Chapter table and omitted division

Meaning

The preliminary tables are a structural map, not a complete substitute for the chapters themselves. They name the world as living, its body-soul-spirit constitution, parentage, nourishment, perfection and specification, then turn to embodiment and further operations.

The surviving second table omits Book II Chapter Four, which nevertheless appears in full in the body beginning at printed page 203. A reader should therefore use the historical tables to see the announced sequence while consulting the body for the actual divisions, including the ascent-and-descent chapter. The substantive headings belong to the entries on celestial reception, lunar maternity, species-formation, and the Table's double reading, not solely to this bibliographical entry. “Third book” likewise marks a division, not another technical operation. The table's incompleteness does not authorize silently supplying a corrected historical table.

The label fol. in the historical table introduces its printed page references, not a modern folio-leaf count. Its first proposition, that the living world has spirit, soul and body, routes to the constitutional account; solar parentage, lunar motherhood, airy roots, earthly nourishment, perfection and species-formation similarly need their own explanations. The table records the announced structure, while the separate pagination note explains its omission and anomalous numbering.

Both Tables des chapitres in the preceding heading and the capitalized body title are evidenced. The edition keeps the historical outline distinguishable from its modern navigation and corrected source-page mapping.