Editing Robert Fludd (section)

===Tripartite division of matter===
Much of Fludd's writing, and his pathology of disease, centered around the sympathies found in nature between man, the terrestrial Earth, and the divine. While Paracelsian in nature, Fludd's own theory on the origin of all things posited that, instead of the [[Outline of alchemy|Tria Prima]], all species and things stemmed from first, dark Chaos, then divine Light which acted upon the Chaos, which finally brought forth the waters. This last element was also called the Spirit of the Lord, and it made up the passive matter of all other substances, including all secondary elements and the four qualities of the ancients. Moreover, the Fluddean tripartite theory concluded that Paracelsus' own conception of the three primary principles—Sulphur, Salt and Mercury—eventually derived from Chaos and Light interacting to create variations of the waters, or Spirit.

The Trinitarian division is important in that it reflects a mystical framework for biology. Fludd was heavily reliant on scripture; in the Bible, the number three represented the ''principium formarum'', or the original form. Furthermore, it was the number of the Holy [[Trinity]]. Thus, the number three formed the perfect body, paralleling the Trinity. This allowed man and Earth to approach the infinity of God, and created a universality in sympathy and composition between all things.