Paracelsus is usually regarded as a typical alchemist—the kind of man made familiar to us by the paintings of Teniers, Van Ostade, and Stein—a boorish, maudlin knave, who divided his time between the pothouse and the kitchen in which he prepared his extracts, simples, tinctures, and the other nostrums which he palmed off upon a credulous world, as ignorant and superstitious as himself. There is much in the personal history of Paracelsus that serves to justify such a view of him. That he was in the main an impudent charlatan, ignorant, vain, and pretentious, there can be little doubt. He had an astonishing audacity and a boundless effrontery; and it was largely by the exercise of these qualities that he secured such professional success as he enjoyed. To judge from the number of the published works associated with his name, he was an active and industrious writer. Considering that during the greater part of his waking time he was more or less intoxicated, it is difficult to conceive what opportunity he had for composing them. Only one or two are known to be genuine. These, according to Operinus, his publisher, he dictated; and from their incoherence and obscurity, their mystical jargon, and misuse of terms, they read like the ravings of one whom drunkenness had deprived of reason. Many of the tracts and larger works appeared after his death—some of them years after; and there is no certain proof that he was the actual author. Even if we regard them as suppositious, the fact that they should be published under his name is significant of the influence and notoriety which this extraordinary man succeeded in achieving during his short and chequered career. The immediate followers of Paracelsus—among whom may be named Thurneysser, Dorn, Severinus, Duchesne—distinguished themselves only by the boldness with which they promulgated his doctrines, and the unscrupulous use which they made of his methods. They were all zealous anti-Galenists, who professed to believe that the sum and perfection of human knowledge was to be found in the Cabala, and that the secrets of magical medicine were contained in the Apocalypse. They adopted pantheism in all its grossness: everything that exists eats, drinks, and voids excrement; even minerals and liquids assimilate food, and eliminate what they do not incorporate. Sylphs inhabit the air, nymphs the water, pigmies the earth, and salamanders the fire. Thus even the Aristotelian elements were animated. Mercury, sulphur, and salt were, according to Paracelsus, the primal principles which entered into the composition of all things, material and immaterial, visible and invisible. The following so-called “harmonies” were essential articles of faith with a Paracelsian:— Soul Spirit Body Mercury Sulphur Salt Water Air Earth