From the book
The Secret Work of the Hermetic Philosophy
Attributed to Jean d’Espagnet · Diotimos Editions · 2026
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At a Glance
- The wordsMateria is the matter worked upon; principium names a beginning or principle. In this book metallic principles are what analysis investigates and preparation makes more perfect before reunion.
- In the bookThe author restricts the work to metallic nature but allows its matter to receive several names and several counts. One, two, three, four, and five need not name five competing shopping lists: a count depends on the relationship and stage being described.
- In this edition“First matter” belongs to a specified transformation, not automatically to an independently identified universal substance. “Material intermediates” names a class of stages, distinct from operations and signs.
- A place to readCanon 19–20, where reported disagreements give way to the author's own assertion that the whole work is accomplished with only two prepared bodies.
Meaning
Matter is neither merely an inert lump nor a modern chemical formula. It is what receives preparation, changes condition, and carries powers. The same thing may be named from its origin, visible state, capacity, or relationship to something else. Principles are the explanatory constituents or sources of those powers. The opening definition places the practice in investigating “the principles of metals through analysis,” improving them, and joining them again (Canon 3). It does not present analysis as a final dismemberment into useless fragments. Separation serves a more effective union.
The distinction between substance and accidents adds another axis. Accidents are nonessential properties or accompaniments, not accidental mishaps. In quicksilver the inward, hidden part belongs to nature; the outward part is called non-natural and accidental (Canon 47). Matter therefore includes something to preserve as well as something to remove. Calling it matter never settles which part is operative.
Use in the book
The author's first restriction is genealogical. A metallic kind must come from metals, as a human kind comes from human beings and a bovine kind from cattle (Canon 16). Art cannot substitute an unrelated source merely because its material looks suggestive. The next canon makes the restriction productive rather than prohibitive: the power of multiplication is hidden within metals, though nature unaided cannot manifest it. Art supplies assistance to an existing capacity (Canon 17). These are historical claims about metallic generation, not experimentally validated statements about transmutation.
Names then become a problem. Canon 14 argues that verbal disagreement can coexist with agreement in substance. Its claim is not that any proposed identification is equally sound. Rather, one thing can be called one or many “according to the standpoint adopted.” Canon 19 illustrates this through sun and moon, sun with mercury, sulphur and mercury, and those principles with nature's salt. “Most” applies to the writers who assert sun-and-moon composition; “others,” “some,” and “others” divide the remaining reported positions. The author does not himself endorse every list as an independent recipe. Canon 20 gives his own defended formula: only two bodies, sun and moon, duly prepared. Preparation belongs inside that assertion; taking two ordinary objects merely because they carry those names would miss it.
Later the matter itself is said to contain everything required. In canon 39 the sun has been made crude again and resolved into its first matter; at that point the resulting matter receives the names Rebis, Chaos, and whole world. Its sufficiency is explicitly local: it is then so called, in the second preparation, which other writers misleadingly call the first. The material is not said to have been ready-made in every earlier condition. Neither “whole world” nor “everything necessary” abolishes the sequence that produced it.
Canons 60–62 turn that sequence into a classification. Natural quicksilver and perfected elixir are the extremes; between them lie material intermediates, operative means, and demonstrative signs. Perfect metals are endpoints of nature's work but intermediates of the philosophical work. Thus “perfect” does not mean “nothing further can happen.” Perfection is relative to an ordered work and its goal. The four elements, both sulphurs, and the ferments or unguents are successively drawn material intermediates, not a set of simultaneous, unchanged ingredients.
The late threefold matter of the elixir—metallic water, ferment, and the second sulphur—must consequently be read alongside the two-body formula rather than silently substituted for it (Canon 124). It belongs to the second work and names materials already carrying a history of preparation. The text supplies a distinction of stages, not a license to erase the apparent difficulty. Its opening claim of one intention beneath several counts is something the later sequence invites the reader to test.
Places to read
- Canon 3 — 1623, printed pp. 10, 10 [sequence pp. 10, 11]LatinPractice investigates, improves, and reunites metallic principles; the promised medicine is the author's stated end.
- Canon 14–20 — 1623, pp. 17–20LatinDifferent names and counts, the restriction to metallic nature, hidden reproductive capacity, and the author's two-body assertion form one argument.
- Canon 39 — 1623, pp. 30, 31LatinFirst matter and sufficiency belong to the matter at a particular preparation.
- Canon 47 — 1623, p. 35LatinSubstance is separated from accidents; this is not destruction of the entire material.
- Canon 60–62 — 1623, pp. 43–45LatinExtremes and three classes of intermediates distinguish matter from operations and signs.
- Canon 124 — 1623, pp. 87, 88LatinThreefold matter names the composition of the later elixir, not simply an added third partner in the earlier marriage.
Translation in this edition
metallorum principiis (Canon 3), “the principles of metals,” is a phrase: “of metals” belongs to the dependent plural noun, not to the meaning of “principles” alone. Materia (Canon 39), “matter,” is the subject of “is then called”; the names following it apply to that subject at that time. primam suam materiam in the same canon is “its first matter”: the possessive matters because this is the sun's return to a prior condition.
Embedded vocabulary. Principle — lemma principium, attested principiis (Canon 3): what analysis investigates in metals so that improved principles can be reunited. Accident — lemma accidens, attested accidentibus (Canon 47): removable accompaniments opposed to substance. Intermediate — lemma medium, attested media (Canon 61): what lies between quicksilver and the elixir; the canon subdivides these into matter, operations, and signs. Rebis — name Rebis, attested Rebis (Canon 39): the matter after the second preparation, also called Chaos and the whole world because it now contains what the stone requires. The 1893 Historical Note 29 explains it as double or the union of two substances; that etymological interpretation belongs to the reception layer, while the canon itself fixes the stage and sufficiency.
accidents — accidens
Attested form. accidentibus.
Meaning. removable accompaniments opposed to substance.
Read. Canon 47.
The matter is then called — materia
Attested form. materia.
Meaning. The matter at the second preparation, then called Rebis, Chaos, and the whole world.
Read. Canon 39.
its first matter — materia (phrase)
Attested form. primam suam materiam.
Meaning. The sun's own first matter, recovered when it has been made crude again; the possessive and stage constrain the claim.
Read. Canon 39.
intermediates — medium
Attested form. media.
Meaning. Intermediates between the stone’s extremes, distinguished as material, operative and demonstrative. Their different kinds prevent a substance, an action and a sign from being treated as equivalent items.
Read. Canon 61.
the principles of metals — principium
Attested form. metallorum principiis.
Meaning. The principles of metals investigated through analysis, improved and reunited; the genitive specifies which principles.
Read. Canon 3.
the principles of metals — principium
Attested form. principiis.
Meaning. Metallic principles are the objects investigated and later rejoined; this plural use differs from the science’s ethical beginning. These principles are to be improved before reunion.
Read. Canon 3.
Rebis — Rebis
Attested form. Rebis.
Meaning. the matter after the second preparation, also called Chaos and the whole world because it now contains what the stone requires. The 1893 Historical Note 29 explains it as double or the union of two substances; that etymological interpretation belongs to the reception layer, while the canon itself fixes the stage and sufficiency.
Read. Canon 39.