MEDICINE 213 



circle may expand so as to encompass the whole, so the 

 heaven in man may grow so as to expand towards the 

 whole, or contract into his own centre and disappear." 



" Why does man want to eat, to drink, and to breathe 

 but because he is related to the elements of earth, water, 

 and air, and must attract these things to his constitution ? 

 Why does he need warmth but because he is related to 

 the element of the fire and cannot do without it ? And all 

 these elements may produce diseases. There is no disease 

 in the elements, but the disease starts from the centres. 

 The origin of diseases is in man, and not outside of man ; 

 but outside influences act upon the inside and cause 

 diseases to grow. Man is himself a cosmos. A physi- 

 cian who knows nothing about Cosmology will know little 

 about disease. He should know what exists in heaven 

 and upon the earth, what lives in the four elements and 

 how they act upon man ; in short, he should know what 

 man is, his origin and his constitution ; he should know 

 the whole man, and not merely his external body. If 

 man were in possession of a perfect knowledge of self he 

 would not need to be sick at all." 



" Diseases serve to teach man that he is made out of 

 the universal lAmbus, and that he is like the animals 

 and by no means better than they. He should study 

 himself and the rest of creation, so that he may attain 

 self-knowledge ; and this self-knowledge should be above 

 all obtained by the physician. Man is the highest of all 

 animals, and the whole of the animal creation is contained 

 in him, and, moreover, he has the power to attain self- 

 knowledge, a faculty which the animals do not possess." 



" Every star (faculty) in the nature of man is of a 

 double nature, and he who knows the stars also knows 

 the nature of the disease ; but the Arcana of Nature are 

 single.^ If the two opposites in the constitution of man 

 (heat and cold, love and hatred, &c.) are at war with 



^ That which Ih divine in man is only one, and has only one, aspect ; all 

 other things have two aspects, a material and an ethereal one. 



