From the book
The Summary of Physics Restored
Attributed to Jean d’Espagnet · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordPlants possess a soul or spirit of growth, through which they increase and multiply. Their powers are distinguished from animal sensation and movement, though later language complicates that distinction.
- In the bookThe plant’s seed preserves a specific form under a perishable body. Its emergence into a new plant joins corruption, solar or airy assistance, and continuity of kind.
- In this editionThe printed Latin form in canon 157 is hermophroditae. The author’s generalizations about plant generation are historical claims, not modern botanical classifications.
- A place to readCanons 157–158, then 171 and 179: the first definition, its account of origin, and the later attribution of plant knowledge.
Meaning
Vegetabilia denotes plants as beings endowed with growth. The phrase animâ etiam seu spiritu vegetante makes soul and growing spirit alternative descriptions in canon 157. The operative power is neither bare existence nor the full range of animal sensation and movement: it is the activity through which a plant grows and multiplies.
The word-family should not be restricted to a visually green appearance or equated without qualification with a modern physiological process. In this book growth is the unfolding of a formative power within disposed matter. It is connected with nourishment, the continuing identity of a kind, and the relation of a creature to its higher source.
Use in the book
Canon 154 situates plants between minerals and animals and gives them roots in earth and water. Air is still the principal fuel and nourishment of life for all three classes. Plants thus supply an especially visible example of dependence on a moist, earthly receiving place without being self-sufficient in it.
Canon 157 gives their positive capacity and negative distinction together. They possess a growing soul or spirit and increase through the motion of growth; they lack sensation and animal motion. The same passage calls their seeds hermaphroditic because one grain contains fertile seed without the intercourse or joining of two seeds required by the comparison. It then concedes that experience finds both sexes in almost every plant kind. The author is distinguishing his account of the individual fertile grain from the sexual distinctions he believes occur in plant species; the lexicon should preserve both statements rather than turn the first into an unlimited assertion that plants have no sexes.
Canon 158 moves from the visible grain to its concealed generative power. God has hidden a heavenly spirit bearing the species’ character. The specific form remains preserved under the individual body. When that body is softened and resolved through corruption, solar heat calls forth the spirit into a new plant, carrying over the old form. The continuity is therefore formal and specific, not the survival of every visible material part. The same account makes moderate corruption a condition of generation rather than only an ending.
Canon 171 gives the hierarchy a further qualification. Plant forms are chiefly airy and owe their immediate beginnings to luminous air, in accord with the creation sequence in which plants precede the Sun. The author does not deny later solar help; he says plants do not owe their beginnings to the Sun in the same measure as animals. Their limited solar power suffices for growth, and their material disposition is judged inadequate to sustain a higher form. Their upward growth is then imagined as an attempt to return to the homeland of their powers.
Canon 179 enlarges the account by calling both plant and animal forms rational in their own manner, not the human manner. It lists plant capacities including movement and sensation, then explains their apparent knowledge through seasonal response, organized roots and stems, the unfolding of flowers and fruits, nourishment, and the vivification of seeds. This wording creates a real tension with canon 157’s denial of sensation and canon 171’s denial of animal sensation and movement. The qualification “in their own manner” helps delimit the later claim, but the reader should not be told that the two vocabularies are identical or that the tension has disappeared.
Canons 190 and 212 add nutrition to the pattern. Plants need both corporeal and spiritual food, and the latter is said to become stem, bark, branches, leaves, and flowers. The account therefore connects a plant’s visible organization with the mediation of spirits. Its lexical richness belongs to a historical philosophy of living powers, not to a claim that plants possess human intellect or that its physiology has been independently confirmed here.
Places to read
- Canon 154 — 1653, p. 111LatinPlants occupy the middle class and root themselves in earth and water.
- Canon 157 — 1653, p. 113LatinGrowing soul, lack of animal capacities, and the claim about the single seed are stated together.
- Canon 158 — 1653, pp. 113, 114LatinA specific spirit survives material preparation and unfolds into a new plant.
- Canon 171 — 1653, pp. 120, 121LatinLuminous air is the more immediate source of plant form, with solar power limited by degree.
- Canon 179 — 1653, pp. 127, 128LatinPlant rationality and sensory language are qualified as nonhuman and illustrated through ordered growth.
- Canon 190 — 1653, p. 136LatinPlants receive bodily and spiritual nourishment.
- Canon 212 — 1653, pp. 154, 155LatinSpiritual nourishment becomes the plant’s visible structures.
Translation in this edition
Canon 157 prints hermophroditae, not the more familiar spelling that a modern editor might expect. The entry preserves that attestation. Its animâ etiam seu spiritu vegetante links alternative names; the English “soul or spirit of growth” should not be read as a claim that two wholly separate plant souls have just been enumerated. Canon 179’s sensitiuæ must be acknowledged alongside the earlier denial of sensu: the later term belongs to a deliberately nonhuman attribution of rational powers, but remains a notable shift. The edition’s translated creation-order argument is the author’s explanation, not a botanical chronology adopted by the lexicon.
Plants — Vegetabilia
Vegetabilia — Beings with growth and multiplication, placed between minerals and animals. Canon 157; 1653, p. 113.
Spirit of growth — spiritu vegetante
spiritu vegetante — The operative principle given as an alternative designation to plant soul. Canon 157; 1653, p. 113.
Animal motion — motu animali
motu animali — A capacity the definition denies to plants. Canon 157; 1653, p. 113.
Single grain — granum singulare
granum singulare — The individual seed-unit that the author says already contains fertile power. Canon 157; 1653, p. 113.
Hermaphroditic — hermophroditae
hermophroditae — The exact printed characterization of the seed’s allegedly double nature. Canon 157; 1653, p. 113.
Specific character — specifico caractere
specifico caractere — The mark by which the hidden spirit preserves the plant’s kind. Canon 158; 1653, pp. 113, 114.
New plant — stirpem nouam
stirpem nouam — The offspring into which the prior form is conveyed. Canon 158; 1653, pp. 113, 114.
Luminous air — aëri luminoso
aëri luminoso — The more immediate formative source assigned to plants. Canon 171; 1653, pp. 120, 121.
Their own manner — sibi proprio
sibi proprio — The restriction on the rationality attributed to nonhuman forms. Canon 179; 1653, pp. 127, 128.
Roots — radicibus
radicibus — One of the concrete structures whose orderly formation supplies evidence for the claimed plant knowledge. Canon 179; 1653, pp. 127, 128.