From the book
Nine Books on the Nature of Things
Attributed to Paracelsus · Diotimos Editions · 2026
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At a Glance
- The wordMaturare means to mature or ripen; crescere concerns growth, while augere and augmentation vocabulary concern increase.
- In the workBook 2 opens from the familiar sequence of rain and sunshine and argues that alchemical art can make unfruitful things fruitful and immature things mature.
- In this editionThe edition preserves the historical mineral names in the ore list rather than assigning unqualified modern identities.
- A place to read“infrugiferum frugiferum, immaturum maturum”
Meaning
Maturare means to mature or ripen; crescere concerns growth, while augere and augmentation vocabulary concern increase. The text often pairs them without making them exact synonyms. Growth may be measured in size, weight, body or virtue; maturation can bring an imperfect material toward a more complete condition. Perficiuntur adds the language of completion or perfection. These distinctions prevent a reading in which every increase in visible bulk automatically proves a metal’s transformation into a more perfect substance.
Use in the book
Book 2 opens from the familiar sequence of rain and sunshine and argues that alchemical art can make unfruitful things fruitful and immature things mature. Its repeated rhetorical questions make assent to ordinary plant growth support the extension to artificial growth. The mineral claim then describes ores as carrying immature Gold and Silver and proposes their maturation through mineral water and skilled cooperation. Elixir and tinctures are likewise said to mature and become perfected.
A subsequent paragraph claims that many mineral materials increase perpetually in size, weight and virtue while retaining good qualities and efficacy in earth and water. Those dimensions are explicitly differentiated: power and effectiveness are not merely alternative words for mass. Gold is then assigned a supposed mode of growth, while the next example describes tree-like visible forms in a vessel.
The alleged postmortem growth of hair and nails is a separate application. The speaker insists that it results from natural heat and moisture, not innocence, showing a distinction between proposed natural cause and moral interpretation even within an inaccurate biological claim. Finally, artificial flint enlargement illustrates acceleration rather than necessarily higher worth. The chapter’s growth vocabulary thus covers ripening, quantitative increase, preservation of capacity and spectacular form; a useful explanation keeps those outcomes apart.
Places to read
- Book 2 · Growth · Passage 1Latin“infrugiferum frugiferum, immaturum maturum” The initial contrast joins fruitfulness and maturation without equating them.
- Book 2 · Growth · Passage 1Latin“Elixir & Tincturae metallorum maturantur & perficiuntur” Elixir and tinctures enter the account of completion.
- Book 2 · Growth · Passage 3Latin“in magnitudine, pondere & virtute” The dimensions of increase are separately named.
- Book 2 · Growth · Original marginal note 7Latin“☉ Augmentatio.” The marginal sign identifies augmentation of Gold.
Translation in this edition
The edition preserves the historical mineral names in the ore list rather than assigning unqualified modern identities. It separately notes the false prolonged postmortem-growth claim and the unvalidated claim that fertilization makes gold grow.