De Piscibus Libri V et De Cetis Liber Unus

hidden nature original: "tate occulta". Thus, wine gladdens and is familiar to man: gold takes up quicksilver argentum vivum mercury, and with it, it is extended for gilding, etc. Goldsmiths know these things, not the Aristotelians, who cannot provide the reasons for them from the Acroamaticis Aristotelis Aristotle’s esoteric or oral teachings. What follows from this? Must the philosophy of Aristotle therefore be adorned with shorter feathers? We deny that this follows. For if military discipline cannot be learned from the philosophy of Aristotle, it does not follow that it should be despised. That is a ridiculous argument: goldsmiths know in their art that which the Aristotelians do not. Therefore, they have eyes and a mind for illumination.

47. As far as concerns Plato, Democritus, Pythagoras, and Hermes, it is false that they saw with celestial and angelic eyes, unless you take demons for angels, since they were wicked magicians and idolaters, whose entire wisdom is folly before God in divine matters. In human affairs, however, they are so swarming with vices and absurdities that they have been reproved by more than one person, and in particular, the Hermetic dialogues are full of errors. That there are foundations of impious Magic and the acatalepsia incomprehensibility of the Pyrrhonians in Plato’s dialogues is evident both by itself and is testified to by the writings of the Platonists, Iamblichus, Proclus, Mirandulano, Pistorius, Marsilius, etc. But whence is it proven that they recognized a seminal virtue in all things? Whatever they knew, they either received through discipline, or they learned from Parhedri familiar or attendant spirits, or they learned in a natural way through sense, reason, and experience. If you look at discipline, Aristotle does not yield to them. If you look at Magic, they were wicked: if you look at the ordinary method, the Peripatetics leave them far behind, as the matter itself and the controversies prove.

48. The examples that are brought forward do not prove the thing for which they are used to prove. For the Paracelsians have a most false opinion about the Magnet: namely, that iron is attracted by it because of an iron spirit, which pulls more strongly in a foreign body than in its own. If there even is a spirit, which the Peripatetics and Galenists willingly concede, those new philosophers must say why it attracts. Is it because it is sulfurous? But why does sulfur attract? Because it is familiar. Why? Is it not because of such a mixture and an inexplicable property? Therefore, in the same, or rather in deeper mud, the Paracelsians are stuck. For what is said to be from heaven, they are also bound to prove, since it is not true just because it seems so to them. What is said about garlic is false. The Paracelsians cannot give a better reason for the scorpion than the Galenists. In both cases, sympathy and similarity have reasons in occult things. That a man loves gold is a particular and accidental occurrence. The same man also loves girls, glory, estates, and many other things that he thinks are good and pleasing to him, and this is often not of itself, but by accident. Therefore, many have despised gold who have been quite famous in the name of wisdom. If small stones were valuable in commerce, gold, silver, and the like would become very cheap. Wine is so familiar to the nature of man that it sometimes even becomes a poison, whether you offer the whole or its essence. But was this unknown to the ancients? Do the Paracelsians not beg the question when they say the spirit of wine is the cause? For why is this the cause? You will say the heavens. But I also ask for the principle of this. Thus, the Galenists can argue better than the Paracelsians about the familiarity of gold and quicksilver, although the nature of mercury was unexplored by Galen.

49. From his own impotence, that man judged the power of others. If he had correctly understood Aristotle’s Acroamata esoteric lectures, he could have also argued about the nature of gold and quicksilver physikos naturally: he could have taken particulars from the books on generation, and the 4th book of the Meteorology, and the explanations of other Peripatetics. Tell me, chemists, why do gold and quicksilver love each other? Is it not because they are of the same root, and differ only in imperfection and perfection, in solution and coagulation, in cooking and rawness, just like water and ice? Why this? Is it not because such is the mixture and the whole nature? But who are those Aristotelian philosophers who are ignorant of friendship or Sympathy? They knew it from particular nature, and they can provide reasons from Aristotle for gunpowder and fulminating gold. Therefore, the Peripatetics see far more sharply than the Paracelsians, who seem to themselves to see what they do not see at all. The Paracelsian would like to hear the cause of these things from an Aristotelian philosopher. But you sciolists, who are sharper than Aristotle, tell me first. We read Crollius concerning the hostility of Tartaric salt and sal ammoniac, but it does not satisfy.

50. If the Chemical art is not added, the causes of all things cannot be declared from Aristotle’s philosophy. Indeed, I say, not even if the chemical art is added, as far as special and proper causes are concerned. We hold only as much about general matters as can be proven. We have, however, seen various writings of the Paracelsians about the causes of things. But we have not found wisdom and truth in all of them. But so much for this.