Page 38 - Paracelsus Three Books of Philosophy

Dersick matter. In like manner Leffas27 is the seething matter from whose fume all
herbs do spring. Only Leffa and nothing else is the sole predestination of herbs. God is
much more wonderful in specifics than in all other natures. Stannar is the mother of
metals, which ministers the first matter to metal by its stream. Metals are nothing but
thickened smoke from Stannar. Enur is the smoke of stones. Briefly, whatsoever hath
a body is nothing but curdled smoke, wherein a particular predestination lies hid. And
all things shall at last vanish like smoke. For that specific which doth coagulate hath
power but for a certain appointed time. The same must be understood of the
coagulation. For all bodies shall pass away and vanish into nothing but smoke, they
shall all end in a fume. This is the end of things corporeal both living and dead.

Man is a coagulated fume. The coagulation of the spermatic matter is made of
nothing but the seething vapours and spermatic members of the body. This shall be
resolved again into the like vapour, that the end may be as the beginning was. We see
nothing in our own selves but thickened smoke made up into a man by humane
predestination. All that we take and eat is but a thickened fume from the humours or
moisture. What we eat is consumed by the life, upon this score, that the coagulation
might melt and be dissolved again, as the Sun thaws the ice, that it may pass into the
air like smoke. Life wastes all things. It is a spirit that consumes all substances and
bodily things. Take notice here of the separation of the digested mystery. If every thing
return to its first state whence it came, then that which we eat will be consumed
together with out life. This is meant of those things that are not changed. For
transmutation cannot be beaten back or hindered. Life is the cause of all transmutation.
So then transmutation is altered into fragility of body, but is separated again from the
body. When it putrefies transmutation hath no more force, the mystery of that which is
separated follows in putrefaction. All the properties which man hath in him of herbs
and other things are separated one from another, every thing packing its own essence.
This separation is like when ten or twelve things are mixed together, and then
separated again, that so every one may receive its peculiar essence. Thus oft eating is
nothing but a dissolution of bodies. Whence the matter of bodies is separated by
vomits and purges, that it becomes nothing but a stinking fume, mixed with something
that is good. Nature only affects that which is subtle or pure, the gross it rejects. The
life dissolves stones, metals, the earth, and all things; they have no other separation
from the body but by the life.

Again, we are as well to understand how every thing receives its essence. This

27 Leffas - The occult vapour of the earth, a principle of plant life and growth, the sap of plants.
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