Page 24 - Paracelsus Three Books of Philosophy

felt, and yet is in all things. The first matter of the elements is nothing else but that life
which the creatures have. If any die, that subsists no more in any element, but in the
ultimate matter, wherein is no taste, force or virtue.

Whereas all things that could be created were made of four mothers, viz. the four
elements. Take notice further, that those four elements were sufficient for all things
that were to be created, nor was it requisite that there should be more or less. In things
mortal there can no more but four natures subsist. But in things immortal the
temperaments, may subsist, though the elements cannot. Whatever is (as I call it) an
elementure15, that may be dissolved. But on the contrary, the temperature cannot be
dissolved. For such is the condition thereof, that nothing can be added thereto or taken
from it, nothing thereof can putrefy or perish. And seeing that condition is mortal, as
hath been said, we must know that all things do subsist in four natures, and that every
nature retains the name of its element. As the element of fire is hot; the element of
earth cold; the element of water is moist, the element of air dry. Where we must as
well consider, that every of the said natures is peculiarly such a one by itself apart. For
fire is only hot, and not dry, nor moist. The water is only moist, not hot, nor cold. The
air is only dry, not hot, nor cold. And therefore are they called elements; having only
one simple, not a double, nature. But their manifestation through all the creatures must
be understood as an element, that may subsist with a substance and body, and can
there work. The highest knowledge concerning the elements is this, that every one of
them hath but one only simple nature, either moist, or dry, or cold, or hot. Which is
from the condition of spirits. For every spirit hath a simple, not a double nature; and so
have the elements too.

Though we mortals have compounds in us, as hot and moist; yet far otherwise
then the Ancients imagined. For the choleric is of the element of fire, yet not
compounded of hotness and dryness, but is only hot. And so the other complexions.
Therefore if we find any disease mixed with heat and drought, we may suppose that
two elements are there, one in the liver, another in the spleen, and so in the other
members. There are not two elements in one member. For certain it is, that every
member hath a peculiar element, which we leave to physicians to define. But this
cannot be well affirmed, that two elements should consist both together, or that one
and the same element should be both hot and moist. Nor can there be any such
compound. There are no compounded elements, for the reason before given. Where
there is heat, there is neither cold, nor drought, nor moisture. So where there is

15 That which proceeds from the elements.

19