THE LIFE OF PARACELSUS

PREFACE.

RECENT researches in the ethereal realms of Mysticism,
Metaphysics, and transcendental Anthropology have proved
beyond a doubt the existence of a great number of apparently
mysterious and occult facts, whose causes cannot be
explained by a science whose means for investigation are
limited by the imperfections of sensual perception, and
whose researches must necessarily come to a stop where
physical instruments cease to be of any service. Invisible
things cannot be seen, neither can that which is imponderable
be weighed with scales; but invisible and imponderable
things, such as the cosmic ether, the light-producing
power of the sun, the vital power of plants and
animals, thought, memory, imagination, will, psychological
influences affecting the state of the mind or producinga
sudden change of feeling, and other things too numerous
to mention, are nevertbeless facts, and exist in spite of the
incapacity of teachers of anatomy or chemistry to explain
them. If a reasonable sceptic says that such things do
not exist, he can only mean to say that they do not exist
relatively to his knowledge; because, to deny the possibility
of the existence of anything of which we know...