Paraclete

“ No words could express more clearly the personality of the subject concerning whom the testimony is given. Our Lord contrasts Him with Himself as "another Paraclete" a strange manner of speech if the other Paraclete were a mere influence. Then personal acts and attributes are assigned to Him: He will teach, He will bring to remembrance; when the Lord Jesus departs, He will come in His place; and he will guide into truth, and declare things to come. If such language does not signify the personality of the subject, no language could certainly do so. ”

“ The mystic views of Paracelsus, or those attributed to him, are curious rather than useful. He seemed to have had as much capacity for belief as he had disbelief in other philosophers’ speculations. He believed in gnomes in the interior of the earth, undines in the seas, sylphs in the air, and salamanders in fire. These were the Elementals, beings composed of soul-substance, but not necessarily influencing our lives. The Elementals know only the mysteries of the particular element in which they live. There is life in all matter. Every mineral, vegetable, and animal has its astral body. ”

“ But Paracelsus was a chemist, and the terrestrial nature of man was his peculiar interest. The theologian may prescribe for the human soul, and it is the duty of the astronomer to care for the human intellect; but the practical physician must understand the human body. Here is the Archæus imprisoned in the gross terrestrial body! It is in continual warfare with that body. What is the nature of that body which is so hostile to the human vital principle? Here Paracelsus introduces his strange chemical analysis which characterizes him as a Renaissance physician. ”

“ He had already, as a believer in the theory of magnetism, introduced into England the celebrated ‘weapon salve’ of Paracelsus, which healed the severest wound by sympathy—not being applied to the wound itself, but to the weapon or instrument that had caused it. The recipe, as formulated by Paracelsus, would hardly be approved by modern practitioners: ‘Take of moss growing on the head of a thief who has been hanged and left in the air, of [Pg 187] real mummy, of human blood still warm, one ounce each; of human suet, two ounces; of linseed-oil, turpentine, and Armenian bole, of each two drachms. ”

“ Like most others of his time, Paracelsus believed firmly in the doctrine of "signatures"—a belief that every organ and part of the body had a corresponding form in nature, whose function was to heal diseases of the organ it resembled. The vagaries of this peculiar doctrine are too numerous and complicated for lengthy discussion, and varied greatly from generation to generation. In general, however, the theory may be summed up in the words of Paracelsus: "As a woman is known by her shape, so are the medicines." ”

“ If thou shalt operate in a third matter, thou shalt effect nothing: they medle with this, whoever work not in our Salt, which is Mercury, but in Herbs, Animals, Stones, and all Minerals, excepting our Gold, and Silver covered over with the sphere of Saturne. And whosoever desires to attaine to his desired end, let him understand the conversion of the Elements to make light things heavy, and to make spirits no spirits; then hee shall not worke in a strange thing. The Fire is the [Pg 46] Rule, whatsoever is done, is done by Fire ”

“ Paracelsus maintained the animation of everything; all minerals both feed and render their food. And besides this life of every part of nature, it is peopled with spiritual beings, inhabitants of the four elements, subject to disease and death like man. ”

“ He believed the human body to be composed of salt, sulphur, and mercury, and that in these “three fast substances” health and disease consist. To give Paracelsus his due, although empiricism and quackery were the chief elements in his career, he exerted an undoubted influence on the medical practice of his time, and with all his egotism did his best to advance the science and art of medicine. ”

“ Paracelsus, a man of powerful genius, but not well balanced in mind, of corrupt morals, and of an unlimited pride, had, notwithstanding these undeniable defects, the merit of beginning a healthy reform in the science and practice of medicine, by substituting the study of nature for the authority of the ancients and by giving a great importance to chemistry, both for the explanation of organic phenomena and for the cure of disease. ”

“ P. eupatria, the Rose-banded Parakeet or Alexandrine, and P. torquata, the Rose-ringed Parakeet, are similar species from the Indian Region; they are green, with rose-coloured nuchal collar, black neck-stripes, bluish median and yellow and green lateral rectrices, all tipped with yellow, and in the former a red wing-patch. The female shews no pink or black. These birds frequent both hills and plains, being often found in societies; they have a loud musical note, feed on fruits and grain, and lay some four eggs on the chips in a hole cut out by themselves. ”

“ All that Browning neglected or veiled in Paracelsus he here thrusts into stern relief. The passion and crime there faintly discerned in the background of ideally beautiful figures are here his absorbing theme. The curious technicalities of the chemist's workshop, taken for granted in Paracelsus, are now painted with a realism reminiscent of Romeo's Apothecary and The Alchemist. And the outward drama of intrigue, completely effaced in Paracelsus by the inward drama of soul, sounds delusive scorn and laughter in the background, the more sinister because it is not seen. ”

“ These are the physical features of the ordinary parakeet. If this bird was found in Virginia when it was first explored, of which from this description, it seems, there can be no doubt, it now has entirely disappeared, an assertion that cannot be made concerning the other species to which the earliest observers have left references. There is no modern bird with which the parakeet of Hamor and Strachey can be identified; there is none that even approaches it in the general character of its plumage. ”

“ But seeing there are as many opinions, as men, wee will leave every one to his own opinion: Let him that will not follow our counsell, and imitate Nature, continue in his errour. [Pg 124] Indeed particulars may easily bee made, if you have a Tree, whose young twigs may bee graffed into divers trees; as if you have one water, divers kinds of flesh may be boiled in it, and according to the diversity of the flesh the broth hath its tast, and this from the same foundation. Wee conclude therefore that there is but one Nature, as well in Metalls as in other things, but her operation is various ”

“ Paracelsus promises to liberate him if he will procure him a medicine which will cure all sick people, and a tincture which will turn everything into gold. The Devil agrees to do this, and Paracelsus takes his pen-knife, gets hold of the plug with it, and with some difficulty takes it out. A hideous black spider crawls out, which runs down the trunk of the tree, but hardly has it touched the ground before it disappears, and a tall thin man with squinting red eyes, who is dressed in a red cloak, rises as if from the earth. ”

“ But [Pg 25] that is a witty Art, that can shorten any thing in the Minerall, and Vegetable Kingdome, but not in the Animall: in the Minerall Kingdome it perfects that, which Nature could not, by reason of the crude air, which with its vehemency filled the pores of every body; not onely in the bowells, but also in the superficies of the earth. As I have already said in the foregoing Chapters. But that this may bee the more easily understood, I will adde hereunto, that the Elements striving amongst themselves send forth their seed into the Center of the earth, as into their reins ”

“ The key to the knowledge of nature is in the Scriptures only, studied by means of the Spirit of God communicating an interior light to the contemplative soul. So great an obscurity reigns over the writings of Paracelsus, which, in Latin at least, are not originally his own, for he had but a scanty acquaintance with that language, that it is difficult to pronounce upon his opinions, especially as he affects to use words in senses imposed by himself; the development of his physical system consisted in an accumulation of chemical theorems, none of which are conformable to sound philosophy. ”

“ In the spirit of the ancient mystics he describes the exaltation of one whose soul is inwardly absorbed, so that the ordinary operation of the external senses is suspended. A man thus divinely intoxicated, lost in thoughts so profound, may seem, says Paracelsus, a mere fool to the men of this world, but in the eyes of God he is the wisest of mankind, a partaker of the secrecy of the Most High. ”

“ Paracelsus having finished his Seven Rules of the Properties of Metals, begins after a sort, to repeat and illustrate his sentiment or opinion, comforting the Operator, lest happily he should be discouraged, if his affairs do not presently meet with good success; but let him ingeniously proceed, because Nature makes nothing in vain; that which is least of all believed, comes most of all to pass ”

“ P. Green; front, chin, under wing-covers, and spots in the neck, flanks and scapulars crimson; shoulders dark-red; crown, external wing-covers, and lateral tail-feathers violet-blue; quills blueish-black margined with yellow. P. discolor. Red-shouldered Parakeet. White's Voyage, pl. at p. 263. La Perruche Banks. Le Vaill, pl. 50.
This is another of the splendid little Parakeets inhabiting the forests of New Holland; and vivid as the colouring may appear in our figure, it sinks into dullness when compared with the bird itself. Dr. ”

“ Paracelsus’ idea of the existence of an “archaeus,” a power which presides over all physiological actions as well as over all the operations of medicinal drugs, resembles very closely the “vital force,” or “animism” so strongly championed by Stahl in the seventeenth century.
From all that I have said above regarding the excitable nature of Paracelsus it seems almost a waste of time to tell our readers that his contributions to the science of [406] surgery were of very slight value. ”

“ From open vision, and that wonderful insight of the master or adept into the secrets of nature, Paracelsus is able to give us the most positive information concerning their bodily formation, the nature of their existence, and other extraordinary particulars, which proves that he has actually seen and observed them, and doubtless also employed them as the obedient servants of his purified will; a power into which the spiritual man ascends by a species of right, when he has thrown off, or conquered, the thraldom of matter in his own body, and stands open-eyed at "the portals of his deep within." ”

“ With few appliances, with no accurate knowledge, with no help from the work of others, without polished and sharpened weapons, and without the skill that comes from long handling of instruments of precision, what could Paracelsus effect in his struggle to wrest her secrets from nature? ”

“ The spirit, mad with rage, shook the fir-tree as though with a whirlwind, that he might drive out the stopper which Paracelsus had thrust in, but his fury was of no avail. It held fast, and left him there with little hope of escape, for, on account of the great drifts of snow from the mountains, the forest will never be cut down, and, although he should call night and day, nobody in that neighbourhood ever ventures near the spot. ”

“ Paracelsus was said to have endeavoured to extract a perfume from human excrement that might become as fashionable as civet from the cat. It was called zibeta occidentalis, the back being, according to Paracelsus, the western part of the body. ”

“ The poem Paracelsus is divided into five parts, each of which describes an important period in the experience of Paracelsus, the celebrated German-Swiss physician, alchemist, and philosopher of the sixteenth century. Book I tells of the eagerness and pride with which he set out in his youth to compass all knowledge; he believed himself commissioned of God to learn Truth and to give it to mankind. ”

“ On the basis of principles substantially the same with those represented by Agrippa, Paracelsus developed, in his own way, 2-73the doctrine of signatures, and the relationships of the macrocosm and the microcosm.
The special illumination of the Holy Ghost was not more essential to the monastic perfection of preceding mystics, than to the success of the theosophist in that devout pursuit of science inculcated by Paracelsus. The true Physician—he who would be wise indeed in the mysteries of nature, must seek with ceaseless importunity the light that cometh from above. ”

“ Let this be granted for a truth, that nothing grows without seed: for where there is no seed, the thing is dead. It is necessary therefore that four Elements should make the seed of Metalls, or bring them forth without a seed: if they are produced without seed, then they cannot be perfect; seeing every thing without seed is imperfect, by the rule of composition: hee which gives no credit to this undoubted truth, is not worthy to search into the secrets of nature; for there is nothing made in the world, that is destitute of seed. ”

“ The rock splits into two pieces with a loud crack, and the Devil disappears but soon comes out again, and gives Paracelsus two small glasses—a yellow one, containing the gold tincture, and a white one the medicine. Then he once more strikes the rock, whereupon it closes together again in a moment. And now they both return, the Devil intending to go to Innsbrück to fetch the man who had imprisoned him. Paracelsus has compassion on the exorciser, and resolves to rescue him. When they once more arrive at the fir-tree he admires the Devil for having been able to turn himself into a spider. ”