Paracelsus, or, as he styled himself, Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus
Bombastus Paracelsus de Hohenheim, was a man of great notoriety and
eminence, about the same time as Dr. Faustus. He was born in the year
1493, and died in 1541. His father is said to have lived in some
repute; but the son early became a wanderer in the world, passing
his youth in the occupation of foretelling future events by the stars
and by chiromancy, invoking the dead, and performing various operations
of alchemy and magic. He states Trithemius to have been his instructor
in the science of metals. He was superficial in literature, and says
of himself that at one time he did not open a book for ten years
together. He visited the mines of Bohemia, Sweden and the East to
perfect himself in metallic knowledge. He travelled through Prussia,
Lithuania, Poland, Transylvania and Illyria, conversing indifferently
with physicians and old women, that he might extract from them the
practical secrets of their art. He visited Egypt, Tartary and
Constantinople, at which last place, as he says, he learned the
transmutation of metals and the philosopher's stone. He boasts also
of the elixir of life, by means of which he could prolong the life
of man to the age of the antediluvians. He certainly possessed
considerable sagacity and a happy spirit of daring, which induced
him to have recourse to the application of mercury and opium in the
cure of diseases, when the regular physicians did not venture on the
use of them. He therefore was successfully employed by certain eminent
persons in desperate cases, and was consulted by Erasmus. He gradually
increased in fame, and in the year 1526 was chosen professor of natural
philosophy and surgery in the university of Bale. Here he delivered
lectures in a very bold and presumptuous style. He proclaimed himself
the monarch of medicine, and publicly burned the writings of Galen
and Avicenna as pretenders and impostors.
This however was the acme of his prosperity. His system was extremely
popular for one year; but then he lost himself by brutality and
intemperance. He had drunk water only for the first five-and-twenty
years of his life; but now indulged himself in beastly crapulence
with the dregs of society, and scarcely ever took off his clothes
by day or night. After one year therefore spent at Bale, he resumed
his former vagabond life, and, having passed through many vicissitudes,
some of them of the most abject poverty, he died at the age of
forty-eight.
Paracelsus in fact exhibited in his person the union of a quack, a
boastful and impudent pretender, with a considerable degree of natural
sagacity and shrewdness. Such an union is not uncommon in the present
day; but it was more properly in its place, when the cultivation of
the faculties of the mind was more restricted than now, and the law
of criticism of facts and evidence was nearly unknown. He took
advantage of the credulity and love of wonder incident to the
generality of our species; and, by dint of imposing on others,
succeeded in no small degree in imposing on himself. His intemperance
and arrogance of demeanour gave the suitable finish to his character.
He therefore carefully cherished in those about him the idea that
there was in him a kind of supernatural virtue, and that he had the
agents of an invisible world at his command. In particular he gave
out that he held conferences with a familiar or demon, whom for the
convenience of consulting he was in the habit of carrying about with
him in the hilt of his sword.