Form, essence and substance · Lexicon

From the book

Heinrich Khunrath’s Magnesia Catholica Philosophorum

Heinrich Khunrath · Diotimos Editions · 2026

Orientation

At a Glance

The wordThis headword gathers a family of distinctions rather than declaring its words synonyms.
In KhunrathThe p. 21 margin states that form gives a thing being and that the formed thing corresponds to its form.
In this editionThe source's English may render Wesen as being or essence according to context.
A reading distinctionThe p. 66 margin prints uportet where the modern note expects oportet.

Meaning

This headword gathers a family of distinctions rather than declaring its words synonyms. Form can mean an outward shape or a formative determination; being and essence name what a thing is; substance enters the account of the world's relation to its Son. Khunrath's explanations determine which force is active at each place.

Use in the book

The p. 21 margin states that form gives a thing being and that the formed thing corresponds to its form. Beside the account of special formative sparks, this supports the relation between specification and a definite natural kind. Yet it cannot be imposed without qualification on every subsequent use of forma or species.

The decisive test appears at pp. 65–662. Crude Mercury has been given a metallic form, but Khunrath immediately explains that this is an outward figure: the subject resembles a metallic being more than a vegetable or animal one, yet is neither a metal nor a mineral. The cited “certain species” is likewise glossed as outward form, schema or shape. A margin adds that Magnesia need not lack absolutely every form, since it already has a name. The catholic subject can thus possess recognizable appearance without receiving the generative specification that would disqualify it.

The account of sonship uses a different register. The Son of the greater World is coessential and consubstantial with its parent in first-world-beginning essence and matter. Those words explain its derivation from the world's seed and substance, not a resemblance based only on shape. They strengthen the relation between macrocosmic source and little-world constitution.

Finally, transmutation is claimed to occur in being as well as form. The early phrase at p. 13 and its return at p. 102 insist upon a change reaching the root. This differentiates the claimed work from an alteration in visible surface alone. The reader must therefore keep outward appearance, specific natural constitution and transformed being related but distinct. Much of the polemic turns upon treating an impressive change of appearance or a subtle material texture as though it already demonstrated the deeper condition required by the argument.

Places to read

1599 p. 13Transmutation is specified as a change in being as well as form.
1599 p. 21 · marginThe relation of formative form to the being of the formed thing is stated.
1599 p. 50Coessentiality and consubstantiality characterize the world-derived Son.
1599 p. 65The metallic form is introduced as part of Nature’s shaping, with its qualification on p. 66.
1599 p. 66Species and form are explicitly restricted to outward figure in the cited description.
1599 p. 102The claimed change in form and being is said to reach the root.

Translation in this edition

The source's English may render Wesen as being or essence according to context. The p. 66 authorial glosses are especially important: translating every species simply as “specified kind” would make Khunrath assert the very classification he is excluding.

Source note

The p. 66 margin prints uportet where the modern note expects oportet. This typographical uncertainty does not disturb its explicit assertion that the named subject may have an outward form.