Selected Writings by Paracelsus; Jolande Jacobi; Norbert GutermanReview by: Walter PagelIsis, Vol. 43, No. 1 (Apr., 1952), p. 64Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of The History of Science SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/227144 .

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64 Book Reviews

look forward to M. Mesnard's Jean Bodin. On a small scale, each number of the BibliotheIque d'Humnanisme et Renaissance contains some "Travaux" in which, with a varying "dosage" of personality and erudition, literary criticism is re- introduced into literary history. Here, for in- stance, in P. Mesnard's "Jean Bodin 'a Toulouse," in C. A. Mayer's "The Lucianism of Des Periers," in E. V. Telle's "Erasme et les mariages dy- nastiques," the power of selection and opinion is exercised which, used too early, may vitiate the worth of scholarship, but from which only this work receives its cohesion and its meaning. Lit- erary science will be found in the BibliotheIque d'Humanisme et Renaissance, in its purest form, but also a promise and a demonstration that it must be a way to understanding.

G. LAFEUILLE

PARACELSUS: Selected writings. Edited with an introduction by Jolande Jacobi. Translated by Norbert Guterman. 347 pp., I48 ills. (Bol- lingen Series 28). New York: Pantheon Books, I95I. $4.50.

From an anthology we often learn more about the compiler than about the source. The intrinsic difficulties of an anthology are formidable when it is from the works of such a controversial figure as Paracelsus and seem to be insurmount- able in a translation. The present book over- comes some of these difficulties quite successfully. It limits itself to the ethical parts of Paracelsus' teachings. These lend themselves well to repre- sentation in short essays and aphorisms, unlike the doctrinal-medical, chemical and philo- sophical-part of his work for which an an- thology, however well prepared, would have been much less satisfactory. Dogmatism and uni- lateral emphasis -the greatest pitfall in a mod- ern interpretation of Paracelsus-have, thereby, been reduced to a laudable minimum. There still remains a fair residue of doctrines and ideas which appear in their proper ethical, religious, "Pansophic," or cosmological setting: for ex- ample, the relationship between "Star" and In- dividual - an idea so fundamental to Paracelsus.

The pieces are well selected and beautifully illustrated. They are presented in good order, under the following headings: "Credo" (auto- biographical), "Man and the Created World," "Man and his Body," "Man and Works," "Man and Ethics," "Man and Spirit," "Man and Fate." The translation seems, on the whole, fortunate, steering a safe course away from laboured archaism and insipid modernism. Detail will al- ways remain open to criticism; this applies par- ticularly to vague definitions, for example, Para- celsus' "Sapientia" and "Scientia" as "knowledge obtained by experience and the treasure of wis- dom that lies hidden in all Beings" (p. 332 in the "glossary"). Paracelsus himself has defined "Scientia," clearly, as the internal direction by which organic objects are led to attain to their destined form and perfection, for example the

"knowledge" which enables the pear tree to grow pears. Paracelsus' "Philosophy" is hardly well rendered by "philosophical knowledge" (p. I34).

The introductory "Life and Work of Para- celsus" has little new to say and preserves some of the traditional myths. The bibliography at the end faithfully registers, under "Biographical and Critical Works," publications very unequal in value, some quite uncritical and at best of value for Nazi propaganda. The short preface to the English edition by C. G. Jung is pregnant with wisdom. He says: "A contradictory and controversial figure, Paracelsus cannot be brought into line with any stereotype-as Sudhoff, for instance, sought to do when, arbi- trarily and without a shadow of evidence, he declared that certain aberrant texts were spuri- ous." This again uncovers the deplorable results of the lack in understanding of the contents of works subjected to so-called "critical" and bibli- ographical analysis in late Victorian times. It demonstrates that much of what has been be- lieved to be Acta are in reality Agenda (see Sarton, G., Arch. Internat. d'Hist. Sci., 15, 323- 356, 1950).

WALTER PAGEL

FRANCISCO SANCHES: 0 cometa do ano de 1577 (Carmen de cometa anni M. D. LXXVII); Reprodusao fac-similada da edicao de 1578; Introducao e notas do Doutor Artur Moreira de Sa. Lisboa: Instituto Para A Alta Culture; Centro de Estudos de Psicologia e de Hist6ria da Filosofia, I950.

Doctor Artur Moreira de Sa has written be- fore abouit Francisco Sanchez (I550 or I55I- I623), the Portuguese philosopher and mathe- matician, whose best known work, Quod nikil scitur, can be found in almost any public library. (See Isis 40, 363-4 for a brief review of Doctor Moreira de Sa's two volumes on Sanchez, and Isis 4I, 66 for a notice of his anthology of selections from Sanchez, translated into Portu- guese.) Doctor Moreira de Sa is also the editor of a work by another sixteenth-century Portu- guese philosopher, Alvaro Gomes of Evora (see Isis 41, 64).

So this scholar comes well qualified to his present task of editing Sanchez' Latin poem on the comet of I577. It has long been difficult to find a copy of this poem. In the twenty years that I have been collecting works on the comet of 1577, I have seen only one copy offered for sale, and it was purchased by Harvard University before my order was received. That is the only copy of which I know and is the one which was used for the present edition.

The introduction to the work in hand in- cludes a bibliographical discussion of the Sanchez poem and takes the stand that the edition re- produced here is the only one, citing my previous bewilderment on this score. The introduction also gives a competent short discussion of past

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