Philosophers’ Dung

Use in the book

Page 83 rejects the sufficiency of corporeal metallic mercuries dissolved into water. They have not passed through the proper fountain, in which alone lies the dung that brings about the required putrefaction. That corruption destroys the former state in a way from which a new generation and regeneration can arise. The material name therefore belongs to a doctrine of productive destruction, not to every offensive or decaying substance.

The margin on page 119 begins by saying that first matter causes the true putrefaction in this work. Its continuation on page 120 identifies the living pri-material catholic Mercury as the secret horse-dung of the Wise and adds that one who understands this is wise. The page break can obscure the identification if the tail is quoted alone; read continuously, the subject is explicit.

This account sits beside the dispute over a metal’s own separated constituents. Silver and gold need the proper common field, not a purported field built out of their own mercury and salt. Calling the true agent dung emphasizes its role in the necessary corruption; it does not permit an opponent to substitute any materially similar-looking putrefactive aid.

The name also shows why literal and philosophical registers must be distinguished case by case. The treatise elsewhere uses dung as abuse in the warning against a false substitution, “dung for balsam.” That pejorative phrase is not a second definition of the philosophical dung. Here the apparently low name designates the required and valued agency within the stated regeneration.

Places to read

1. 1599 p. 83Only the catholic pri-material fountain contains the dung for the true regenerative putrefaction.
2. 1599 p. 119 · marginFirst matter is named as the cause of the relevant putrefaction; the Mercury gloss begins.
3. 1599 p. 120 · marginThe continued gloss expressly identifies living pri-material catholic Mercury as the secret horse-dung.
4. 1599 p. 179A separate abusive dung-for-balsam phrase begins at the page end and continues on page 180.

Translation in this edition

Retain “dung” and “horse-dung” rather than euphemizing them, but keep the primary identification beside the term. The divided form prima- / terialis should be rejoined in explanation, while the original page break remains visible in the places. No laboratory ingredient or modern chemical identity is inferred.