COSMOLOGY 59 



certain plant, possessing certain powers, will induce 

 certain similar vital ethers to become active in certain 

 organs if the plant and the organ are related to the same 

 "star." Certain plants, therefore, act as antidotes in 

 certain diseases, in the same manner as fire will destroy- 

 all things that have not the power to resist it. The 

 neutralisation, destruction, or removal of any specific 

 elements producing disease, the change of an unhealthy 

 and abnormal action of the vital currents into a normal 

 and healthy state, constitutes the basis of the therapeutic 

 system of Paracelsus. His object was to re-establish in 

 the diseased organism the necessary equilibrium, and to 

 restore the lost vitality, by attracting the vital principles 

 from living objects and powers. Remedies containing 

 the required quality of that principle in the greatest 

 quantity were most apt to replace such lost powers and 

 to restore health.^ 



The organisms — that is to say, the material forms 

 of invisible principles — take their origin from the soul 

 of the world, symbolised as " water." ^ This doctrine of 

 Paracelsus is therefore the same as the ancient doctrine 

 of Thales, and as the old Brahminical doctrine according 

 to which the world came into existence from an e^^ 

 (allegorically speaking) laid in water (the soul) by Brahm 

 (Wisdom). He says that by the decomposition of that 

 essence a " mucilage " is formed, containing the germs of 

 life, out of which, by generatio aequivoca, first the lower 

 and afterwards the higher organisms are formed. 



We see, therefore, that the doctrine of Paracelsus bears 

 a great resemblance to the one advocated by the greatest 

 modem philosophers, such as Haeckel and Darwin ; with 

 this difference, however, that Paracelsus looks upon the 

 continually evoluting forms as necessary vehicles of a 

 continually progressing living spiritual principle, seeking 



* Thus Paracelsus employed not only the vital magnetism (mesmerism) 

 of human beings, but also that of animals and plants, for the cure of disease. 



* " The Spiiit of God moved upon the face of the waters " {Oen. i. 2). 



