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 argument for generation without visible parents concerns the first appearance of certain organisms, not the abolition of sexual reproduction.
- In Sal LumenUnsown herbs upon high walls, eels in mud and flies from excrement serve as his familiar witnesses.
- In this editionThe new English retains “more worthy of wonder than belief,” preventing the marvels from becoming an unqualified catalogue of the author’s convictions.
- A place to readHidden seeds and the claim of production without sexual conjunction.
Meaning
The argument for generation without visible parents concerns the first appearance of certain organisms, not the abolition of sexual reproduction. Nuysement claims that hidden seeds or powers can be present in elements and brought into activity without a preceding conjunction of male and female. He then expressly allows the beings so produced to reproduce by ordinary sexual mixture.
Use in the book
Unsown herbs upon high walls, eels in mud and flies from excrement serve as his familiar witnesses. Their alleged origins are offered as proof of latent universal life, with metallic seed likewise inferred rather than seen. These examples belong to his historical explanatory system; they do not establish the claimed reproductive mechanisms as facts.
The next paragraph changes the degree of assent. A basilisk from a cock’s egg, a scorpion associated with basil, bees from an ox, and birdlike creatures from branches or leaves are introduced as things more deserving wonder than belief. The author places them outside Nature’s ordinary course and restricts any possibility to particular matter, time and place. The repeated form Basilic must not merge the fabulous animal with the herb. Nor should references to bodily materials in these reports be turned into instructions.
This qualified marvel-list differs again from artificial incubation. Warming an existing egg without a brooding hen does not mean that the egg itself arose without parents. Keeping these examples apart preserves the argument’s scale of confidence: familiar phenomena asserted as evidence, exceptional stories treated with reservation, and art-assisted natural development.
Places to read
- Book One · Chapter 1 · Unit 6Hidden seeds and the claim of production without sexual conjunction.
- Book One · Chapter 1 · Unit 7Walls, mud and excrement as alleged sources, followed by subsequent sexual reproduction.
- Book One · Chapter 1 · Unit 8Artificial incubation of an existing egg, a different example.
- Book One · Chapter 1 · Unit 9The qualified marvel-list and its restrictions of matter, time and place.
Translation
The new English retains “more worthy of wonder than belief,” preventing the marvels from becoming an unqualified catalogue of the author’s convictions. “Without preceding copulation” and the later “mixture of male and female” are both necessary to his account. The entry accordingly explains a historical claim rather than substituting a modern biological label for every example.
Attested forms
sans conjonction de masle & de femelle; sans precedente copulation des sexes; commixtion de masle & de femelle; anguilles; mouches; Basilic d'un œuf de Coc; Scorpion; mouche à miel; plus dignes de admiration que de creance; certain temps & certain lieu; conjonction; copulation; Basilic