Mine of the Art.

The continuation on p. 66 gives it a metallic-looking outward form while denying that it is a metal or mineral. Nature has left it imperfect. Its incompleteness concerns the further work needed for the Stone, not an absence of the universal qualification required at the beginning.

This distinction becomes decisive when Khunrath rejects claims that still-raw matter can already transmute. A proper starting matter can possess the right constitution without possessing the achieved operative state. Crudeness therefore belongs to an ordered relation between natural provision and artful more-than-perfecting.

Places to read

1. 1599 p. 53Catholic crude Mercury is the one of the numerical sequence.
2. 1599 p. 65Nature has worked upon it a little and composed a catholic mass.
3. 1599 p. 66Outward form is compatible with its continuing imperfection.
4. 1599 p. 159Raw unprepared matter is denied the power to perform the completed transmutative work.

Translation in this edition

The Latin crudus is retained through “crude” or “raw.” It does not make this Mercury interchangeable with common quicksilver, which the book separately rejects as universal matter.