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Sal Lumen and Spiritus Mundi Philosophici
Clovis Hesteau de Nuysement · Diotimos Editions · 2026
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In II.2 S004 the same word vitrification performs two jobs. One occurrence marks a limit beyond which a burnt substance no longer dissolves; another describes the universal spirit’s first conversion into virgin earth and is immediately explained as an attenuation of moisture. The supplied English retains both uses.
These statements should not be silently reconciled by replacing the second occurrence with a more expected operation-name. A lexical explanation can show the two local functions and their relation to hardness, embodiment and dissolubility while leaving their tension visible. Neither use supplies a modern compositional analysis or warrants identifying every hard body with ordinary glass.
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- Book Two · Chapter 2 · Unit 4Water unites with dissoluble earthly substance through its smallest parts; innate dryness congeals it and prolonged decoction gives metallic hardness. The author identifies salt as the first tangible body, cites Lulle's virgin earth, and attributes hardness and visible form to salt. Vitrification is both a limit preventing dissolution and, later in the same unit, a name for first embodiment through attenuation of moisture; the formulations are retained rather than harmonized.
Supplied apparatus
Supplied edition, notes 110