Seed, Field and Fruit

Use in the book

Pages 52–532 call the catholic subject the regeneration field of silver and gold in its natural or Nature-conformingly prepared conditions. Page 75 describes metals as sown into a watery field for destruction, vegetation and rebirth. On page 95, seed and mother or field are worked together, with the statement that in natural metallic generation the seeded mother herself becomes fruit. The imagery thus describes a changing relation, not three permanently separate ingredients.

The major objection on pages 113–12423456789101112 proposes that a metal contains both seed and field. Its sulphur would be seed, its own mercury and salt the receiving ground. An apple is offered as a model because its pips lie inside the fruit. Khunrath answers first that metallic character resides in the whole metal rather than sulphur alone. The whole purified metallic nature is the seed, whether its essential parts remain joined or have been separated.

He then reverses the apple comparison on its own terms. One does not sow pips back into the apple, but into the common earth from which the tree itself grew. Moreover, cutting up gold does not expose a separable kernel as cutting an apple does. If the word kernel is used, it must refer to the purest of the whole metal. The common field remains outside the already produced metallic fruit.

The figure is nevertheless qualified by Khunrath himself. The margin on page 95 warns that metallic generation differs from animal and vegetable propagation: a likeness is not identity. The apple argument should therefore be read as a test of the opponents’ proposed relation, not a claim that metals possess botanical seeds or follow an identical growth mechanism.

Places to read

1. 1599 p. 53The subject is named the regeneration field of silver and gold.
2. 1599 p. 75Metallic preparations must be sown in the watery field.
3. 1599 p. 95Seed and field are worked together, and the seeded mother is said to become fruit.
4. 1599 p. 95 · marginKhunrath warns that plant and animal similitudes do not fully hold for metallic generation.
5. 1599 p. 120Seed and field are distinguished, and metallic character is assigned to the whole metal.
6. 1599 p. 123The apple is turned against the opponents: its seed goes into common earth, not back into the apple; the metallic kernel explanation continues on page 124.

Translation in this edition

The verb seihen in these passages means sow, not strain: the apple argument establishes the sense even where the spelling is unfamiliar. “Field” and “ploughland” preserve the agricultural force of Acker. None of these words licenses a modern botanical or chemical identification of the hidden matter.