Dyad and mixture

Use in the book

The account of an unnamed older philosophy places dyad or mixture among principles of evil, alongside unfavorable senses of the infinite and formless. Its reported valuation differs from the account of moral nature: freedom there follows necessarily from the mixture of spirit and flesh, with the possibility of improvement as well as deterioration. A reading note on wine and water supplies a further limit. Mixing should not be mistaken for transmutation simply because the result appears changed. The three contexts therefore distinguish historical classification, composite capacity, and material process.

Places to read

1. I, p. 412, entry 2, ¶1Dyad/mixture belongs to a reported unfavorable terminology.
2. I, p. 189, entry 5, ¶2Mixed moral nature permits opposite choices and change.
3. I, p. 439, entry begun p. 437, no. 3, ¶26Mixture is explicitly distinguished from transmutation.

Translation in this edition

The English translation does not identify the unnamed school at I.412. Its indeterminate choice at I.189 preserves the discussion of freedom and its empty bracket. The wine/water note retains the source’s XXVII [sic.] and the unmirrored French agreement supplement même[s]; no alchemical or modern chemical result is silently supplied.