Nuysement

Use in the book

The first relevant citation concerns wind. On pp. 46-47, I.046.1, the writer disputes a gloss in the German Bible and invokes Nuysement’s description of wind as air in motion. The same dictum returns in the weather discussion, II.097.1. Its immediate role is to identify wind and air against the supposition that wind was absent from the first creation. The further claim that air arose from water is supplied by the Candida’s account of Genesis and experience. The short dictum alone does not prove that origin.

At II.077.1 the cited principle is homogeneity: nothing can be fixed unless it is homogeneous and of one nature. This limits what art can improve and transform. The following discussion distinguishes ordinary rainwater and dew from the exact Hermetic subject and warns that mixing related but heterogeneous materials can fail. Nuysement’s saying therefore works against a careless equation of every watery substance with the required matter. The common appearance of water is not sufficient; the relevant nature and preparation must agree.

The account of the three principles gives another explicit interpretive move. At II.086.1 Nuysement is cited for the statement that nothing reaches sight or touch without Salt. The author identifies Salt with water, earth and body, through which a threefold spirit becomes sensible and can be treated. On the next pages, II.087.1, he explains how he understands Nuysement’s spirit, soul and body: air, fire and Salt respectively. The phrase I understand marks the anonymous writer’s reading. It should not be omitted when summarizing the relationship between Nuysement and the book-specific scheme.

Nuysement also supports the mineral kingdom’s essential life. In II.132.1 the quoted distinction denies minerals sensitive or vegetative faculties while allowing them essential life. The writer relates this to his scriptural claim that minerals received no separate particular seed or command comparable to animals and plants. Minerals can nevertheless arise in the earth through providence and the universal Word. Their life is therefore not denied altogether, but neither are they made organisms with sensation or plant growth.

The second correspondent uses Nuysement in a different controversy at II.213.1. Fire, he argues, cannot exist or even be conceived without its own subject. Therefore an opponent who treats fire as the bearer of light must explain the dependence of fire itself. Nuysement’s authority is joined to an appeal to experience. Here subject means the bearer in which something exists, not simply the starting material of an alchemical operation. Confusing those senses would make the objection unintelligible.

At II.218.2 the same correspondent passes from the definition of substance to lower bodies. They consist of substance and residues: the first essential, the second accidental. The evil of corruption following the first parents’ sin is said, according to Nuysement, to attach to the residues rather than substance itself. Art can separate what contaminates the pure being. This is a theological account of material corruption, not just a vocabulary for separating laboratory dirt.

At II.219.2 Nuysement supports the proposition that substance admits no contrariety into itself. The correspondent reasons that otherwise the art could not restore purity and freedom from corruption. He adds his own claimed observation: our Mercury receives only what is homogeneous with its essence. The chain joins a definition, an attributed principle and personal experimental testimony. It also brings the reader back to the earlier restriction on heterogeneity, while adding the doctrine of substance and removable residues.

Places to read

1. Part I and Part II · I.046.1; II.097.12Wind as air in motion, cited in two different discussions.
2. Part II · II.077.1Homogeneity as a condition of fixation and improvement.
3. Part II · II.086.1; II.087.12Salt makes the threefold spirit sensible; the writer states how he interprets spirit, soul and body.
4. Part II · II.132.1Essential mineral life differs from sensitive and vegetative life.
5. Part II · II.213.1; II.218.2; II.219.223The second correspondent cites Nuysement on fire, pure substance and residues.

Translation

Nuysemannum is a Latinized accusative form in the discussion of spirit, soul and body. Homogeneum is homogeneous, sharing the required nature; it does not authorize a modern purity percentage. Essential life preserves the distinction from sensitive and vegetative faculties. Substance and residues should likewise remain differentiated: excrementa is broader than bodily excrement, and the correspondent’s substance is explicitly pure, simple and without admitted contrariety.

Connections

The primary bibliographical record of Nuysement’s 1621 Traittez du vray sel gives useful historical context for the name, but identifying a book is not the same as matching each Candida quotation to its exact source. The entry’s analysis depends on what this witness actually prints. It avoids assigning an exact external page or unverified influence-history to the several sayings.¹⁶⁰

Cautions

Do not turn all the citations into statements that the anonymous writer directly witnessed. Some are reported dicta, some are his interpretations, and some occur in the second letter. Their agreement is argued within the book. The citations do not by themselves verify transmutation, medical effectiveness or a modern chemical identity for Mercury or Salt.

Nuysement

Nuysement — Attested source form; inflections are retained rather than replaced by an invented lemma. I.046.1.

de Nuysement

de Nuysement — Attested source form; inflections are retained rather than replaced by an invented lemma. II.132.1.

Nuysemannum

Nuysemannum — Attested source form; inflections are retained rather than replaced by an invented lemma. II.087.1.

Domino de Nuysement

Domino de Nuysement — Attested source form; inflections are retained rather than replaced by an invented lemma. II.218.2.