126 PARACELSUS 



through a wall, he will have first to make a hole through 

 it ; but a being who is not descended from Adam needs 

 no hole or door, but may pass through matter that ap- 

 pears solid to us, without causing any damage to it. 

 The beings not descended from Adam, as well as those 

 descended from him, are organised and have sub- 

 stantial bodies ; but there is as much difference between 

 the substance composing their bodies as there is be- 

 tween Matter and Spirit. Yet the Elementals are 

 not spirits, because they have flesh, blood, and bones; 

 they live and propagate offspring ; they eat and talk, act 

 and sleep, &c., and consequently they cannot be properly 

 called " spirits." They are beings occupying a place 

 between men and spirits, resembling men and women in 

 their organisation and form, and resembling spirits in 

 the rapidity of their locomotion. They are intermediary 

 compound beings, formed out of two parts joined into 

 one ; just as two colours mixed together will appear as 

 one colour, resembling neither one nor the other of the 

 two original ones. The Elementals have no higher prin- 

 ciples ; they are therefore not immortal, and when they 

 die they perish like animals. Neither water nor fire 

 can injure them, and they cannot be locked up in our 

 material prisons. They are, however, subject to diseases. 

 Their costumes, actions, forms, ways of speaking, &c., are 

 not very unlike those of human beings ; but there are a 

 great many varieties. They have only animal intel- 

 lects, and are incapable of spiritual development " {Lib. 

 Philos,, ii.). 



" These spirits of Nature are not animals ; they have 

 a reason and language like man ; they have minds, but 

 no spiritual soul. This may appear strange and in- 

 credible ; but the possibilities of nature are not limited 

 by man's knowledge of them, and the wisdom of God is 

 unfathomable. They have children, and these children 

 are like themselves. Man is made after the image of 

 God, and they may be said to be made after the image 



