From the book
The Golden Chain of Homer
Anonymous (traditionally attributed to Anton Joseph Kirchweger) · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordSpirit of nitre is nitre in a penetrating spiritual or liquid condition.
- In the Golden ChainIt serves as a universal acid and awakens fixed mineral matter through its asserted common origin.
- TranslationThe expression must be distinguished from crystalline nitre merely dissolved in ordinary water.
- A place to readB1C23S020–022: the distinction between corporeal salt and a saline spirit.
Meaning
Spirit of nitre names an operative prepared form of the universal nitrous seed. The author treats it as more penetrating than the same salt in a merely bodily solution and pairs it with spirit of salt in the explanation of mineral origins and reduction. Its spirituality means a condition of subtle and powerful material action, not release from all bodily existence (B1C23S020–022; B2C09S003–005).
As a universal acid it can assist a specified mineral spirit whose own moisture is insufficient. The author’s model is that the universal awakens a related power already coagulated within the subject. This does not mean that every strong acid has an identical action on every body: fixation, earthiness, the body’s own degree, and the presence of appropriate middles still govern the comparison (B1C22S035; B1C23S039; B2C09S005).
Use in the book
The mineral tree places spirits of nitre and salt with earth at the beginning of the specified mineral sequence. Vapour becomes a vitriolic or aluminous Gur and passes through sulphurous, arsenical, and marcasitic degrees toward metal. The reverse movement invokes these spirits because what gave a body its beginning is supposed to release its bonds again. The text therefore gives them explanatory priority through a theory of common origin, not merely because they visibly attack a sample (B1C23S001; B1C23S008–012; B2C09S003).
The work also uses spirit of nitre diagnostically. Materials readily dissolved by it or aqua fortis are judged to retain an open acidic condition, while more alkaline-fixed subjects require another suitable relation. Book Two qualifies the strictness of such rules once a universal spirit has been specified with the proper vitriolic or aluminous mineral matter. The same seed can have different action after acquiring a more particular condition (B1C23S039–040; B2C09S008–010).
Aqua fortis is often named beside spirit of nitre, but the author notices differences in what particular preparations carry. His later defence insists that the solvent’s universal seed remains with and nourishes specified material rather than being entirely abstracted unchanged. The sharper concentrated spirit is simultaneously portrayed as consuming fire, hostile to animals and plants before the imagined transformation of dulcification. This qualification belongs to the book itself and prevents universal from being misread as universally gentle or ready for medicinal use (B2C09S007; B2C10S010–011; B2C10S018).
Places to read
- Book I · Ch. 22 · §35Spirit of nitre supplies a universal acidic part where one is lacking.
- Book I · Ch. 23 · §1The mineral tree begins with nitrous and saline spirits acting upon earth.
- Book I · Ch. 23 · §22A spiritual salt differs in operation from a merely corporeal salt.
- Book II · Ch. 9 · §7The spirit is compared with aqua fortis and its accompanying mineral matter.
- Book II · Ch. 10 · §11Universal spirit is imagined as nourishing the specified subject after union.
Translation in this edition
Spiritus Nitri and its abbreviations Sp. Nitri and Spir. Nitri are attested forms. The English distinguishes spirit of nitre from nitre or saltpeter and from saltpeter-water where the latter means the bodily salt dissolved in water. The work’s broad word spirit can refer to a collected corrosive liquid; reading it as an immaterial agency would therefore misidentify the immediate workshop subject. Precise present composition or concentration cannot be recovered from the name alone (B1C23S020–022; B2C09S007).