Paracelsus, the Man and His Natural Philosophy (II)
Not many people liked Paracelsus during his lifetime, and even after his death his somewhat shady reputation followed him into the modern era. He was not a shy Copernicus who only published his discoveries after his death, or a reluctant Galileo who admitted his faults in front of the Inquisition. It was only too lucky for him that the Inquisition was not in full force then. As it was, he lived his life as a perpetual gypsy, until he found his untimely and somewhat mysterious death in Salzburg, now Austria.
Nowadays, when chemistry, biology or medicine look back at him, they find themselves at odds on how to integrate this pivotal figure in their textbooks. It is clear that Paracelsus was instrumental in changing the nature of medicine and ‘chemistry’ (then it was simply alchemy), but he did so in his idiosyncratic ways. Paracelsus was not a scientist, nor could he have been in that age; science as we now call it dates from the late 17th or even the 18th century. His methods and intentions were far too different to those of the later science, and no attempt at ‘recuperating’ Paracelsus for science would actually work. Hence, most scientific textbooks either avoid him or mention him for having destroyed the Galenic-Aristotelian worldview.
This was no mean feat in itself, and only Paracelsus’ ambiguous image probably prevented him from being hailed as a revolutionary of the likes of Copernicus, Galileo or Newton. Surely, the astronomical revolution was spectacular through its change of the paradigm of the earth as the centre of the universe. However, Paracelsus’ efforts of challenging the view of the composition and structure of the universe were also grandiose projects.
Paracelsus said: the four elements of Aristotle (the familiar quaternary water-air-fire-earth) are not primary, but secondary characteristics of matter. They are not the ‘building blocks’ of nature. Later Paracelsians rejected the elements completely, or some of them; for instance, Helmont believed that there were only two elements, water and air, earth being a by-product of water, while fire was a divine instrument. Paracelsus did not go that far, but he did relegate the sacred four elements as by-products, and as such of limited use for the analysis of nature.
Instead, Paracelsus proposed three principles that rest at the ground of all nature: sulphur, salt, and mercury. If these sound alchemical to you, then they should. Classical alchemy worked with two principles in its processes: sulphur and mercury, sexualized as male and female. Paracelsus took up these terms and added the principle of salt, seen as the ground of all being. These three he said are the cornerstones of everything that exists. Faithful to the allegorical alchemical language, he emphasised that we should not mistake these spiritual principles for the chemical components of sulphur, salt and mercury. He explained the difference with the image of a twig set on fire: the fire that engulfs the branch is the sulphur, the smoke is the mercury, and the remaining ash is the salt. He emphasised, in fact, that you can’t ever see these principles, which are tightly united when a body is alive. Instead, there are two methods of ‘perceiving’ them: death and fire. Both produce a separation of the building block of life, being dissolved in their component parts. Hence, the alchemist’s process of separation by fire can be understood as a form of voluntary, conscious destruction. The alchemist thus ‘destroys’ and then ‘rebuilds’ nature as part of his four-stage process I have described in an earlier article (nigredo, albedo, citrinitas, rubedo).
As to the four Galenic humours (the melancholy, the choleric, the phlegmatic and the sanguine), Paracelsus rejected them without any qualms. The four elements may exist, albeit as less important units of nature, but the humours are a total fiction. Disease is not brought about by some imaginary unbalance of humours, but by external disease-beings. Here, we can foresee in Paracelsus some of the most important medical discoveries of the modern era: the existence of pathogenic agents, bacteria, or viruses, that create illness by coming from the outside. Still, Paracelsus’ ideas were more complex; it is true that diseases insinuate themselves from outside into the human body, but in order to penetrate and take it over a certain ‘cooperation’ is required from the body. This cooperation is enlisted by the spiritual principle of the body being ‘seduced’ by the external pathogens. In more contemporary words, a disease cannot take over if the body’s immune system is not lowered. The weakening of the immune system is attributed to the power of imagination. We have briefly seen in a previous article the importance Renaissance thinkers bestowed on imagination, as a force permeating all levels of nature and men. The body is seduced or frightened by images sent from the disease being, and adopts them for their own. Hence, the illness takes over the body and rules it, unless medicine is found to send it away. I will stop here, an analysis of the force of imagination being too complex for the purpose of this article.
This is just a brief foray into Paracelsian ideas; in fact, Paracelsus touched on many subjects, ranging from theology to astrology and magic. His belief in spiritual creatures that inhabit the earth, such as elves, pygmies, sylphs and salamanders had a major influence on 19th century Romantic thought. Perhaps there will be more opportunity to look into other Paracelsian ideas in the near future.
If you want to get more into the studies of Paracelsus, the bad news is that, unless you know German, there are only a few partial translations of his works. The best are:
Paracelsus (2007), Essential Theoretical Writings, ed. and trans. with commentary and introduction by Andrew Weeks, Aries Book Series 5. Leiden: Brill.
Waite, A.E. (1894). The Hermetic And Alchemical Writings of Aureolus Philippus Theophrastus Bombast, of Hohenheim, Called Paracelsus the Great. London: J. Elliott.
For secondary sources in English, the best are:
Pagel, Walter. (1960). ‘Paracelsus and the Neoplatonic and Gnostic Tradition’, Ambix 8, 125-166.
Pagel, Walter. (1958). Paracelsus: an Introduction to Philosophical Medicine in the Era of the Renaissance. New York: S. Karger,
Weeks, Andrew. (1997). Paracelsus: Speculative Theory and the Crisis of the Early Renaissance. New York: SUNY Press.
Tags: , Alchemy, aristotle, galen, hermetic, mercury, Paracelsus, renaissance, salt, sulphur
