Cinnabar and sublimate

Meaning

Cinnabar and sublimate illustrate a change of Mercury into another thing in the Summary, not the successful recovery of a fully living Mercury from finished metals. Philosophical Summary · unit 4 distinguishes natural death in metallic formation, a merely quantitative increase through consuming imperfect metal, and an artificial killing that changes Mercury's condition. The named products belong to the last comparison. The speaker insists that artificial congealing does not give the two seeds the enduring fixed body found in the earth's veins. The English retains the historical substance names without determining a preparation, purity or modern formula; their role is to expose the limits of an apparently successful material alteration.