Check your thaumonomicon. It records all discovered aspects and lists how to craft them in the research table. That book is truly your friend for research.
Yeah, I found that out, thanks to a youtube video or a forum post, or something. The problem I had, I think, was in getting Granium (iirc). It takes Victus and terra. I could not scan it, despite having a bunch of aqua and terra (being needed for victus). I had to combine those to get victus, because, I assume, the mod will not let you chain discover...and nothing that I was able to find would give me Victus.
I consider that a failure point in the mod, which otherwise has been pretty interesting. Something, somewhere, in vanilla, needs to have victus added to the list of aspects (if it is, none of the cheat sheets list it). I am running around, happily scanning the world, and suddenly just run headlong into a wall of 'wtf?'. I get it now, and I probably won't have the same problem again, but it's an interruption in the otherwise smooth flow of progression that I've (so far) experienced.
It's probably all there in the manual, to be honest, but that's even more of a wall to climb. It's all really well written exposition (what of it I've read so far), but it's not conducive to smooth gameplay. I haven't actually had to open the book for much (ok..without direwolf's series or some experience with previous versions of thaumcraft, I wouldn't have known to make a wand or a thaumometer...I'll give you that, but without the wand, I wouldn't have been able to find a book either...that parenthetical was too long...)...I have had to really get into the book too much to progress, and having to stop and try to figure out why I can't scan the simplest of items (grass, trees, etc) really threw me off.
Other than that, hey, TC4 is pretty darn cool.