Page:Hermetic and Alchemical Writings of Paracelsus Vol I (IA cu31924092287121).djvu/195

 number, so that the age of any of them can be at once known by the first glance at the number affixed.

I determined to lay these signs before you in order that when you had mastered these, I might be more readily understood by you in the rest, and that the meaning of each might be plainer and more evident.

Many men come to the light deformed with monstrous signs. One man has a finger too many, another a finger too few; and the same may be the case with the toes. Another brings with him from the womb a distorted foot, arm, back, or other member; another has a weak or a hunched back. So also there are born hermaphrodites, androgyni, men, that is to say, possessing both pudenda, male as well as female, and sometimes lacking both. Of monstrous signs like this I have noted many, both in males and females, all of which are to be regarded as monstrous signs of secret sins in the parents. Hence has grown up the old proverb: "The more distorted, the more wicked"; and again: "lame limbs, lame works." These are signs of vices, and rarely denote anything good.

Just as the hangman brands his sons with degrading signs, so also bad parents mark their offspring with mischievous supernatural signs that people may be more cautious when they see the example of wicked men who carry tho stigmata in their forehead or cheeks, or in defective ears, fingers, hands, eyes, or tongues.

Each of these signs of infamy designates some particular vice. If there is a stigma burnt into the face of a woman, or if there be a lopping off of the ears, it, for the most part, indicates theft. Loss of fingers tells of cheating gamblers. The loss of a hand indicates violators of peace. That of two fingers points out perjury. The loss of an eye indicates that people engage in sharp and subtle crimes. The cutting off of the tongue designates blasphemers and calumniators. So you can recognise those who are called mamelukes, or deniers of the Christian religion, by a cross burnt into the heel of their feet, because they denied Christ their Redeemer.

But let us dismiss these matters and return to the monstrous signs brought about by wicked parents. It should be known that all monstrous signs are not produced only by the progenitor, but frequently also from the stars of the human mind, which perpetually at all moments, with the Phantasy, Estimation, or Imagination, rise and set just as in the firmament above. Hence, through fear or fright on the part of those who are pregnant, many monsters are born, or children signed with marks of monstrosity in the womb of their mother. The primary cause of these things is alarm, terror, or appetite, by which the imagination is aroused. If the pregnant woman begins to imagine, then her bosom is borne round in its motion just as the superior firmament, each movement rising or setting. For, as in the case of the greater firmament, the stars of the microcosm also move by imagination,