Pseudo-Magnesia

Use in the book

At p. 43 the reader is warned that a candidate disagreeing with Khunrath's Nature-grounded doctrine is being held as false Magnesia in place of the genuine one. The preceding test requires all the stated properties and conditions to fit without force. A successful resemblance in one respect cannot make the whole identification secure.

At pp. 138–1392 Khunrath says that no other matter satisfies the required conditions and analogical harmony as his chosen subject does; he therefore rejects the others as pseudo-Magnesias. The label thus covers diverse proposals rather than supplying an alternative material doctrine.

The conclusion specifies the practical consequence. Great expense, diligence and labour upon a false ground cannot produce what is absent from it. Many rejected materials are specified into vegetable, animal, mineral or metallic kinds. Their defect is relative to the catholic end: elsewhere Khunrath can grant other uses to preparations which fail as universal beginnings.

His declared aim at pp. 178–1792 is to help readers distinguish the true subject from these substitutes. Pseudo-Magnesia belongs to that corrective purpose, while the book still withholds the true matter's common public name.

Places to read

1. 1599 p. 40All the stated properties must agree without forced interpretation.
2. 1599 p. 43Pseudo-Magnesia is explicitly opposed to the genuine subject.
3. 1599 p. 139Alternative materias are rejected under the plural name.
4. 1599 p. 175Labour and expense cannot make a false ground yield the desired result.
5. 1599 p. 177Specified kinds are named among the misleading substitutes.
6. 1599 p. 179Distinguishing genuine Magnesia from substitutes is the stated purpose of the instruction.

Translation in this edition

The mixed Latin and German forms are retained as names of erroneous attribution. “Pseudo” should not automatically imply that every mistaken practitioner deliberately perpetrates fraud; the term also covers sincere error.