The Remaining Works of Benedict de Spinoza

continues from previous page: hidden nature. Thus wine gladdens the heart and is familiar to man: gold assumes quicksilver, and with it extends for the purpose of gilding, etc. Goldsmiths know these things, unlike the Aristotelians, who from the Acroamatics esoteric lectures of Aristotle cannot provide reasons for these phenomena. What follows from this? Must the philosophy of Aristotle therefore be adorned with shorter feathers a metaphor for "diminished reputation"? We deny that this follows. For if military discipline cannot be learned from the philosophy of Aristotle, it does not follow that his philosophy is to be scorned. This is a ridiculous argument: goldsmiths in their own art know that which the Aristotelians do not. Therefore, they possess eyes and an enlightened mind.

47. As far as Plato, Democritus, Pythagoras, and Hermes are concerned, it is false that they saw with celestial and angelic eyes, unless you take demons for angels, for they were wicked magicians and idolaters, whose entire wisdom is foolishness before God in divine matters. In human affairs, however, they are so riddled with vices and absurdities that they have been reproved by many, and especially the Hermetic Dialogues are full of errors. That the foundations of impious Magic exist in the dialogues of Plato, and the acatalepsia incomprehensibility/skepticism of the Pyrrhonians, is evident both in itself and testified by the writings of the Platonists, Iamblichus, Proclus, Mirandola, Pistorius, Marsilius, and others. But from where is it proved that they recognized a seminal virtue in all things? Whatever they knew, they either received through discipline, or learned from Parhedri familiar spirits, or in a natural way through sense, reason, and experience. If you look at discipline, Aristotle does not yield to them. If you look at Magic, they were wicked: if you look at the ordinary method, the Peripatetic Aristotelian school leaves them behind by long strides, as the matter itself and the controversies prove.

48. The examples that are brought forward do not prove that which they are intended to prove. For the Paracelsists followers of Paracelsus hold a very false opinion concerning the magnet, namely that iron is attracted by it because of an iron spirit, which attracts more strongly in a foreign body than in its own. If there is indeed a spirit, which the Peripatetics and Galenists gladly concede, those new philosophers ought to say why it attracts. Is it because it is sulfurous? But why does sulfur attract? Because it is familiar. Why? Is it not because of such a crasis mixture/temperament and an inexplicable property? Therefore, the Paracelsians are stuck in the same, or even deeper, mire. For the claim that it is from heaven, they are also bound to prove, since it is not true just because it seems so to them. Concerning garlic, it is said falsely. Concerning the scorpion, the Paracelsians cannot give a better reason than the Galenists. In both cases ,, Sympathy and similarity have reasons in occult matters. That a man loves gold is particular and accidental. The same man loves girls, glory, estates, and many other things which he thinks are good and pleasant to him, and this often not in themselves, but by accident. Therefore, many have despised gold who have been quite famous in the name of wisdom. If pebbles had value in commerce, gold, silver, and the like would become very cheap. Wine is so familiar to human nature that it sometimes becomes a poison, whether you offer the whole or its essence. But was this unknown to the ancients? Do not the Paracelsians beg the question when they say that the spirit of wine is the cause? For why is this the cause? You will say the heavens. But I ask for the principle of this as well. Thus, the Galenists can argue better about the familiarity of gold and quicksilver than the Paracelsians, although the nature of mercury was unknown to Galen.

49. From his own weakness, that man judged the power of others. If he had correctly understood the Acroamata of Aristotle, he could have discoursed from them even concerning the nature of gold and quicksilver idikos specifically; he could have taken special points from the books on generation and the 4th book of Meteorology, and from the declarations of other Peripatetics. Tell me, chemists, why do gold and quicksilver love each other? Is it not because they are of the same root, and differ only in imperfection and perfection, solution and coagulation, cooking and crudity, just like water and ice? Why this? Is it not because such is the crasis and the whole nature? Who are those Aristotelian philosophers ignorant of friendship or Sympathy? They have known it from particular nature, and they can provide reasons from Aristotle regarding gunpowder and fulminating gold. Therefore, the Peripatetics see much more sharply than the Paracelsists, who seem to themselves to see what they do not see at all. The Paracelsist would like to hear the cause of these things from an Aristotelian philosopher. But you sciolists, who are sharper than Aristotle, tell me the prior causes. We read Crollius concerning the hostility of tartaric salt and ammoniac, but it does not satisfy.

50. If the chemical art does not suffice, the causes of all things cannot be declared from the philosophy of Aristotle. Indeed, I say, not even if the chemical art is added, as far as special and proper causes are concerned. We hold only as much regarding general causes as can be proven. We have seen various writings of the Paracelsists concerning the causes of things. But we have not found wisdom and truth in all of them.

End of the Proem on Vital Philosophy.