192 PARACELSUS 



no experience, and it would be foolish to follow them in 

 things in which they were mistaken. Whatever I know 

 I have learned by my experience, and I therefore depend 

 upon my own knowledge, and not upon the ignorance of 

 another." 



" Our doctors say that the magnet attracts iron, and 

 verily it does not require a great deal of learning to be 

 able to perceive a fact that may be seen by every igno- 

 rant boor ; but there are qualities in a magnet not known 

 to every ignoramus, and one of these qualities is that the 

 magnet also attracts all martial humours that are in the 

 human system." 



" Martial diseases are such as are caused by auras 

 coming and expanding from a centre outwards, and at 

 the same time holding on to their centres ; in other 

 words, such as originate from a certain place, and extend 

 their influence without leaving the place from where 

 they originate. In such cases the magnet should be laid 

 upon the centre, and it will then attract the diseased 

 aura towards the centre, and circumscribe and localise the 

 disease, until the latter disease becomes reabsorbed into 

 its centre.^ It is useless to try to suppress the external 

 symptoms that are caused by a disease, if we at the same 

 time allow the disease to spread. A poisonous tree can- 

 not be kept from growing if we simply cut off some of 

 its branches or leaves ; but if we could cause the vital 

 essence which it draws by its roots from the earth to 

 descend again into the roots and re-enter the earth, the 

 poisonous tree would die on its own account. By the 

 attractive power of a magnet acting upon the diseased 

 aura of the blood in an affected part, that aura may 

 be made to return into the centre from which it origi- 

 nated, and be absorbed therein ; and thereby we destroy 

 the herd of the virus and cure the patient, and we 

 need not wait idly to see what Nature will do. The 



^ If we remember that the blood corpuscles, and consequently also the 

 nerve ivuras, contain iron, this statement appears very rational. 



