Page 36 - Paracelsus Three Books of Philosophy

The third book
of philosophy
written to the Athenians

Every thing that hath a being must of necessity have a body. The manner and
reason thereof is, that we may know it is like a smoky spirit that hath neither
substance, nor body, nor can be felt. And though it be neither of these; yet both bodies
and substances may proceed out of it. Thus may we conceive of fuming Arsenic, that
after the generation of a body there is no more of the fume of the spirit to be seen, no
more then if all were turned into a body. Which yet is not so, for it still remains most
subtle in that place of generation. And so both the visible and invisible are brought
forth together by separation. After this way and manner all things are propagated.
Wood hath still a surviving spirit from which it is separated. So have stones, and all
things else, none excepted. For their essence still remains just as it was separated from
them. Man likewise is nothing but a relic and the remainder of smoke separated. But
yet note that he was a kind of spirit before. Of this dross was man made, and is a thing
most subtle in spirit. Yea, he is that very spirit, that is, a discovery or sign of a twofold
Eternal; one of Caleruthum24, the other of Meritorium. Caleruth25 is a note or
discovery in the first Eternal. This seeks or desires the other, that is, God. The cause
thereof is natural, because all things affect and contend for that out of which they
came, and desire those natures that are nearest to them. Whatsoever the Creator did
give or use when he made a thing, that very same thing also doth the thing created
earnestly desire and press after. Yet we must know, that the creature doth not desire
his Creator by nature or natural instinct, but rather seeks after that out of which it
came. Thus man’s body doth not desire God, but the matter out of which it was
separated; for it was not taken out of God. And that matter is the life and habitation
wherein the eternal meritorium dwells. Thus every thing returns to its own essence.

Now seeing every thing is greedily desirous of its original, viz. of the mystery out
of which it proceeded, we are further to consider, that that thing is everlasting life and

24 Caleruthum - The reversion of any substance to its first matter.
25 Caleruth - A sign of the desire, when a thing tends to its first matter and would return whence it
came.

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