Metals alone and the need for an agent

Meaning

“Metals alone” is a maxim reported in order to correct its interpretation. The apparent verdict that the seeds of gold exist in gold alone sounds final, a Sentence, voire Arrest sans appel, but Nuysement immediately distinguishes ordinary metals from the secret metals meant by the masters. More importantly, metallic capacities cannot pass from potentiality into effect without the general spirit, the agent of growth. His assertion that Nature does not produce itself gives the operation two relational requirements: an agent and matter capable of its action. The passage therefore does not authorize an exclusive metals-only recipe. Its exclusion is precisely what the charge mal interpretez, “poorly interpreted,” puts in question. The later self-vivifying and self-replenishing principle of II.4.16–17 must be compared with this denial without silently making the two formulations identical: here the immediate problem is the activation of metallic faculties.