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Plain, simple, subtle, and gross

schlecht / simpel / subtil / grob (contrasted families)

Plain and simple are favourable descriptions in these passages, not modern judgements that the thing is poor or defective.

From the book

The Sophic Hydrolith, Water Stone of the Wise

Anonymous and companion authors · Diotimos Editions · 2026

Browse this book’s lexicon →

Orientation

At a Glance

  • The wordPlain and simple are favourable descriptions in these passages, not modern judgements that the thing is poor or defective.
  • In the Sophic HydrolithNature’s Demonstration to the Erring Alchemist · unit 3 calls the chamber’s secrets high and subtle, while the original seed is composed in simplicity.
  • In this editionThe English renders schlecht with “plain,” “simple” or “humble” rather than consistently using the modern pejorative “bad.”
  • A place to readSubtle secrets coexist with a seed composed in simplicity.

Meaning

Plain and simple are favourable descriptions in these passages, not modern judgements that the thing is poor or defective. Schlecht can mean uncomplicated, unadorned or humble. Subtle and gross, by contrast, may distinguish a finer from a coarser condition or character. The families are gathered for comparison because superficial English oppositions can mislead: “plain” is not necessarily “gross,” and “subtle” is not always praise.

The source itself supplies different objects. Nature has subtle secrets, yet takes her power simply and works through a plain essence. The Way praises plain coction and plain truth while blaming sophisticated complications. The alchemist’s recalled deceiver uses the contrast of subtle and gross within a method now rejected.

Use in the book

Nature’s Demonstration to the Erring Alchemist · unit 3 calls the chamber’s secrets high and subtle, while the original seed is composed in simplicity. There is no contradiction if subtlety concerns the hidden formative relation and simplicity the unified matter. Nature’s Demonstration to the Erring Alchemist · unit 9 likewise describes Nature’s reception from heaven as simple, in contrast with the artist’s elaborate imitation. Plainness can signify concentration and sufficiency rather than lack of power.

Nature’s Demonstration to the Erring Alchemist · unit 18 requires careful attribution. A former deceiver told the alchemist to separate elements and bring the subtle into the gross. The alchemist now recounts that promise as a fantasy and denies human power to recreate elemental proportion. Its terminology must not be extracted as an endorsed instruction merely because it appears in direct reported speech.

The Way of Truth repeatedly contrasts Nature’s plainness with many vessels, materials and named operations. Way of Truth · unit 3 says true chymists follow Nature’s simple work rather than the multiplicity of sophisticated processes. At the close the narrator describes his own writing as the proper, plain, genuine truth, offered from a plain and faithful heart. Here plainness concerns both the work he recommends and the manner of instruction he claims to practise.

These passages do not establish that everything easy is true or that all learned distinctions are false. Each speaker identifies a specific unnecessary complication or a particular unified source. Their assertions remain local to their own account of Nature.

Places to read

  1. Nature’s Demonstration to the Erring Alchemist · unit 3Subtle secrets coexist with a seed composed in simplicity.
  2. Nature’s Demonstration to the Erring Alchemist · unit 9Nature’s simple essence is contrasted with elaborate artificial imitation.
  3. Nature’s Demonstration to the Erring Alchemist · unit 18Subtle and gross appear inside the deceiver’s recalled, rejected method.
  4. Way of Truth · unit 3The Way contrasts plain Nature with excessive apparatus and regimens.
  5. Way of Truth · unit 35The narrator claims plain truth and a faithful manner of instruction.

Translation

The English renders schlecht with “plain,” “simple” or “humble” rather than consistently using the modern pejorative “bad.” It retains “subtle into the gross” in the reported deceptive method, but the following rejection is indispensable context. The closing “genuine truth” carries the force of warhafftige Warheit without making the narrator’s claim this edition’s guarantee. Distinguishing semantic object and speaker keeps ordinary praise of clarity from becoming an unqualified technical doctrine.

Attested forms

subtilen; schlechter Essentz; subtile; grobe; simpel vnd schlecht; schlechte; warhafftige Warheit; simplicitet; simpliciter