According to the cabalistic doctrine, the various events of life and all natural phenomena are due to influences exerted by gods, devils, and the stars. Each member and principal organ of the human body was supposed to correspond with some planet or constellation. Similar foolish ideas were widely prevalent, especially in Germany. Paracelsus was an ignoramus, who affected to despise all the sciences, because of his lack of knowledge of them. While prating much about divine light as the source of all learning and culture, his boorish mien and rude manners afforded evidence that he did not profit much by its happy influence.[246:2]
The Paracelsians maintained that life is a perpetual germinative process, controlled by the archaeus or vital force, which was supposed to preside over all organic phenomena. The principal archaeus was believed to have its residence in the stomach, but subordinates guarded the interests of the other important bodily organs.
Nature was sufficient for the cure of the majority of ills. But when the internal physician, the man himself, was tired or incapable, some remedy had to be applied, which should antagonize the spiritual seed of the disease.[247:1] Such remedies, known as arcana, were alleged to possess marvellous efficiency, but their composition was kept secret. That is to say, they were quack medicines.
Paracelsus maintained that a man who, by abstraction of all sensuous influences, and by child-like submission to the will of God, has made himself a partaker of the heavenly intelligence, becomes thereby possessed of the philosopher's stone. He is never at a loss. All creatures on earth and powers in heaven are submissive to him; he can cure all diseases, and can himself live as long as he chooses, for he holds the elixir of life, which Adam and the early fathers employed before the Flood, and by which they attained to great longevity.
The philosopher's stone, known also as the great elixir, or the red tincture, when shaken in very small quantity into melted silver, lead or other metal, was said to transmute it into gold. In minute doses it was supposed to prolong life and restore youth, and was then called elixir vitæ.[247:2] Says Ben Jonson in "The Alchemist" (1610), "He that has once the Flower of the Sun, the perfect Ruby which we call Elixir . . . by its virtue can confer honour, love, respect, long life; give safety, valour, yea and victory, to whom he will. In eight and twenty days he'll make an old man of fourscore a child."
Paracelsus was foremost among a group of extraordinary characters, who claimed to be the representatives of science at the close of the Middle Ages. These men were of a bold, inquisitive temper, and with all their faults, they had a noble thirst for knowledge. "Better the wildest guess-work, than that perfect torpor which follows the parrot-like repetition of the words of a predecessor!"[248:1] These irregular practitioners, however impetuous and ill-balanced, were pioneers in opening up new fields of investigation, and in exploring new paths, which facilitated the progress of their successors in the search for scientific truths.
AGRIPPA
Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim, a German alchemist, philosopher, and cabalist, of noble ancestry, was born at Cologne, on the Rhine, September 14, 1486. Having received a liberal education and being by nature versatile, he became in his youth a secretary at the Court of the German Emperor, Maximilian I.
He served moreover in the army under that monarch, during several Italian campaigns, and by reason of gallantry, won the spurs of a knight. Becoming averse to the profession of arms, he studied with avidity law, medicine, philosophy, and languages, and in 1509 became Professor of Hebrew at Dôle, in the department of Jura, France. Here his caustic humor and intemperate language involved him in quarrels with the monks, while his restless disposition impelled him to rove in search of adventure. He visited successively London, Pavia, and Metz, where he became a magistrate and town orator.