Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: dazy.lcments, and staggerings to and fro, of a man sent on an errand he is too weak for, iy a path he cannot yet find.?Carlyle's Heroes in History.'' Beyond the Dark Ages, we have seen Galen standing, like one of the Pillars of Hercules; upon this side, and, upon their very verge, we find Paracelsus standing like the companion pillar. When the gloom and mystery of the Dark Ages began to roll away, and just after the discovery of America by Columbus, (1492), and at the commencement of the Reformation by Luther, (born 148o), a man of giant intellect (born 1493?died 1541) shook himself from the sleep of ages, and gazed abroad upon a world convulsed with reformations and new discoveries. Straightway he began to strut and stagger, stride and stumble, and bawl and fume about like one in whom sleep and liquor are still struggling for the mastery, or like one who is still perplexed with dreams and fantastic imaginings, and thickly beset with night-mares, mooncalves, and all unclean things. However, drunkards and sleep-walkers often get into situations where no amount of ingenuity or daring would conduct them in their wakeful and sober moments. But, such are just as apt to stride toward the infernal regions, as toward truth and fame. In point of fact, they may advance, to a certain extent, in each direction, and this is exactly what Paracelsus did. His legs, too, like his thoughts, were great wanderers, and led not only over Europe, but even into Asia and Africa; while his inclinations led him alike to house with professors or quacks, alchemists or physicians, astrologers and sorcerers, or experienced old women, mountebanks or nurses. From all these he gleaned their stores of medical knowledge, and began to think and preach that ancient medical lore, quack remedies, astrological mum...