From the book
Nine Books on the Nature of Things
Attributed to Paracelsus · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Knowledge through opposition
hostis; hostem; hostes; hostibus; inimicitia; inimicitias; inimicitiam; antipathia; oderint; odit
Hostis names an enemy; inimicitia the relation or exercise of hostility.
Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordHostis names an enemy; inimicitia the relation or exercise of hostility.
- In the workThe preservation book opens by insisting that knowing an enemy is a prerequisite for avoiding damage.
- In this editionThe edition preserves the personification in “hate,” “plunder” and “enemy,” while warning against treating the medical and contamination assertions as established knowledge.
- A place to read“tam necessarium est nosse mala, quam nosse bona”
Meaning
Hostis names an enemy; inimicitia the relation or exercise of hostility. In the material examples these words personify damaging interactions: metals attack, hate, rob and corrupt one another. Antipathia appears in a marginal summary of metallic hostility. The vocabulary can also describe moral and theological opposition, as in the Devil as enemy of the soul. These levels differ, but the material passages retain the animated language by which the work makes their relations intelligible.
Use in the book
The preservation book opens by insisting that knowing an enemy is a prerequisite for avoiding damage. It expands this into a theory of comparative knowledge: health is understood through illness, joy through sorrow, good through evil, and God through awareness of the Devil. Those analogies introduce rather than prove the subsequent catalogue of material oppositions. Death is named the enemy of life, body, health, medicine and natural things.
The metallic examples make hostility concrete through dissolution, calcination, colour change, brittleness and loss of function. Crude sulphur steals or removes native colour; antimony plunders metals; quicksilver attacks and dissolves them. Lead’s hostility to Gold and tin’s to other metals are described as innate. The words do not require hatred as a human mental state, but they do make relational opposition central to the explanation.
The same framework becomes harmful when the text names menstruating women the greatest enemies of drinkables. That is a false historical prejudice, not a valid application of material science. Honey’s alleged enemy, bread, provides another unsupported extension: the passage claims the honey turns into ants. The general maxim is thus tied to specific applications that expose both the breadth and the failures of this account of enmity.
Places to read
- Book 3 · Preservation · Passage 1Latin“tam necessarium est nosse mala, quam nosse bona” Opposition begins as a claim about knowledge.
- Book 3 · Preservation · Passage 5Latin“spoliat, aufert & praedatur” Antimony’s action is described through plunder.
- Book 3 · Preservation · Original marginal note 13Latin“Metallorum antipathia qualis.” The margin names metallic antipathy.
- Book 3 · Preservation · Passage 14Latin“summum hostem” The drinkables passage applies the enemy framework to a false claim about women.
- Book 3 · Preservation · Passage 19Latin“summus ipsius hostis panis” Bread is named honey’s enemy.
Translation in this edition
The edition preserves the personification in “hate,” “plunder” and “enemy,” while warning against treating the medical and contamination assertions as established knowledge. The margins are historical summaries, not independent modern confirmation of antipathy.
From the book
Nine Books on the Nature of Things
Attributed to Paracelsus · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Knowing an enemy
nosse; cognosci; cognoscatur; cognoscere; cognitus
The preservation introduction repeats forms of knowing to insist that an enemy and its way of harming must be recognized before protection is possible.
Meaning
The preservation introduction repeats forms of knowing to insist that an enemy and its way of harming must be recognized before protection is possible. It then extends that principle to contrasts such as health and sickness or joy and sorrow. These verbs organize the argument’s prerequisite, not merely its descriptive content. Knowing a material name alone is insufficient if the relevant relation of injury remains unidentified.
Places to read
- Book 3 · Preservation · Passage 1Latin“bene ipsius hostem cognosci”