From the book
The Summary of Physics Restored
Attributed to Jean d’Espagnet · Diotimos Editions · 2026
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At a Glance
- The wordA menstruum is a receiving and sustaining moist medium. Water is called the world’s or Nature’s menstruum because it holds the elements and seminal powers needed for generation.
- In the bookThe word joins material receptivity to celestial communication: water receives formative powers from the Sun and conveys them through circulation into suitable matrices.
- In this editionThe edition retains “menstruum” rather than making every occurrence “menstrual blood” or “solvent.” The local subject determines which sense is in view.
- A place to readCanons 129–134, where earth as vessel is distinguished from water as the moist medium within and around that vessel.
Meaning
menstruum can name a material that receives, sustains, or acts upon other material. In this book it belongs both to the account of animal generation and to an enlarged account of the world’s moisture. Canon 64 already calls water Nature’s menstruum; canon 69 speaks of animal seed and menstrual matter, while canons 130 and 134 develop water’s role as carrier of elemental and seminal powers. The enlargement is stated by the author, not inferred merely from a modern word’s resemblance.
A medium is not therefore an inactive container. Moisture is the first subject to receive form’s seal, the root from which natural spirits flow and into which they readily return. Its ability to receive and transmit makes it indispensable while leaving the initiating formal power distinct. The distinction between earth’s matrix, water’s menstruum, and solar fire’s agency organizes the account.
Use in the book
Canon 64 first calls water Nature’s menstruum while locating it between dense and fine, earth and air. The same passage describes its volatile changes of figure and compares its instability with Proteus. The receptive role and capacity to travel are therefore already joined before the later account of celestial powers.
Canon 69 supplies the most explicitly reproductive context. Mud is the proximate material of generation; in animals it arises from seed and menstrual matter. Plants and metals receive parallel but not identical accounts of their material preparation. The common result is a suitable moist basis, not the assertion that every class of being reproduces through the same bodily organs.
Canon 70 describes why moisture can hold this place. Water is the basis of moist things, yet moist material can receive all qualities. A moist humour can be hot, and spiritual gifts first communicate themselves to moisture. The passage therefore blocks a simplistic equation of water’s general coldness with a prohibition on receiving fire or formal activity. These distinctions prepare the later name menstruum.
In canon 129 earth is a womb and vessel whose dryness alone would leave it barren. Water’s rising and return temper that dryness. The familiar direction of rain is inserted into a larger story of enrichment: circulating water acquires the powers of higher and lower things. The earth supplies a stable receiving place; moisture provides the travelling means of nourishment and impregnation.
Canon 130 expressly calls water the world’s menstruum, containing and cherishing the seeds and elements of things. When water circulates, hidden true elements circulate with it. The author immediately distinguishes them from the immense sensible bodies that constitute earth, water, and air as world-regions. Thus his claim is not that a rain-vapour contains the whole terrestrial globe in miniature. It bears imperceptible generative principles concealed in those larger bodies. If those principles meet outside a suitable matrix, the result can be imperfect because of the matrix rather than the mixture.
The neighbouring canons refuse an idealized picture of every watery event. Canon 131 represents water as an unstable and sometimes destructive power, in conspicuously hostile gendered language. Those judgments are the author’s, and the lexicon does not adopt them as truths about women. Their argumentative role is to contrast a necessary medium’s intended benefit with its excesses and disturbances. Canon 132 then ranks dense bodies below subtler ones; the medium’s worth depends on its relation to spiritual power, not only on its amount.
Canon 133 returns to the constructive relation. In generation and corruption moisture undergoes the first action and receives form’s first seal. The other elements mix in and through it. The same moist circulation serves nutrition within individuals, using rarefaction, condensation, and spirits as intermediaries. Canon 134 closes the account with a triad of roles: earth is vessel, water is menstruum, and the Sun supplies seminal and formal powers. Fire and water receive the leading generative functions under the Sun and Moon. Their combination does not make water identical with the fire it conceals and sustains.
Places to read
- Canon 64 — 1653, p. 45LatinWater is already called Nature’s menstruum and characterized as an unstable intermediary.
- Canon 69 — 1653, pp. 49, 50LatinMenstrual matter appears in the specific account of animal generation.
- Canon 70 — 1653, pp. 50, 51LatinMoisture receives qualities and spiritual gifts without losing its receptive office.
- Canon 129 — 1653, pp. 93, 94, 95LatinEarth’s dry vessel is made fertile by circulating water.
- Canon 130 — 1653, pp. 95, 96LatinWater is named the world’s menstruum and distinguished from the elements it carries.
- Canon 131 — 1653, pp. 96, 97LatinThe author’s polemical account of watery excess qualifies its beneficent office.
- Canon 132 — 1653, p. 97LatinThe hierarchy of coarse and subtle natures frames the medium’s value.
- Canon 133 — 1653, pp. 97, 98LatinMoisture receives form’s seal and mediates generation and nutrition.
- Canon 134 · Original marginal note 1 — 1653, p. 98LatinThe original margin cites Hippocrates, book 1, On Regimen, for the fire/water pairing.
- Canon 134 — 1653, pp. 98, 99LatinEarth, water, and solar powers receive distinct generative functions.
Translation in this edition
Canon 130 translates Mundi menstruum as “the world’s menstruum”; canon 134 has “Nature’s menstruum.” In canon 69 menstruo is translated “menstrual matter” in the explicitly animal context. Assigning the latter phrase to all three passages would suppress the cosmological extension. In canon 134 “seminal and also formal powers” renders virtutes seminales etiam formales: the term “formal” concerns formative efficacy, not merely a physical fluid. The reference to Hippocrates is the historical author’s appeal to authority, not a present medical endorsement. These passages describe an historical generative medium, not a substance to prepare or administer.
Menstrual matter — menstruo
menstruo — The specifically animal material joined with seed in forming generative mud. Canon 69; 1653, pp. 49, 50.
First subject — primum Naturae subiectum
primum Naturae subiectum — Moisture as the first recipient of Nature’s care and action. Canon 70; 1653, pp. 50, 51.
Womb — vterum
vterum — Earth as the stable receiving place for generation. Canon 129; 1653, pp. 93, 94, 95.
Vessel of generation — vas generationis
vas generationis — The containing role distinguished from the circulating medium. Canon 129; 1653, pp. 93, 94, 95.
World’s menstruum — Mundi menstruum
Mundi menstruum — Water considered as holder and nourisher of seeds and true elements. Canon 130; 1653, pp. 95, 96.
Cherishes — fouet
fouet — The sustaining work water performs for what it contains. Canon 130; 1653, pp. 95, 96.
First recipient of action — primum est patiens
primum est patiens — Moisture’s priority as a recipient of formative action. Canon 133; 1653, pp. 97, 98.
Seal of form — formae sigillum
formae sigillum — The impression first received by moist matter. Canon 133; 1653, pp. 97, 98.
Seminal powers — virtutes seminales
virtutes seminales — The powers of propagation embraced by the watery medium. Canon 134; 1653, pp. 98, 99.
Mistress of moistures — humorum domina
humorum domina — The Moon’s office in the paired solar and lunar governance. Canon 134; 1653, pp. 98, 99.
Nemesis — Nemesis
Nemesis — Water personified as the avenger executing divine justice, within the author’s gendered invective against its destructive excesses. Canon 131; 1653, pp. 96, 97.