Butler's verse (in "Hudibras") may be taken to represent the popular view held about Paracelsus after the first enthusiasm of his followers had cooled down
Bombastus kept a Devil's bird,
Shut in the pommel of his sword,
That taught him all the cunning pranks
Of past and future mountebanks.
German studies of Paracelsus have been very numerous during the past fifty years, and the general tendency has been greatly to enhance his fame.
After the death of Paracelsus, the Archbishop of Cologne desired to collect his works, many of which were in manuscript and scattered all over Germany. By this time there were many treatises attributed to him which he never wrote. It was a paying business to discover a new document by the famous doctor. It is believed that the fraudulent publications were far more numerous than the genuine ones, and it is quite possible that injustice has been done to his memory by the association with his name of some other peoples' absurdities.
His Mysticism.
The mystic views of Paracelsus, or those attributed to him, are curious rather than useful. He seemed to have had as much capacity for belief as he had disbelief in other philosophers' speculations. He believed in gnomes in the interior of the earth, undines in the seas, sylphs in the air, and salamanders in fire. These were the Elementals, beings composed of soul-substance, but not necessarily influencing our lives. The Elementals know only the mysteries of the particular element in which they live. There is life in all matter. Every mineral, vegetable, and animal has its astral body.
