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 wordQuality concerns the character or powers of a thing; quantity concerns how much is present.
- In the Sophic HydrolithPart II: matter and the work · unit 17 contrasts prepared water as light, gentle, subtle and soft with the other part as heavy, firm and hard.
- In this editionThe English keeps “quality” and “quantity” separate where the main treatise stresses both, and retains “temperament” and “complexion” in the companions.
- A place to readThe main treatise explicitly distinguishes qualitative and quantitative inequality.
Meaning
Quality concerns the character or powers of a thing; quantity concerns how much is present. The Hydrolith explicitly distinguishes them when calling the two parts unequal in both respects. The dialogue joins them in arguments about proportion, temperament and the composition of natural beings. These words explain relations among constituents, not merely an inventory of modern measurable properties.
Temperament and complexion describe an ordered constitution within this historical vocabulary. They should not be narrowed to personality, mood or skin appearance. Nor does an assertion of correct proportion supply a recoverable numerical recipe: Nature repeatedly claims a knowledge unavailable to unaided human art.
Use in the book
Part II: matter and the work · unit 17 contrasts prepared water as light, gentle, subtle and soft with the other part as heavy, firm and hard. Their inequality in quality is expressly distinguished from inequality in quantity. The subsequent conjunction is therefore a relation between unlike constituents, not a declaration that equal amounts or identical properties are required.
In Nature’s Demonstration to the Erring Alchemist · unit 7 Nature says she alone gives temperament by joining the elements and contraries. The alchemist cannot merely assign a substance its influence or proportion the elements through his own craft. The dialogue makes knowledge of right constitution part of Nature’s divinely granted formative power.
The alchemist’s reply in Nature’s Demonstration to the Erring Alchemist · unit 18 attributes the ultimate ability to create and proportion to God, who brings Nature forth. He recounts a deceiver’s promise to separate and recombine elements before rejecting it. In Nature’s Demonstration to the Erring Alchemist · unit 20 he argues that Nature has already joined the elements in proper quantity, complexion and quality; tearing them apart destroys the subject instead of improving it. These assertions concern the limits of the human operator and the integrity of an existing constitution.
The Summary’s opening assigns masculine and feminine kind and complexion to its two seeds. Its use belongs to a generative pairing of sulphur and quicksilver, qualified against common sulphur. It should not be read as a medical diagnosis of actual people or assumed to settle the dialogue’s different claims about metallic seed.
Places to read
- Part II: matter and the work · unit 17The main treatise explicitly distinguishes qualitative and quantitative inequality.
- Nature’s Demonstration to the Erring Alchemist · unit 7Nature claims the power to impart temperament and proportion.
- Nature’s Demonstration to the Erring Alchemist · unit 18The alchemist attributes ultimate creative proportion to God rather than sophistical separation.
- Nature’s Demonstration to the Erring Alchemist · unit 20Proper quantity, complexion and quality belong to Nature’s intact composition.
- Philosophical Summary · unit 1The Summary assigns different kind and complexion to its two seeds.
Translation
The English keeps “quality” and “quantity” separate where the main treatise stresses both, and retains “temperament” and “complexion” in the companions. Explanatory prose is necessary because the modern everyday meanings can obscure their constitutive sense. The terms are not supplied as synonyms: a proper complexion may depend on proportioned qualities and quantities, but the source lists those aspects separately. The entry consequently preserves the grammatical distinctions without inventing precise values or modern compositional identities.
Attested forms
qualitet; quantitet; vngleiche theil; Temperament; proportioniren; Quantitet; Qualitet; Complexion