Paracelsus: Concerning the Life of Natural Things.
NONE can deny that the air gives life to all corporeal and substantial things which are born and generated from the earth.
But as to what and of what kind the life of each particular thing is, it should be
known that the life of things is none other than a spiritual essence, an invisible and impalpable thing, a spirit and a spiritual thing.
On this account there is nothing corporeal but has latent within itself a spirit and life, which, as just now said, is none other than a spiritual thing.
But not only that lives which moves and acts, as men, animals, worms in the earth, birds under the sky, fishes in the sea, but also all corporeal and substantial things.
For here we should know that God, at the beginning of the creation of all things,
created no body whatever without its own spirit, which spirit it contains after
an occult manner within itself.
For what is the body without the spirit ? Absolutely nothing.
So it is that the spirit holds concealed within itself the virtue and power of the thing, and not the body.
For in the body is death, and the body is subject to death, and in the body nothing but death must be looked for.
For the body can be destroyed and corrupted in various ways, but not the spirit: for it always remains a living spirit, and is bound up with life.
It also keeps its own body alive, but in the removal of the body from it, it leaves the body separate and dead, and returns to its own place whence it had come, that is to say, into chaos, and into the air of the higher and lower firmament.
Hence it is evident that there are different kinds of spirits, just as there are different kinds of bodies.
There are celestial and infernal spirits, human and metallic, the spirits of salts, gems, and marcasites, arsenical spirits, spirits of potables, of roots, of liquids, of flesh, blood, bones, etc. Wherefore you may know that the spirit is in very truth the life and balsam of all corporeal things.
Now we v/ill go on to its species, and here will describe to you in detail, but as briefly as possible, the life of each natural thing.
The life, then, of all men is none other than a certain astral balsam, a
balsamic impression, a celestial and invisible fire, an included air, and a spirit
of salt which tinges.
I am unable to name it more clearly, although it could be put forward under many distinctive titles.
Since, however, the chief and the best are here pointed out, we will be silent as to the rest and the inferior names.
The life of metals is a latent fatness which they have received from sulphur.
This is shewn from their fluxion, because everything which passes into flux in the fire does so on account of its hidden fatness.
Unless this were so no metal could be reduced to a fluid state, as we see in the case of iron and steel, which have the least Sulphur and fatness of all the metals, wherefore they are of a drier nature than all the rest of them.
The life of mercury is nothing but inner heat and outer frigidity.
That is to say, within it gives heat, but without it causes cold ; and in this respect it
is aptly to be compared to a garment of skins, which, like mercury, causes both heat and cold.
For if a garment of this kind be worn by a man, it warms him and protects him from the cold; but if he wears the hairless part against his naked body, it causes cold, and defends him from excessive heat.
So it came about that in very ancient times, and it is even the custom still, that these coats of skin are worn both in summer and in winter, as much against the heat as against the cold; in summer the hairless part is turned within, and the hairy part outside, but in the cold winter season the hairy part is turned within and the hairless part outside.
As it is with the garment of skins, so is it with mercury.
The life of sulphur is a combustible, ill-smelling fatness.
Whilst it flames and sends forth its evil odour it may be said to live.
The life of all salts is nothing else but a spirit of aqua fortis: for when the water is abstracted from them, that which remains at the bottom is called dead earth.
The life of gems and corals is mere colour, which can be taken from them by spirits of wine.
The life of pearls is their brightness, which they lose in their calcination.
The life of the magnet is the spirit of iron, which can be extracted and taken away by rectified vinwn ardens itself, or by spirit of wine.
The life of flints is a mucilaginous matter.
The life of marcasites, cachymias, talc, cobalt, zinc, granites, zwitter, vismat (rude tin), is a metallic spirit of antimony, which has the power to tinge.
Of arsenicals, auripigment, orpiment, realgar, and similar matters, the life is a mineral coagulated poison.
The life of wavelike si^bstances, that is to say, of the dung of men and animals, is their strong and fcetid smell.
When this is lost they are dead.
The life of aromatic substances, to wit, musk, ambergris, civet, and whatever
emits a strong, sweet, and pleasant odour, is nothing but that grateful odour itself.
If they lose this they are dead and useless.
The life of sweet things, as sugar, honey, manna, fistula cassias, and the like, is a subtle sweetness, with the power to tinge; for if that sweetness be taken away by distillation, or sublimation, the things are dead, fatuous, and no longer of any value.
The life of resins, as caraba, turpentine, and gum, is a mucilaginous, glittering fatness. They all give excellent varnish ; when they no longer furnish this, and lose their glitter, they are dead.
The life of herbs, roots, apples, and other fruits of this kind, is nothing else than the liquid of the earth, which they spontaneously lose if they are deprived of water and earth.
The life of wood is a certain resin. Any wood that is deprived of resin is unable longer to flourish.
The life of bones is the liquid of mumia.
The life of flesh and blood is none other than the spirit of salt, which preserves them from ill odour and decay, and spontaneously, as the water is separated from them.
But concerning the life of the elements there is this to be known.
The life of water is its flowing.
When it is coagulated by the cold of the firmament and congealed into ice, then it is dead, and all power of doing harm is taken from it, since no one can any longer be drowned in it.
So, too, the life of fire is air, for the air makes the fire blaze more strongly
and with greater impetuosity.
Some air proceeds from all fire, sufficient to extinguish a candle or to lift a light feather, as is evident to the eyes.
All live fire, therefore, if it be shut up or deprived of the power to send forth its air,
must be suffocated.
The air lives of itself, and gives life to all other things.
The earth, however, is of itself dead ; but its own element is its invisible and occult life. ~Paracelsus, Hermetic and Alchemical Writings, Page 135-138
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