From the book
Heinrich Khunrath’s Magnesia Catholica Philosophorum
Heinrich Khunrath · Diotimos Editions · 2026
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At a Glance
- The wordMetallic sulphurs are the sulphur-components of silver or gold discussed in the threefold analysis of metals.
- In KhunrathThe opponent at pp. 113–11523 identifies sulphur with soul and proposes sowing it into the metal's Mercury and salt.
- In this editionMoon and Sun are silver and gold in this exchange.
- A reading distinctionThe transition Hæc illi, “thus far they,” on p. 115 ends the opponents’ proposal before Khunrath’s explicit concession begins.
Meaning
Metallic sulphurs are the sulphur-components of silver or gold discussed in the threefold analysis of metals. Khunrath grants their extraction while denying that sulphur alone is the complete seed or that its extraction automatically reveals the true first matter.
Use in the book
The opponent at pp. 113–11523 identifies sulphur with soul and proposes sowing it into the metal's Mercury and salt. This would make the metal both its own seed and its own field. Khunrath begins his answer with a concession: the sulphurs of Moon and Sun can be extracted. The denial concerns what follows from that success.
Even if the three parts could all be obtained separately, they would remain parts of specified metallic fruits. At p. 120 silverness or goldness is said to reside in Mercury and Salt as well as Sulphur, whole in the whole. No one constituent can monopolize the identity which the work is supposed to propagate.
The apple-kernel dispute then makes the correction memorable. If metallic seed is to be called a kernel at all, it is the purest whole of Sulphur, Mercury and Salt together. The metallic sulphur is a genuine constituent in the discussion, but not an independently sufficient principle of the proposed regeneration.
Places to read
- 1599 p. 113The opponent equates extracted sulphur with soul.
- 1599 p. 115Khunrath grants extraction of metallic sulphurs while contesting further inferences.
- 1599 p. 117Separated metallic constituents remain things principiated.
- 1599 p. 120Metallic identity is not confined to sulphur.
- 1599 p. 123The kernel is identified with the purest whole, completed on p. 124.
Translation in this edition
Moon and Sun are silver and gold in this exchange. The philosophically named sulphur hidden in Magnesia at p. 112 should not be silently substituted for these extracted metallic sulphurs.
Source note
The transition Hæc illi, “thus far they,” on p. 115 ends the opponents’ proposal before Khunrath’s explicit concession begins.