Surface, centre, heart and marrow

Use in the book

In II.3.16, the divine Spirit’s inward heating of the human heart supplies a sacred comparison for chymical fire’s penetration into a natural subject. The agents and recipients remain distinct; the comparison does not make a laboratory fire the Holy Spirit. In the account of pallor the heart is also a bodily refuge to which blood retreats. II.4 enlarges the contrast: people pursue wealth and appearances at the surface while neglecting the principle that preserves life. The spirit is approached through primary rather than merely secondary causes, and particular remedies for surface ailments are not thereby dismissed as wholly useless.

The pure centre is especially consequential in the Christ analogy. Passibility and mortality do not imply an internally corrupted centre. The natural comparison likewise forbids removing the subject's own earth from its own fire: what is to be removed is impurity, not the inward conjunction that constitutes it. Demogorgon's mantle and the mythic figures surrounding the world-spirit locate hidden agency beneath visible coverings. II.4.12 places fixability in the subject’s centre as a capacity requiring art’s assistance, not an already accomplished fixation. II.4.34 similarly contrasts apparent inflammability or venom with a hidden fixed preserving power, within the author’s argument rather than as an instruction to use the material.

The bark-and-marrow contrast also governs reading. II.4.15 warns against remaining at an authority's verbal surface when the intended universal matter differs from a particular metallic first matter. Book III presents philosophy as entering the heart and marrow of things, where ordinary inquiry crawls across their surfaces. Its possessor is compared to someone seated on the summit of an inaccessible mountain. The superiority is a figure of intellectual vantage, not a location where the book's substance can literally be collected.

In III.18 the same contrast shapes the medical argument: ordinary observed relief is contrasted with the deeper power the author supposes a purified extract would possess. Penetrating language does not itself prove the promised cure. It states what the author believes a more complete investigation could reach.

Places to read

1. Book Two · Chapter 3 · Unit 16Heart is the inward globe reached by divine heating; later also centre of health.
2. Book Two · Chapter 3 · Unit 29Blood is said to retreat to the heart as Nature gathers defensive forces.
3. Book Two · Chapter 4 · Unit 4Heaven provides a bodily preserver; humans receive reasoning/judgement to seek it by Nature’s light but prefer earthly vanities and surfaces to central virtues.
4. Book Two · Chapter 4 · Unit 15Root/marrow matters more than branches/bark. Bacon’s specified metallic mercury-sulphur subject is praised but not identified with author’s universal parent matter; Raymond Lull’s genus supports that priority.
5. Book Three · Unit 16Without the blessings life is a storm-tossed ship; disease, poverty and fortune assault it. Wisdom arms the spirit, and the first rational-experimental discoverer is praised as god-born or inspired.
6. Book Three · Unit 17Apollo’s bequest to Asclepius establishes precious secrecy. True philosophy is claimed as common ancient wisdom and inward investigation; scholastic conjecture is a labyrinth without Ariadne’s thread.
7. Book Three · Unit 18Ordinary medicine’s learned practitioners are faulted for surface action. The oat-root example leads to salt against salt-caused calculus, differentiated by effect; a corrosive objection receives a conditional concession.
8. Book Two · Chapter 4 · Unit 5As pupil, not theologian, author offers reasonable conceptions. First causes, genus, macrocosm, and cosmic parents must be known before particulars; limbus and copy images explain formation.
9. Book Two · Chapter 4 · Unit 9God wills Christ’s humanity regenerated as pattern, not because his centre needs purging; he is passible/mortal without stain. Nature’s son is as-it-were renewed by impurity removal, not severing proper earth/fire.
10. Book Two · Chapter 4 · Unit 12Birds/dragons picture fixation and volatility; plants rise yet are restrained by own earth. Desired spirituality is not corrupting volatile sulphur; subliming means perfecting; fixability is potential until art helps.
11. Book Two · Chapter 4 · Unit 29Demogorgon, Jupiter, and Pan are locally read as world spirit; it obeys Lord, resides in earth-centre, and vivifies all. Mantle is surface vegetation; hymn addresses Pan’s universal agency.
12. Book Two · Chapter 4 · Unit 31Maya/earth and Jupiter’s seed, rendered as air explain Mercury’s birth; wings/hat/caduceus express volatility, concealment, renewal, and upper/lower power. Theriac/venom depend on use/dose; Suidas via Polydorus supports Jason.
13. Book Two · Chapter 4 · Unit 34Dragon sleep means renewed solution/fixation. Prepared mercury alone lacks double efficacy until final fermentation with solar butter. Burning water is life not vine; apparent inflammability/venom conceals fixed power.
14. Book Three · Unit 12Here a spirit’s centre can mean its proper nature rather than one geographical location.

Translation

The mountain phrase in III.17 is introduced as a comparison; the English similarly presents the investigator as if seated above others. Treating it as a literal secret mountain would defeat the comparison with surface-crawling inquiry. In III.12, outside this immediate image, a spirit's centre can mean its proper nature. That distinct use warns against making every centre in the book a single subterranean place.

Word family

Superficie, centre, cœur, escorce and moelle: exterior and inward power. Exact historical spellings are listed separately.

Attested forms

globe interieur de l’homme; cœur; centre; centre de la santé des corps, qui est le cœur; sang clair & net; leur superficie; leur centre; escorce des parolles; vive moelle de leur intention; cœur du monde; insipide escorce; vaine superficie; cœur de la moëlle; centre des choses; seule superficie; superficie; escorce; moelle; assis au coupeau d'une montagne inaccessible