it is God alone who unveils to us the light of nature.” “God honoured at first with his illumination the blind pagans, Apollo, Æsculapius, Machaon, Podalirius, and Hippocrates, and imparted to them the genius of medicine; their successors were the sophists.” One would suppose, from this passage, that Paracelsus had read and studied Hippocrates, and that he held him in high estimation. But the commentaries which he has left on some of the aphorisms, show evidently that he did not even understand the Greek physician. “The compassion of God,” says he, “is the only foundation of medical science, and not a knowledge of the great masters, or of the writings which they have left in Greek and Latin.” “God often acts in dreams by the light of nature, and points out to man the manner of curing diseases.” “This knowledge renders all those objects visible which would otherwise escape the sight; and when faith is joined with it, nothing is then impossible to the theosophist, who may transport the ocean to the top of Mount Ætna, and Olympus into the Red Sea.” Paracelsus predicts that by the year 1590 Christian theosophy would be generally spread over the world, and that the Galenical schools would be almost or entirely overthrown. We find in Paracelsus some traces of the opinions of the Gnostics and Arians, who considered Christ as the first emanation of the Deity. He calls the first man _parens hominis_; and makes all spirits emanate from him. He is the _limbus minor_, or the last creature, into whom enters the great _limbus_, or the seed of all the creatures, the infinite being. All the sciences, and all the arts of man, are derived from this great _limbus_; and he who can sink himself in the little _limbus_, that is to say, in Adam, and who can communicate by faith with Jesus Christ, may invoke all _spirits_. Those who owe their science to this _limbus_, are the best informed; those who derive it from the stars, occupy the last rank; and those who owe it to the light of nature, are intermediate between the preceding. Jesus Christ, in his capacity of _limbus minor_ and first man, being always an emanation of the Divinity; and, consequently, a subordinate personage. These ideas explain to us why Paracelsus passed for an Arian, and was supposed not to believe in the Divinity of Jesus Christ. He was of opinion that the faithful performed miracles, and operated magical cures by their simple confidence in God the Father, and not by their faith in Christ; but he adds, however, that we ought to pray to Jesus, in order to obtain his intercession. From the preceding attempt to explain the opinions of Paracelsus, it will be evident to the reader that he was both a fanatic and impostor, and that his theory (if such a name can be given to the reveries of a drunkard), consisted in uniting medicine with the doctrines of the Cabala. A few more observations will be necessary to develop his dogmas still further.