Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim, called Paracelsus: His Personality and Influence as Physician, Chemist, and Reformer

Abstract

AS is well known, it is the customary lot of revolutionaries, whether in politics, religion, literature, or science, or indeed in any department of intellectual activity, to be both vilified and extolled, and the praise and the blame are usually administered in very unequal measure, and with no due regard to the.intrinsic merits of the recipient. The common instinct of mankind is to oppose change, and he who sets himself athwart the general tendency to consider whatever is is right is certain to reap abuse for his pains, and to have his motives, however well meant, misrepresented and traduced. History shows that most reformers are in advance of their age. It is rarely that they hit what is mistakenly called the psychological moment—that is, when the world is ripe for the change they advocate, and willing and even eager to see it effected. In this exceptional case the reformer is extolled, his service universally acclaimed, and his immediate fame assured. The pioneer who has to face the vis inertiae of his age may, and usually does, go down to his grave “unwept, unhonoured, and unsung.” It is only when the fermenting leaven he has laboured to introduce has, it may be after many years, produced its effect, that his effort is recognised and its results appreciated. Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim, called Paracelsus: His Personality and Influence as Physician, Chemist, and Reformer. ByProf. J. M. Stillman. Pp. viii + 184. (Chicago and London: The Open Court Publishing Co., 1920.) 10s. net.