Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 19.djvu/354

 distributed into Classes by their Tastes;’ (3) ‘The Third and Fourth Parts of the Pulse Watch;’ (4) ‘Essay on Air, Exercise,’ &c. Two letters of Floyer's, without importance, are among the Brit. Mus. MSS.



FLUDD or FLUD, ROBERT, M.D. (1574–1637), rosicrucian, second, or, according to Waite, fifth son of Sir Thomas Fludd, knight, by Elizabeth, daughter of Philip Andros of Taunton, Somerset, was born in 1574 at Milgate House, in the parish of Bearsted, Kent. The family was of Welsh origin; Robert's grandfather, David Fludd, was of Morton, Shropshire. Sir Thomas Fludd was ‘sometime treasurer of war to Q. Elizabeth in France and the Low Countries.’ In 1591 Fludd became commoner of St. John's College, Oxford, and graduated B.A. on 3 Feb. 1596; M.A. on 8 July 1598. As a student of medical science he travelled for nearly six years on the continent, visiting France, Spain, Italy, and Germany, and teaching in noble families. Returning with considerable repute as a proficient in chemistry, he became a member of Christ Church, Oxford, and on 16 May 1605 received the degrees of M.B. and M.D. Early in 1606 he was twice examined by the College of Physicians; on the second occasion (7 Feb.) the censors reported that although he had not fully satisfied the examiners, he was qualified to practise medicine. In consequence of alleged expressions of contempt for the Galenic system, he was cited before the censors on 2 May 1606. He denied the charges; his accusers not appearing, he was dismissed with an admonition. Thrice in the same year he was examined for the fellowship, and on 22 Dec. was pronounced ‘dignus.’ But he got into further trouble with the authorities, and ‘tam insolenter se gessit’ that on 21 March 1608 he was again admonished. On 20 Sept. 1609 he was elected a fellow of the College of Physicians; he was censor in 1618, 1627, 1633, and 1634.

Fludd practised in London as a physician, and kept a handsome establishment. His success in the healing art is ascribed by Fuller to his influence on the minds of his patients, producing a ‘faith-natural’ which aided the ‘well working’ of his drugs. He had his own apothecary under his roof, which was unusual; and he was always provided with an amanuensis, to whom he dictated at untimely hours his numerous and elaborate treatises on things divine and human. He claims notice as a mechanician; by his own account he had constructed a wooden bull that bellowed, an automatic dragon, and a self-performing lyre.

As a writer, Fludd is the chief English representative of that school of medical mystics which laid claim to the possession of the key to universal science. With less of original genius than Paracelsus, he has more method, and takes greater pains to frame a consistent system. The common idea of this school, that the biblical text contains a storehouse of hints for modern science, has lost interest, its potency expiring with the Hutchinsonians. And since Fludd did not make, like Paracelsus, any permanent addition to the pharmacopœia, or foreshadow, like Servetus, any later discoveries in chemistry or physiology, his lucubrations have passed into oblivion. His writings obtained more attention abroad than at home, though Selden highly valued them, and an admiring writer (John Webster) esteems their author ‘one of the most Christian philosophers that ever writ.’ Kepler and Gassendi entered the lists against him. De Quincey, following Buhle, makes him oddly enough the ‘immediate father’ of freemasonry.

Fludd is best remembered for his connection with the fraternity of the rosy cross, a society so obscure that its very existence has been denied. It was introduced to the public in 1614 by an anonymous work in German, best known as the ‘Fama Fraternitatis,’ which promised a ‘universal and general reformation of the whole world’ through the ‘Orden des Rosenkreuzes.’ This publication, which Gottfried Arnold regards as an elaborate skit on the part of Johann Valentin Andreas (1586–1654), ascribed the foundation of the fraternity to one Christian Rosenkreuz, in the fifteenth century. In addition to the attainment of the usual prizes of the alchemist, one of its practical objects was reported to be the gratuitous healing of the sick. The movement was commended to Fludd's notice by the German alchemist, Michael Maier, who visited him in London. Fludd came forward in vindication of the fraternity, especially from the suspicions of theologians. To a manuscript ‘Declaratio breuis,’ which he addressed to James I, are appended the confirmatory letters of French and German associates. On behalf of German writers of the fraternity, Justus Helt testifies (20 April 1617) that they are neither popish nor Lutheran, in short that ‘Fratrum theosophiam esse Calvinistarum theologiam.’

Flood takes the position that all true natural science is rooted in revelation. He