Knowledge and practice

Use in the book

The early conceptual reduction from human bodies and metals to simpler materials is a useful test (I.011.1–I.012.1). An account may trace how particular things originate, but that does not establish a practical method for recovering universal prime matter from them. The author insists on the difference between understanding an origin and reversing a process. Knowledge of the art must include this prohibition on an unwarranted practical inference.¹¹⁸

The warning about rainwater sharpens the point. Rainwater is very closely related to the Hermetic subject, yet the author denies that treating or fixing the two together will succeed (II.077.2–II.079.1). Recognizing kinship does not establish that two materials can be substituted or mixed. A practitioner who knows the general theory still needs the correct relation between matter, seed and operation.

Chapter Ten describes the unstable worker who begins without sound theory. Encountering uncertainty, he changes the process, loses confidence even if he has the right matter, abandons the work and declares the art false. The author's answer is not simply more effort. It is an ordered preparation that makes persistence intelligible and helps the worker judge what difficulties mean (II.189.1).

The conclusion returns to practical restraint. Beginning, means and end have been indicated, but all manipulations have not been disclosed. The reader is asked to read and meditate before taking up the fire. Thus the finished book occupies an intermediate position: it teaches how the author thinks the work must be understood, while keeping some of the work itself outside its explicit account.

The fourfold preparation of prayer, reading, meditation and labour explains how the desired knowledge is to be sought. It answers a different question from the list of qualifications. Nature, matter and process identify objects of understanding, and Christian life identifies a required condition of the person. Prayer, reading, meditation and labour identify activities by which the person is prepared. Keeping the lists distinct makes the pedagogy more intelligible. Reading is not itself the knowledge of matter, since a reader can misidentify the subject; labour is not itself successful practice, since workers can spend years on false beginnings. The author requires a relation among preparation, recognition and operation. A person may perform one of these activities intensively without satisfying the other requirements. This is why the book can encourage study and labour while also narrating error among learned or hardworking people.

The resulting account places considerable demands on judgement. The worker needs to distinguish a genuine difficulty from evidence that the chosen beginning is wrong, a philosophical designation from an ordinary material, and a general account from a complete process. The treatise offers rules and examples for those distinctions, but it also assigns the reader responsibility for diligence. At the conclusion, someone who has not recognized the subject may nevertheless gain a negative benefit: the rainwater argument can help him avoid further waste upon particulars. Knowledge therefore has a practical value even short of the promised attainment. It can restrict an undertaking, postpone an operation or correct a false identification. This is a more precise account than saying that the book urges the reader simply to work harder. Its declared teaching is meant to alter what the reader does and the reasons for doing it, including the decision to leave the fire alone while understanding remains insufficient.

Places to read

1. Part I · I.011.1; I.012.12The distinction between conceptual reduction and a practicable return to universal matter.
2. Part II · II.077.2; II.078.1; II.079.123Kinship with the subject does not make a proposed mixture succeed.
3. Part II · II.186.2; II.186.3; II.188.1; II.189.1234Ordered preparation, learning through labour and premature abandonment.
4. Part II · II.241.1; II.243.12The final relation between disclosed theory and undisclosed manipulations.

Translation

Theory renders Theoria without assuming that it means an untested guess. In this work it is a reasoned account intended to direct practice. Labores are practical labours or undertakings, often with a critical implication when their theory is false. Knowledge of the matter means recognition of the appropriate subject; it should not be paraphrased as possession of a named modern chemical.

Cautions

The sequence explains the author's teaching. It does not provide the missing manipulations, establish a modern identification of the subject, or warrant treating every difficulty as proof that a worker should continue.

Theoria

Theoria — theoretical knowledge. I.003.2.

Labores

Labores — labours or practical undertakings. II.055.2.