Hirai Paracelsus Rhs 2008 Eng PDF

Logoi Spermatikoi and the Concept
of Seeds in the Mineralogy

and Cosmogony of Paracelsus
Hiro HIRAI *
Abstract: Paracelsus’s concept of seeds is an important contribution to

Renaissance theories of matter. Unlike the alchemists’ notion of metal
seeds, it has a strong Christian orientation, based on a particular inter-
pretation of the biblical Creation story. It is in this cosmogonical aspect
that Paracelsian seeds are more akin to the seminal reasons of Augustine
than to the logoi spermatikoi of the Stoics or Plotinus. The present study
examines the Augustinian background of this Paracelsian concept and
Marsilio Ficino’s intermediary role in its origination.
Keywords: Paracelsus, seeds, logoi spermatikoi, seminal reasons,

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Plotinus, Augustine, Marsilio Ficino.
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Résumé : Le concept de semence de Paracelse constitue une contribu-
tion importante aux théories de la matière de la Renaissance. À la dif-
férence de la notion alchimique des semences des métaux, ce concept
prend une orientation nettement chrétienne fondée sur l’interprétation
singulière du récit de la Création. C’est par cet aspect cosmogonique
que les semences paracelsiennes s’approchent plus des raisons sémi-
nales de saint Augustin que des logoi spermatikoi des stoïciens ou de
Plotin. La présente étude examine le fond augustinien du concept para-
celsien et le rôle qu’a joué Marsile Ficin dans la genèse de ce concept.
Mots-clés : Paracelse ; semences ; logoi spermatikoi ; raisons séminales ;

Plotin ; Augustin ; Marsile Ficin.
Introduction
Historians have recently started taking an interest in the inluence
of Stoic physics on scientiic thought in the sixteenth and seven-
teenth centuries. However, when faced with the dificulty of sur-
veying all writings containing Stoic ideas – a dificulty on which
Gérard Verbeke has remarked – the best approach is without a
doubt to identify and trace the Stoic themes that were gradually
* Hiro Hirai, Vice Editor, Early Science and Medicine, Radboud University Nijmegen
(Netherlands).
Revue d’histoire des sciences I Volume 61-2 I July-December 2008 I

Hiro HIRAI
incorporated into Western thought.1 It appears to me that, com-

pared to the well-known related doctrine of pneuma (spiritus,
mind, or Geist),2 the theory of logoi spermatikoi is not as exhaus-
tively explored.3
This theory is an ingenious invention of Stoic physics. Granted,

the pre-Socratic philosophers freely used the metaphor of “seed”
(sperma) in reference to the origin of material or quantitive exis-
tence in their theories of nature. For instance, Anaxagoras used
the word “sperma” to refer to the beginning of natural things,
while the ancient Pythagoreans considered the irst step of the
formation of the entire universe to be a “seminal point.”4 As for the
notion of the seminal principle, which was regarded as a kind of
creative force, it was developed in embryological speculations.5 It
was with the Stoics that the active principle of the universe explic-
itly became seminal for the irst time, unifying the role of creative
power and that of the origin of being. This was the doctrine of the
logoi spermatikoi.

In the monistic, deterministic system of the Stoics, the logoi sper-
matikoi were responsible for the transmission and preservation
of the speciicity of each type of natural thing. The inluence of
this doctrine can be found in the Hellenistic and Latin philoso-
phers, as well as among the Christian apologists of the irst century
1 - See Gérard Verbeke, The Presence of Stoicism in Medieval Thought (Washington, DC:
Catholic University of America Press, 1983), 1-19.
2 - See Gérard Verbeke, L’Évolution de la doctrine du pneuma du stoïcisme à saint Augustin
(Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 1945); Marta Fattori and Massimo Bianchi (ed.), Spiritus:
IV° colloquio internazionale del lessico intellettuale europeo (Rome: Laterza, 1984);
James J. Bono, “Medical spirits and the medieval language of life,” Traditio 40 (1984):
91-130; Daniel P. Walker, Spiritual and demonic magic from Ficino to Campanella
(London: Warburg, 1958); Antonio Clericuzio, “The Internal Laboratory: The Chemical
Reinterpretation of Medical Spirits in England (1650-1680),” in Alchemy and Chemistry
in the 16th and 17th Centuries, ed. Piyo Rattansi and Antonio Clericuzio (Dordrecht:
Kluwer, 1994), 51-83.
3 - On Greco-Roman antiquity, Heinz Meyer, Geschichte der Lehre von den Keimkräften
von der Stoa bis zum Ausgang der Patristik (Bonn: Hansteins, 1914), remains a very
useful reference.
4 - Geoffrey E. R. Lloyd, Polarity and Analogy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1966), 237-51; David E. Hahm, The Origins of Stoic Cosmology (Columbus, OH: Ohio
State University Press, 1977), 60-90.
5 - Anthony Preus, “Science and Philosophy in Aristotle’s Generation of Animals,” Journal
of the History of Biology 3(1970): 1-52; Iain M. Lonie, The Hippocratic Treatises “On
Generation,” “On the Nature of the Child,” “Diseases IV”: A Commentary (Berlin: De
Gruyter, 1981).
II
Logoi Spermatikoi and the Concept of Seeds...
A.D.,6 most prominent of which were Plotinus (205-270 A.D.) and

Augustine (354-430 A.D.). Plotinius used the Stoic idea of logoi
spermatikoi while modifying and spiritualizing its materialist con-
tent. Likewise, Augustine’s theory of “seminal reasons” (rationes
seminales) is based on the logoi spermatikoi of the Stoics and of
Plotinus. It was through the Augustinian tradition that the idea
of the logoi spermatikoi was transmitted to the Latin world of the
Middle Ages.7
Once scholastic Aristotelianism came to dominate Western intel-

lectual life, the idea of the seminal principle became less promi-
nent. Its role was often replaced by a composite of various natu-
ral forces, a typical example of which was the idea advanced by
Albert the Great (c. 1193-1280): a combination of the forces of the
four elements, the celestial bodies, and the prime mover.8 As for
Thomas Aquinas (c. 1225-1274) with his theory of the “substantial
form,” he preferred the potentiality of matter to seminal reasons
that are immanent to matter. The perpetuation of the concept after

Aquinas is therefore little studied by historians.

Medieval alchemy, which favored sexual analogies and explicit
hylozoism under the inluence of Stoic biocosmology, retained the
metaphor of the seed in its theory on the formation of metals and
minerals. The most popular version was that of the two principles
of sulfur and mercury,9 which were often seen as being active or
6 - Meyer, Geschichte der Lehre vol. 3, 26-122; Michel Spanneut, Le stoïcisme des Pères
de l’Église, 2nd ed. (Paris: Le Seuil, 1969); Michel Spanneut, Permanence du stoïcisme
(Gembloux: Duculot, 1973); Marcia L. Colish, The Stoic Tradition from Antiquity to the
Early Middle Ages (Leiden: Brill, 1985).
7 - On the philosophers of the twelfth century, see Michael Lapidge, “The Stoic Inheritance,”
in A History of Twelfth-Century Western Philosophy, ed. Peter Dronke (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1988), 81-112, and especially 110-112. For Roger Bacon
(c. 1214-c. 1292), see Pierre Duhem, Le Système du monde. Histoire des doctrines cos-
mologiques de Platon à Copernic (Paris: Hermann, 1917), vol. 5, 385-388. Gilles de Rome
(c. 1247-1316) used this teaching in his embryology. See M. Anthony Hewson, Giles of
Rome and the Medieval Theory of Conception (London: Athlone, 1975), 121-134.
8 - Albert the Great, De mineralibus, I, i, 8. On Albert the Great’s seminal reasons see Macarius
Wengel, Die Lehre von den rationes seminales bei Albert dem Grossen (Würzburg: Mayr,
1937); Bruno Nardi, Studi di ilosoia medievale (Rome: Storia e letteratura, 1960).
9 - Edmund O. von Lippmann, Abhandlungen und Vorträge zur Geschichte der
Naturwissenschaften (Leipzig, 1913), vol. II, 143-150; Reijer Hooykaas, The Concept
of Element: Its Historical-Philosophical Development (s. l., 1983), 20-27 and 62-6; Paul
Kraus, Jâbir ibn Hayyân: Contribution à l’histoire des idées scientiiques dans l’Islam,
2nd ed. (Paris: Belles Lettres, 1986), 1; Robert P. Multhauf, The Origins of Chemistry
(London: Oldbourne, 1966), 126 and 131-133.
Revue d’histoire des sciences I Volume 61-2 I July-December 2008 III

Hiro HIRAI
volatile. The alchemists called them the “seeds” of metal. Using

Aristotle’s embryology as a model, they assumed that sulfur had
an active force similar to male seed, and that mercury embodied
the feminine role, called “menstruum” or “female seed.” Despite
the biblical analogy that developed over time around the notion of
seed among Christian alchemists, the term “seed” largely came to
refer to concrete matter that the alchemist could manipulate in the
laboratory.
In the sixteenth century, we once again encounter a large num-

ber of ideas derived from the seed in diverse scientiic ields, and
called by different names: “seeds” (semina), “seeds of reasons”
(semina rationum), “seminal reasons” (rationes seminales), “semi-
nary” (seminarium), “seminal principle” (principium seminale), etc.
To simplify the discussion, let us provisionally group them together
under “the concept of seed.”10 In mineralogy, there was also a
trend in which the concept was used to explain mineral formation
at least until the triumph of Newtonian atomism in the eighteenth

century. Frank D. Adams has already shed light on this point,

but without examining its philosophical origins.11 More recently,
David R. Oldroyd and Norma E. Emerton have examined the issue
by tracing it back to Stoicism.12 In reality, the work of these two his-
torians largely depends on that of Walter Pagel, who emphasized
the importance of the concept of seed in the natural philosophy of
the Swiss doctor Theophrastus von Hohenheim, called Paracelsus
(c. 1493-1541).13
Paracelsus applied his concept of seed not only to the generation

of living beings, but also to the formation of inorganic things, and
10 - On the concept of seed in the Renaissance, see Hiro Hirai, Le concept de semence
dans les théories de la matière à la Renaissance: De Marsile Ficin à Pierre Gassendi
(Turnhout: Brepols, 2005).
11 - Frank D. Adams, The Birth and Development of the Geological Sciences, 2nd ed. (New
York: Dover, 1954), 84-90 and 289-291.
12 - David R. Oldroyd, “Some Neo-Platonic and Stoic Inluences on Mineralogy in the
Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries,” Ambix 21 (1974): 128-56; Norma E. Emerton,
The Scientiic Reinterpretation of Form (New York: Cornell University Press, 1984),
193-208.
13 - Walter Pagel, Paracelsus: An Introduction to Philosophical Medicine in the Era of
the Renaissance, 2nd ed. (Basel: Karger, 1982); Walter Pagel, “Paracelsus and the
Neoplatonic and Gnostic Tradition,” Ambix 8 (1960): 125-166; Walter Pagel, “The
Prime Matter of Paracelsus,” Ambix 9 (1961): 117-135; Walter Pagel, Das medizinische
Weltbild des Paracelsus (Wiesbaden: Steiner, 1962).
IV
used the theory in his etiology. He even links seeds to activities

of the mind such as will, passion, and imagination. Although
Paracelsus did not leave us any works that were exclusively on his
concept of seed, he dealt with it on multiple occasions, scattered
throughout his writings, neither claiming its originality nor citing
any authority in connection with it.
Given the close resemblance between his worldview and alchemi-

cal thinking, it would be natural to assume that his seed concept is
derived speciically from medieval alchemy. Hence, Pagel writes,
by generalizing the hylozoist seminal principle of the alchemists,
Paracelsus introduced invisible seeds as the germs of every natural
body.14 It was in this connection that Pagel emphasizes the inlu-
ence of the Stoic doctrine of the logoi spermatikoi.
It is a well-known fact that Paracelsus added salt to sulfur and mer-

cury as the third principle of all things. This was his famous theory
of the tria prima (Sulfur, Salt, and Mercury).15 According to Pagel,

by looking for the logoi that reside in matter, Paracelsus found

them in the seeds and the intelligence that they contained. To him,
the tria prima were immanent to seeds as their main constituents.
Conceived as invisible, spiritual forces, the tria prima were the
true principles of all natural things. Recalling that the Alexandrine
alchemists, inluenced by the Stoics, identiied in the pneuma and
logoi spermatikoi the seeds and the souls of terrestrial things, and
speciically metals, Pagel concludes that several Stoic ideas were
revived in Paracelsus’s concept of seed.16
However, the sexual allegory used by the alchemists is largely

absent from Paracelsus’s tria prima theory, as he no longer calls
sulfur and mercury “male seed” and “female seed.” Did he sim-
ply remove the sexual association from these principles, creating a
14 - Pagel, Paracelsus: An Introduction, 84-9 and 103.
15 - See Hooykaas, Concept of Element, 77-87; Reijer Hooykaas, “Chemical Trichotomy
before Paracelsus?” Archives internationales d’histoire des sciences, II (1949): 1063-74;
Kurt Goldammer, Paracelsus: Natur und Offenbarung (Hanovre: Oppermann, 1953),
36-37; Pagel, Paracelsus: An Introduction, 100-104.
16 - Pagel, Paracelsus: An Introduction, 85, 87-88, 100, and 103. Although he mentions
other possible sources, like Plotinus, Augustine, and the Corpus Hermeticum, he does
not fully develop his analysis. See Pagel, Paracelsus: An Introduction, 225; Pagel,
Paracelsus and the Neoplatonic and Gnostic Tradition, 136-137 and 162-163; Pagel,
Das medizinische Weltbild des Paracelsus, 45. According to Goldammer, Paracelsus:
Natur und Offenbarung, 34, Augustine’s doctrine is unconsciously accepted in it.
Revue d’histoire des sciences I Volume 61-2 I July-December 2008 V

Hiro HIRAI
different seminal entity in its place? Moreover, the alchemists’ con-

cept of seed usually refers only to the formation of metals, while
that of Paracelsus addresses a broad range of natural phenomena,
including the Creation of the world. Could it be that Paracelsus’s
concept was inspired by currents of thought other than the Stoics’
doctrine of logoi spermatikoi transmitted by way of medieval
alchemy? The concept appears to feature largely in Paracelsus’s
writings on mineralogy. Hence, this article analyzes the place and
nature of the Paracelsian concept in its own context, and compares
it to the main variants of the doctrine of logoi spermatikoi in order
to assess its true relationship with Stoic physics.
Logoi Spermatikoi according to the Stoics,

Plotinus, and St. Augustine
Before examining Paracelsus’s concept of seed, let us provide
a brief overview of the main features of the doctrine of logoi
spermatikoi in the three main systems: Stoic, Plotinian, and

Augustinian.

With the Stoics, the doctrine of logoi spermatikoi was determined
by the nature of their physics,17 which in turn were intended to
explain plurality and teleology in a monistic system. To them,
matter is completely formless and indeterminate, but not with-
out an active principle: because the logoi spermatikoi, as the
generative principles, are immanent to matter. They in turn orig-
inate from God, the craftsmanlike ire, who is Himself the Logos
Spermatikos of the world. Derived from the analogy of animal
sperm, the logoi spermatikoi, which were conceived as corpo-
real, were said to contain the powers and laws for the growth of
individuals. As latent causes, these logoi direct the progressive
development of all living and non-living things in accordance
with the passage of time.
17 - Hans von Arnim (ed.), Stoicorum veterum fragmenta (Leipzig: Teubner, 1903-1914),
I, 102 (= II, 580), 497; II, 717, 739, 780, 885, 1027, 1074; III, 141; Marcus Aurelius,
Meditations, IV, 14 and VI, 24; Seneca, Letters to Lucilius, 90, 29; Marcus Aurelius,
Questions naturelles, III, 29, 2-3. See also Meyer, Geschichte der Lehre von den
Keimkräften von der Stoa bis zum Ausgang der Patristik, 7-26; Joseph Moreau, L’âme
du monde de Platon aux stoïciens (Paris: Belles Lettres, 1939), 167-169; Hahm, The
Origins of Stoic Cosmology, 60-62 and 75-76; Anthony A. Long and David N. Sedley,
The Hellenistic Philosophers (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 274-279.
VI
When Plotinus appeared on the scene, he naturally adopted the

doctrine of logoi spermatikoi, which already formed an integral
part of the Platonic tradition inluenced by Stoicism. The irst char-
acteristic of his logoi spermatikoi is the fact that they are not cor-
poreal, but incorporeal (or spiritual), residing in the soul, whether
the soul of the world or of a particular being.18 As they are utterly
immaterial, they are the productive and vegetative agents of the
soul, the dynamic forces and the internal laws of development that
are subject to divine providence. A corporeal being is produced
through the addition of a logos spermatikos of the soul to form-
less matter. There are therefore as many logoi as there are individ-
ual beings. Plotinus applied this theory to organic and inorganic
nature. To him, the logoi embodied a mediatory function between
the soul and corporeal beings.
The theory of seminal reasons of Augustine was the most powerful

Latin vehicle for the transmission of the doctrine of logoi sperma-
tikoi to the Middle Ages.19 He used synonyms for seminal reasons

such as “seeds” (semina), “primordial seeds” (primordia semina),

“germs” (germina), and “implanted reasons” (rationes insita). He
introduced this theory in order to resolve various physical, meta-
physical, and theological problems, and tried to reconcile the bib-
lical teachings with experiences of everyday life. By Christianizing
the idea of logoi spermatikoi, he explained the development of
natural, normal, and abnormal phenomena, spontaneous genera-
tion, the controversies around the book of Genesis, the intellectual
development of human beings and, inally, miracles.
18 - Plotinus, Enneads, III, 1, 7; III, 2, 2; III, 7, 11; IV, 3, 10; IV, 4, 29 and 39; V, 1, 5; V, 3, 8;
V, 7, 3; V, 9, 6; VI, 3, 16; VI, 7, 5. See also Meyer, Geschichte der Lehre von den
Keimkräften von der Stoa bis zum Ausgang der Patristik, 56-67; Arthur H. Armstrong,
The Architecture of the Intelligible Universe in the Philosophy of Plotinus, 2nd ed.
(Amsterdam: Hakkert, 1967), 61-3, 92-3 and 100; Andreas Graeser, Plotinus and the
Stoics (Leiden: Brill, 1972), 41-3.
19 - Augustine, De Genesi ad litteram, II, 15, 30; III, 12, 19-20; IV, 33, 51; V, 7, 20; Id.,
De trinitate, III, 8, 13; III, 9, 16; Id, De civitate Dei, XII, 26; XXII, 14 and 24. See Paul
Agaësse and Aimé Solignac (ed.), Saint Augustin: La Genèse au sens littéral (Œuvres
de saint Augustin, series 7, vol. 48-49) (Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 1972), vol. I, 653-
668; Meyer, Geschichte der Lehre von den Keimkräften von der Stoa bis zum Ausgang
der Patristik, 123-224; Charles Boyer, “La théorie augustinienne des raisons sémina-
les,” in Miscellanea Agostiniana (Rome: Ordine ermitano di s. Agostino, 1931), vol. II,
795-819; François-Joseph Thonnard, “Les raisons séminales selon saint Augustin,” in
Proceedings of the 11th International Congress of Philosophy (Louvain: Nauwelaerts,
1953), vol. XII, 146-152; Jules M. Brady, “St. Augustine’s Theory of Seminal Reasons,”
The New Scholasticism, 38 (1964): 141-158; Colish, The Stoic Tradition, 203-206.
Revue d’histoire des sciences I Volume 61-2 I July-December 2008 VII

Hiro HIRAI
According to Augustine, God instantly created all things in the

original Creation in seminal form through the seminal reasons,
and creatures can come into existence when willed to do so by
God. What followed the six days of Creation was the vital, organic
unfolding of a history, the elements of which existed in a seminal
state from the very beginning. For this reason, the Creator Himself
communicates with natural things through the seminal reasons,
which give beings intelligibility and rationality. They are immate-
rial and remain distinct from both matter and the corporality of
visible seeds.
The Concept of Seed in the Mineralogy

of Paracelsus
Let us now examine the concept of seed in Paracelsus, the most
complete development of which can undoubtedly be found in his
mineralogical treatise, De mineralibus (written in c. 1526-1527).20
In this slender book, Paracelsus explains his theory on the for-

mation of minerals in detail, based on his vision of the Universe.
From the beginning, he emphasized the importance of studying
the end in order to understand the beginning, while introducing
the idea of “ultimate matter” (materia ultima) and “prime matter”
(materia prima).
To him, ultimate matter is the inal state of development of each

natural entity, while prime matter is the original state of the entity.21
“Prime matter” is not used in the sense of the “irst, formless mat-
ter” of the Greeks and the alchemists.22 These two types of matter
(prime and ultimate) are simply the start and the inish of natural
development. As ores, the minerals extracted from mines there-
fore exist as ultimate matter. Paracelsus blames Aristotle, Avicenna,
20 - On his mineralogy, see Joachim Schroeter, “Die Stellung des Paracelsus in der
Mineralogie des 16. Jahrhunderts,” Schweizerische mineralogische und petrogra-
phische Mitteilungen 21(1941): 313-31; Johann E. Hiller, “Die Mineralogie des
Paracelsus,” Philosophia naturalis 2 (1952-1954): 293-331 and 435-78. These his-
torians did not describe enough of the “biological mode” of the mineral world in
Paracelsus.
21 - Paracelsus, De mineralibus (Huser, VIII, 334 = Sudhoff, III, 31). See also Karl Sudhoff,
Paracelsus: Sämtliche Werke 1. Abteilung, 14 vol. (Hildesheim: Olms, 1996), which is
based on Jean Huser, Bücher und Schriften, 10 vol. (Basel: 1589-1591).
22 - See Marcelin Berthelot, La chimie au Moyen Âge (Paris: 1893), vol. I, 276-7.
VIII
Albert the Great and their successors for disregarding ultimate mat-
ter in their description of the formation of minerals.23
Paracelsus then explains the formation of minerals from the point

of view of his theory of the tria prima, or three principles. He
states that all minerals and metals, like all other natural things, are
formed only from these three principles. However, each of these
three principles is multiple so that each metal formed from its own
Sulfur, Salt, and Mercury. In fact, Paracelsus states that there are as
many different types of Salts, Sulfurs, and Mercuries as there are
natural things in the world. Salt lends color, balsam, and solidity
(“coagulation”); Sulfur gives body, substance, and structure; and
Mercury lends virtues, power, and arcana. These three principles
necessarily combine to form and perfect a mineral body.24 They are
distinct from the natural substances of the same name, the names
“Sulfur,” “Mercury,” and “Salt” being symbolic terms related to
their functions. They should therefore not be understood in the
same way as the material causes of the scholastics by placing them

at the same level as the Aristotelian elements.

As to the four traditional elements (ire, air, water, and earth), to
Paracelsus they are no longer the material causes of natural things,
but are the “mothers” (Müter), cosmological matrices from which
natural things are born and grow.25 By using this notion of the
four mothers, Paracelsus places the formation of minerals in the
context of the biblical Creation. He states that at the beginning
God created the element “water,” endowing it with the power to
give rise to minerals on an ongoing basis. In doing so, God desig-
nated water as the “mother” of minerals. God also placed in it the
tria prima for future minerals. Paracelsus states that the tria prima
are placed in the element “water” as the soul, the spirit, and the
essence of this element.26
23 - De mineralibus (Huser, VIII, 334 and 344 = Sudhoff, III, 31 and 42).
24 - De mineralibus (Huser, VIII, 344-345 = Sudhoff, III, 42-43).
25 - See Hooykaas, The Concept of Element, 91-94; Hooykaas, “Die Elementenlehre des
Paracelsus,” Janus 29 (1935): 175-187; Pagel (1982), Paracelsus: An Introduction, 82,
95-97 and 129-130.
26 - De mineralibus (Huser, VIII, 343 = Sudhoff, III, 41). On the tricotomy of soul, mind, and
body according to Paracelsus, see Ernst W. Kämmere, “Le problème du corps, de l’âme
et de l’esprit chez Paracelse et chez quelques auteurs du XVIIe siècle,” in Lucien Braun
et al., Paracelse (Paris: Albin Michel, 1980), 89-231.
Revue d’histoire des sciences I Volume 61-2 I July-December 2008 IX

Hiro HIRAI
Minerals play the role of the “fruits” (Früchte) of their mother. As

God admirably created the element “water” as the mother of the
minerals, the resultant minerals must be its progeny. Note that the
notion of “growth” (wachsen) is important in Paracelsus’s natural
philosophy. To him, all things that grow have a kind of life force
in the form of the spiritus vitae. In addition, he preferred to think
of growth in plant-like terms rather than animal-like terms; the
growth of minerals is therefore described in plant-like language.
According to Paracelsus, minerals have a liquid body called a
“tree,”27 which grows in a highly branched form throughout the
world. This plant-like image of metallic veins seems to origi-
nate from the beliefs of the miners among whom Paracelsus was
raised.28 This ancient belief was also strengthened by the inluence
of medieval alchemy. Works from the irst half of the sixteenth cen-
tury such as Ein nützlich Bergbüchlein (c. 1500) by Ulrich Rülein
von Calw of Freiberg, Bergmannus (1530) by Georg Agricola, De
la pirotechnia (1540) by Vannoccio Biringuccio, and De subtilitate
(1550) by Girolamo Cardano have much common ground with the

writings of Paracelsus.29

Thus Paracelsus introduces the concept of seeds through which
God’s plan is transmitted to the mineral kingdom in order to form
each individual mineral. How, then, should we understand the rela-
tionship between seeds, which communicate this Divine design to
future minerals, and the element water, which is the mother of the
minerals? Paracelsus writes:
27 - De mineralibus (Huser, VIII, 339-340 = Sudhoff, III, 37). On plant terms used by Paracelsus,
see Kurt Goldammer, “Planze und planzliches Wachstum als Symbolkomplex bei
Paracelsus,” Salzburger Beiträge zur Paracelsusforschung 8 (1969): 115-131.
28 - See Auguste Daubrée, “La génération des minéraux métalliques dans la pratique des
mineurs du Moyen Âge, d’après le Bergbüchlein,” Journal des savants 1890, 379-392
and 441-452; Paul Sébillot, Les travaux publics et les mines dans les traditions et les
superstitions de tous les pays (Paris: J. Rothschild, 1894), 389-402; Katharine B. Collier,
Cosmogonies of Our Fathers (New York: Columbia University Press, 1934), 417-427;
Adams, The Birth and Development of the Geological Sciences, 286-307; Gaston
Bachelard, La Terre et les rêveries de la volonté (Paris: Corti, 1948), 244-249; Mircea
Eliade, Forgerons et alchimistes (Paris: Flammarion, 1956), 45-56; Robert Halleux,
“Fécondité des mines et sexualité des pierres dans l’Antiquité gréco-romaine,” Revue
belge de philologie et d’histoire 49 (1970): 16-25.
29 - On the Bergbüchlein, see Daubrée, “La génération des minéraux métalliques.” Agricola,
Bermannus sive de re metallica (Basel, 1530). See also Robert Halleux and Albert Yans,
Georg Agricola: Bermannus (Le mineur) (Paris: Belles Lettres, 1990), 74. Biringuccio,
De la pirotechnia (Venice, 1540), I, préface. See Cyril S. Smith and Martha T. Gnudi,
The Pirotechnia of Vannoccio Biringuccio (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1950), 13.
Cardan, De subtilitate (Nuremberg, 1550), Vol. 5, 107.
X
Thus, the irst was with God, the beginning, that is, the ultimate
matter. God transformed this ultimate matter into prime matter.
Like a fruit that must engender another fruit, it contains a seed:
the seed is in the prime matter. Hence, the ultimate matter of min-
erals is transformed into a prime matter, that is, a seed, and this
seed is the element water. God determined that water should exist;
He created it in nature for it to produce ultimate matter, which
is in water and takes what is in it, subjected to its power and its
preparation. He separates that which belongs to metals into metals
and classiies each metal according to its kind. [He also separates]
what belongs to stones, and likewise also rocks, and likewise the
marcasites and other species. Next, God created time so that there
might be a harvest time for wheat and an autumn for fruit. In the
same way, He also created for the element water a harvest and an
autumn so that all things should have their harvest time and their
autumn. Hence, water is an element and a mother, a seed and a
root of all minerals.30
In this way, according to Paracelsus, God indirectly created the

inal state (ultimate matter) of individual minerals in the form of

prime matter, and ultimate matter is latent in prime matter. It should

be noted that prime matter and ultimate matter are therefore deter-
mined by God’s Creation and by divine providence. Paracelsus
states that the seed is the prime matter in same way that a fruit
includes in itself the seeds of future fruits, and the prime matter
resides in the element water. A mineral exists in a dormant state as
a seed contained in the prime matter, which, in turn, resides in the
element water. Although Paracelsus sometimes says that the seed is
30 - De mineralibus (Huser, VIII, 337 = Sudhoff, III, 34-35). “Nun ist das erst gewesen bei
got, der anfang, das ist ultima materia, die selbige ultimam materiam hat er gemacht
in primam materiam. Als ein frucht, die ein ander frucht sol geben, die selbige hat ein
semen: der sam ist in prima materia. Also ist nun der mineralium ultima materia in ein
primam materiam gemachet, das ist in ein sam und der samen ist elementum aquae,
und hats resolvirt, das ein wasser ist. Nun zu dem hat er im die natur geschaffen, das
sie sol die ultimam materiam machen, die selbig ist im wasser und nimbt, was im
wasser ist, das selbig under sein gewalt und praeparation. Was zu metallen gehört, das
separirts in metallen und ein ieglich metall für sich selbs. Was zu edlen gesteinen ge-
hört also auch in sein art.Was zu steinen gehört der gleichen. Und also mit den marca-
siten und andern speciebus. Dan hat got die zeit beschaffen, das ein ernde ist im korn,
ein herbst im obst, so hat er auch beschaffen dem element wasser sein ernt und herbst
auch. Also das alle ding zu seiner zeit sein ernt und herbst haben. Also ist das wasser
ein element und ein muter, ein sam und ein wurzen der mineralien aller.” According
to Pagel (1961), Paracelsus: An Introduction, 119-120, the irst “ultimate matter” in the
quote is not the ultimate matter of individuals, but the primordial matter of the world.
It is that which was in the beginning with God like the spiritual Logos in verse one of
the irst chapter of the Gospel of John.
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Hiro HIRAI
the water, this seed is most probably not the same as the element
itself, because water is the seed’s matrix (mother).
In another place, Paracelsus describes in more general terms the

relationship between the seed and the element water:
When someone who has all the seeds in the world all mixed up
together in a bag and sows them in his garden: this is what nature is
like. And nature gives each seed its own fruit in the end, such that
each seed realizes its essence and perfection without harming any
others. This should not only be understood in this sense, but also in
the case of water, as if it was a bag containing all the seeds and all
these seeds were sown – thus each genus and each species grows
according to its nature and properties. Thus God ordained the mira-
cles of His Creation in the four elements, and these are the elements
from which the fruits come so that man may use them, created by
God, each individual type with its own character and essence.31
To Paracelsus, the element water is a matricial “sower’s bag” con-

taining the mineral seeds, while nature, also seen as a sower’s bag,

contains all the seeds of natural things. Each type of mineral grows
according to its seed, in accordance with the speciicity of its type
already programmed in the form of the tria prima contained in
the seed. Its propagation takes place through the power and the
preparation of the Creator. As a plant seed bears its fruits in the
harvest season, the mineral seed also bears its mineral fruits in
the term biologically predetermined by God.32 The development
of each individual mineral is simply the organic unfolding of that
which is contained in the seed from the very beginning. The pre-
dominant idea is that of “predestination” (praedestinatio).33 This is
31 - De mineralibus (Huser, VIII, 343-344 = Sudhoff, III, 41-42): “Als wan einer het in einem
sack durch einander aller der samen, so nun auf der welt seind, bei einander. Und so
ers nun in garten seet, so ist die natur do und gibt einem ietlichen samen sein eigne
frucht zum end, also das ein ietlicher semen in sein wesen kompt und perfection, dem
andern on schaden. Wie nun nicht alein hie also verstanden sol werden, sonder auch
im element wasser, als wer es ein sack, in dem alle samen werent und würden geseet,
so wechst ein ietlichs genus und species in sein art und eigensschaft. Also hat nun
got verordnet die wunderwerk seiner geschöpf in die vier elementen. Und das seind
element, aus dem die frücht gên, als das dan der mensch gebrauchen sol, und von got
geschaffen, ein ietliche art in ir eigenschaft und wesen.”
32 - Paracelsus, De mineralibus (Huser, VIII, 337 = Sudhoff, III, 35).
33 - Paracelsus, De mineralibus (Huser, VIII, 343 = Sudhoff, III, 41). See also Goldammer,
Paracelsus: Natur und Offenbarung, 41; Pagel, Paracelsus: An Introduction, 95 and
118; Jean-Pierre Brach, “Quelques aspects de la doctrine de la prédestination chez
Paracelse,” Aries 19 (1995): 20-25.
XII
in conformance with the doctrine of logoi spermatikoi: the seed is

the message-bearer of the speciicity of each mineral. It is possible
to say that the seed is the “vehicle” of the tria prima that are imma-
nent and dormant in the seed like genetic code.
On the one hand, it should be recalled that the tria prima of

Paracelsus are spiritual, dynamic powers, akin to the doctrine of
Plotinus, while also being immanent to matter as with the Stoics
and the alchemists. On the other hand, it is uncontestable that
Paracelsus’s “sower” is the Judeo-Christian God who sowed the
primordial Word at the beginning of Creation. This biblical inspira-
tion requires a different image of the world than that of the Stoics
and Plotinus. In order to clarify this point, it would be necessary to
examine the origin of the mineral seeds in turn, but Paracelsus does
not tell any more on the subject in De mineralibus.
Seeds in Paracelsus’s Interpretation of Genesis

Let us now examine Paracelsus’s other writings for additional infor-

mation that might explain the origin of mineral seeds in the context
of the biblical Creation. For instance, in the treatise De matrice, the
fourth book of his Opus Paramirum (1531), Paracelsus states that
all creatures were brought into being by the invisible matrix. In his
view, the primordial waters over which the Spirit of the Lord hov-
ered (Genesis 1:2) is the irst matrix (mother) of the world, that is,
the irst receptacle for the seed of the world.34 Although the identity
of this primordial seed of the world is not speciied, it is possible to
assume that it is either the very Spirit of the Lord from Genesis, or
what this Spirit conveys.
In the treatise entitled Labyrinthus medicorum errantium (1537-

1538), Paracelsus writes of the origin of the primordial seed in the
context of the creatio ex nihilo. According to him, God created
all things by bringing about “something” (etwas) out of “nothing”
(nichts). He clearly identiies that “something” with seed.35 This
“something” is speciied in The Book of the Generation and the
Fruits of the Four Elements (date of writing unknown), in which
Paracelsus says that in the beginning of Creation, that nothing was
34 - Paracelsus, De matrice, in Opus Paramirum IV (Sudhoff, IX, 191).
35 - Paracelsus, Labyrinthus medicorum errantium, chap. 5 (Huser, II, 213 = Sudhoff, XI, 187).
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Hiro HIRAI
transformed into the “great Iliaster” (großen Yliaster).36 To him, this

spiritual Iliaster consisted of four parts that developed into the
four matricial elements through the intervention of the tria prima.
Hence, the initial Iliaster is the seed of these four elements, and is
the “something” in question. He further states that minerals already
existed in the Iliaster, even though they were not yet formed.
Likewise, the seeds of natural things were contained in the four
elements.37 Hence, the archetypes of mineral seeds already resided
in the seeds of the four elements, i.e., in the Iliaster.
Finally, in the treatise De meteoris (date of writing uncertain),

Paracelsus develops this point around the notion of the primor-
dial Word of God based on his interpretation of Genesis. In his
view, the body of each element was created out of nothing simply
by the Word “iat” of God. Through this Word, this nothing, out
of which “something” was created, became the substantial body
of the element. To Paracelsus, each element has a ternary body
due to the tria prima, just as the Word “iat” is a ternary entity that
corresponds to the Holy Trinity.38 Here, it is clear that Paracelsus

is referring to the theological concept of the Word of God accord-
ing to which this Word was with God at the beginning and was
sown in the form of “iat” as the seed of the world.39 To Paracelsus,
God created the seed of the elements out of nothing through the
Word of God. This seed then turned into four elements, which
contained all creatures in seminal form, i.e., the seeds of things.
Previously, these seeds were in the seeds of the elements, and
originally in the Word of God, the seed of the world, not created
but co-eternal with God.
36 - Paracelsus, Philosophia de generationibus et fructibus quatuor elementorum, I, i (Huser,

VIII, 55 = Sudhoff, XIII, 9) and III, 1, i (Huser, VIII, 97 = Sudhoff, XIII, 56).
37 - Paracelsus, Philosophia de generationibus, I, vi (Huser, VIII, 58 = Sudhoff, XIII, 12-13).
38 - Paracelsus, De meteoris, ii (Huser, VIII, 184-186 = Sudhoff, XIII, 134-136). On Paracelsus’s
cosmology and his doctrine of the Trinity see Hartmut Rudolph, “Kosmosspekulation
und Trinitätslehre: Ein Beitrag zur Beziehung zwischen Weltbild und Theologie bei
Paracelsus,” Salzburger Beiträge zur Paracelsusforchung 21 (1980): 32-47.
39 - On the doctrine of the Word (Logos), see for instance Jules Lebreton, “Les théories du
Logos au début de l’ère chrétienne,” Études 106 (1906): 54-84, 310-332 and 764-
795; Jules Lebreton, Histoire du dogme de la Trinité vol. I, Les Origines du dogme de
la Trinité (Paris: Beauchesne, 1919); Spanneut, Permanence du stoïcisme, 295-323;
Charles H. Dodd, The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1953), 263-285; Marie-Émile Boismard, Le Prologue de saint Jean
(Paris: Cerf, 1953), 15-21 and 109-142; Charles K. Barrett, The Gospel According to
St. John (London: SPCK, 1956), 126-141.
XIV
There are therefore three major steps in this unfolding of seeds:

1) Word-seed, 2) seeds of the elements, and 3) particular seeds of
natural things. It should be recalled that according to Augustine,
the “unchangeable and eternal reasons” (rationes incommutabiles
et aeternae), the archetypes of seminal reasons, of all creatures
were irst in the Word of God.40
Although Augustine did not say as such, it is possible to understand

that even minerals that have not yet been created and are eternal
were in the Word of God in a state of “unchangeable and eternal
reasons.” Here is an important passage from his treatise The Literal
Meaning of Genesis, which elucidates this seminal unfolding:
Nevertheless, under one aspect these things are in the Word of

God, where they are not made but eternally existing; under
another aspect they are in the elements of the universe, where
all things destined to be were made simultaneously [. . .]; under
another aspect they are in seeds, in which they are found again
as quasi-primordial causes which derive from creatures that have

come forth according to the causes which God irst stored up in

the world [. . .].
In all these things, beings already created received at their own

proper time their manner of being and of acting, which developed
into visible forms and natures from the hidden and invisible rea-
sons which are latent in creation as causes. Thus the crops came
forth on the earth, and man was made as a living being, and so of
the other creatures, whether plants or animals, belonging to the
work of God as He works even at this time. But these beings have
duplicates of themselves, as it were, carried invisibly within them
by reason of the hidden power of reproduction that they possess.
They have this power through their primordial causes, in which
they were placed in the created world when day was made, before
they came forth in the visible shape proper to their kind.41
Although Augustine only gives living beings as examples of crea-

tures, it should be recalled that with Paracelsus everything that
grows has a kind of life force in the form of the spiritus vitae. The
above quote from Augustine can therefore also apply to the min-
eral kingdom. Granted, it is very dificult to say whether Augustine
40 - Augustine of Hippo, De Genesi ad litteram V, xii, 29, trans. John Hammond Taylor
(Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1982), 163.
41 - Augustine, De Genesi VI, x, 17, 189-90.
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Hiro HIRAI
was a direct source of inspiration to Paracelsus,42 but the way in

which Augustine describes the will of God being transmitted over
time from Creation to today by means of seminal reasons is similar
to the way in which the seeds of things act according to Paracelsus.
Likewise, both Augustine’s seminal reasons and Paracelsus’s seeds
originate in the Word of God, and the biblical Creation acts as
a common framework for both systems. From that point on we
notice many similarities.
The Intermediary Role of Marsilio Ficino

In closing, let us examine a point that has been little studied by
historians to date. It was through the Latin translation by Marsilio
Ficino of Florence (1433-1499) that Renaissance scholars were
able to read the teachings of Plotinus for the irst time.43 It is natu-
ral to assume that the writings of Plotinus would favor a revival in
the doctrine of logoi spermatikoi, but Ficino’s own writings contain
a singular elaboration of the Plotinian concept.

In order to refer to the seminal principle in his cosmological
metaphysics, Ficino amply used multiple terms, including “seeds
of things” (semina rerum), “seeds of forms” (semina formarum),
“seminal reasons” (rationes seminales), “seminary of the world”
(seminarium mundi), and “seminal reason of the world” (ratio sem-
inaria mundi). Already in the Commentary on Plato’s Symposium
(written between 1468 and 1482 and published in Florence in
1484), Ficino developed his concept of seed and established the
hierarchy of hypostatic substances based especially on Plotinus
and Proclus.44
42 - De Genesi ad litteram was published by Johann Amerbach in Basel in 1506, then by

Johann Froben, under the direction of Erasmus of Rotterdam, in Basel in 1528.
43 - On Ficino, see Paul O. Kristeller, The Philosophy of Marsilio Ficino (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1943); Raymond Marcel, Marsile Ficin (Paris: Belles Lettres, 1958);
Gian Carlo Garfagnini (ed.), Marsilio Ficino e il ritorno di Platone (Florence: Olschki,
1986); Michael J. B. Allen and Valery Rees (eds.), Marsilio Ficino: His Theology, His
Philosophy, His Legacy (Leiden: Brill, 2002).
44 - On Ficino’s ive hypostases, see especially Kristeller, The Philosophy of Marsilio
Ficino, 106-108, 167-169, 370, 384, 400-401; Michael J. B. Allen, “Ficino’s Theory
of the Five Substances and the Neoplatonists’ Parmenides,” Journal of Medieval and
Renaissance Studies 12 (1982): 19-44; Tamara Albertini, Marsilio Ficino: Das Problem
der Vermittlung von Denken und Welt in einer Metaphysik der Einfachheit (Munich:
Fink, 1997).
XVI
According to Ficino, after transcendental God, whose substance is

at the center of the universe, comes divine Intelligence. From this
Intelligence emanates the soul of the world, surrounding it. From
the soul of the world comes nature, and from nature the body or
matter with its full extension. Thus, the metaphysical universe is
made up of the ive hypostatic substances, which are arranged con-
centrically and are connected by the “divine species” (species div-
inae). The archetypical Idea can be found in the Good, which is the
substance of God. From this come the “ideas” (ideae) that connect
God to the divine Intelligence. The Intelligence and the soul of the
world communicate through the “reason-principles” (rationes) that
leave the Intelligence and enter the soul. The soul and nature are
connected through the mediation of the “seeds” (semina). Finally,
nature and matter communicate through “forms” (formae).45 These
divine species (ideas, reason-principles, seeds, and forms) share a
common source and nature is full of invisible seeds.
Then, in his Platonic Theology on the Immortality of Souls (Florence,

1482), Ficino admitted the seeds of forms hidden in the prime,

formless matter.46 According to Ficino, the life force of these “spir-
itual and life-giving seeds” (semina spiritualia et viviica) that com-
pensates for the lack of corporeal seeds, draws the substantial forms
of the elements from the bosom of formless matter.47 Then, in De
vita coelitus comparanda, the third book of De vita libri tres, a work
that was widely read and highly inluential in the sixteenth century,
Ficino, much like Plotinus, advanced the idea of seminal reasons
located in the soul of the world (anima mundi). The passage reads:
Moreover, the soul of the world, by its divine power, has at least as
many seminal reasons as there are ideas in the divine intelligence.
By means of these seminal reasons, it produces the same number
of species in matter. This is why each species corresponds to its
own idea through its own seminal reason. And often, through this
special reason, it can easily receive something of the idea, if it was
produced from the idea through this reason. This is why, if at any
moment a species degenerates in its form, it can be formed once
45 - Marsilio Ficino, Commentary on Plato’s Symposium on Love, II, iii-iv, in the Latin text
edited by Raymond Marcel: Marsile Ficin, Commentaire sur le Banquet de Platon
(Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1956), 149-151.
46 - Marsilio Ficino, Platonic Theology, I, vi, transl. Michael J. B. Allen and John Warden
(Boston: Harvard University Press, 2001).
47 - Ficino, Platonic Theology, IV, i.
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Hiro HIRAI
more through this intermediary reason, very close to it, and easily
reformed by this intermediary of the idea.48
De vita coelitus comparanda was originally intended to be a com-

mentary on Plotinus’s Ennead IV, 3, 11, but Ficino only published
the Commentary on Plotinus’s Enneads (Florence, 1492) much
later. In this work, he amply applied the seminal principle to his
cosmology. He wrote that, through the seminal reasons, the world
receives everywhere its generative power from the soul of the
world. Hence, nature contains in itself as many seeds as things.49
This frequent use of the concept of seeds is remarkable. This fea-

ture is primarily Plotinian, with certain modiications due to some
fairly heterogeneous ideas. According to Brian P. Copenhaver,
Ficino certainly linked the theory of logoi spermatikoi to Thomas
Aquinas’s doctrine of the substantial form.50 From my side, I have
shown in a previous study that he also adopted the notion of the
“seeds of things” (semina rerum) from atomist Lucretius (c. 98-55

B.C.). In addition, we know that Augustine was one of Ficino’s

favorite authors, although Ficino did not mention him in con-
nection with his concept of seeds; his work drew more on that of
Plotinus.51 What is particularly signiicant from our point of view,
however, is the fact that Ficino advanced the idea of the omnipres-
ence of invisible, spiritual seeds in nature throughout his writings.
It should be recalled that in De vita coelitus comparanda, Ficino

also expounded his famous theory of the spiritus mundi, which
became immensely successful in the sixteenth century. It was to
48 - Marsilio Ficino, De Vita Libri Tres, III, i (Carol V. Kaske and John R. Clark, Marsilio
Ficino: Three Books On Life [New York: Renaissance Society of America, 1989], 242):
“Accedit ad haec quod anima mundi totidem saltem rationes rerum seminales divinitus
habet, quot ideae sunt in mente divina, quibus ipsa rationibus totidem fabricat species
in materia. Unde unaquaeque species per propriam rationem seminalem propriae re-
spondet ideae, facileque potest per hanc saepe aliquid illinc accipere, quandoquidem
per hanc illinc est effecta. Ideoque si quando a propria forma degeneret, potest hoc
medio sibi proximo formari rursum perque id medium inde facile reformari.”
49 - Marsilio Ficino, Opera Omnia (Basel, 1575), 1634, 1640, 1697 and 1737.
50 - See Brian P. Copenhaver, “Renaissance Magic and Neoplatonic Philosophy: Ennead 4.
3-5 in Ficino’s De vita coelitus comparanda,” in Garfagnini, Marsilio Ficino e il ritorno
di Platone, vol. II, 351-369.
51 - On Ficino’s concept of seeds, see Hiro Hirai, “Concepts of Seeds and Nature in the
Work of Marsilio Ficino,” in Allen and Rees, Marsilio Ficino, 257-84; Hiro Hirai, “La
fortune du concept de semence de Marsile Ficin au XVIe siècle,” Accademia: Revue de
la société Marsile Ficin 4 (2002): 109-32.
XVIII
this universal spiritus of the world that he attributed a “seminary

power” (virtus seminaria), derived from the seminal reasons of the
soul of the world, through the heavens and their constellations.
According to Ficino, whoever knows things that are “spirituous,”
i.e., things rich in spiritus, that smell good, shine, or are warm,
can effectively beneit from the gifts of heaven through the semi-
nal reasons, which coordinate the ideas of the divine Intelligence.
Thus, he advanced the possibility of capturing, even of manipu-
lating, the seminary power conveyed by the spiritus that is also in
natural things. He bases these notions in particular on the idea of
quintessence, which originates from the tradition of pseudo-Lull-
ian alchemy of the late Middle Ages.52 This approach to the natu-
ral domains through the central notion of alchemia medica would
clearly favor a good reception of his theory of the spiritus mundi
with natural philosophers and doctors who were familiar with the
thought of Paracelsus.53
Conclusion

Although the biological aspect of Paracelsus’s mineralogy shows
several hylozoist elements inluenced by medieval alchemy and
the beliefs of miners, his concept of seeds falls largely under
the interpretation of the biblical Creation story.54 According to
52 - See Sylvain Matton, “Marsile Ficin et l’alchimie, sa position, son inluence,” in Alchimie
et philosophie à la Renaissance, ed. Jean-Claude Margolin and Sylvain Matton (Paris:
Vrin, 1993), 123-192. On the idea of quintessence during the Middle Ages, see Robert
Halleux, “Les ouvrages alchimiques de Jean de Rupescissa,” Histoire littéraire de la
France 41(1981): 241-277; Michela Pereira, The Alchemical Corpus Attributed to
Raymond Lull (London: Warburg, 1989); Udo Benzenhöfer, Johannes’ de Rupescissa
Liber de consideratione quintae essentiae omnium rerum deutsch: Studien zur
Alchemia medica des 15. bis 17. Jahrhunderts (Stuttgart: Steiner, 1989).
53 - On Ficino’s inluence on Paracelsus, see Pagel, Paracelsus: An Introduction, 174-177
and 218-226; Kurt Goldammer, “Die Paracelsische Kosmologie und Materietheorie in
ihrer wissenschaftsgeschichtlichen Stellung und Eigenart,” Medizinhistorisches Journal
6(1971): 5-35; Ingo Schütze, “Zur Ficino-Rezeption bei Paracelsus,” in Joachim Telle
(ed.), Parerga Paracelsica: Paracelsus in Vergangenheit und Gegenwart (Stuttgart:
Steiner, 1991), 39-44.
54 - On the tradition of “chemical” interpretation of Genesis, see Michael T. Walton, “Genesis
and chemistry in the sixteenth century,” in Reading the Book of Nature, ed. Allan G.
Debus and Michael T.Walton (Kirksville: SCJ, 1998), 1-14; Norma E. Emerton, “Creation
in the thought of J. B. Van Helmont and Robert Fludd,” in Rattansi and Clericuzio, “The
Internal Laboratory,” 85-101; Hiro Hirai, “Paracelsisme, néoplatonisme et médecine
hermétique dans la théorie de la matière de Joseph Du Chesne à travers son Ad ver-
itatem hermeticae medicinae (1604),” Archives internationales d’histoire des sciences
51(2001): 9-37; Id., “Interprétation chymique de la création et origine corpusculaire de
la vie chez Athanasius Kircher,” Annals of Science 64 (2007): 217-234.
Revue d’histoire des sciences I Volume 61-2 I July-December 2008 XIX

Hiro HIRAI
Paracelsus, God created the minerals in order for them to be born

daily from their own seeds. These mineral seeds reside in the ele-
ment water, which is their matrix. The seeds are the vehicles for
the set of the tria prima (Sulfur, Salt, and Mercury). At the time of
Creation, they were latent in the seed of the four elements (the
Iliaster), which, in turn, was created out of nothing through the
Word “iat” of God. This Word, which was not created but coe-
ternal, was sown by God as the universal seed of the world at
the beginning of Creation. It is clear that Paracelsus relied on the
notion of the Word-seed of God as it originated in Christian theol-
ogy. We have seen a very similar idea to that of Paracelsus in the
theory of Augustine concerning the seminal unfolding from the
primordial Word of God to the particular seeds of natural things.
Even though Paracelsus did not directly know about the teachings
of Augustine, the long Augustinian tradition likely provided him
with the essential ingredients for developing his concept in the
context of biblical cosmogony.
Before Paracelsus, Marsilio Ficino adopted Plotinus’s idea of the

seminal principle, which was derived from the Stoic doctrine of
logoi spermatikoi. He developed it considerably in establishing his
concept of seeds in his own philosophical writings. His cosmolog-
ical metaphysics is characterized by the omnipresence of invisible,
spiritual seeds in nature. This omnipresence of spiritual seeds is
close to Paracelsus’s vision, although in principle Ficino’s theory
still has its roots in the writings of Plotinus.
One may assume that Paracelsus was initially inspired by Ficino

regarding this omnipresence of invisible, spiritual seeds in the same
way as his contemporary, Jean Fernel (1497-1558), who conceived
Ficino’s seeds as the instruments of the Word of God, who, as the
“sower,” introduced procreative power into the sublunar world by
means of these divine seeds. However, Fernel did not go so far as to
identify this Word with the seed of the world.55 Preoccupied with
interpreting the Creation story of Genesis, Paracelsus established
55 - See Hirai, Le concept, 83-103; Hirai, “Ficin, Fernel et Fracastor autour du concept de
semence: Aspects platoniciens de seminaria,” in Girolamo Fracastoro fra medicina,
ilosoia e scienze della natura, ed. Alessandro Pastore and Enrico Peruzzi (Florence:
Olschki, 2006), 245-260. On Fernel’s Ficinism, see also Hiro Hirai, “Alter Galenus:
Jean Fernel et son interprétation platonico-chrétienne de Galien,” Early Science and
Medicine 10 (2005): 1-35.
XX
his concept of seeds in a much more Christian framework. In my

view, this is the result of the Christianization of the logoi sperma-
tikoi after the manner of Augustine. Thus, the Paracelsian concept
of seeds testiies to the complexity of the paths by which the themes
of Stoic physics were included in writings as late as the sixteenth
century, when they came to fruition.
Revue d’histoire des sciences I Volume 61-2 I July-December 2008 XXI

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Logoi Spermatikoi and the Concept

of Seeds in the Mineralogy

Abstract: Paracelsus’s concept of seeds is an important contribution to

Keywords: Paracelsus, seeds, logoi spermatikoi, seminal reasons,

Plotinus, Augustine, Marsilio Ficino.

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Mots-clés : Paracelse ; semences ; logoi spermatikoi ; raisons séminales ;

Revue d’histoire des sciences I Volume 61-2 I July-December 2008 I

incorporated into Western thought.1 It appears to me that, com-

This theory is an ingenious invention of Stoic physics. Granted,

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A.D.,6 most prominent of which were Plotinus (205-270 A.D.) and

Once scholastic Aristotelianism came to dominate Western intel-

that are immanent to matter. The perpetuation of the concept after

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Revue d’histoire des sciences I Volume 61-2 I July-December 2008 III

volatile. The alchemists called them the “seeds” of metal. Using

In the sixteenth century, we once again encounter a large num-

at least until the triumph of Newtonian atomism in the eighteenth

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Paracelsus applied his concept of seed not only to the generation

used the theory in his etiology. He even links seeds to activities

Given the close resemblance between his worldview and alchemi-

It is a well-known fact that Paracelsus added salt to sulfur and mer-

of the tria prima (Sulfur, Salt, and Mercury).15 According to Pagel,

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However, the sexual allegory used by the alchemists is largely

Revue d’histoire des sciences I Volume 61-2 I July-December 2008 V

different seminal entity in its place? Moreover, the alchemists’ con-

Logoi Spermatikoi according to the Stoics,

spermatikoi in the three main systems: Stoic, Plotinian, and

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When Plotinus appeared on the scene, he naturally adopted the

The theory of seminal reasons of Augustine was the most powerful

tikoi to the Middle Ages.19 He used synonyms for seminal reasons

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Revue d’histoire des sciences I Volume 61-2 I July-December 2008 VII

According to Augustine, God instantly created all things in the

The Concept of Seed in the Mineralogy

In this slender book, Paracelsus explains his theory on the for-

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To him, ultimate matter is the inal state of development of each

Paracelsus then explains the formation of minerals from the point

same way as the material causes of the scholastics by placing them

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Revue d’histoire des sciences I Volume 61-2 I July-December 2008 IX

Minerals play the role of the “fruits” (Früchte) of their mother. As

(1550) by Girolamo Cardano have much common ground with the

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In this way, according to Paracelsus, God indirectly created the

inal state (ultimate matter) of individual minerals in the form of

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Revue d’histoire des sciences I Volume 61-2 I July-December 2008 XI

In another place, Paracelsus describes in more general terms the

To Paracelsus, the element water is a matricial “sower’s bag” con-

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in conformance with the doctrine of logoi spermatikoi: the seed is

On the one hand, it should be recalled that the tria prima of

Seeds in Paracelsus’s Interpretation of Genesis