The Turba Philosophorum (complete) — trans. A. E. Waite (1896)
The text is shown on its own: no facing layer is held for this issue.
The translator’s English as printed (A. E. Waite). The original-language text is not held; names are romanised as the translator printed them.
The Second Dictum. ExuMDRUs saith: — I do magnify the air according to the mighty speech of Iximidrus, for the work is improved thereby. The air is inspissated, and it is also made thin ; it grows warm and becomes cold. The inspissation thereof takes place when it is divided in heaven by the elongation of the Sun ; its rarefaction is when, by the exaltation of the Sun in heaven, the air becomes warm and is rarefied. It is comparable with the complexion of Spring,* in the distinction of time, which is neither warm nor cold. For according to the mutation of the con-
* A similar comparison is used in the Arabian Book of Crates, where it is enjoined that the operation of the philosophical iire upon the philosophical matter should be regulated after the same manner as Nature regulates the influence of the four seasons; and the same treatise, moreover, represents still older expositions of alchemical philosophy as using the same illustration. It is probable that the Turba in its original form antedated the Book of Crates.
The Turba Philosophorum. 7
stituted disposition with the altering distinctions of the soul, so is Winter altered. The air, therefore, is inspissated when the Sun is removed from it, and then cold supervenes upon men.
Whereat the Turba said: — Excellently hast thou described the air, and given account of what thou knowest to be therein.
The Third Dictum.
Anaxagoras saith : — I make known that the beginning of all those things which God hath created is weight and proportion,* for weight rules all things, and the weight and spissitude of the earth is manifest in proportion ; but weight is not found except in body. And know, all ye Turba, that the spissitude of the four elements reposes in the earth ; for the spissitude of fire falls into air, the spissitude of air, together with the spissitude received from the fire, falls into water ; the spissitude also of water, increased by the spissitude of fire and air, reposes in earth. Have you not observed how the spissitude of the four elements is conjoined in earth ? The same, therefore, is more inspissated than all. Then saith the Turba : — Thou hast well spoken. Verily the earth is more inspissated than are the rest. Which, therefore, is the most rare of the four elements and is most worthy to possess the rarity of these four ? He answereth : — Fire is the most rare among all, and thereunto Cometh what is rare of these four. But air is less rare than fire, because it is warm and moist, while fire is warm and dry ; now that which is warm and dry is more rare than the warm and moist. They say unto him : — Which element is of less rarity than air ? He answereth : — Water, since cold and moisture inhere therein, and
* The original is pietae et ratio, but the technical use oi the term pietas by the Hebrew or Arabic original seems obviously to connect it with the sense of the Hebrew Paz, signifying compactness. Compare also the Greek verb Pitzo, to press or squeeze down.
8 The Turba Philosophorum.
The Turbo, Philosophorum. g