"
He had great faith in nature and the light of nature, holding that man
obtains from nature according as he believes. His theory of the three
principles appears to have controlled his conception of everything
relating to man, spiritually, mentally and bodily; and his threefold
genera of disease corresponded in some mysterious way with the three
primary substances, salt, sulphur and mercury.
How far he was a believer in astrology, charms and divination it is not
easy to say. From many of the writings in his collected works one would
gather, as I have already quoted, that he was a strong believer. On the
other hand, in the "Paramirum," he says: "Stars control nothing in us,
suggest nothing, incline to nothing, own nothing; they are free from
us and we are free from them" (Stoddart, p. 185). The Archaeus, not the
stars, controls man's destiny. "Good fortune comes from ability, and
ability comes from the spirit" (Archaeus).
No one has held more firmly the dualistic conception of the healing art.
There are two kinds of doctors; those who heal miraculously and those
who heal through medicine. Only he who believes can work miracles. The
physician has to accomplish that which God would have done miraculously,
had there been faith enough in the sick man (Stoddart, p.
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