Liber Incipit Theophrasti

Chapter 1

This book describes the 4 kinds of spirit-men:

1. The water people
2. The mountain people
3. The fire people
4. The wind people

Included among these 4 kinds are the giants, the melusines, the Venusberg and what is similar to them.

We consider them to be men, although not from Adam, These are creatures different from man and all other animals. They live among us and bear children although not of their own kind, but of our kind.

I have organized the topics in the following order:

1. Their creation and what they are
2. Their country and habitation, where they stay and what their mode of living is
3. How they come to us and let themselves be seen, how they mix and have intercourse with us
4. How they perform some miraculous works, such as Melusine, the Venusberg and similar stories
5. The birth of the giants and their origin, and also their vanishing and return

A philosopher must build on the Holy Scriptures and take his arguments from them. But in the Scriptures nothing special is written about these things, what to make of them or how to explore them.

There are some remarks about the giants only.

The exploration of Elementals is justified by the fact that they appear and exist.

These things must be explored just like magic, if we are to believe in it.

The writers of the Bible and the New Testament discussed how the soul has to act towards God and God towards the soul, so that this philosophy may not fall back.

But if we are permitted knowledge about the devil, spirits, and similar subjects, then this is something that has to be explored also, in regard to its nature.

We have the power to travel in all the works of God.

• The physician travels in the natural remedy
• The apostle travels in the apostolic remedy
• A sick man calls for a physician.
• Things call for a philosopher.
• A Christian calls for his Redeemer.
• Every work calls for his master.

Such creatures are also necessary and also represent their condition. They have not been created in vain.

Samson was a man who had unnatural strength over all men which resided in his hair.

People think this fact as superfluous and unnecessary, but it has its reason why it must exist.

David was a small man who killed the giant Goliath.

It did not seem humanly possible.

Hence, nothing has been created that has not a mystery, and it may be a great one.

In the Old Testament, queer stories happen which nobody can interpret. The New Testament teaches him about them: how things are finally found in a given place, why they occurred and from what cause.

Thus one learns that they occurred. The same applies to the things about which I write in the following people find them unnecessary and find that it is useless to talk about them.

But since there is a reason for them which will be apparent, about which I shall write the sixth treatise, therefore it is not un- necessary but necessary to explore the things, and to include them in our philosophy and speculation, to contemplate these things together with others, what their final purpose is.