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 wordMoisture exceeding what a body or operation presently needs for its intended condition.
- In the Golden ChainIts release explains both natural excretion and the shortening of coagulation and fixation.
- Translation“Superfluous” is relative to an end; the book does not call all water universally useless.
- A place to readB2C05S027–B2C05S031, where surplus water is distinguished from retained seed and consistency.
Meaning
Superfluous moisture is water that a body does not retain or does not need for the present work. The adjective is relational. Moisture needed for growth can be excessive for a stable preparation, while a fixed body can again require moisture to awaken its powers. The author’s repeated drying is therefore not a general command to remove every trace of water from nature.
The distinction chiefly prevents confusing the vehicle with all the active portion it bears. A large visible quantity of liquid can carry a much smaller part that is promptly coagulable or fixable. The body releases the excess instead of incorporating all of it. That release is presented as nature’s own discrimination, which art should observe.
Use in the book
B2C05S027 says it would be extraordinarily slow and unnecessary to turn all the water contained in each individual into stone or dry earth. Pebbles and glass illustrate the contrary principle: bodies retain only what their consistency requires. B2C05S028 extends the evidence across the kingdoms. Urine and sweat, plant exudations, springs from mountains, and atmospheric vapours all show that not every incoming moisture becomes permanent substance. B2C05S029 then formulates selective incorporation directly through earth’s retention of what it needs and release of the rest.
B2C05S030–B2C05S031 explains why continued unstable moisture matters. It provides the workshop in which an implanted spirit is awakened to repeated alteration. Removing it can leave the spirit concentrated and sleeping; adding a suitable moisture later can reopen the body. The account gives surplus a double significance: an obstacle to permanence in one work and an instrument of renewed action in another. Its role cannot be fixed independently of the subject’s stage and intended end.
The mineral chapters complicate the hierarchy further. B2C04S008 links the greater durability of some refined metals with removal of moisture and other portions through powerful fire, whereas more open metals are more readily attacked. B2C09S003 says such dry fixed bodies may require outside help to awaken their own activity. B2C05S079 meanwhile preserves a medicinal ideal of saline radical moisture. These qualifications show why superfluous moisture must be distinguished from sustaining moisture rather than treated as a blanket synonym for every liquid portion.
Places to read
- Book II · Ch. 5 · §27Coagulating every drop would be unnecessary and slow.
- Book II · Ch. 5 · §28All kingdoms provide examples of surplus discharge.
- Book II · Ch. 5 · §31Moisture awakens further alteration in fixed spirit.
- Book II · Ch. 4 · §8Refining changes durability by removing moisture and other portions.
- Book II · Ch. 5 · §79The medicinal end still requires a suitable saline moistness.
Translation in this edition
Humidum superfluum occurs explicitly, including in B2C09S013 and B2C05S069; German expressions with überflüssigen humidi and the noun Superfluum describe the same relation of excess. Recolaceum and phlegm often overlap with it, but the adjective superfluous answers the question “more than needed for this end,” not “what precise material is this?”
Radical moisture is a related but distinct term for a foundational preserving condition. The book can praise its restoration while removing superfluous moisture. Keeping that distinction visible prevents a misleading story in which the author simply believes that all dryness heals and all moisture destroys.