fire, in the chymical art, as enables them to discover the essential principles of bodies, and to disclose stupendous mysteries in the physical world. They even pretend to an acquaintance with those celestial beings, which form the medium of intercourse between God and man, and to a power of obtaining from them, by the aid of magic, astrology, and other similar arts, various kinds of information and assistance. This they affirm to have been the ancient secret wisdom, first revealed to the Jews under the name of the Cabala, and transmitted by tradition to posterity. Philosophers of this class have no common system; but every one follows the impulse of his own imagination, and constructs an edifice of fanaticism for himself. The only thing in which they are agreed is, to abandon human reason, and pretend to divine illumination. The reader will easily perceive, that it must be a difficult task to decypher the systems of such philosophers, and will not be disappointed if he finds us unable to illuminate this region of obscurity. In pursuit of our plan, we shall enumerate a few of the principal Theosophists. Many traces of the spirit of Theosophism may be found through the whole history of philosophy; in which nothing is more frequent, than fanatical and hypocritical pretensions to divine illumination.

Among moderns, the first name which appears with distinction in this class of philosophers is Phillipus Aureolus Theophrastus Paracelsus, a man of a strange and paradoxical genius. He was born at Einsidlen, near Zurich, in the year 1493. His family name, which was Bombastus, he afterwards changed, after the custom of the age, into Paracelsus.

He was instructed by his father, who was a physician, in languages and medicine. So earnestly desirous was he of penetrating into the mysteries of nature, that, neglecting books, he undertook long and hazardous journies through Germany, Italy, Spain, Denmark, Hungary, and Muscovy, and probably several parts of Asia, and Africa. He not only visited literary and learned men, but frequented the workshops of mechanics, descended into mines, and thought no place mean or hazardous, if it afforded him an opportunity of increasing his knowledge of nature. He consulted all persons who pretended to be possessed of any secret art, particularly such as were skilled in metallurgy. Being in this manner a self-taught philosopher and physician, he despised the medical writings of the ancients, and boasted that the whole contents of his library would not amount to six folios.

Rejecting the tedious method of the Galenic school, Paracelsus had recourse to new and secret medicines, procured from metalic substances by the chymical art. And his bold empirical practice was in many cases attended with such wonderful success, that he rose to the summit of popular fame, and even obtained the medical chair in the city of Basil. Among other nostrums, he administered a medicine, to which he gave the name of Azoth, which, he boasted, was the philosopher's stone, the medical panacea, and which his disciples extol as the Tincture of Life, given through the divine favour to man in these last days. His irregular practice, and the virulence with which he censured the ignorance and in

dolence

dolence of other physicians, created him many enemies. The rewards which he received for the cures he performed were by no means adequate to the expectations of his vanity and ambition. After meeting with many disappointments and mortifications, an incident occurred which determined him to leave Basil. A wealthy canon of Lichfield, who happened to fall sick at Basil, offered Paracelsus a hundred florins to cure his disease. This. Paracelsus easily effected with three pills of his laudanum, one of his most powerful medicines. The canon, restored to health so soon, and as appeared to him, by such slight means, refused to stand to his engagement, Paracelsus brought the matter before the magistrate, who decreed him only the usual fee. Inflamed with violent indignation at the contempt which was, by this decision, thrown upon his art, after inveighing bitterly against the canon, the magistrate, and the whole city, he left Basil, and withdrew into Alsace, whither his medical fame and success followed him. Af ter two years, during which time he practised medicine in the principal families of the country, about the year 1530, he removed to Switzerland, where he conversed with Bullenger and other divines. From this time, he seems for many years to have roved through various parts of Germany and Bohemia. At last, in the year 1541, he finished his days in the hospital of St. Se bastian, in Saltsburgh.

Different, and even contradictory, judgements have been formed by the learned concerning Paracelsus. His admirers and followers have celebrated him as a perfect master of all

philosophical and medical mysteries. Some, on account of the reformation which he produced in medicine, have called him the medical Luther. Many have maintained, as indeed he himself boasted, that he was possessed of the grand secret of converting inferior metals into gold. On the contrary, others have charged his whole medical practice with ignorance, imposture, and impudence. J. Crato, in an epistle to Zwinger, attests, that in Bohemia his medicines, even when they performed an apparent cure, left his patients in such a state, that they soon after died of palsies or epilepsies. Erastus, who was for two years one of his pupils, wrote an entire book to detect his impostures. He is said to have been not only unacquainted with the Greek language, but so bad a Latin scholar, that he dared not speak a word of Latin in the presence of learned men. It is even asserted, that he was so imperfect a master of his vernacular tongue, that he was obliged to have his German writings corrected by another hand. His adversaries also charge him with the most contemptible arrogance, the most vulgar scurrility, the grossest intemperance, and the most detestable impiety. The truth seems to be, that Paracelsus's merit chiefly consisted in improving the art of chymistry, and in inventing or bringing to light, several chymical medicines, which to this day hold their place in the Pharmacopeia. Without either learning, or urbanity, or even decency of manners, by the mere help of physical knowledge and the chymical arts, he obtained an uncommon share of medical fame; and to support his credit

with the ignorant, he pretended to an intercourse with invisible spirits, and to divine illumination.

Paracelsus wrote, or rather dictated to his amanuensis, many treatises; but they are so entirely void of elegance, so immethodical and obscure, that one may almost credit the assertion of his chymical assistant, Oponinus, that he dictated most of his books in the night, when he was intoxicated. They treat of an immense variety of subjects, medical, magical, and philosophical. His philosophia sagax," Subtle philosophy," is a most obscure and confused treatise on astrology, necromancy, chiromancy, physiognomy, and other divining arts, calculated for no other purpose than to promote vulgar superstition. Several of his pieces treat of philosophical subjects, such as "The Production and Fruit of the Four Elements;" "The Secrets of Nature, their Origin, Causes, Character, and Properties," and the like; but they are such a confused mass of words, that it wouldbe an Herculean labour to drawoutfromthemanythingwhich would have the least appearance of a consistent philosophical system.

The chymical, or Paracelsic school, produced many eminent men, whose memoirs rather belong to the history of medicine than of philosophy. Many of these took great pains to digest the incoherent dogmas of their master into a methodical system. A summary of his doctrine may be seen in the preface to the Basilica Chymica of Crollius; which, after all, is nothing better than a mere jargon of words, with which it is wholly unnecessary to trouble the reader.

What Paracelsus was in the sixteenth century, Robert Fludd, an

English physician, attempted to become in the seventeeth. He was born in the year 1574, at Milgate, in Kent, and became a student in the university of Oxford in 1591. After he had finished his studies, he spent six years in travelling, in order to observe and collect what was curiousinnature,mysteriousin the arts, or profound in science. Returning to England, he was admitted into the college of physicians in London, where he obtained great admiration for his singular piety, and the profundity of his chymical, philosophical, and theological knowledge. After a long course of extensive practice, he died in the year 1637.

Sopeculiar was this philosopher's turn of mind, that there was nothing which ancient or modern times could afford, under the notion of occult wisdom, which he did not eagerly gather into his magazine of science. All the mysterious and incomprehensible dreams of the Cabalists and Paracelsians, he compounded into a new mass of absurdity. In hopes of improving the medical and chymical arts, he devised a new system of physics, loaded with wonderful hypothesis, and mystical fictions. He supposed two Universal Principles, the Northern or condensing power, and the Southern, or rarefying power. Over these he placed innumerable intelligencies and geniuses, and called together whole troops of spirits from the four winds, to whom he committed the charge of diseases. He applied this thermometer to discover the harmony between the macrocosm and the microcosm, or the world of nature and of man; he introduced many marvellous fictions into natural philosophy and medicine; he attempted to explain the

Mosaic cosmogony, in a work entitled Philosophia Mosaica, wherein he speaks of the three first principles, darkness, as the first matter; water, as the second matter; and the divine light, as the most central essence, creating, informing, vivifying all things; of secondary principles, two active, cold and heat; and two passive, moisture and dryness; and describes the whole mystery of production and corruption, of regeneration and resurrection, with such vague conceptions and obscure language, as leave the subject involved in impenetrable darkness. Some of his ideas, such as they were, appear to have been borrowed from the Cabalists and Alexandrian Platonists. The reader will easily judge what kind of light may be expected from the writings of Robert Fludd, when he is informed that he ascribes the magnetic virtue to the irradiation of angels. His philosophical works are, Utriusque Cosmi Historia; Veritatis Proscenium; Monochordium Mundi symphoniacum; Clavis Philosophia et Alchymic; Meteorologia cosmica, &c. His extravagancies were reprobated by several writers, particularly Kepler and Mersenus. In reply, he wrote an allegoric piece, under the title of " The Contest of Wisdom with Folly." Mersenus, who did not choose to continue the controversy, engaged Gassendi to chastise him, in his Examen Philosophie Fluddiana;" Examination of the Fluddian Philosophy;" a work which should be read by those who wish to form an accurate judgment of Fludd and other Theosophists.

One of the most dazzling luminaries in the constellation of Theosophists was Jacob Boehmen, a famous German philosopher, born

near Gorlitz, in Upper Lusatia, ia the year 1575. He was brought up a shoe-maker, and, at twenty years of age, married a butcher's daughter, with whom he lived happily thirty years. Though he never entirely forsook his occupation, his singular genius soon carried him ultra crepidam, "beyond his last." The theological controversies which were at this time spreading through Germany, made their way among the lowest classes of the people; and Boehmen, much disturbed in his mind upon many articles of faith, prayed earnestly for divine illumination. The consequence, according to his own account, was, that, rapt beyond himself for seven days together, he experienced a sacred sabbatic silence, and was admitted to the intuitive vision of God. Soon afterwards, he had a second ecstacy, in which, as he relates, whilst he was observing the rays which were reflected from a bright pewter vessel, he found himself, on a sudden, surrounded with celestial irradiations; his spirit was carried to the inmost world of nature, and enabled, from the external forms, lineaments, and colours of bodies, to penetrate into the recess of their essences. In a third vision of the same kind, other still more sublime mysteries were revealed to him, concerning the origin of nature, and the formation of all things, and even concerning divine principles, and intelligent natures. These wonderful communications, in the year 1612, Boehmen committed to writing, and produced his first treatise, entitled Aurora; of which, however, the principles, the ideas, and the language, are so new and mysterious, that we find it wholly impracticable to attempt

an

an abridgement. Indeed, the author himselfdeclares thesemysteries incomprehensible to flesh and blood; and says, that though the words be read, their meaning will lie concealed, till the reader has, by prayer, obtained illumination from that heavenly Spirit, which is in God, and in all nature, and from which all things proceed.

The Aurorafalling into the hands of the minister of Gorlitz, he severely reprimanded the author from the pulpit, and procured an order from the senate of the city, for repressing the work, in which Boehmen was required to discontinue his attempts to enlighten the world by his writings. Boehmen payed so much regard to this order, which must be confessed to have been as injudicious as it was oppressive, as to refrain from writing for seven years. His projected work, however, found its way to the press, at Amsterdam, in the year 1619; and the author was encouraged, by this circumstance, to resume his pen; and from that time sent forth frequent publications. It is said, but upon uncertain authority, that he was summoned to the supreme ecclesiastical court at Dresden, and there underwent an examination before a body of Theologians, in which he pleaded his cause so successfully, that he was dismissed without censure. Boehmen died in the communion of the Lutheran church, 1624.

It will be easily perceived, from the particulars which have been related, that, in Jacob Boehmen, a warm imagination, united with a gloomy temper, and unrestrained by solid judgement, produced that kind of enthusiasm, which, in its paroxysm,disturbsthe natural faculties

of perception and understanding, and produces a preternatural agitation of the nervous system, during which the mind is filled with wild and wonderful conceptions, which pass for visions and revelations. Every page of his writings, and even the hieroglyphic figures prefixed to his works, speak a disordered imagination; and it is in vain to attempt to derive his theosophics from any other source; unless, indeed, we were inclined to believe the account which he gives of himself, when, boasting that he was neither indebted to human learning, nor was he to be ranked among ordinary philosophers, he says, that he wrote, "Not from an external view of nature, but from the dictates of the spirit; and that what he delivered, concerning the nature of things, and concerning the works and creatures of God, had been laid open before his mind by God himself."

The conceptions of this enthusiast, in themselves sufficiently obscure, are often rendered still more so, by being clothed under allegorical symbols derived from the chymical art. As he frequently uses the same terms with Paracelsus, it is probable that he was conversant with his writings; but he certainly followed no other guide than his own eccentric genius and enthusiastic imagination: and every attempt which has been made by his followers, to explain and illustrate his system, has been only raising a fresh ignis fatuus, to lead the bewilderedtraveller still further astray.

We honestly confessittobewholly beyond our power to give any summary of the Boehmian system. This mystic makes God the essence of essences, and supposes a long series of spiritual natures, and even mat

ter