From the book
Sal Lumen and Spiritus Mundi Philosophici
Clovis Hesteau de Nuysement · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordThe maxim that contrary cures contrary is defended by distinguishing what a substance is from what it does.
- In Sal LumenIn III.18 the author contrasts ordinary remedies with an inward virtue more fully separated from its impediments.
- In this editionThe English 'like substances' must not be expanded into 'identical effects'.
- A place to readThe author reconciles a contrary-cure axiom with salt treating a salt-produced disease by distinguishing like names/material class from unlike effects.
Meaning
The maxim that contrary cures contrary is defended by distinguishing what a substance is from what it does. Like or corresponding substances can produce different, even opposed effects. A contrast in action therefore does not always establish a contrast of underlying nature. The distinction is offered as a reply to objections against chymical medicine, not as a modern therapeutic rule.
Use in the book
In III.18 the author contrasts ordinary remedies with an inward virtue more fully separated from its impediments. The example involving Pena already contains a limit: relief is reported, while complete cure remains conditional on a proposed extraction. The subsequent discussion considers whether a powerful or corrosive agent is necessarily unsuitable because its sensible properties appear contrary to the intended effect.
Salt furnishes the example of one family acting differently in different relations: what coagulates in one context can dissolve in another. The author argues that likeness of substance does not require sameness of effect. His accompanying comparisons involving burns and excessive power are historical attempts to make that distinction plausible. They are not safe treatment advice and should not be presented as procedures for a reader to try.
The objection is not simply dismissed. The author concedes that these preparations taken alone and in excessive quantity can be harmful. His defence depends on the claimed difference made by preparation, combination and the recipient. The argumentative value of the passage lies in that differentiation, and its confident causal assertions must be distinguished from the reported relief and the conditional proposed perfect cure. None is thereby independently verified.
Places to read
- Book Three · Unit 18The author reconciles a contrary-cure axiom with salt treating a salt-produced disease by distinguishing like names/material class from unlike effects.
Translation
The English 'like substances' must not be expanded into 'identical effects'. The French explicitly makes differing effects the point. Equally, the conditional perfect cure and the language of persistent, rebellious disease remain distinct from laboratory fixation. Reading the objections, concessions and conditions together prevents the concluding medical praise from becoming an unqualified endorsement.
Word family
Contraire, semblables and effects differens: opposition of effects without necessary opposition of substance. Exact historical spellings are listed separately.
Attested forms
le contraire garisse le contraire; deux semblables, mais leurs effects sont differens; l'un force l'autre de luy ceder; contraire; semblables; effects sont differens