172 PARACELSUS 



a product of speculation and imagination. If you are 

 not able to see a thing, it will be useless to try to 

 imagine how it may look; perception enables you to 

 see, but speculation is blind. Wisdom is not given by 

 Nature, nor does man inherit it from the latter; it is 

 planted in him by his eternal parent, and grows and 

 increases in him by practice." 



It is not true, as has been asserted by certain modern 

 writers, that Paracelsus has objected to the dissecting 

 of dead bodies and called it useless ; what he said is, 

 that such a practice was unnecessary for those who had 

 developed the true inner sight ; just as it is useless for 

 a man to walk on crutches when he is in perfect health. 

 He says : — 



" The anatomy of man is twofold. One aspect of it 

 may be known by dissecting the body, so as to find out 

 the position of its bones, muscles, and veins, &c. ; but 

 this is the least important. The other is more important, 

 and means to introduce a new life into the organism, to 

 see the transmutations taking place therein, to know 

 what the blood is, and what kind of sulphur, salt, 

 and mercury (energy, substance, and mind) it contains " 

 (Paramir., i. cap. c). 



" By the power of wisdom man is enabled to recognise 

 the unity of the All, and to perceive that the microcosm 

 of man is the counterpart of the macrocosm of Nature. 

 There is nothing in heaven or upon the earth which may 

 not be found in man, and there is nothing in man but 

 what exists in the macrocosm of Nature. The two are 

 the same, and differ from each other in nothing but their 

 forms. This is a truth which will be perceived by every 

 true philosopher, but a merely animal intellect will not be 

 able to see it, nor would man's fancy enable him to under- 

 stand it. That philosophy which is based upon wisdom — 

 i.e., upon the recognition of the truth of a thing — 

 is true philosophy ; but that which is based upon fancy 

 and the idle speculation is uncertain. The former is the 



