Paracelsus combined in himself such opposite characteristics that it is a matter of difficulty to criticise him aright. As says Professor Ferguson: “It is most difficult . . . to ascertain what his true character really was, to appreciate aright this man of fervid imagination, of powerful and persistent conviction, of unbated honesty and love of truth, of keen insight into the errors (as he thought them) of his time, of a merciless will to lay bare these errors and to reform the abuses to which they gave rise, who in an instant offends by his boasting, his grossness, his want of self-respect. It is a problem how to reconcile his ignorance, his weakness, his superstition, his crude notions, his erroneous observations, his ridiculous inferences and theories, with his grasp of method, his lofty views of the true scope of medicine, his lucid statements, his incisive and epigrammatic criticisms of men and motives.”[62] It is also a problem of considerable difficulty to determine which of the many books attributed to him are really his genuine works, and consequently what his views on certain points exactly were. [62] JOHN FERGUSON, M.A.: Article “Paracelsus,” _Encyclopædia Britannica_, 9th edition (1885), vol. xviii. p. 236. Views of Paracelsus. § =47.= Paracelsus was the first to recognise the desirability of investigating the physical universe with a motive other than alchemistic. He taught that “the object of chemistry is not to make gold, but to prepare medicines,” and founded the school of Iatro-chemistry or Medical Chemistry. This synthesis of chemistry with medicine was of very great benefit to each science; new possibilities of chemical investigation were opened up now that the aim was not purely alchemistic. Paracelsus’s central theory was that of the analogy between man, the microcosm, and the world or macrocosm. He regarded all the actions that go on in the human body as of a chemical nature, and he thought that illness was the result of a disproportion in the body between the quantities of the three great principles--sulphur, mercury, and salt--which he regarded as constituting all things; for example, he considered an excess of sulphur as the cause of fever, since sulphur was the fiery principle, &c. The basis of the iatro-chemical doctrines, namely, that the healthy human body is a particular combination of chemical substances: illness the result of some change in this combination, and hence curable only by chemical medicines, expresses a certain truth, and is undoubtedly a great improvement upon the ideas of the ancients. But in the elaboration of his medical doctrines Paracelsus fell a prey to exaggeration and the fantastic, and many of his theories appear to be highly ridiculous. This extravagance is also very pronounced in the alchemistic works attributed to him; for example, the belief in the artificial creation of minute living creatures resembling