Page:Hermetic and Alchemical Writings of Paracelsus Vol I (IA cu31924092287121).djvu/198

 by wiser counsel for the future." But it is well to know that nobody grows wise from his own loss. He who is wise has learnt wisdom from another's loss, not from his own. He who has wasted his substance once will waste it again. He who perishes once, perishes again. He who once throws the dice will throw them again. The man who has once thieved and cheated the gallows tries to steal a second time. So he thus thinks within himself: "My undertaking has succeeded once and again, why should it not succeed a third and a fourth time? If God has once restored what had perished, He will restore it a second and a third time. If in my first misery I have not been deserted, I shall not be in my second or my third." All this does the animal man who is the servant and slave of the stars; who is swayed backwards and forwards by the stars like a reed in the waters. This is the reason why he has to spend his life in misery and so to die in dishonour. Who, then, would bear so disgraceful a slavery and not extricate himself from so squalid a prison? For by bringing to bear his own wisdom, and with the help of his star, anyone can free himself. Look at the matter thus: A fowler, relying on his own prudence, and by the assistance of his star conquering another star, has no need to pursue birds, for the birds will follow him, and though their nature rebel they will fly together to unaccustomed places. In like manner, to the fisherman at his ease and relying on his wisdom, the fishes will swim of their own accord, so that he can catch them with his hands. The hunter exerting his wisdom by means of his star so collects the wild beasts that he has no need to pursue them; they pursue him, contrary to the guidance and impulse of Nature. And so also with other living creatures.

In order to grasp these things it must be remembered that stars are of two kinds, terrestrial and celestial. The former belong to folly, the latter to wisdom. And as there are two worlds, the lesser and the larger, and the lesser rules the larger, so also the Star of the Microcosm governs and subdues the celestial star. God did not create the planets and stars with the intention that they should dominate man, but that they, like other creatures, should obey him and serve him. And although the higher stars do give the inclination, and, as it were, sign man and other earthly bodies for the manner of their birth, yet that power and that dominion are nothing, save only a predestined mandate and office, in which there is nothing occult or abstruse remaining, but the inner force and power is put forth through the external signs.

But to return to our proposition concerning the physical signs of men: know that these are twofold, like indeed in outward form, but dissimilar in power and effect. Some are from the upper stars of heaven; others from the lower stars of the microcosm. Every superior star signs according to birth up to mid-age. That signature is predestined, and is not without its own peculiar force. It is attested by a man's nature and condition of life. But whatever the lower star of the microcosm signs from birth has its origin from the father and the mother, as often as the mother affects by her imagination or