The Remaining Works of Benedictus de Spinoza

... hidden nature. Thus wine gladdens, and is familiar to man: gold assumes quicksilver argentum vivum mercury, and with it is extended for gilding, etc. Goldsmiths know these things, not the Aristotelians, who cannot provide the reasons for these things from Aristotle's Acroamata esoteric lectures. What follows from this? Must Aristotle's philosophy therefore be adorned with shorter feathers? We deny that this follows. For if military discipline cannot be learned from the philosophy of Aristotle, it does not follow that it should be spurned. That is a ridiculous argument: goldsmiths know in their own art what the Aristotelians do not. Therefore, they have eyes and the illumination of the 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 devils for angels, since they were wicked magicians and idolaters, whose entire wisdom is folly before God in divine matters. In human affairs, however, they are so teeming with vices and absurdities that they have been reproved by many, and the Hermetic Dialogues, in particular, are full of errors. That there are foundations of impious magic in Plato's dialogues, and the acatalepsia incomprehensibility of the Pyrrhonists, is evident both in itself and testified by the writings of the Platonists, Iamblichus, Proclus, Mirandola, Pistorius, Marsilio, etc. But how is it proven that they recognized a seminal virtue in all things? Whatever they knew, they either received through instruction, or learned from familiar spirits, or understood in a natural way through sense, reason, and experience. If you look at instruction, Aristotle does not yield to them. If you look at magic, they were wicked: if you look at the ordinary method, the Peripatetics leave them far behind, as the facts themselves and the controversies prove.

48. The examples that are brought forward do not prove what they are intended to prove. For the Paracelsians have a very false opinion about the magnet, namely, that iron is attracted by it because of an iron spirit, which pulls more strongly in a foreign body than in its own. Even if there is a spirit, which the Peripatetics and Galenists gladly concede, those new philosophers must 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 temperament/mixture and an inexplicable property? Therefore, the Paracelsians are stuck in the same, or even deeper, mud. For they are obligated to prove that what is said to be from heaven actually is, since it is not true simply because it seems so to them. Regarding garlic, it is said falsely. Regarding the scorpion, the Paracelsians cannot give a better reason than the Galenists. In both cases,
,, Sympathy and similarity have hidden reasons. That a man loves gold is particular
,, and accidental. He also loves girls and glory and estates and many other things which he
,, deems good and pleasant for himself, and that often not in themselves, but by accident.
,, Therefore many have scorned gold, who have become quite famous in the name of wisdom.
,, If small pebbles were worth something in commerce, gold, silver, and the like
,, would become very cheap. Wine is so familiar to human nature that it sometimes even 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 the spirit of wine is the cause? For why is this the cause? You will say heaven. But I ask for the principle of this too. Thus, the Galenists can argue better about the familiarity of gold and quicksilver than the Paracelsians, although the nature of mercury was unexplored by Galen.

49. From his own impotence, that man judged the power of others. If he had correctly understood Aristotle's Acroamata esoteric lectures, he could have also argued physikos naturally about the nature of gold and quicksilver: he could have taken specifics 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 mutually? Is it not because they are of the same root, and differ only in imperfection and perfection, in solution and coagulation, in cooking and crudity, just like water and ice? Why this? Is it not because the crasis temperament and the whole nature is such? Who are those Aristotelian philosophers who ignore friendship or sympathy? They have known from particular nature, and they can provide reasons for gunpowder and fulminating gold from Aristotle. Therefore, the Peripatetics see far more sharply than the Paracelsians, who think they see what they do not see at all. The Paracelsian would like to hear the cause of these things from an Aristotelian philosopher. But you sciolists, who are sharper than Aristotle, speak first. We read Crollius on the hostility of tartar salt and ammoniac, but he does not satisfy.

50. If the chemical art does not provide it, the causes of all things cannot be declared from Aristotle's philosophy. 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 ones as can be proven. We have seen various writings of the Paracelsians about the causes of things. But we have not found wisdom and truth in all of them.