Page 17 - Paracelsus Three Books of Philosophy

separation of the elements, which have no likeness at all to their elements. Of this sort
is lime, which in respect of its own nature is not fire, though it arises out of the fire.
The cause whereof is this, because the dissolution went too far off from the fiery
nature in the separation of the Element; for the fire hath both cold and moist in it.
There is a fourfold fire. Therefore the colours that are from the fire are not always like
unto it. One fire causes a white and azure colour. The dry fire makes a red and green.
The moist fire makes an ashy and black. The moist fire casts a colour like saffron and
red. For this reason one procreation is hotter than another, because one fire is more or
less in degree than another. Nor is there but one simple and only fire and no more, but
there are some hundreds of fires, yet never a one of the same degree with another.
The procreation therefore of every of them is from its own subject, as a kind of
mystery so ordained.

Nor did the water obtain one kind of complexion only. For there were infinite
waters in that element, which yet were all truly waters. The philosopher cannot
understand that the element of water is only cold and moist of itself. It is an hundred
times more cold, and not more moist, and yet is it not to be referred as well to the
hotness as the coldness. Nor doth the element of water live and flourish only in cold
and moist of one degree: no neither is it fully and wholly of one degree. Some waters
are fountains, which are of many sorts. Some are seas, which also are many and
divers. Other are streams and rivers, none of which is like another. Some watery
elements were disposed of into stones, as the Beryl, Crystal, Chalcedony, Amethyst.
Some into plants, as Coral, etc. Some into juice, as the liquor of life. Many into the
earth, as the moisture of the ground. These are the elements of water, but in a
manifold sort. For that which grows out of the earth, from the seed that was sown, that
also belongs to the element of water. So what was fleshy, as the Nymphs, belong also
to the element of water. Though in this case we may conceive that the element of
water was changed into another complexion, yet doth it never put off or pass from that
very nature of the element from which it proceeded. Whatsoever is of the water, turns
again into water: that which is of fire, into fire: that of earth, into earth; and that of air,
into air.

In like manner must we think of the element of the earth, that all things that are
out of the earth do retain the nature thereof. And though the mineral liquors may be
taken for fire, yet are they not fire. Brimstone doth not therefore burn because it is of a
fiery element. For that which is cold will burn as well as that which is hot. That which
burns to ashes is not the element of fire, but the fire of the earth. And that fire is not to
be taken for the very element. Nor is it the element, but only the wasting of the earth,

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