From the book
Nine Books on the Nature of Things
Attributed to Paracelsus · Diotimos Editions · 2026
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At a Glance
- The wordTria principia are the three principles identified in the wood account as Mercury, Sulphur and Salt, locally aligned with phlegm, fatness and ash.
- In the workBook VI's restored-wood narrative begins from wood that has become charcoal and then ash.
- In this editionNote 62 expressly interprets “from nothing” in light of the added fractions.
- A place to read“in carbones vel cineres vertantur”
Meaning
Tria principia are the three principles identified in the wood account as Mercury, Sulphur and Salt, locally aligned with phlegm, fatness and ash. Ex nihilo means from nothing, but the passage itself supplies material inputs. Its nothing is the rhetorically annihilated former wood or lost form, not a literal absence of every material cause. Concordetur at the book's end stresses bringing back into agreement or union what was separated.
Use in the book
Book VI's restored-wood narrative begins from wood that has become charcoal and then ash. It explicitly brings the resin, liquor and oiliness of the same tree together with the remainder. The resulting mixture is then described through phlegm, fatness and ash. The author identifies phlegm with Mercury, fatness with Sulphur and ash with Salt, explaining the scheme through behaviour in fire: what fumes and evaporates, what burns and flames, and what remains as ash.
This triad must not be substituted for the body, soul and spirit called three substances at human death. The wood passage is classifying material fractions and their behaviours. It claims that their reunion can yield renewed growth, more excellent in virtue than before. That alleged enhancement distinguishes restoration from mere reproduction of an unchanged prior state, but the claim is not established botanical evidence.
The final rhetoric says that something has been made and born again from nothing after wood was reduced to charcoal, ash and nothingness. The very next explanation specifies a thing that had wholly lost its form and recovers it. The lexical sequence makes loss of recognizable form central. Because resin, liquor and oily material were supplied, the phrase cannot responsibly be cited as proof that the author proposes creation without inputs. The concluding general principle confirms the structure: return to each thing and reconcile with it what mortification removed. The work's natural mystery is imagined restoration through recovered relation among materials, not an unrestricted duplication of divine creation.
Places to read
- Book 5 · Death · Passage 31Latin“in carbones vel cineres vertantur” The wood-mortification formula prepares the later account of its claimed renewal.
- Book 6 · Resuscitation · Passage 9Latin“Phlegma est Mercurius, pinguedo est sulphur, cinis est sal” The local material triad is explicit.
- Book 6 · Resuscitation · Passage 9Latin“ex illo nihilo aliquid factum & renatum est” The rhetorical nothing follows a description of added materials.
- Book 6 · Resuscitation · Passage 9Latin“quae formam suam plane amiserat” Loss of form explains the relevant absence.
- Book 6 · Resuscitation · Passage 10Latin“reddatur cumque ea concordetur” The general principle is return and reunion.
Translation in this edition
Note 62 expressly interprets “from nothing” in light of the added fractions. The translation retains “phlegm”; the paragraph identifies it with Mercury and explains the relevant fraction through fuming and evaporation, rather than through a theory of bodily humours. The three material principles remain distinct from Book V's three human substances.