Discourse on Curious Matters

8. Which Philosophical and Hermetic writings original: Hermetischen Schrifften—texts concerning alchemy, magic, and philosophy traditionally attributed to the mythical figure Hermes Trismegistus are then the best?

9. Whether GOD, who is almighty, might not have constituted the essences original: Essentien differently, and given them more or fewer essential parts original: Partes essentiales? Since His omnipotence is indeed unlimited.

10. Whether God did not create the world out of pure negative nothingness original: ex puro nihilo negativo—a theological term for absolute non-existence, asserting that God did not use pre-existing matter to build the universe, and called the same into appearance through His almighty Word?

11. If the metals, after reaching their perfection, were at rest original: in quiete, what would then move them again to display their multiplicative power original: Vim multiplicativam—the alchemical ability of a perfected substance to increase its own quantity or to transform larger amounts of base metal into gold?

12. Since medicines from minerals original: Medicamentorum ex mineralibus have been mentioned, what kind of remedies are to be prepared from them?

13. How then a thing [belongs] to the Uni-