Page 23 - Paracelsus Three Books of Philosophy

The second book
of philosophy

written to the Athenians

Seeing then there was something by which, when it was separated, all things were
created: first we must conclude that there is some difference of the Gods, which is this.
Since the things created are divided into eternal and mortal; the reason whereof is,
because there was another creator of the mysteries, besides the chief and most high.
For the most high (Creator) ought to be the judge and corrector of all the creatures,
who should know how much was bestowed on them whereby they might do either
good or evil, though they had it not (immediately) from him. Moreover, the creatures
are always egged on and provoked to evil, compelled thereto by the fates, stars, and by
the infernal one; which by no means could have been, if they had proceeded out of the
most high himself, that we should be forced into those properties of good and evil, but
should in all things have had free will, without any such violent instigation: yet
nevertheless the creature has not so much wisdom as to know good or evil, to
understand the eternal and mortal. For there are many fools and mad men, scarce a
wise man of a thousand; most are false prophets, teachers of lies, masters of folly and
ignorance, who are accounted for the most eminent, though they be nothing so. And
the reason is plain, for such creatures are we, whose masters teach us no perfect good,
but are rather seasoned by the mortal gods, who had some power in the great mystery,
yet they were ordained from the beginning for judgment both to themselves and us.

Now it were necessary that all things that were made should consist of, and
proceed from four only, as by the separation we know it was: those four only must be
the matrices of all the creatures, which we call the elements. And though every
creature be yet an element or may have some share of the element, yet it is not like the
element, but like the spirit of the element, nothing can subsist without an element. Nor
can the elements themselves stand together. There is not any thing that consists either
in four, three, or two elements, but one element stands by itself apart, and every
creature hath but [its] own element. They are altogether blind who take that which is
moist for the element of water, or that which burns for the element of fire. We must
not limit an element to a body, substance, or quality. That which we see is only the
subject or receptacle. The element is a spirit of life and grows in those things, as the
soul in the body. This is the first matter of the elements that can neither be seen nor

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