I feel that I ought to begin this record with an apology to the _manes_
of a great and fearless scholar, as earnest as he was honest, as
open-minded as he was great-hearted. I do so because I wish to do what
an unimportant man can after the lapse of centuries, to help a younger
generation to understand what such a man as I write of can do and did
under circumstances not possible in times of greater enlightenment.
The lesson which the story can tell to thinking youth cannot be told
in vain. The greatest asset which worth has in this world is the
irony of time. Contemporaneous opinion, though often correct, is
generally on the meagre side of appreciation--practically always so
with regard to anything new. Such must in any case be encountered in
matters of the sixteenth century which being on the further side of
an age of discovery and reform had hardened almost to the stage of
ossification the beliefs and methods of the outgoing order of things.
Prejudice--especially when it is based on science and religion--dies
hard: the very spirit whence originates a stage of progress or reform,
makes its inherited follower tenacious of _its_ traditions however
short they may be. This is why any who, in this later and more open
minded age, may investigate the intellectual discoveries of the past,
owe a special debt in the way of justice to the memories of those to
whom such fresh light is due. The name and story of the individual
known as Paracelsus--scholar, scientist, open minded thinker and
teacher, earnest investigator and searcher for elemental truths--is
a case in point. Anyone who contents himself with accepting the
judgment of four centuries passed upon the great Swiss thinker, who
had rendered famous in history his place of birth, his canton and his
nation, would inevitably come to the conclusion that he was merely a
charlatan a little more clever than others of his kind; an acceptor of
all manner of eccentric beliefs (including the efficacy of spirits and
demons in pathological cases), a drunkard, a wastrel, an evil liver,
a practiser of necromancy, an astrologer, a magician, an atheist,
an alchemist--indeed an “ist” of all defamatory kinds within the
terminology of the sixteenth century and of all disputatious churchmen
and scientists who have not agreed with his theories and conclusions
ever since.
Let us begin with the facts of his life. His name was Theophrastus
Bombast von Hohenheim, and he was the son of a doctor living in
Einsiedeln in the canton of Schwyz, named Wilhelm Bombast von
Hohenheim, natural son of a Grand Master of the Teutonic Order. He
was born in 1490. It was not uncommon for a man of that age who was
striving to make a name for himself, to assume some _nom de plume_
or _de guerre_; and with such a family record as his own, it was no
wonder that on the threshold of his life the young Theophrastus did so.
In the light of his later achievements, we can well imagine that he
had some definite purpose in mind, or at least some guiding principle
of suggestiveness, in choosing such a compound word from the Greek
as Paracelsus (which is derived from “para,” meaning before, in the
sense of superior to, and Celsus, the name of an Epicurean philosopher
of the second century.) Celsus appears to have had views of great
enlightenment according to the thought of his own time. Unhappily only
fragments of his work remain, but as he was a follower of Epicurus
after an interval of between four and five centuries, it is possible
to get some idea of his main propositions. Like Epicurus he stood for
nature. He did not believe in fatalism, but he did in a supreme power.
He was a Platonist and held that there was no truth which was against
nature. It is easy to see from his life and work that Theophrastus
Bombast von Hohenheim shared his views. His intellectual attitude
was that of a true scientist--denying nothing _prima facie_ but
investigating all.
“There lives more faith in honest doubt,
Believe me, than in half the creeds.”
His father moved in 1502 to Villach in Carinthia, where he practised
medicine till his death in 1534. Theophrastus was a precocious boy;
after youthful study with his father, he entered the University of
Basel when he was about sixteen, after which he prosecuted chemical
researches under the learned Trithemius Bishop of Sponheim who had
written on the subject of the Great elixir--the common subject
of the scientists of that day,--and at Wurzburg. From thence he
proceeded to the great mines in the Tyrol, then belonging to the
Fugger family. Here he studied geology and its kindred branches of
learning--especially those dealing with effects and so far as possible
with causes--metallurgy, mineral waters, and the diseases of and
accidents to mines and miners. The theory of knowledge which he deduced
from these studies was that we must learn nature from nature.
In 1527, he returned to Basel, where he was appointed town physician.
It was a characteristic of his independence and of his mind, method
and design, that he lectured in the language of the place, German,
foregoing the Latin tongue, usual up to that time for such teaching.
He did not shrink from a bold criticism of the medical ideas and
methods then current. The effect of this independence and teaching was
that for a couple of years his reputation and his practice increased
wonderfully. But the time thus passed allowed his enemies not only
to see the danger for them that lay ahead, but to take such action
as they could to obviate it. Reactionary forces are generally--if
not always--self-protective, without regard to the right or wrong
of the matter, and Paracelsus began to find that the self-interest
and ignorance of the many were too strong for him, and that their
unscrupulous attacks began to injure his work seriously. He was called
conjurer, necromancer, and many such terms of obloquy. Then what we may
call his “professional” enemies felt themselves strong enough to join
in the attack. As he had kept a careful eye on the purity of medicines
in use, the apothecaries, who, in those days worked in a smaller field
than now, and who found their commerce more productive through guile
than excellence, became almost declared opponents. Eventually he had to
leave Basel. He went to Esslingen, from which however he had to retire
at no distant period from sheer want.
Then began a period of wandering which really lasted for the last dozen
years of his life. This time was mainly one of learning in many ways
of many things. The ground he covered must have been immense, for he
visited Colmar, Nurnberg, Appengall, Zurich, Augsburg, Middelheim,
and travelled in Prussia, Austria, Hungary, Egypt, Turkey, Russia,
Tartary, Italy, the Low Countries and Denmark. In Germany and Hungary
he had a bad time, being driven to supply even the bare necessaries of
life by odd--any--means, even to availing himself of the credulity
of others--casting nativities, telling fortunes, prescribing remedies
for animals of the farm such as cows and pigs, and recovering stolen
property; such a life indeed as was the lot of a mediæval “tramp.” On
the other hand, as a contra he did worthy work as a military surgeon
in Italy, the Low Countries and Denmark. When he got tired of his
wandering life, he settled down in Salsburg, in 1541, under the care
and protection of the Archbishop Ernst. But he did not long survive
the prospect of rest; he died later in the same year. The cause of his
death is not known with any certainty, but we can guess that he had
clamorous enemies as well as strong upholding from the conflicting
causes given. Some said that he died from the effects of a protracted
debauch, others that he was murdered by physicians and apothecaries, or
their agents, who had thrown him over a cliff. In proof of this story
it was said that the surgeons had found a flaw or fracture in his skull
which must have been produced during life.
He was buried in the churchyard of Saint Sebastian; but two centuries
later, 1752, his bones were moved to the porch of the church, and a
monument erected over them.
His first book was printed in Augsburg in 1526. His real monument
was the collection of his complete writings so far as was possible,
the long work of Johann Huser made in 1589-91. This great work was
published in German, from printed copy supplemented by such manuscript
as could be discovered. Then and ever since there has been a perpetual
rain of statements against him and his beliefs. Most of them are too
silly for words; but it is a little disconcerting to find one writer of
some distinction repeating so late as 1856 all the malignant twaddle
of three centuries, saying amongst other things that he believed in
the transmutation of metals and the possibility of an _elixir vitæ_,
that he boasted of having spirits at his command, one of which he
kept imprisoned in the hilt of his sword and another in a jewel; that
he could make any one live forever; that he was proud to be called a
magician; and had boasted of having a regular correspondence with Galen
in Hell. We read in sensational journals and magazines of to-day about
certain living persons having--or saying that they have--communion in
the shape of “interviews” with the dead; but this is too busy an age
for unnecessary contradictions and so such assertions are allowed to
pass. The same indifference may now and again have been exhibited in
the case of men like Paracelsus.
Some things said of him may be accepted as being partially true, for
his was an age of mysticism, occultism, astrology, and all manner of
strange and weird beliefs. For instance it is alleged that he held that
life is an emanation from the stars; that the sun governed the heart,
the moon the brain, Jupiter the liver, Saturn the gall, Mercury the
lungs, Mars the bile, Venus the loins; that in each stomach is a demon,
that the belly is the grand laboratory where all the ingredients are
apportioned and mixed; and that gold could cure ossification of the
heart.
Is it any wonder that when in this age after centuries of progress such
absurd things are current Paracelsus is shewn in contemporary and later
portraits with a jewel in his hand transcribed Azoth--the name given to
his familiar dæmon.
Those who repeat _ad nauseam_ the absurd stories of his alchemy
generally omit to mention his genuine discoveries and to tell of the
wide scope of his teaching. That he used mercury and opium for healing
purposes at a time when they were condemned; that he did all he could
to stop the practice of administering the vile electuaries of the
mediæval pharmacopœia; that he was one of the first to use laudanum;
that he perpetually held--to his own detriment--that medical science
should not be secret; that he blamed strongly the fashion of his time
of accounting for natural phenomena by the intervention of spirits or
occult forces; that he deprecated astrology; that he insisted on the
proper investigation of the properties of drugs and that they should be
used more simply and in smaller doses. To these benefits and reforms
his enemies answered that he had made a pact with the devil. For reward
of his labours, his genius, his fearless struggle for human good he
had--with the exception of a few spells of prosperity--only penury,
want, malicious ill-fame and ceaseless attacks by the professors of
religion and science. He was an original investigator of open mind,
of great ability and application, and absolutely fearless. He was
centuries ahead of his time. We can all feel grateful to that French
writer who said:
“Tels sont les services eminents que Paracelse a rendu à
l’humanité souffrante, pour laquelle il montra toujours le
dévouement le plus désintéressé; s’il en fut mal recompensé
pendant sa vie que sa mémoire au moins soit honorée.”