[158] Paragrani Alterius, tract. ii. Opera Paracelsi, i. 235. The reader who has the curiosity to consult this tract, will find abundance of similar stuff, which I did not think worth translating. The system of Galen had for its principal basis the doctrine of the four elements, _fire_, _air_, _water_, and _earth_. Paracelsus neglected these elements, and multiplied the substances of the disease itself. He admits, strictly speaking, three or four elements; namely, the _star_, the _root_, the _element_, the _sperm_, which he distinguishes by the name of the _true seed_. All these elements were originally confounded together in the _chaos_ or _yliados_. The _star_ is the active force which gives form to matter. The _stars_ are reasonable beings addicted to sodomy and adultery, like other creatures. Each of them draws at pleasure out of the _chaos_, the plant and the metal to which it has an affinity, and gives a _sideric_ form to their _root_. There are two kinds of _seed_; the _sperm_ is the vehicle of the true seed. It is engendered by speculation, by imagination, by the power of the _star_. The occult, invisible, _sideric_ body produces the _true seed_, and the Adamic man secretes only the visible envelope of it. Putrefaction cannot give birth to a new body: the seed must pre-exist, and it is developed during putrefaction by the power of the stars. The generation of animals is produced by the concourse of the infinite number of seeds which detach themselves from all parts of the body. Thus the seed of the nose reproduces a nose, that of the eye the eye, and so on. With respect to the elements themselves, Paracelsus admits occasionally their influence on the functions of the body, and the theory of diseases; but he deduces the faculties which they possess from the _stars_. It was he that first shook the doctrine of the four elements, originally contrived by Empedocles. Alchymy had introduced another set of elements, and the alchymists maintained that salt, sulphur, and mercury, were the true elements of things. Paracelsus endeavoured to reconcile these chemical elements with his cabalistic ideas, and to show more clearly their utility in the theory of medicine. He invented a _sideric salt_, which can only be perceived by the exquisite senses of a theosophist, elevated by the abnegation of all gross sensuality to a level with pure and spiritual demons. This _salt_ is the cause of the consistence of bodies, and it is it which gives them the faculty of being reproduced from their ashes.