Inscrutable Chemico-Philosophical Harmonies

...[These virtues] are accumulated in the earth, drawing with them the seminal powers original: vires seminales. A philosophical concept (derived from the Stoic logoi spermatikoi) suggesting that the potential for all physical forms is "planted" in matter like seeds, waiting for the right conditions to grow. of the forms of all things. Therefore, they especially converge in the earth more than in the other elements. For this reason, Albert Albertus Magnus (c. 1200–1280), a medieval scholar and saint who wrote extensively on the "secrets of nature" and the properties of minerals. says in the book On the Properties of the Elements, chapter twenty-four: "Since the earth is the center and the point of the whole world, and all the rays of the stars or the starry heavens converge within it; therefore, it conceives many figures, influences, and virtues. Through these mediating forces, it produces manifold things and various forms, and no other element does this."

Therefore, above the other elements, the element of earth is called the "matter of all things": just as it conceives the seeds of all things and the virtues descending from higher realms, so indeed, from day to day, it is filled with these virtues while the heavens are in motion. Thus, Saint Augustine says in the third book of On the Holy Trinity, in the chapter on original causes: "this world is pregnant original: gravis. Augustine uses a double meaning: the world is "heavy" with physical matter, but also "heavy" in the sense of being pregnant with potential. with the causes of developing things, just as a mother is pregnant with her offspring."

And again in the same work: "All things have arisen, and especially have been created in the combinations of the elements, unless they are drawn out at the proper time and maturity." In this way, all natural things are enclosed within the elements by means of the seminal power. Therefore, Saint Augustine says in the previously mentioned book, in the chapter on minerals: "those things which are certainly produced by various arts In this context, "arts" likely refers to alchemy or the "spagyric art," which speeds up the natural process of maturing minerals and metals. within the bodily elements of this world, are hidden forms of all things lying in secret; these things grow forth physically and visibly, and these seeds from their origin are nothing other than the influ-