1883*] Paracelsus . 191 
proportion. All others were more or less out of health, and 
it was theoretically possible that iron and copper, lead and 
tin, might be “ cured ” by the alchemist and restored to their 
pristine Paradisaical purify. Spite of the errors into which 
he was led, some praise is due to Paracelsus for his appre- 
hension of the faft that vital processes are identical with 
those which take place in the inanimate world. “ Ignis vita , 
lignum corpus ” — the body is the wood, the life is the fire — 
was one of his sayings, to which modern Physiology has 
given a new import. Much mysticism enfolded this embry- 
onic science. “ Digestion,” said in substance our professor, 
“ is presided over by a spiritual ruler, who lives in the 
stomach, and is called the Archseus. If he is ill or out of 
temper, dyspepsia ensues, so that it is the business of a wise 
physician to keep on good terms with this gastric potentate, 
and to study his tastes and necessities. This will in part 
be accomplished by a diligent study of the stars. Man has 
an astral as well as a terrestrial body, and all his motions 
are typified and prefigured in the skies. Human destiny is 
not influenced by celestial phenomena, but runs parallel with 
them, in a kind of pre-established harmony.” According to 
this theory, indeed, all Nature is literally alive. Even mine- 
rals have a feeble animation, for they grow, feed, and excrete. 
This may have been simply a metaphorical way of describing 
chemical union and decomposition, which in reality form an 
essential fadtor in that sum of forces which we have named 
Life. Fire, Air, Earth, and Water are deposed from their 
Aristotelean position as elements, and regarded as conditions 
of matter, under the names of the Hot, the Cold, the Dry, 
and the Moist, — the cosmic vitality peculiar to each being 
allegorised by the invention of appropriate genii, called 
Salamanders, Sylphs, Gnomes, and Undines. That Para- 
celsus seriously considered these beings as other than poetic 
fidtions, typifying the universality of life, is scarcely pro- 
bable, though he doubtless often amused his cynical and 
world-worn spirit by playing on the credulity of both learned 
and vulgar. He may, however, have believed to some extent 
in his dodtrine of “ signatures.” The form of a natural 
objedt was supposed to be an index to its properties. For 
instance, the venation of the leaves of the lesser celandine 
was compared to the venation of the liver, and this fancied 
resemblance was taken as a sign that the celandine must be 
good for jaundice. The bright petals of the littl q Euphrasia 
seem dotted with tiny violet eyes; therefore the plant was 
a specific for ophthalmia, on the principle of “ Similia simi- 
libus curantur .” It is not necessary to point out the fallacy 
