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so called into existence, with a knowledge of things far beyond that of ordinary men. Erastus is even worse, and marshals in array seven distinct dogmas, which he pronounces blasphemous.*

He now quarrelled with the magistrates of Bale, who had decided against him in a cause, which he had instituted upon a patient's refusing to pay the fee demanded for curing him of the gout. In consequence of his libels against his judges he was obliged to fly, and for years after led a wandering life, being now settled for a short time in one place, and now in another. His fame, however, visibly declined, and his hitherto faithful followers began to fall off, a circumstance which was not forgotten by his enemies in their attacks upon him. To these he cavalierly replied, "complaints have been made by some of my runaway servants and pupils, that none of them could stay with me on account of my odd ways. Now mark my answer. The hangman has taken to himself one and twenty of my flock, and helped them off to the other world-Heaven speed them all—how can a man remain with me if the hangman will not let him? Or what have my odd ways done to them? if they had avoided the hangman's ways, that would have been the true art." +

* Erasti Disp. p. 144, et seq.

+ Weiter ist auch ein klag ab mir von meinen verlassnen knechten etlichs theils und Discipulis auch etlichs theils das ihr keiner meiner wunderlicher weiss halben kön bey mir bleibe. Da merckent mein antwort. Der Hencker hat mir zu seinen gnaden genommen ein und zwenzig Knecht und von diser Welt abgethan Gott helff ihn allen. Wie kan einer bey mir bleiben so in der Hencker nicht bey mir lassen will? oder was hatt ihnen mein wunderliche weiss gethan? hetten sie den Hencker sein weiss geflohen wer die rechte kunst gewesen. Erster Theil der Bücher und Schriften des P. T. Bombast von Hohenhein, Paracelsi genannt, p. 143. Basel. 1589.

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In the same strain he goes on through pages, inveighing alike against doctors, barber-surgeons, apothecaries, ard pupils, all of whom filch his secrets, get possession of his patients, and then complain of his strange humours; upon which he reasonably enough asks, "solt das ein Lamb machen?—is that likely to make a lamb of one?" -We should think not; but the doctors of the present day can best answer the question.

Of the remainder of his life we know little, except that it was spent in constant strife with his enemies, whose numbers appear to have increased with his declining reputation. Nor was their enmity confined to words alone, a coin in which our doctor was fully able to repay them, for it seems highly probable that he met with a violent end. Sennert, whom I have so often referred to, and who, though very little known, is full of curious matter, but in an antique garb, notices a report which emanated from Crollius,* of his enemies having taken him off by poison; he adds, however, that the belief rests upon no sufficient testimony, and that it was much more probable Paracelsus died of drunkenness and gluttony,† from which assumed premises he draws the very ingenious inference, that he could hardly have possessed the philosopher's stone, since he was unable to cure himself. He adds too, we know not upon what authority, that for many years before his decease, Paracelsus remained convulsed and contracted, and finally died at the early age of forty-seven. Sprengel, however, gives from Hessling another version of his death; he says that our philosopher being at a banquet, the servants and other ruffians in the employ of his medical enemies hurled him down from a

Crollius followed close in the footsteps of Paracelsus, and wrote "Four Tractates on Philosophy Reformed and Improved." I have never seen this work except in Pinnell's translation, London, 1657. †D. Sennerti Opera, p. 192. Fol. Lugduni, 1676.

height and broke his neck. In confirmation of this, he observes that Sömmering found a deep breach in the left temporal bone of Paracelsus, which had penetrated to the bottom of the skull. But who shall say at what time the skull received this damage? it might have been by some accident long after the flesh had mouldered from the bones.

Another report is, that he died in St. Stephen's Hospital at Salzburg, in the year 1541, which would make him forty-eight, instead of forty-seven, at the time of his death, as asserted by Sennert.

It is no easy matter to understand either the medical, or the philosophical theories of Paracelsus, partly from his tendency to mysticism, and partly because he chose to give new meanings to old words, so that his works in fact require a peculiar glossary of their own. Take for instance the following. According to his notions, every natural body has a superlunar type or model, after which it has been formed, and the knowledge of this ideal he called, by a strange perversion of terms, Anatomy. In like manner he explains astrum to be the innate or essential power residing in anything, and defines alchemy as the art of drawing out the astrum from the metals. And more there is of the same kind, for the repetition of which our readers would give us few thanks.

The first article of his medical and philosophical creed appears to be, so far as we can understand him, that books are of no use, but that physicians must be inspired by heaven, and perfected by practice.* His so-called Emanation System supposes an original man flowing from the Godhead, in whom, through whom, and by whom all things are; it seems to have been much the same as the Pleroma of the Gnostics and Arians. It was based upon the general harmony of all things in nature, more par* Von Französischen Blattern, S. 501.

ticularly upon the accordance of the stars with sublunary objects. The Platonic idea of all things below having been formed after the model of things above was no doubt the origin of his system, but the transition was easy enough, to an enthusiast, from such a notion to that of the models themselves actually existing in the sublunary creations. Hence, as Sprengel well observes, his constant comparison of all earthly bodies with the firmament and the universe, for in them all the parts of our form are continued, not actually, but virtually and spiritually. As a philosopher, the physician recognizes the lower spheres, or the existence of the heavenly intelligences in sublunary matter; as an astronomer he recognizes the upper spheres, that is, he discovers the limbs of the human body in the firmament. Every thing that happens on earth, has previously happened above; and in sleep, heaven reveals to man the mysteries of the Cabbala, without a knowledge of which no one can pretend to be a physician. The first man, Adam, was intimately acquainted with it, and hence he knew the signs of all things, and gave to animals their most appropriate names. A principal dogma of this Cabbalistic system was Pantheism.

The whole physiological theory of Paracelsus consisted for the most part in the application of the Cabbala* to the explaining of the functions of the body, and here again we have the harmony of single parts with the heavenly intelligences. Yet he does not altogether mean us to understand an original connection between the stars and the human form; neither the creation of man,

* The HEBREW Cabbala signifies tradition; the ARTIFICIAL Consists in searching for abstruse significations of any word, or words in Scripture; and the CHRISTIAN implies a species of magic. It is to the second of these that Paracelsus most frequently alludes, either as a means of knowledge, or for the purpose of controuling the spirits.

nor his properties result from the stars, and therefore we must not say, man takes after Mars, but rather that Mars takes after man, for man is more than Mars and all the planets." He adds too in his usual contradictory manner," although there were no stars man would still be what he is;" while at the same time he would have us believe that the vital power in human beings is an emanation from the stars, and originates in the air. Thus the sun is connected with the heart, the moon with the brain, Jupiter with the liver, Saturn with the spleen, Mercury with the lungs, Mars with the gall, and Venus with the loins.† In another part he thus determines the places of the planets: the sun has influence over the navel and the centre of the belly; the moon, over the chine; Mercury, over the intestines; Mars, over the face; Jupiter, over the head; Saturn over the extremities. The pulse also is nothing else than the measure of the body's temperature after the manner of the six places held by the planets. Thus, two pulses under the feet belong to Saturn and Jupiter; two in the neck, to Mercury and Venus; two in the temples, to the Moon and Mercury; and the pulse connected with the Sun is below the heart. The macrocosm, or great world, has its seven pulses, described by the course of the planets, as their cessation is signified by the eclipses. In the macrocosm the influence of the Moon and Saturn is shown in the freezing of water, just as the microcosmic moon, the brain, coagulates the blood. Hence, people of a melancholy temperament, whom Paracelsus chooses to call lunatic, have thick blood. Above all, he will not allow us to talk of a man's having this or that complexion, but we must say, "that is Mars, or that is Venus." So too must the physician know the planets of the microcosm; the meriAnd also with ra aidoia.

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