Recognition

Use in the book

At the beginning of the treatise, knowledge of the matter is the first of the Art's two secrets; due preparation is the second. Their order is necessary. One cannot fetch the appropriate thing and work upon it unless one first knows which thing to fetch. The warning on page 12 therefore makes recognition a condition of beginning, rather than the reward that can be demanded only after the completed operation. Pages 32 and 44–4523 sharpen the difference: the world already has the thing before its eyes and can name it, yet very few recognize it. Familiarity and rarity of knowledge coexist without contradiction.

Recognition has both an intellectual and a providential structure. It requires grounds in Nature and discrimination among competing materials, but Khunrath also says that God grants or withholds it. The Emmaus comparison explains how a visible, familiar person or thing may remain unrecognized. It does not disclose the identity of the matter. Nor does the insistence on divine assistance remove the demand that a claimant give reasons: the candidate still has to answer to the treatise's stated properties.

The later defence enlarges what recognition yields. At pages 150–1512 it enables knowledge of the Creator through the creature, of the world and of oneself; at page 162 it remains a possession worth retaining even in the hypothetical event that perfect preparation is never achieved. The marginal title opening the Conclusion, the fruits and uses of Agnitionis, confirms that the treatise's promised benefit is already present before a successful projection. Recognition is thus at once the threshold of the work, a standard for judging claims, and an end with its own worth.

Places to read

1. 1599 p. 8The two secrets distinguish recognition of the matter from its right preparation, with the first logically preceding the second.
2. 1599 p. 32The German explicitly adds recognizing to knowing, despite the costly study and labour of those from whom the matter is withheld.
3. 1599 p. 45The visible and contemptible thing is known to everyone but recognized by very few, continuing the Emmaus comparison from page 44.
4. 1599 p. 150Recognition opens onto Creator, creation, self, and Nature rather than requiring immediate transmutatory power.
5. 1599 p. 162Khunrath would retain recognition and the standing of a Philosopher even if perfect preparation never came.
6. 1599 p. 165 · marginThe heading makes the fruits and uses of recognition the announced subject of the Conclusion.

Translation in this edition

The translation's repeated recognize usefully keeps the contrast audible. Page 8, however, pairs Latin MATERIAE cognitio with German Erkendtnus: the conceptual distinction cannot simply be mapped onto two invariant Latin nouns. The opening on page 12 is also awkward in the supplied English, which renders neben dem können as 'besides the being able'; the clear knowing/recognizing pair on page 32 provides a firmer lexical anchor.