From the book
Nine Books on the Nature of Things
Attributed to Paracelsus · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordResuscitatio is a raising again or revival.
- In the workThe book opens with an exalted description of resuscitation as a great secret, divine and angelic rather than human and natural.
- In this editionNotes 54 and 59 distinguish the theological boundary and the legendary examples.
- A place to read“Quicquid autem homo destruit, restituere potest”
Meaning
Resuscitatio is a raising again or revival. Restituere and restauratio emphasize restoring; revivificari and vivificari emphasize being brought to life. These overlapping terms mark reversals of mortification, but Book VI carefully limits which reversals ordinary human action can accomplish. “Resuscitation” here ranges over metals, plants and legendary animals and must not be mistaken for a modern clinical protocol.
Use in the book
The book opens with an exalted description of resuscitation as a great secret, divine and angelic rather than human and natural. It then insists on discrimination: the author denies that he is arrogating God's power or attributing to nature what it cannot do. Whatever reaches its natural, predestined end requires divine restoration. What humans destroy may, within the book's argument, be restored by humans. This contrast governs the ensuing examples rather than being an incidental disclaimer.
The examples vary in evidential character. Lions allegedly acquire life through a parental roar; drowned flies recover; putrefied serpent fragments generate many serpents. The edition identifies the lion and serpent narratives as legendary natural history and alchemical argument. The account of Hermes and Virgil ends in failure, resisting the idea that every promised renewal succeeds. Metallic restoration then has two forms: return to a previous metallic body and reduction to first matter. These are not merely two names for an identical endpoint.
The claimed restoration of burned wood supplies the clearest statement of recombination. Fractions belonging to the tree are reunited, and the result is said to grow with greater virtue than before. At the book's end the general foundation is to return and reconcile with each thing whatever mortification removed and separated. This explains the conceptual unity of the examples without making them equally credible observations. Restoration depends on remaining or recoverable resources and the proper reunion of what was separated; it is not an unlimited human power over completed natural death.
Places to read
- Book 6 · Resuscitation · Passage 1Latin“Quicquid autem homo destruit, restituere potest” The scope of human restoration is opposed to nature’s completed destruction.
- Book 6 · Resuscitation · Passage 5Latin“ex ductu naturae & formula” Human action is framed as guided by nature.
- Book 6 · Resuscitation · Passage 6Latin“resuscitationem & restaurationem metallorum duplicem esse” Two metallic endpoints are explicitly distinguished.
- Book 6 · Resuscitation · Passage 10Latin“id, quod ei in mortificatione ademtum fuerat” The concluding principle is return of what was removed.
Translation in this edition
Notes 54 and 59 distinguish the theological boundary and the legendary examples. “Restoration” does not silently establish the truth of the described mechanisms. The animal narratives are qualified by both the book’s argument and the edition’s historical framing.