It is probable that many of his obscure and unintelligible expressions are the fruit of ignorance. Thus he uses the term _pagoyus_, instead of _paganus_. He gives the name of _pagoyæ_ to the four _entities_, or causes of diseases, founded on the influence of the stars, to the elementary qualities; to the occult qualities, and to the influence of spirits; because these had been already admitted by the _Pagans_. But the fifth _entity_, or cause of disease, which has God immediately for its author, is _non pagoya_. The _undimia_ of Paracelsus is our _œdema_; only he applies the name to every kind of dropsy. The Latin word _tonitru_, we find is declined by Paracelsus. Thus he says, _lapis tonitrui_. The well-known line of Ovid, Tollere nodosam nescit medicina podagram, He travestied into Nescit tartaream Roades curare podagram.[151] [151] Opera Paracelsi, i. 328. _Roades_, he says, means medicines for horses; and if any person wishes a more elegant verse, he may make it for himself.[152] He employs, also, a great number of words to which no meaning whatever can be attached; and to which, in all probability, he himself had affixed none. [152] “Qui elegantiorem optat, ille eum condat.”--_Ibid._ As is the case with all fanatics, he treated with contempt every kind of knowledge acquired by labour and application; and boasted that his wisdom was communicated to him directly by God Almighty. The theosophist who is worthy of partaking of the divine light, has no occasion for adopting a positive religion, nor of subjecting himself to any kind of religious ceremony. The divine light within, which assimilates him to the Deity, more than compensates for all these vulgar usages, and raises the illuminated votary far above the beggarly elements of external worship. Accordingly, Paracelsus has been accused of treating the public worship of the Deity with contempt. Not satisfied with the plain sense of the book, he attempted to explain in a mystical manner the words and syllables of the Bible. He accused Luther of not going far enough. “Luther,” says he, “is not worthy of untying the strings of my shoes: should I undertake a reformation, I would begin by sending the pope and the reformers themselves to school.” God, says Paracelsus, is the first and most excellent of writers. The Holy Scripture conducts us to all truth, and teaches us all things. But medicine, philosophy, and astronomy, are among the number of things. Therefore, when we want to know what magical medicine is, we must consult the Apocalypse. The Bible, with its paraphrases, is the key to the theory of diseases. It puts it in our power to understand St. John, who, like Daniel, Ezekiel, Moses, &c., was a magician, a cabalist, a diviner. The first duty of a physician is to study the Cabala, without which he must every moment commit a thousand blunders. “Learn,” says he, “the cabalistic art, which includes under it all the others.” “Man invents nothing, the devil invents nothing;