Avicenna

Meaning

Avicenna serves several different authorising functions. The Hydrolith first includes Auicenna among alleged possessors of the art; later it attributes to him the description of the pervasive heavenly spirit as the world’s soul. In the dialogue, Nature cites Avicenna’s de viribus cordis, identified as chapter two, for the human inability to proportion and inform the elements independently of her. She also contrasts his alleged experience with physicians who mock alchemy without knowing it. In the alchemist’s reply, Avicenna supports the analogy of a generating spirit shaping a child without destruction of the father. These are distinct source claims, not one continuous quotation. The English translates the named work as On the Powers of the Heart but retains the author’s name in normalised spelling. No independent verification of these attributions, or identification of their underlying textual versions, is supplied by the catalogue itself.