BioConcepts

archeusarcheus (lat.); Archeus (ger.)

• The immaterial principle supposed by the Paracelsians to produce and preside over the activities of the animal and vegetable economy; vital force. (It was held that the chief archeus was situated in the stomach, and that subordinate archei regulated the action of other organs.) (OED 2012)
  category vitalism

  1527

  Archeus vis est producens res ex iliaste, ut archeus sit dispensator et compositor omnium rerum

  Paracelsus [1527]. [Vorlesung De Gradibus of Summers 1527 in Basel: Schüleraufzeichnungen zum 1.-5. Buch] (Sämtliche Werke, I. Abt., Bd. 4, ed. by K. Sudhoff, München 1931, 106-121): 106; cf. Rádl, E. (1905-09/13). Geschichte der biologischen Theorien, 2 vols.: I, 89; Hall, T.S. (1969). Ideas of Life and Matter, 2 vols.: I, 181; Pagel, W. (1958). Paracelsus. An Introduction to Philosophical Medicine in the Era of the Renaissance: 105-111.

  1648

  Singula ergo, utut dura & opaca, tamen ante sui istam soliditatem, claudunt in se auram, quae ante generationem, semini (hactenus foecundo, internam, futuram generationem adumbrat, & generatum ad finem scenae usque comitatur. Quae aura, licet in aliquibus luculentior sit: in vegetabilibus tamen, succi specie comprimitur, ut & in metallis densissima homogeneitate inspissatur: singulis tamen hoc donum obtigit, quod Archeus vocatur, generationum & seminum foecunditatem continens, tanquam causa efficiens interna. Ille inquam faber, generati imaginem habet, ad cujus initium, destinations rerum agendarum componit.

  Helmont, J.B. van (1648). Archeus faber. In: Ortus Medicinae, 40-41: 40.