ARCHIDOXIS BOOK IV

BY THEOPHRASTUS PARACELSUS THE GREAT

What the quintessence is.

A decorative drop-cap 'A' depicts an architectural scene with buildings and trees inside a square frame.
We have previously mentioned the Quintessence the fifth, or vital, essence, which resides in all things. Now, at the beginning of this treatise, it must be understood what it actually is. Therefore, the Quintessence is a certain matter extracted corporeally from everything that nature has produced, and from each thing possessing life within itself. It is separated from all impurities and mortality, cleansed most subtly, and also separated from all four elements. From this, it is clear that the Quintessence is purely Nature, power, virtue, and medicine—once included within things, but now free from every dwelling and extraneous incorporation. It is also the color, life, and properties of things. It is a spirit similar to the spirit of life, with this distinction: the spirit of life is permanent to the thing, but mortal to man. From this, it can be gathered that the quintessence cannot be extracted from human flesh or blood for this reason, because the spirit of life, which is also the spirit of virtue, dies, and life exists in the soul, which does not happen similarly in an inanimate thing.

Man and animals do not provide a quintessence.

For the same reason, animals, because they lose their spirit of life, are entirely mortal and offer no quintessence. For the quintessence is the spirit of that thing, which indeed cannot be extracted from sentient things as it can from non-sentient things. The Melissa lemon balm has within it the spirit of life, which is its virtue, power, and medicine. And although it may be separated from its root, life and virtue still remain in it for this reason: that its predestination is fixed. Therefore, the quintessence can be extracted from it, and also preserved with life without corruption, just as it is eternal according to its predestination. If, however, we could extract the life of the heart in this manner, beyond corruption, as is possible for us from non-sentient things, without a doubt we could live perpetually without the perception of death and disease, which can in no way happen. Therefore, from this, death must be expected by us.

How the quintessence resides in things.

Since, therefore, the quintessence is the virtue of things, we must first say in what form virtue and medicine exist in things, in this manner: Wine contains within itself a great quintessence, from which it has its marvelous operations. However, the operation is not as much as the wine, as is clear. Gall thrown into water makes the whole thing bitter, even if the gall is surpassed in quantity a hundredfold by the water. Thus, the smallest weight of saffron tinges a huge quantity of water, which, however, is not all saffron. Thus, it must be established regarding the quintessence that its quantity is small, in wood,