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 wordAqua is water; humor is the moisture or watery liquidity it supplies. Moisture is defined through its presence in a body, not simply by that body’s inability to keep a shape.
- In the bookWater mediates between dense earth and subtle air, receives powers and qualities, and circulates through vapour and rain. Moisture is indispensable to the formation and nourishment of compounds, but is not always cold in its actual mixtures.
- In this edition“Moistness is more proper to water than coldness” preserves the comparison in canon 67. The text does not say that water is never cold; canon 70 expressly calls water’s root cold.
- A place to readCanons 64–70: mobility, resemblance to first matter, the priority of moisture over coldness, and the preparation of mud lead into the definition of water as the root of everything moist.
Meaning
Water has a double role as a visible body and the source of moisture throughout compounds. The book distinguishes its relative position among universal natures from the variety of qualities a moist compound can acquire. A blood-like humour or a burning liquid need not cease to be moist because it is hot. Conversely, a thin or fluid body is not necessarily wetter simply because it lacks a boundary of its own.
The term also carries reproductive and chemical imagery. Water is Nature’s menstruum because it receives, carries and nourishes seminal and formal powers. That description does not identify every watery substance with a single modern solvent, nor make ordinary water and radical moisture interchangeable.
Use in the book
Canon 21 gives moisture an original cosmological function. A watery or moist immediate matter can be refined and spread into a continuous fabric, since flowing belongs to moisture. It is called the glue and solder of bodies and elements. Heat rarefies moisture while the associated earthy nature condenses; a differentiated world remains continuous through this material bond.
Canon 64 then defines water as intermediate between dense and fine, earth and air. Volatile and fugitive, it becomes vapour under moderate heat and takes many shapes, surpassing Proteus in instability. Canon 65 names the moist element Mercury and figures its circulation as commerce between higher and lower regions. The name’s local role is this mobile intermediary, not a warrant to replace every occurrence with ordinary metallic mercury.
Canon 66 says water is closest to first matter because it retains something of the moist smoky beginning, whereas heaven and earth have departed toward extreme rarity and density. This is resemblance of condition, not an exception to canon 48’s denial that first matter survives separately. Canon 67 consequently assigns moistness more properly to water than coldness: water participates more in light than earth does.
Canon 68 attacks the attribution of maximal cold to water. Strong cold constricts and dries moisture, as the author argues from ice, snow, winter plants and age. Its sharp scythe image makes death a harvesting of dried things. If maximum cold inherently ruled moisture, the author argues, it would destroy the very element’s proper power. The reasoning does not deny felt cold water; it disputes which quality should be most essentially or intensely attributed to the universal nature.
Canon 69 makes the meeting of earth and water produce mud, the immediate material of generated bodies. Canon 70 then supplies the explicit definition: water is the basis and root of every moist thing, and its liquid wets. Moisture can receive all qualities. Blood, yellow bile, strong water and burning water illustrate the difference between watery basis and acquired heat. The passage concludes that moisture is Nature’s first subject for receiving powers, colours, tinctures and spiritual gifts.
Canons 71–73 divide the lower waters between those resting with earth and those suspended above. Their support and changing distribution involve celestial powers as well as heat and cold in the author’s account. Canon 74 turns the same suspended waters toward a different rhetorical purpose: the flying ocean and fiery darts of lightning become instruments of divine justice, threatening with terror the human audacity that love could not restrain. The warning is a theological interpretation of the natural spectacle, not a further measurement of its volume. Canon 78 supplies the alembic image of rising vapour and returning water. Later canon 133 extends this circulating moisture to generation and nutrition within individual compounds. The stable relation across these passages is reception and transmission: moisture connects bodily material to formative powers while remaining capable of many actual temperaments.
Places to read
- Canon 21 (1653, pp. 13, 14)LatinMoisture supplies continuity, like glue and solder, while heat differentiates its constituents.
- Canon 48 (1653, pp. 33, 34)LatinFirst matter no longer exists separately after the world’s formation.
- Canon 64 (1653, p. 45)LatinWater is volatile and intermediate, with Proteus as its image of changeable shape.
- Canon 65 (1653, p. 45)LatinThe moist element’s Mercury image explains its commerce between higher and lower.
- Canon 66 (1653, pp. 46, 47)LatinWater resembles the moist primordial condition more than either dense earth or rare heaven.
- Canon 67 (1653, p. 47)LatinMoistness is more proper to water than coldness.
- Canon 68 (1653, pp. 47, 48, 49)LatinConstriction and drying are used against the attribution of maximum cold to water.
- Canon 69 (1653, pp. 49, 50)LatinEarth and water form the mud from which bodies are generated.
- Canon 70 (1653, pp. 50, 51)LatinWater and moisture are defined, and hot moist compounds show moisture’s receptivity to qualities.
- Canon 71 (1653, p. 51)LatinLower waters occupy both the earthly globe and suspended airy regions.
- Canon 72 (1653, p. 52)LatinTheir aerial residence explains exposed land and the author’s conjecture about the deluge.
- Canon 73 (1653, pp. 52, 53)LatinCelestial attraction supplements heat and cold in the account of suspended waters.
- Canon 74 (1653, p. 53)LatinSuspended ocean and lightning become threats of divine justice, checking by terror what love has not restrained.
- Canon 78 (1653, pp. 55, 56)LatinA natural alembic models evaporation, condensation and repeated return.
- Canon 133 (1653, pp. 97, 98)LatinMoisture circulates in individuals as well as the world, serving generation and nutrition.
Translation in this edition
The Latin comparison Humiditas magis propria est aquae, quàm frigiditas becomes “Moistness is more proper to water than coldness.” It is a relative predication, not an absolute exclusion of cold. Canon 70’s humor spans moisture and the bodily “humours” used as examples; the English appropriately changes with context. Aqua fortis and Aqua ardens are rendered “strong water” and “burning water,” preserving historical names without identifying a present preparation or giving a recipe. The typographically printed Protheo in canon 64 is the inflected name rendered Proteus.
Water — Aqua
Aqua — The volatile intermediate body between dense earth and fine air. (Canon 64; 1653, p. 45.)
Moisture — humor
humor — Watery liquidity as the basis of what makes bodies moist. (Canon 70; 1653, pp. 50, 51.)
Moistness — Humiditas
Humiditas — The quality assigned more properly to water than coldness. (Canon 67; 1653, p. 47.)
Moist — humidum
humidum — What contains watery liquid in greater or lesser degree. (Canon 70; 1653, pp. 50, 51.)
Glue — gluten
gluten — The image for moisture’s contribution to bodily continuity. (Canon 21; 1653, pp. 13, 14.)
Solder — ferrumen
ferrumen — The companion image stressing moisture’s binding of elements and bodies. (Canon 21; 1653, pp. 13, 14.)
Proteus — Protheo
Protheo — The mythic shape-changer surpassed by water’s assumed forms. (Canon 64; 1653, p. 45.)
Mercury — Mercurius
Mercurius — The moist element personified as mobile agent of exchange between cosmic regions. (Canon 65; 1653, p. 45.)
Steel scythe — falce chalibaea
falce chalibaea — The image of death’s cold drying and harvesting living things. (Canon 68; 1653, pp. 47, 48, 49.)
Wetting — madefacere
madefacere — The action explicitly identified as proper to water’s liquid. (Canon 70; 1653, pp. 50, 51.)
Flying ocean — Oceanum
Oceanum — The elevated waters become an ocean hanging threateningly overhead, an image of divine justice supplementing the physical explanation of their suspension. (Canon 74; 1653, p. 53.)
Universal sabbath — sabbatum universale
sabbatum universale — The final rest when the moist Mercury’s cosmic trading ceases, after corruptible Nature’s elements have been purified and fixed by fire. (Canon 65; 1653, p. 45.)
Strong water — Aqua fortis
Aqua fortis — The historical liquid-name illustrates that a watery basis can bear caustic fiery power; it is not a practical preparation supplied by this lexicon. (Canon 70; 1653, pp. 50, 51.)
Burning water — Aqua ardens
Aqua ardens — The historical liquid-name illustrates heat borne within moisture, supporting the distinction between a watery root and a compound’s acquired qualities. (Canon 70; 1653, pp. 50, 51.)