ctual world upon the celestial world, and of both upon the
terrestrial world, and to know how to dispose and fit ourselves so as
to be capable of receiving the _superior operations of these worlds,
whereby we may be enabled to operate wonderful things by a natural
power_."[3] That saying precisely defines Agrippa's faith. There are,
he thinks, {137} three worlds: (1) the Intellectual world; (2) the
Celestial, or Astral, world; and (3) the Terrestrial world; and man,
who is a microcosm embodying in himself all these worlds, may, in the
innermost ground of his being, come upon a divine knowledge which will
enable him to unlock the mysteries of all worlds and to "operate
wonderful things." In quite other ways than Agrippa dreamed, science
has found the keys to many of these mysteries, and has learned how to
"operate wonderful things by a natural power." His enthusiasm and
passion were right, but he had not learned the slow and patient and
laborious way.

A still greater figure in this field of occult knowledge and of nature
mysticism was the far-travelled man and medical genius, Aureolus
Theophrastus Bombast, of Hohenheim, generally known as Paracelsus. He
was born in 1493 in the neighbourhood of Einsiedeln, not far from
Zurich, the son of a physician of repute. He studied in the University
of Basle, and later was instructed by Trithemius, Abbot of St. Jacobs
at Wurtzburg, an adept in magic, alchemy, and astrology. He passed a
long period--probably ten years--of his later youth in travel, studying
humanity at close range, gathering all sorts of information, forming
his theories of diseases and their cure, and learning to know Nature
"by treading her Books, through land after land, with his feet," which,
he once testified, is the only way of knowing her truly.[4]

In 1525 he settled in Basle, and, on the recommendation of
OEcolampadius was appointed professor of physic, medicine, and surgery
in 1527, but his revolutionary teaching and practice, his scorn for
traditional methods, his attacks on the ignorance and greed of
apothecaries raised a storm which he could not weather, and he secretly
left the city in 1528. Again he became a wanderer, having
extraordinary experiences of success and defeat, treating all manner of
diseases, writing books on medicine and on the fundamental nature of
things, and finally died at Salzburg in Bavaria in 1541.

Paracelsus is a strange and baffling character. He had {138} much of
t