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ROSICRUCIANISM, ALCHEMY, AND MAGIC. 209
destroyed hospitals, 1 and the diseases and miseries unavoid-
ably consequent on unsanitary principles and medical guesswork,
were undoubtedly very widely spread. The utter incompetence
of the ancient methods led many others besides
the Eosicrucians to disregard and denounce the traditional
authority, and in the wide field of experimental research
to lay the foundations of a new and rational hypothesis.
The germs of this revolution are found in Paracelsus, and
the practical theosophy medicine itself being a branch of
mysticism from the standpoint of orthodox mystics prac-
tised by Rosicrucian adepts is their strongest claim on our
favour, the one golden link which joins their dissonant
commonplace with the Orphean
divine occultism.
harmonies of true and
It will be sufficient to enumerate only their belief in a
secret philosophy, perpetuated from primeval times, in ever-
burning lamps, in vision at a distance, and in the approach-
ing end of the world. I have shown indisputably that there
was no novelty in the Rosicrucian pretensions, and no ori-
ginality in their views. They appear before us as Lutheran
disciples of Paracelsus ; and, returning
for a moment to the
problem discussed in the introduction, we find nothing in
either manifesto to connect them with the typology of a
remote period. It is, therefore, in modern, not ancient,
times that we must seek an explanation of the device of the
Rose-Cross. A passage contained in " The Chymical Mar-
riage of Christian Rosencreutz " will assist in the- solution
of this important point.
1 " The origin of our present hospitals must be looked for in
monastic arrangements for the care of the sick and indigent. Every
monastery had its infirmaria, managed by an infirmarius, in which
not only were sick and convalescents treated, but also the aged, the
blind, the weak, &c., were housed." "Encyc. Brit.," 9th ed.,
"Hospitals."
O
s. v,