Observations placeholder

Giordano Bruno – from Cause, principle and unity

The aim of philosophy is not simply to arrive at the distinction of principles which is realized physically by the separation which results from the power of fire, but also to arrive at that distinction of principles to which no material agent can, since the soul, which is inseparable from sulphur, mercury and salt, is a formal principle; that principle is not susceptible to material qualities, but totally dominates matter and is not touched by the experiments of the alchemists.......................

I accept that method which proceeds alchemically, extracting the quintessences, and using fire to volatilize mercury, deposit salt, make sulphur grow luminous or extract oil from composites. But I do not wish to determine what method is the best among so many ‘medical’ procedures.

If the epileptic, to whom the physician and the alchemist have dedicated so much time in vain, chances to be cured by the magician, he will rightly endorse that medicine over the two other types. Keep to the same reasoning for other methods: none serves less well than another, if it attains the end it has set itself!

In my case, I consider the doctor who cures me to be worth more than the others who hurt me or murder me……………….

The best and truest among them is he who is not only physician, but also alchemist and astrologer.

The best one renders us, as far as possible, co-operators with nature, whether by divination … or by instituting laws and reforming customs, by practising ‘medicine’, or even by becoming acquainted with and leading a blessed and more divine life. That is why no well-organized philosophy exists that does not contain some special quality not found in the others.