From the book
Candida Phoenix Philosophica
Anonymous · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordExpense includes the matter and instruments as well as the ordinary means of living while the work continues.
- In the CandidaThe author contrasts enormous waste from error with a work whose material need not be costly.
- TranslationThe distinction between cheap materials and adequate subsistence is kept explicit.
- A place to readII.192.2–II.193.1, pp. 192–193.
Meaning
The art's economic promise is accompanied by an economic discipline. The author says that matter may be obtained cheaply, sometimes for nothing, and that instruments are reasonably priced. Yet he does not conclude that the practitioner needs no resources. A person must live, remain free enough from burdensome business to attend to the work and avoid being forced to abandon it prematurely.
Money therefore belongs to the account of preparation. Adequate means protect time and attention; prudence preserves those means. The argument concerns the conditions under which a sustained undertaking can be pursued. It is not a transparent budget, since the book does not give a complete process, duration or itemized list of apparatus.
Use in the book
The earlier warning about many thousands of gulden fruitlessly spent identifies the chief source of waste: failure to understand nature and the consequent pursuit of mistaken operations (II.057.2). Expensive materials do not compensate for a false theory. The theoretical treatise presents its guidance as a way to prevent that kind of loss.
At II.192.2, the author turns to the worker's circumstances. Other business can interrupt meditation and attendance upon the work; lack of funds can end it before completion. A maxim attributed to Geber through the Lamp of the Philosophers' Salt urges the artist to preserve money rather than squander it. The mediated attribution matters: the book identifies the source through which the maxim is being received.121
The following paragraph makes the apparent paradox precise. The art is said to require little expense apart from the necessities of life, which cannot be dispensed with (II.193.1). Cheap matter, moderately priced instruments and adequate living resources are compatible claims. A summary that says simply the work is free would omit the qualification most relevant to the worker.
The closing ethical warning supplies another limit. The art should not be sought to satisfy avarice or indulge pride. Means are required for the undertaking and benefits are imagined for others, but acquisition itself is not the highest end. Economy and charity thus belong together: the worker preserves resources without treating the secret as a licence for unlimited enrichment.
Places to read
- Part II · II.057.2Fruitless expenditure as the practical consequence of mistaken natural knowledge.
- Part II · II.192.2; II.193.12Adequate means, economy and the irreducible expense of living.
- Part II · II.244.1Avarice rejected as the governing purpose of the art.
Translation
Gülden is rendered as gulden, without an invented present monetary equivalent. Unkosten means expenses. Lebens-Mitteln here means the necessities or means of life. Translating the last expression merely as ingredients would obscure the contrast between laboratory expenditure and subsistence.
Cautions
The price statements belong to the author's period and argument. They establish neither a present cost estimate nor a reason to invest in an unverified operation.
Gülden
Gülden — gulden. II.057.2.
Unkosten
Unkosten — expenses. II.192.2.
Lebens-Mitteln
Lebens-Mitteln — necessities of life. II.193.1.
Source note
The attribution in II.192.2 is expressly mediated: Geber is cited according to the Lamp of the Philosophers’ Salt. The entry preserves that chain and does not treat the sentence as a newly verified quotation from a separately collated Geber edition.