Nature-conforming

Use in the book

The word guards the relation between Art and Nature. Art may refine or further what Nature supplies, but it cannot obtain an effect from a subject lacking the appropriate principle. This is why extensive manipulation of a metal cannot be called a return to first matter simply because it yields subtle parts. At page 118 the course of Nature, the testimony of true Philosophers, and Nature-conforming reason converge on the need for the common regenerative field. Conformity evaluates the explanatory structure of an operation, not just its outward appearance.

The same norm governs reading. Page 110 accepts the Philosophers' books insofar as their sense agrees with Nature; page 112 contrasts Nature-conforming understanding with merely paper-and-book-conforming interpretation. This does not grant freedom to make a text mean anything convenient. The wax-nose warning shows the opposite danger: a reader can bend verbal parallels toward any candidate. Khunrath answers with a restriction to natural possibility and with distinctions between ordinary and philosophical metals, universal and specified Stones, and essential parts and first principles.

Speech can also be assayed by the norm. The performer who displays a tincture must be heard, on page 157, to learn whether his account sings in accord with Nature. Page 159 rejects raw matter's supposed immediate transmutatory power because it contradicts necessary qualification and preparation. Finally the subscription on page 187 claims that the entire book has been spoken Nature-conformingly, alchemically, and philosophically. The adjective thus moves from operation to method and then to authorial accountability: Khunrath claims for his writing the same agreement that he requires from material processes and rival explanations.

Places to read

1. 1599 p. 110Books are accepted in a Nature-conforming understanding, only so far as they agree with Nature.
2. 1599 p. 112Nature-conforming reading is opposed to paper-and-book-conforming adherence to the dead letter.
3. 1599 p. 118Nature-conforming reason joins Nature's course and philosophical testimony in the argument about regeneration.
4. 1599 p. 157The demonstrator's explanation is tested for Nature-conformity rather than accepted on the strength of display alone.
5. 1599 p. 159Immediate transmutation by unprepared matter is rejected as contrary to Nature's truth, possibility, and will.
6. 1599 p. 187The closing subscription applies the norm to Khunrath's own utterance of the treatise.

Translation in this edition

The translation consistently uses the marked compound Nature-conforming, rather than flattening it to natural. That distinction matters especially where the German combines it with künstlich: the action is artful, yet answerable to Nature. The comic counter-formation Papieren-buch-gemeß at page 112 makes the chosen standard unusually visible.