Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 9.djvu/240

 226 CHAHLES S. MYERS : veil that but half concealed the expressions of dissatisfac- tion with long-accepted doctrines had been gradually drawn aside. Finally, in the sixteenth century, this conspicuous revival of learning marked a final revolt against the narrow- minded credulity of previous centuries. A renaissance it truly was ; Galen was fallen, Physiology was reborn. This stimulus to independent thought was confined to no single country. Germany, France, Italy, Spain and Eng- land all produced men endowed with the revolutionary spirit. Fernelius (1497-1558) led the way by abruptly separating the Anima or Soul from the Galenic pneurna. Argeutieri (1513-1572) revived pre-Galenic doctrines with strangely altered significance. Others again, as Paracelsus, made the researches of the alchemists the starting-point of their theories. Paracelsus (1493-1541) less known by his real name, Bombast von Hohenheim struck perhaps the most effec- tive blow against the long-accepted infallibility of Galen. Following that of his master, Basil Valentine, his theory, essentially alchemistic, was founded on the search after the tincture, elixir and the quintessence of all things. To his mind, the Mosaic creation of the world from nothing clearly necessitated the pre-existence of a quintessence. This quintessence was conceived by Paracelsus to be of a double nature, the visible or earthly, and the invisible or astral, of which two parts everything living and lifeless is composed. Man is the midpoint of the universe, said Paracelsus, a microcosm to be studied in the centre of a surrounding macrocosm. As the fruit can only be regarded from the nature of the seed, so man can be comprehended solely from the world which preceded him. Man is made up of the twofold quintessence above described, the visible or bodily, consisting of sulphur, salts and mercury, and the invisible or spiritual. Paracelsus, however, with character- istic inconsistency, adds an anima or soul to the human corpus spiritus. This anima is the living breath of God. " As the body feeds on earth, the spirit on the stars," so the Paracelsian " soul feeds on Christ ". Jan Baptista van Helmont (1577-1644) may be said to have carried on and completed the work of Paracelsus. He advocated the famous doctrine of the archei derived from the master of alchemy who preceded him. Like the astral and earthly components of the Paracelsian quintessence, archeus and matter were said by van Helmont to be uni- versal. All things, he declared, are alive in different degrees.