Water bath and horse manure

Meaning

Water bath, horse manure and charcoal fire occur in Nature's criticism of the artificer's mistaken means. Nature’s Demonstration to the Erring Alchemist · unit 5 contrasts her heavenly fire with the sophists' apparatus; Nature’s Demonstration to the Erring Alchemist · unit 7 mocks the expectation of obtaining potable gold through charcoal fire and a bath. Nature’s Demonstration to the Erring Alchemist · unit 12 again tells the worker to abandon the sophists' manifold equipment, and Nature’s Demonstration to the Erring Alchemist · unit 21 has the alchemist acknowledge his earlier folly. The change of speaker matters: the closing rejection is his learned response, not an additional uninterrupted speech by Nature. The same final unit nevertheless retains a vessel and furnace under Nature’s direction, so this rejection is not a ban on every material instrument or source of heat. The English 'water bath' explains the historical equipment term, while none of these passages provides a warrant to reconstruct a heating arrangement from the rejected list.