194 
Paracelsus . 
[April, 
the world where myriads of tiny individuals are born, live, 
move about, perform their various functions, and die. May 
he not truly call himself a Microcosm ? Even the dodtrine 
of Reminiscence or Intuition must find a place, though a 
humbler one than that assigned it by Plato and Paracelsus. 
It is what we name Instinft or Hereditary Aptitude, and of 
course plays a great part in all theories of Evolution. Every 
one will now-a-days admit that the mind is not a mere sheet 
of white paper, on which the external world writes. It is 
rather a mould, into which the external world is poured. 
The young of all animals — of man among the rest — come 
into existence with certain organic predispositions, and can 
perform certain actions without being taught, and others 
with very little teaching. The mind grows in that direction 
in which the organism is bent. Even abstract ideas, though 
not actually innate, can be implanted in some constitutions 
far more readily than in others ; they come more naturally, 
as we say, to the “ supreme Caucasian mind ” than to the 
African or Red Indian. Faculties are innate, though ideas 
are not ; and the seemingly instinctive grasp of truth, which 
is the privilege of a few, may not unfitly be allegorised as a 
direCt communion between the human soul and the Anima 
Mundi. 
I have now completed my sketch of the merits and de- 
merits of Paracelsus, who gave a temporary incarnation to 
thoughts which had descended from antiquity, and which 
have since roamed about under various shapes and titles till 
they "have at last transmigrated into the conceptions of 
modern science. The special form with which he endued 
them has now only an historical intereest ; yet his labour 
was not lost. FaCts must be accumulated ; but the human 
spirit cannot live on faCts alone. If there are not enough 
to constitute the basis of a scientific theory, it demands, and 
will have, an unscientific one. And those who supply its 
needs help to maintain its vitality. But direCtly the scien- 
tific rationale becomes possible, it also becomes imperative : 
and he who still seeks to preserve the old unscientific dogma 
is a foe instead of a friend, — a poisoner instead of an almoner ; 
for bread he gives a stone, — for an egg he offers a scorpion. 
