FLUDD, Robert (Latin Robertas De Fluctibus), (1574-1637), an English physician and mystical philosopher, was the son of Sir Thomas Fludd, treasurer of war to Queen Elizabeth in France and the Low Countries, and was born at Milgate, Kent, in 1574. After studying at Oxford he spent six years in travelling in Europe. While on the Continent he became acquainted with the writings of Paracelsus, and he was so fascinated with them that he endeavoured to form a system of philosophy founded on the identity of physical and spiritual truth. He believed in two universal principles, the northern or condensing and the southern or rarefying power, and in the existence of four elemental spirits corresponding to fire, air, earth, and water. The central principle of his philosophy was that man was a representation or miniature of the universe, and he endeavoured to trace the analogy between what he called the microcosm and the macrocosm. The opinions of Fludd, preposterous as they now seem, had the honour of being refuted by Kepler, Gassendi, and Mersenne. Though rapt in mystical speculation, Fludd did not disdain scientific experiments, and is thought by some to be the original inventor of the barometer. He died in 1637. De Quincey considers Fludd to have been the immediate father of freemasonry, as Andrea was its remote father....