Pure substance and accidental impurity · Lexicon

From the book

Sal Lumen and Spiritus Mundi Philosophici

Clovis Hesteau de Nuysement · Diotimos Editions · 2026

Orientation

At a Glance

The wordPure substance and accidental impurity are distinguished by belonging, not merely by date of arrival or visible appearance.
In Sal LumenThe reported salt in II.2.9 looks clean and bright but still retains dregs.
In this edition“Accidental impurities” occurs in Sonnet VI’s historical heading, while the verse itself says “pure substance” and describes what infects it.
A place to readWhiteness and brightness fail to prove the absence of dregs.

Meaning

Pure substance and accidental impurity are distinguished by belonging, not merely by date of arrival or visible appearance. The substance is essential to the subject; the excrement can accompany it without being of its essence. “Accidental” thus does not mean that its presence is trivial or that a modern laboratory accident produced it. Nor is apparent whiteness sufficient proof of inward purity.

Nuysement can call substance simple and incorruptible in itself while calling the created generative mixture impure. The two formulations ask different questions: what the life-bearing principle is, and in what compound condition it exists and acts. A proper reading preserves this distinction without making all embodiment a dispensable stain.

Use in the book

The reported salt in II.2.9 looks clean and bright but still retains dregs. Its subsequent changes cannot retroactively make the first appearance a proof of purity. II.2.22 likewise locates purity in the depth of the subject and reserves its stronger resistance for the condition after purification. II.3.4 explains why coexistence is not the issue by itself: contrary matter can remain together with a substance while obstructing its action.

II.3.17 assigns essential status to substance and accidental status to excrement in passible sublunary bodies. The longer creation argument in II.3.20 then says that the generative subject was not created wholly pure. Its dregs are companions of birth, even uterine sisters, but expressly not consubstantial. Coeval origin does not establish identity of essence. The changing differentiated world requires a recipient of action; absolute unmixed purity would not alone account for that condition.

In II.3.27, first nature or first form is the medicinal subject’s still-impure original condition, lacking the penetration and permanence claimed for its perfected state; it is not the primordial first matter of the cosmos. II.3.32 makes retention conditional: the stated need for stronger action belongs only to a sublimable subject deeply mingled with and attached to the dregs or calx of a fixed body, and the preferred arrangement has an express exception where the dregs remain behind of themselves. These are qualifications in the historical account, not practical directions. Sonnet VI compresses the rule into pure substance infected by earthly slime and adustion. Its praise of expelling the infection depends on conserving the substance, not annihilating it. The pure centre in II.4.9’s analogy similarly survives the removal of outward conditions; Christ’s passibility is explicitly not stain.

Places to read

Book Two · Chapter 2 · Unit 9Whiteness and brightness fail to prove the absence of dregs.
Book Two · Chapter 2 · Unit 22Inward purity is distinguished from the completed condition after purification.
Book Two · Chapter 3 · Unit 7Simple substance in itself is contrasted with vulnerable lower compounds.
Book Two · Chapter 3 · Unit 4Coexistent contrary matter can obstruct action.
Book Two · Chapter 3 · Unit 17Essential substance and accidental excrement receive distinct assignments.
Book Two · Chapter 3 · Unit 20Birth-companion dregs are explicitly not consubstantial.
Book Two · Chapter 3 · Unit 27First form and perfected condition differ; two supplied readings remain bracketed.
Book Two · Chapter 3 · Unit 32Retention of dregs has an explicit exception where they remain by themselves.
Sonnet 6 · Unit 1The heading names accidental impurities; the verse describes infection of pure substance.
Book Two · Chapter 4 · Unit 9The pure centre remains distinct from passibility and from removable impurity.

Translation

“Accidental impurities” occurs in Sonnet VI’s historical heading, while the verse itself says “pure substance” and describes what infects it. Keeping the heading and verse as separate evidence layers prevents a useful editorial label from masquerading as a line of poetry. The supplied English also preserves the decisive negative “not consubstantial” in the birth-companion image. In II.3.27 the bracketed [n’] and [de] are supplied readings, so the surrounding argument is not presented as an unqualified transcription of wholly legible letters.

Attested forms

pur & net; blancheur & lucidité; retient aussi les feces; en son profond; apres sa purification; simple & pure; non subjecte à corruption ny à mort; empesche l’action; essentielle; accidentelle; substance; excrement; ne fut pas creée pure; non pas consubstantielles; compagnes de naissance; sœur uterines; nature premiere; premiere forme; arrester & retenir; s'arrester d'elles mesmes; substance pure; impuretez accidentelles; limon terrestre; adustion; peste; immondicitez terrestres