Page 19 - Paracelsus Three Books of Philosophy

the earth doth the Gnomes. Likewise ordure comes from men and beasts, not from the
earth. Lorind rises from the original of water, yet it is not of the water. Many other
things also proceed out of the store either through mistake or in due time. Deformed
men, worms, and many more such like generations proceed from the impressions. The
infection of countries, the plague, famine, is from the fatal storms. Beetles, cankers
[worms], dalnes [flies], breed in dung. By Lorind is found out the prophesy of that
country, which is a kind of presage or guessing at strange, wonderful, and unheard of
things to come.

As we have seen a threefold separation made out of the Mystery into three sorts of
forms; it remains now that we consider the fourth and last separation of all, after which
there shall be no more; for then all the other shall perish, and be no longer a mystery.
After the fourth all things shall be reduced into their first principle, and that only
remains which was before the Great Mystery, and is eternal. Which is not so to be
understood, as if I could be turned into any thing, or as though anything could be made
of me after the last separation, unless by death. For I shall be brought to nothing, as in
respect of my beginning I came out of nothing. Now we must know how it came to
pass that all things are brought again into their original, when they are turned into
nothing then do they consist in their first being. First of all then we must look after that
which is the first of all. And what that is that goes into nothing is no less than a
mystery. My soul in me was made of something, therefore does it not become nothing,
because it was formed of something. But of nothing nothing is made, nothing is
generated. A picture drawn on a table, as it is a picture, was doubtless made of
something. But we were not so made of something, as an image in the air. And why
so? But because we came out of the Great, not out of the procreated Mystery,
therefore are we brought to nothing. If you wipe off a picture with a sponge, so that
nothing thereof remains, the table is as it was before. Thus all creatures shall be
reduced to their first state, to wit, to nothing. That we may know wherefore all bodies
must return into nothing, it is because of that which is eternal in the bodies rational.
The last separation of this kind is the ultimate matter. Then will there many
procreations, mixtures, conversions, alterations, transmutations, and such like things be
done, all which are past man’s finding out.

Again, by philosophy it is manifest, that whatever is for the succour and
preservation of any frail mortal thing is therewith also equally mortal, nor can that be
joined again that is divided, as milk once turned into curds becomes milk no more.
Thus may we reason also, that the Great Mystery returns not into that out of which it
came. Whence we may conclude, that all creatures are the picture of the highest

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