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177
The Story of Alchemy and the Beginnings of Chemistry
·
M. M. Pattison Muir
99
Paracelsus
trusted
in
his
method;
he
was
endeavouring
to
substitute
direct
appeal
to
nature
for
appeal
to
the
authority
of
writers
about
nature.
"After
me,"
he
cries,
"you
Avicenna,
Galen,
Rhasis,
Montagnana
and
the
others.
You
after
me,
not
I
after
you.
You
of
Paris,
you
of
Montpellier,
you
of
Swabia,
of
Meissen
and
Vienna;
you
who
come
from
the
countries
along
the
Danube
and
the
Rhine;
and
you,
too,
from
the
Islands
of
the
Ocean.
Follow
me.
It
is
not
for
me
to
follow
you,
for
mine
is
the
monarchy."
But
the
work
was
too
arduous,
the
struggle
too
unequal.
"With
few
appliances,
with
no
accurate
knowledge,
with
no
help
from
the
work
of
others,
without
polished
and
sharpened
weapons,
and
without
the
skill
that
comes
from
long
handling
of
instruments
of
precision,
what
could
Paracelsus
effect
in
his
struggle
to
wrest
her
secrets
from
nature?
Of
necessity,
he
grew
weary
of
the
task,
and
tried
to
construct
a
universe
which
should
be
simpler
than
that
most
complex
order
which
refused
to
yield
to
his
analysis."
And
so
he
came
back
to
the
universe
which
man
constructs
for
himself,
and
exclaimed--
"Each
man
has
...
all
the
wisdom
and
power
of
the
world
in
himself;
he
possesses
one
kind
of
knowledge
as
much
as
another,
and
he
who
does
not
find
that
which
is
in
him
cannot
truly
say
that
he
does
not
possess
it,
but
only
that
he
was
not
capable
of
successfully
seeking
for
it."
We
leave
a
great
genius,
with
his
own
words
in
our
ears:
"Have
no
care
of
my
misery,
reader;
let
me
bear
my
burden
myself.
I
have
two
failings:
my
poverty
and
my
piety.
My
poverty
was
thrown
in
my
face
by
a
Burgomaster
who
had
perhaps
only
seen
doctors
attired
in
silken
robes,
never
basking
in
tattered
rags
in
the
sunshine.
So
it
was
decreed
I
was
not
a
doctor.
For
my
piety
I
am
arraigned
by
the
parsons,
for
...
I
do
not
at
all
love
those
who
teach
what
they
do
not
themselves
practise."
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