Of the pamphlets published against him he said, "These vile ribaldries would raise the ire of a turtle-dove." And Paracelsus was no turtle-dove.

The following extract from (a translation of) the preface to _The Book concerning the Tinctures of the Philosophers written against those Sophists born since the Deluge_, shews that his style of writing was abusive, and his opinion of himself, to say the least, not very humble:-- "From the middle of this age the Monarchy of all the Arts has been at length derived and conferred on me, Theophrastus Paracelsus, Prince of Philosophy and Medicine.

For this purpose I have been chosen by God to extinguish and blot out all the phantasies of elaborate and false works, of delusive and presumptuous words, be they the words of Aristotle, Galen, Avicenna, Mesva, or the dogmas of any among their followers.

My theory, proceeding as it does from the light of Nature, can never, through its consistency, pass away or be changed; but in the fifty-eighth year after its millennium and a half it will then begin to flourish.

The practice at the same time following upon the theory will be proved by wonderful and incredible signs, so as to be open to mechanics and common people, and they will thoroughly understand how firm and immovable is that Paracelsic Art against the triflings of the Sophists; though meanwhile that sophistical science has to have its ineptitude propped up and fortified by papal and imperial privileges....