Principles and things proceeding from principles

Use in the book

The objection begins with an apparently persuasive technical account. The Artist extracts sulphur or soul, displays Mercury or spirit as clear water, and brings out salt or body. The parts can then supposedly become seed and field for one another. Khunrath disputes the ease of obtaining the alleged pure Mercury, but he does not let the argument depend solely upon that practical objection. At p. 116 he conditionally grants the threefold separation in order to test what would follow.

His answer on p. 117 is that the three are essential parts of ripe metallic fruits, not three pri-material principles. Silver and gold originated from first matter already specified toward their respective kinds. A separation performed upon those products does not reverse the history and condition of their formation. Their parts remain un-pri-material even if the division is skilful and the products look subtle.

For the three properly to be pri-material principles, they must actually possess the pri-material state. The required first matter subsists as something separate outside the metals. It is not obtained from them; they are generated from it. Thus Khunrath's causal direction underwrites the terminological distinction. The means of returning a thing to its beginning must not be confused with a fragment extracted from the completed thing.

The following exchange about metallic seeds develops the consequence. All three essential parts belong to silver or gold, and none can simply stand as the common field of the others. Metallic identity is present throughout the whole. The true field is the catholic first matter, not the metal's own residue after an extraction. The philosophical vocabulary of principles therefore imposes a material criterion upon analysis. Khunrath can accept that a decomposition reveals genuine essential parts while denying the much stronger conclusion that it has recovered the original universal beginning.

Places to read

1. 1599 p. 113The opponent proposes that a threefold separation returns metals to their first matter; the proposal continues on p. 114.
2. 1599 p. 116Khunrath grants the separation conditionally rather than affirming it as achieved.
3. 1599 p. 117Essential parts are explicitly called principiata, not pri-material principia.
4. 1599 p. 118The external first matter remains necessary for regeneration.
5. 1599 p. 119The three essential parts all belong to metallic identity.
6. 1599 p. 120The whole metal cannot be its own seed and field simultaneously.

Translation in this edition

“Things principiated” is literal but awkward; this headword expands its sense without translating it simply as “principles.” The author's errata adjust the list of Sulphur, Salt and Mercury at p. 116, but do not alter the principia–principiata opposition on p. 117.