¹ Pagel, W., Paracelsus, 1958, p. 66Google Scholar, Karger, S., Basel; and Koyré, A., Mystiques, Spirituels, Alchimistes, 1955, p. 47, Librairie Armand Colin, Paris.Google Scholar

² Pagel, W., Das Medizinische Weltbild des Paracelsus, 1962, p. 5, Franz Steiner, Wiesbaden.Google Scholar

³ Jevons, F. R., see page 148.Google Scholar

⁴ ‘The tangible part is the body, the invisible is the stars.’ Astronomia magna, Sudhoff xii, 20. ‘The spirit that springs from nature guides the natural reason, but the spirit of God guides divine knowledge … the first dies, the other remains alive.’ Ibid., xii, 279, Cf. Pagel, (1962), op. cit., p. 58.Google Scholar

⁵ Its origin in this way is seen clearly in Erklärung der ganzen Astronomie, Sudhoff, xii, 456–457.Google Scholar

⁶ ‘Man has two bodies, one from the earth, the other from the stars … The elemental, material body goes to the grave with its essence; the sidereal, subtle body dissolves gradually and goes back to its source; but the spirit of God in us … returns to Him.’ Astronomia magna, Sudhoff xii, 18. Since the astral component is mortal, the approximation made by Koyré (op. cit., p. 52) of these three parts to body, soul and spirit must not be taken too literally. On occasion, it is true, Paracelsus refers to the mortal, astral component as ‘soul’ (e.g. in the fragment Von erkantnus des gestirns, Sudhoff xii, 495), but elsewhere the soul is divine (e.g. Astronomia magna, Huser x, 266). ‘Spirit’ was often used by Paracelsus for something ‘lower’ than soul—in the tradition usual in biological contexts, dating back to Aristotle (Peck, A. L., Appendix B to Aristotle, Generation of Animals, 1943, pp. 576–593Google Scholar, Loeb Classical Library, Heinemann, London); but he was aware of the primarily theological tradition that made spirit the highest (e.g. Astronomia magna, Huser x, 263).Google Scholar

⁷ Astronomia magna, Huser x, 13.Google Scholar

⁸ The neo-Platonic concept of an ‘astral body’ is discussed by Dodds, E. R. in Proclus. The Elements of Theology, 1963, Appendix II, p. 313Google Scholar, 2nd edition, Oxford University Press; and by Pagel, W., Ambix, 1960, viii, 125.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁹ Das Buch Paragranum, Sudhoff viii, 164.Google Scholar

¹⁰ Volumen Paramirum, Huser i, 35–36.Google Scholar

¹¹ Astronomia magna, Huser x, 266.Google Scholar The wisdom of the flesh is here referred to as animal wisdom, but elsewhere animals are credited with reason of the astral kind, and astral wisdom in man is called animal as distinct from the divine (Interpretation of the Stars, Waite ii, 287Google Scholar; Erklärung der ganzen Astronomie, Sudhoff xii, 457–458).Google Scholar

¹² Libri Philosophiae, Huser ix, 46.Google Scholar

¹³ Interpretation of the Stars, Waite ii, 282–283.Google Scholar

¹⁴ Ein ander Paragranum, Huser ii, 125.Google Scholar

¹⁵ Astronomia magna, Huser x, 104.Google Scholar When, elsewhere, the firmamental is distinguished from the earthy as needing no food, it is evidently only the material kind of food that is referred to (Volumen Paramirum, Huser i, 36).Google Scholar

¹⁶ De Viribus membrorum, Huser iii, 1.Google Scholar

¹⁷ Ibid., iii, 3.

¹⁸ Archidoxies, Book IV, Waite i, 22.Google Scholar

¹⁹ ‘For heaven is so united to the elemental body that infection can fall from the invisible into the visible, whereas the visible cannot act on the invisible.’ Astronomia magna, Huser x, 82.Google Scholar Indeed, the invisible body ‘has the ordained purpose … of perfecting [visible] bodies’. De virtute imaginativa, Sudhoff xiv, 310.Google Scholar

²⁰ Interpretation of the Stars, Waite ii, 287Google Scholar; Consideration of the Stars, Waite ii, 290.Google Scholar

²¹ Concerning the Nature of Things, Book IX, Waite i, 173.Google Scholar

²² De virtute imaginativa, Sudhoff xiv, 310.Google Scholar

²³ Here again, Paracelsus followed a neo-Platonic tradition. Cf. Pagel, , 1960, op. cit., p. 128Google Scholar; 1962, op. cit., p. 57; Jevons, F. R., Archiv, für Geschichte der Philosophie, 1965 (in the press).Google Scholar

²⁴ But only too visible. Paracelsus had trouble in keeping his similes for the non-corporeal both invisible and intangible; sometimes he preferred air which, though tangible, is invisible.

²⁵ De virtute imaginativa, Sudhoff xiv, 310–311.Google Scholar

²⁶ Ibid., xiv, 313.

²⁷ Archidoxies, Book I, Waite ii, 7.Google Scholar

²⁸ Opus Paramirum, De morbis invisibilibus, Huser i, 271.Google Scholar

²⁹ Concerning the Nature of Things, Book IX, Waite i, 174.Google Scholar

³⁰ De Generatione Hominis, Huser i, 343.Google Scholar The Liquor Vitae is something very like the Spiritus Vitae, being described as a hidden man distributed all over the visible man.

³¹ De peste libri tres, Sudhoff ix, 578. Action by the human body at a distance is explained by analogy to the sun shining through glass (Von den unsichtbaren Krankheiten, Sudhoff ix, 325).Google Scholar

³² Volumen Paramirum, Huser i, 50–53Google Scholar; De virtute imaginativa, Sudhoff xiv, 317.Google Scholar

³³ De peste libri tres, Sudhoff ix, 593–595.Google Scholar

³⁴ Astronomia magna, Huser x, 83.Google Scholar

³⁵ For instance, Das Buch Paragranum, Waite ii, 151–153Google Scholar; Archidoxies, Book V, Waite ii, 37. In the latter passage arcana are distinguished from quintessences and the ‘ancients’ are chided for their error in not distinguishing between them.

³⁶ Thorndike, L., A History of Magic and Experimental Science, 1934, iii, 357–359, Columbia Univ. Press, New YorkGoogle Scholar; Multhauf, R. P., Isis, 1954, xlv, 359.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

³⁷ For Paracelsus, ‘there is nothing corporeal but has latent within itself a spirit and life’ (Concerning the Nature of Things, Book IV, Waite i, 135Google Scholar), but in assessing the significance of this apparent hylozoism it is important to remember what he meant by ‘life’. The word did not necessarily imply any properties that would be regarded today as biological; rather, it summarized the essential nature or outstanding characteristic of a thing. Thus ‘the life of sulphur is a combustible, ill-smelling fatness … the life of gems and corals is mere colour … the life of sweet things is a subtle sweetness’ (Ibid., pp. 136–137). Archei, such as that in the earth which makes metals (Ibid., Book I, p. 125) and that of the waters which makes stones (Ibid., Book II, p. 129) can be regarded as life-principles only if ‘life’ is given this wide meaning.

³⁸ Archidoxies, Book IV, Waite ii, 22–23.Google Scholar

³⁹ In its permanence, the quintessence might seem to partake of the divine. The idea of an eternal substance in sublunary matter was, indeed, one of the points criticized by Erastus (Pagel, , 1958, op. cit., p. 323).Google Scholar

⁴⁰ From animal flesh and blood, ‘a certain resemblance to a quintessence can be extracted’ (Archidoxies, Book IV, Waite ii, 25Google Scholar); this is understandable, since the sidereal body, like the elemental, takes some time to decay (Astronomia magna, Huser x, 71Google Scholar). Such extracts are related to mumia, which is best obtained from bodies killed violently before the end of their predestined life-span and therefore still rich in the balsam in which life lies hidden (Concerning the Nature of Things, Book VI, Waite i, 147Google Scholar; Fünf Traktat Philosophiae, Huser ix, 400–404).Google Scholar

⁴¹ ‘Body is not necessary to the medicine. But it has body so that our eyes can see it. Without body it would not be possible for us.’ Opus Paramirum, De morbis invisibilibus, Huser i, 305.Google Scholar

⁴² Archidoxies, Book IV, Waite ii, 24.Google Scholar In the case of plant products, taste and odour are also important and must not be lost during isolation (Ibid., pp. 33–34). Essentially the same position was still taken two centuries later by the sober, critical and erudite Boerhaave in connection with his Spiritus Rector (Jevons, F. R., Medical History, 1962, vi, 343).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁴³ Concerning the Nature of Things, Book IX, Waite i, 187.Google Scholar

⁴⁴ Interpretation of the Stars, Waite ii, 286Google Scholar; Vom Erkanntnus des Gestirns, Huser x, 481.Google Scholar

⁴⁵ The ‘spiritualization of matter’ is discussed by Pagel, (1958), op. cit., p. 86Google Scholar; cf. also Idem., Ambix, 1961, ix, 117.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ Often, when Paracelsus spoke of elements, he seems to have been referring not to the constituents of matter but to regions of the cosmos. R. Hooykas, who pointed this out (Janus, 1935, xxxix, 175), saw these two meanings as quite separate. Perhaps the connection between them is to be found in another kind of macrocosm-microcosm analogy expressed by using the same word for the two things linked by the comparison—associating, that is, the same generative force or ‘mother’ (matrix) with a region of the cosmos and with certain sets of properties in earthly bodies. A similar significance of the ambiguous use of the word ‘star’ is suggested elsewhere (see note 3). These situations exemplify the pervasive role of analogy in Paracelsus's explanations and, correspondingly, of metaphor in his terminology, the difficulty of which is largely due to the way in which the metaphors are not only mixed but also superimposed, so that the meanings of words double and redouble.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ The boundaries are movable; Paracelsus often used words of classification to indicate relative rather than absolute positions. Some apparent self-contradictions become understandable when this is realized. Another example is the use of the word ‘animal’ discussed in note 11.

⁴⁸ For instance, De peste libri tres, Sudhoff ix, 568.Google Scholar

⁴⁹ For instance, Paragranum, 1. Ausarbeitung, Sudhoff viii, 91.Google Scholar

⁵⁰ Aristotle, De Anima, i, 2, 403b20–405b30.

⁵¹ Das Buch Paragranum, Waite ii, 151.Google Scholar

⁵² In the classical pharmacology, the aim was to neutralize any undesirable side-effects of one drug by adding another. Such ‘correcting … is just as if a dog should break wind in a room and you should kill the stink with fumigations and juniper wood; but does not the smell remain …?’ (Das Buch Paragranum, Waite ii, 161).Google Scholar