DiotimosReading Desk

Metals and transmutation

Specified first matter

specificirte materia prima; MATERIA; PRIMA, etiam specificata

Specified first matter is first matter considered under the determining kind of silver or gold, rather than as the universal source of all metals.

From the book

Heinrich Khunrath’s Magnesia Catholica Philosophorum

Heinrich Khunrath · Diotimos Editions · 2026

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Orientation

At a Glance

  • The wordSpecified first matter is first matter considered under the determining kind of silver or gold, rather than as the universal source of all metals.
  • In KhunrathAt pp. 60–612 his refutation has two steps.
  • In this edition“Specified first matter” keeps both technical terms.
  • A reading distinctionThe category does not grant that a metal already contains a separately recoverable universal regeneration field; pp. 117–1212345 expressly reject that inference.

Meaning

Specified first matter is first matter considered under the determining kind of silver or gold, rather than as the universal source of all metals. Khunrath invokes this narrower category when he argues that common metallic preparations fail even a more limited claim.

Use in the book

At pp. 60–612 his refutation has two steps. Preparations of already specified metals cannot provide universal catholic first matter; moreover, the described preparations of Sol and Luna are not even their own specified first matter. The second objection would be redundant if specified and first-material were simply contradictory terms.

The distinction returns in the account of embryos. Those imperfect metallic products are not still in a specified pri-material or silver- or gold-initial state, much less in the universal state. They have already progressed far enough to need true reduction through first matter. Looking unfinished or being converted to clear water does not reverse that development.

The expression accordingly distinguishes kind from generative condition. Something can be considered first-material with respect to a determinate metal without thereby becoming universal. Conversely, an early or subtle specified product need not genuinely retain that pri-material condition. The broader distinction is essential to understanding why Khunrath repeatedly adds “not even the specified one” after rejecting a claim to universal first matter.

Places to read

  1. 1599 p. 61The second objection denies even specified first matter to the described metallic preparations.
  2. 1599 p. 70The denial is repeated with etiam specificata.
  3. 1599 p. 76Embryonic products are distinguished from a specified pri-material initial state.
  4. 1599 p. 78Clear water and metallic incompleteness do not establish either specified or universal first matter.

Translation in this edition

“Specified first matter” keeps both technical terms. Replacing it with “ordinary raw metal” would erase the more exact state which Khunrath says the disputed preparations do not achieve.

Source note

The category does not grant that a metal already contains a separately recoverable universal regeneration field; pp. 117–1212345 expressly reject that inference.