Taking a marten for a fox

Meaning

Taking a marten for a fox is the idiom through which Nuysement anticipates an objection that he has mistaken one matter for another. The response distinguishes the first matter of metals from the universal source that is, as it were, that matter’s parent. The metallic subject is the son; his wider subject is the parent.

The animals therefore name a risk of mistaken identification, not two ingredients or zoological correspondences. The idiom belongs to a passage that grants the excellence of Bacon’s metallic account while insisting upon a broader causal level. It should not be used to erase the distinction by translating both matters simply as “first matter.”