From the book
Nine Books on the Nature of Things
Attributed to Paracelsus · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Meaning
Bear, fox, dog, and sheep receive different moralized properties and become labels for human behaviour. The sheep example is not simply praise: usefulness to others is contrasted with harm to oneself. The catalogue illustrates the author’s natural-naming argument through figurative transfer, but it does not establish that a person’s character can be deduced from an animal comparison.
Places to read
- Book 9 · Signature · Passage 60Latin“Ovis placidum & utile”