76 PARACELSUS 



not be educated in the child, but it may be overpowered 

 and driven out by dogmatism and error. Intellectual 

 acquisitions are perishable; memory is often lost much 

 quicker in old age or on account of cerebral diseases 

 than it is developed in youth.^ Children may inherit 

 from their parents the powers to employ their reason, 

 but they do not inherit reason itself, because reason is 

 an attribute of the Divine Spirit. Man cannot lose his 

 reason, but he can become lost to it, because reason is 

 an universal principle, and cannot be owned by any indi- 

 vidual man, even if it is manifested in him. 



" A man carrying seed in him (having a lewd imagi- 

 nation) uses no reason ; he lives only within his lusts and 

 morbid fancies. God has created man that he may live 

 as a free being within the light of nature ; therefore the 

 philosopher should remain free in that light and not live 

 in the seed of nature, which is called Allara. God has 

 put the seed into the imagination ; but He has given 

 to man a free will, so that he may either allow himself 

 to be carried away by his fancies, or rise superior to 

 what nature desires in him " (Gehaerung.) 



Woman and Marriage. 



Woman, in so far as she is a human being, contains, 

 like man, the germs of all that exists in the Macrocosm, 

 and can manifest the same mental characteristics as man. 

 Moreover, there are males with preponderating female 

 soul-qualities, and females in whom the male elements 

 are preponderating ; but woman, as such, represents the 

 will (including love and desire), and man, as such, 

 represents intellect (including the imagination) ; only 

 in the Lord, within either of them, i.e., in their own 



^ Numerous cases are known in which persons of great learning have 

 become simpletons in their old age ; others, where such persons, in conse- 

 quence of a short sickness, lost all their memory, and had to learn to read 

 again, beginning with the ABC. 



