Robert, a philosopher and physician of some celebrity in his time, was the son of Sir Thomas Fludd, treasurer of war to Queen Elizabeth; and was born at Milgate in Kent, in the year 1574. He received his education at St John's college, Oxford, and afterwards spent six years in travelling through Europe. He acquired a strong attachment to the Rosicrucian philosophy, which chiefly consisted of mysticism and jargon, and such as were admitted among them had certain secrets analogous to those of free masonry. On his return home, he took the degree of M.D. settled in the city of London, and was chosen a fellow of the college of physicians. His piety was of an enthusiastic nature, and the seeming depth of his knowledge procured him much admiration, and gave him a temporary fame. It is said that he employed a kind of unintelligible cant when speaking to his patients, which sometimes contributed to their recovery, as it operated on their faith. He is chiefly known as a seer in philosophy, and not as a physician. He blended the incomprehensible reveries of the Cabalists and Paracellians, forming a new physical system replete with mystery and absurdity. He believed in two universal principles, the northern or condensing, and the southern or rarefying power. Innumerable geniuses he conceived to preside over these, and committed the charge of diseases to legions of spirits collected from the four winds of heaven. In his estimation, a harmony subsisted between the macrocosm and the microcosm, or the world of nature and of man. All his fancies and whims it is impossible to enumerate, yet they attracted the notice of the philosophers of that age, being supported by mysterious gravity and the shadow of erudition. Even Kepler himself thought his extravagant jargon worthy of refutation, and Gassendi for this purpose wrote his Examen Philosophiae Fluddiana. One of Fludd's performances, entitled Nexus utrinque Cosmi, is illustrated by some prints of a very singular and extraordinary nature.