THE 
JOURNAL OF SCIENCE. 
APRIL, 1883. 
I. PARACELSUS.* 
By Constance C. W. Naden. 
“ If I had time to attend to such matters I would send the Pope 
and the Reformers to school.” — Paracelsus. 
» ERHAPS I ought to apologise for occupying the time 
of Science students with an account of one generally 
described as a disreputable quack. Yet I take heart 
of grace on reflecting that this seeming charlatan was a 
great power for good and evil in his own time, and has be- 
queathed to us certain practical benefits, a few striking 
ideas, and the impression of a very original and vivid per- 
sonality. 
To study profitably the problems involved in the life and 
labours of Paracelsus we should recall the tendencies, with 
regard to science and speculation, of the age in which he 
lived. He was born in 1493, the year after the discovery of 
the New World, — nearly fifty years after the invention of 
printing, — at the noon of the Renaissance and the dawn of 
the Reformation. The period of his life was a time of flux, 
of rapid growth, fervid and bright with the agitation of new 
and old ideas. In spite of the enthusiasm with which the 
Humanists had exalted Plato, the authority of Aristotle re- 
mained supreme in physical research ; and since more accu- 
rate versions of his works had appeared, the verbose 
argumentations of the Schools were beginning to be dis- 
* Read at a meeting of the Mason College Union, Birmingham, February 
16th, 1883. 
VOL. V. (THIRD SERIES.) 
O 
