5. _Ether._—The one element and its action is thus far hardly theoretically admitted by modern science and practically almost unknown. Only very recently a great step of progress in this direction has been made by the discovery of the therapeutic action of the solar ether, and by the employment of an apparatus for the employment of its radiations.[47] But the sphere of activity for the natural physician is not limited to the extent of the merely physical plane. If he goes a step higher he may employ not only the products of life, but the activity of life itself, in a higher form.[48] The sources from which he receives the physical remedies are the physical products of nature; the sources from which he draws living powers are living organisms. To this department belongs the employment of “animal magnetism;” the transfer of life (_Mumia_); the transplantation of diseases[49] and similar things thoroughly described by Paracelsus, Cornelius Agrippa and others, but which for our present official medical science do not exist. Even those who employ only gross material principles also employ, without being conscious of it, the higher principles contained therein; for every physical substance, to whatever kingdom in nature it may belong, is an expression of not only one of the four elements, but of all four, and contains all the higher principles. Thus, for instance, it has been shown that the action of certain drugs corresponds to that of the colours which they exhibit in the solar-spectrum;[50] each state of matter also corresponds to a certain state of electric tension; each particle of food proves the presence of the life principle in it by being nutritious; each poisonous drug acting upon the mind, shows thereby that the mind principle therein is in a high state of activity. There is no “dead matter” in the universe; each thing is a representation of a state of consciousness in nature, even if its state of consciousness differs from ours, and is therefore beyond the reach of our recognition; everything is a manifestation of “Mind,” even if does not exhibit any intelligent functions, or what we are capable of recognising as such. For the comprehension of these things, the position adopted by modern natural science is altogether insufficient, and such a philosophical knowledge is required as shall constitute the first pillar in the temple of medicine. There is a vast field still unexplored by modern medical science, and if things which were known to the ancients are not known at present, it is not because such sciences have never existed, but because they have ceased to be understood owing to the materialising tendency of this age. II.—SPECIFICI.