Occupied, not impeded

Meaning

Empeschee à engendrer means occupied in engendering, not prevented from engendering. The following infinitive and the contrast with idleness determine the sense.

II.3.18 calls the spirituous matter never idle but incessantly engaged in generation and vivification. After the innate dryness has absorbed superfluous moisture, the earth feels the action of the hidden substance in its bosom. Reading empeschee as hindered would reverse the assertion and wrongly give the passage an inactive subject. Elsewhere empescher can indeed mean obstructing a power; those occurrences must not override this construction. This small verb distinction protects the larger claim of continuous productive activity according to the ideas of individuals.

The supplied English correctly says “ceaselessly occupied in engendering and giving life.” The entire contrast, non jamais oisive, mais incessamment empeschee, is the reading control, not the isolated modern cognate.