From the book
A New Light of Alchemy
Michael Sendivogius · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordFixus concerns fixity; constans, represented here by constanti, concerns steadfastness; volatilis concerns flight or volatility.
- In the workWhen Mercury evaporates, the alchemist remembers that first matter ought to be volatile and converts a failed experiment into proof of success.
- In this editionNote 52 explicitly recognises the ethical comparison.
- A place to readmateriam primam lapidis Philosophorum volatilem esse oporteat: Volatility becomes the worker’s premature guarantee.
Meaning
Fixus concerns fixity; constans, represented here by constanti, concerns steadfastness; volatilis concerns flight or volatility. The dialogue makes material behaviour and the practitioner’s disposition answer one another without making them identical.
Use in the book
When Mercury evaporates, the alchemist remembers that first matter ought to be volatile and converts a failed experiment into proof of success. He next wants to restrain Mercury by conjuration, and later favours an older Mercury because he assumes greater age means greater maturity and fixity. Both reactions begin with an isolated attribute and assume that its presence settles the whole problem.
Mercury reverses the accusation of inconstancy. He is constant to a constant practitioner and fixed to a steadfast mind; the alchemist is the one who wanders from one material to another. This comparison does not deny observable evaporation. It asks whether the worker’s shifting objects and interpretations prevent him from understanding what fixity would mean in the appropriate relation.
The central heart is subsequently called most fixed even while Mercury describes himself as traveller, runner and companion of fire. Nature likewise calls him a fugitive with fire and a source from which fire is prepared. The text places movement and stability at different levels of its subject rather than resolving every predicate into one undifferentiated material state.
Places to read
- Dialogue of Mercury, the Alchemist and Nature · Passage 2Latinmateriam primam lapidis Philosophorum volatilem esse oporteat: Volatility becomes the worker’s premature guarantee.
- Dialogue of Mercury, the Alchemist and Nature · Passage 9LatinConstans ego sum constanti artifici, fixus fixo animo: A material term acquires an ethical comparison.
- Dialogue of Mercury, the Alchemist and Nature · Passage 11Latincor omnium fixissimum: The centre is described by the superlative of fixity.
Translation in this edition
Note 52 explicitly recognises the ethical comparison. “Fixed to a steadfast mind” translates the phrase as a whole; fixus alone does not mean moral steadfastness in every occurrence.