Blood and sweat of first matter

Meaning

Blood and sweat are two of the philosophers' names for the first matter's restorative liquid in Part II: matter and the work · unit 25. They stand beside milk, the indestructible fountain and water of life, describing what moistens and strengthens a damaged compound. The passage is not asking readers to identify literal bodily blood or perspiration as ingredients. Its cluster of life-giving names also retains a sharp reversal: the same water is said to contain the greatest poison. The aligned English preserves both the organic imagery and that warning. Here these names belong to an account of correcting defects; their later religious resonances do not make the material liquid itself a sacrament.