Alchemy Its Science and Romance - Forgotten Books

A LCHEMY

ITS SCIENCE AND ROMANCE

BY THE

RIGHT REV . J. E. MERCER ,D .D .

SOMETIME BISHOP OF TASMANIA

WITH F0UR ILLUSTRATIOA'

S

LONDON

SOCIETY FOR PR OMOTING

CHR ISTIAN K NOWLEDGENORTHUMBERLAND AVENUE , W.C .

NEW YORK : THE MACMILLAN CO .

192 1

PREFACE

THIS may perhaps claim to be an apology f or

Alchemy. It attempts to set f orth, with more of

system and o f sympathy than is usual, its history,the doctrines it prof essed, and the results it achieved.

It must not,however, be thought that the apologetic

intention of the study implies any f ailure in recogn ising the weaknesses and f ollies which aboundedin the development o f the art , nor the chimericalnature of the means adopted for solving its GrandSec ret. The def ence is based on a critical estimateo f the conditions under which the genuine adeptshad to think and work.

i

I have consulted the works of representativea lchemist s, especially o f the earlier periods. But I

lay no claim to detailed research throughout thewhole vast range of the literature of the subject.Even Berthelot had to specialise. I have availedmyself freely of materials which are more or lessea sily accessible in modern treat ises on the Hermeiticart . I gratefully acknowledge my indebtedness to theabove-mentioned author, and, though in less degree,t o such studies as those of Fig uier, Muir, and Thorpe,as also to a carefully written article in Hastings’

Em yclopwdia of Relig ion and Ethics. Fortunately the

ma in f eatures o f the subject stand out clearly ; a

9 018 5

iv PREFACE

study of tedious and generally unintelligible detail isunnecessary. What I venture to question is not theevidence, but the justice of the condemnations so

often f ounded upon it. I contend that when wemake fair allowance f or the conditions under whichthe g enuine alchemists did their work, we shallacknowledge their right to rank as true scientists anddiscoverers. To judge them f rom the standpoint ofthe present is hopelessly irrat ional.

J. EDWARD MERCER.

February 8, 1920.

CONTENTS

PREFACE

INTRODUCTION

THE ART AND ITS APPEAL V

What Alchemy aimed at—Alchemy compared with mag ic and

astrolog y—Psycholog icalaspects—Romance—Division of the

subject

PART I

GENERAL HISTORY

CHAPTER I

MYTH AND EARLY HISTORY

Mythical accounts—Hermes Trismeg istus—The idea of transmutation—Early references—The Papyri o f Leyden

—Themysticalfactor—Spread of the art

CHAPTER II

ARABIAN ALCHEMY

The testimony of words—Documents—Geber—Spread of Arabian

Alchemy

vi CONTENTS

CHAPTER III

MEDIE VAL ALCHEMYPAOR

Gerbert—Albertus Mag nus—Aquinas—Rog er Bacon—RaymondLully

—Universaldifiusion—Mediaevalcriticism—Persecution 31

CHAPTER IV

DECADENCE

Medical Alchemy—Paracelsus—Successors of Paracelsus—TheR osicrucians—Chief cause o f decadence

CHAPTER V

TRANSITION TO SCIENCE

Robert Boyle—Alchemy at Oxford—Critics—Dr.Price—SemlerThe end o f Alchemy

PART II

THE IDEA OF TRANSMUTATION

CHAPTER I

V SUGGESTIONS FROM NATURAL PROCESSES

A world o f chan g e—The alchem ist’s aim—The quality o f colour

- Dyein g the metals—Other qualities o f metals— Fixed ele

men ts— Imperfect analysis—Two receipts for making g old

—Precip1tates—Appealto history

CHAPTER II

PHILOSOPHY OF TRANSMUTATION

A passag e from Psellus—Platonic theories of matter—Pla tonismand Alchemy

—The mercury o f the phIlOSOphers—Composi

tion of thametals—Sulphur—Theory and practice—Qualities

as separate entities

CONTENTS

CHAPTER III

ALCHEMY AND ANIMISM

Metals g row—Metals and animalbirth—Dyin g and reviving o f

!sea ls—Metals have body and soul—Introduction of moraleas

CHAPTER IV

MAGIC AND ASTROLOGY

E arlymetallurgyand mag ic—Attitude o f the Church—Alchemistmag ic and philosophy

—Astrolog y and alchemy—The metals

and the planets—Sig ns and symbols—Mag ic formulas—Varying stren g th of mag ical elemen t An animated statue—Palliation

PART III

THE OBJECTS OF THE QUEST

CHAPTER I

THE PHILOSOPHER ’S STONE

Wan ted a transmuting ag ent—Early descriptions o f the ag en t

The stone—Descriptions of the stonem Measure o f potencyHealing powers—Mentaland moralproperties

CHAPTER II

THE STONE AND MYSTICISM

Relig ion and Alchemy—Death and resurrection of metals—The

g rand secret—Summary of chief characteristics o f the stone

CHAPTER III

CREDULITY AND IMPOSTURE

The secret elixir—The alkahest—R ejuvenation—False transmutations—Dyer and K elley—Alchemy and spiritualism

vii

PAGE

143

CHAPTER IV

LIFE or BERNARD or TREVEs

PART IV

ALCHEMY AND SCIENCE

CHAPTER I

DIFFICULTIES OF INTERPRETATION

Obscurities—Examples of obscurity—Vagueness of terminolog y—Straightforward receipts

CHAPTER II

THE MATERIALS

Mappm clavicula —Gold—Silver—Electrum Copper Bron z e ,Brass, Aurichalcum—Mercury

—Mercury and sulphur—Tin

Lead—Iron and mag nesia—Other materials

CHAPTER III

THE LABORATORIES

In trusion of feeling -Apparatus—Processes—Ben Jonson ’

s list

Processes in detail

CHAPTER IV

ADVANCES AND DISCOVERIES

Combining of theoryand practice—Dawn of the scientific spirit

The experimen talmethod—Rog erBacon—Aristotle—Arabiandiscoveries—Mediaevaldiscoveries~01assification

CONTENTS ix

CHAPTER V

TRANSITION TO MODERN CHEMISTRYn o:

Difficulty in discovering elements—Discovery o f the elements—Boyle—Discovery of g ases—Joseph Priestley—LavoisierUnchang ing elements—Alchemist transmutation abandoned

CHAPTER VI

THE OUTLOOK

The elemen ts are not ultimates—Isomerism and allotropism—Naturalfamilies o f elements—Radioactivity—The elixir o f

life—Conclusion

ALCHEMY— ITS SCIENCE

AND ROMANCE

INTRODUCTION

THE ART AND ITS APPEAL

UR subject is alchemy— that baffling art , witha record so ancient and yet so tarnished. The

strong stream o f modern science has swept over it,leaving it shattered and f orlorn. It has f allen on evildays, and has almost passed out o f remembrance .

And yet, when sympathetically studied , it aboundsin varied int erests , f or the poet, the historian, the

philosopher, and f or the scient ist himself . It numberedamong its adepts some o f the most picturesque and

the most f amous personages in the annals o f Europeanc ivilisation . It welded philosophic speculation and

Operative to il mysticism, magic and technical skill.It lost itself in the wildest aberrations, and yet issuedin modern chemistry. It thus presents a uniquemedley o f attractions which gain in their power o f

appeal in proportion as the rigidity of modern Materialism is sof tened and humanised .

WHAT ALCHEMY AIMED AT.

If we ask what the Objects were which the art so

strenuously sought to attain, the answers are not as

1

ii 5EKECHEESYr é- ITS.SCIENCE AND ROMANCE

simple as many would imagine. One of them standsout prominently _

iI_I_thep opular mind— the discovery

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remedy would give intellectual and moral excellence,happiness, influence with the spirit world, communionwith the Creator. Thus were the aims of the art

expanded _until they embraced transmutations, notOf metals only, but of human beings, and the contro lofmoyvers which reached out into the universe at

But the art , it will be said, never attained itsObjects, it was delusive ; and is theref ore unworthyo f

_s_erious_ study. Such an inf erence is easily shown

to be hasty and superficial. Delusion undeniablybulks largely in the history, and ra ises in an acutef orm the curious problem o f its function in man’sintellectual and spiritual evolution. But delusion isnot the whole tale. In searching f or the Stone andthe Elixir, real substances had to be handled, TOR!

experiments had to be made . It could not , then, b eotherwise t han that there should accumulate a bodyof empirical f acts concerning the nature of the substances and their mutual reactions. Moreover, even

INTRODUCTION 8

the Charlatans had their part to play, in that theyhelped to keep alive the interest in alchemical

pursuits.

ALCHEMY COMPARED WITH MACIC AND ASTROLOGY.

Bacon has a suggestive passage in which he groupstogether three kindred pseudo-arts. As for thef acility of credit which is yielded to arts and opinions ,it is of two kinds either when too much belief isattributed to the arts themselves, or to certain authorsin any art . The sciences themselves which have hadbetter intelligence and conf ederacy with the imaginat ion of man than with his reason, are three in numberAstrolog y, Natural Magic, and Alchemy ; of whichsciences nevertheless the ends or pretences are noble.For astrology pretendeth to discover that correspondence or concatenation which is between thesuperior globe and the inf erior natural magic

pretendeth to call and reduce natural philosophyf rom a variety of speculations to the magnitude o f

works and alchemy pretendeth to make separationo f allthe un like parts of bodies which in mixtures ofnature are incorporate.”

A f ew comments on the points here raised willhelp much to an understanding of how a pseudo - art

could flourish f or so long a period, and of why it isworthy of continued attention. We note in the first

place that it ga ined“facility of credit on both the

g rounds mentioned by Bacon. It was cultivated bymen of repute who imagined that either they themselves, or others, had genuin ely solved the g reat secret

Advancement of Learnin g , Bk . I.

4 ALCHEMY— ITS SCIENCE AND ROMANCE

of the Philosopher ’s Stone, and it thus gained an

amount Of solid prestige which survived constantf ailures and disappoin tments. It was a lso in the samecase as astrology and magic through the strength of

its appeal to the emotions . Spurred on by the daz z linghOpe o f wealth and allthat wealth can give, and bythe desire to conquer disease and natural decay, evenclever men allowed their imagination to sway theirreason. The slenderest chances of success sufficedto keep the fire Of enthusiasm aglow.

Astrology sought to bring star- lore into relationwith human lif e magic sought to bend the powerso f nature to human wills alchemy laboured to

manipulate substances f or the satisfaction of humanneeds. In Spite, then, o f the errors and vanitieswhich marred, and too of ten debased, these arts,their ends, as Bacon says, were noble. Their f ortunes,as we shall see, were intimately linked together ; and

they allthree alike gave birth to sciences which are

among the chief glories of our own times. Astrologymerged in astronomy, natural magic in physics, and

a lchemy in chemistry. The diff erences in the rates o fmerging do not af fect the nature and the significanceo f the principles and processes involved. Accretion so f ignorance and superstition were gradually strippedaway, and the accumulating store Of facts formed thenucleus f or greater and more solid triumphs .Mathematics and physics were the first to f ree

themselves f rom the entangling creations o f imagination. For their early emancipation they have t o

thank the comparative clarity and precision of theirsubject matter. Astrology was f or a longer tim e

cultivated on its emotional side as a means t o

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6 ALCHEMY—ITS SCIENCE AND ROMANCE

array of f acts. It b ids us distinguish between thehereditary structure of the individual mind and theenvironment which provides that mind with stimulus

for its development. True, our environment hasvastly improved ; but our minds are fundamenta llythe same as those of our f orefathers. A realisationo f this fact will mitigate our condemnation o f f ormercredulities, and will likewise make us less confident ofthe immunity of our own generation.

R OMANCE .

It is possible, then, to justify, even f rom a utilitarian standpoint, a serious consideration of whata lchemy was and what it achieved. But its romanceconstitutes a further cla im. For it abounds in thewild, the f antastic, the uncanny, the marvellous .From the outset it has had a fascination f or artists ,poeta p laywrights and novelists. In early mediaevaldays a certain Aurelius Aug urella employed the

medium of verse in which to expound the myster iesand practices of the art , and with no inconsiderablesuccess. Jean de Meung the famous authorof the Roman de la Rose, was a firm believer in alchemy,and makes it the subject of two of his shorter poem s.

Ben Jonson is at his rarest in his play, TheAlchemist, which many consider his finest work.

Goethe in his Faust brings it to the f ore. Writers o ffiction innumerable have exploited its resources t oenhance their plots—Scott in his Antiquary being n otthe least notable example. Browning has cho sen f o rthe hero of an ambitious poem, Paracelsus, one of it s

most astonishing prof essors. Artists have Cxplo it ed

INTRODUCTION 7

its picturesque accessories—its presiding sag es andits mysterious apparatus. Lovers of alleg ory and

symbolism can revel in its mystic serpents, interwoventr iangles, salamanders, dragons, and the like weirdcreations o f unf ettered imagination. The store is

in exhaustible .It would be inexcusable to contend that modern

science has not its elements o f romance. The storyof its conquests teems with human interest and deepensour sense of the mystery of the universe. But whenallis said on this score that can be said, we have toa cknowledge the loss of a peculiar charm ; the colddepersonalised methods o f the present-day experi

m enter impose on us a burden of hard facts whichlimits the f ree rovings of phantasy and chills romanticf ervour. There is no easier or surer way to get backinto the olden world than to share f or a while thehopes and labours of the alchemists.

DIVISION or THE SUBJECT.

It would be artificial and cumbersome to treatseparately each of the sources of interest aboveenumerated. It will be profitable, however, to dist in g uish the history of the art from its philosophy

a nd its science, and to devote to these the largerd ivisions of our subject. We shall thus be preservedf rom desultory wanderings. Let us therefore proceeda s f ollows .We cannot hope to understand the details of the

s t ory until we have secured a bird’s- eye View of its

g eneral course. We willbegin, then, with a sketcho f the history of the art from its origin to its decadence

n


and thus obta in a framework into which persons,happenings, discoveries, may be fitted . Then maycome a closer consideration of the ruling ideas whichguided the development of the art ; and Of thetechnical skill, methods, and materials which conditioned it. The way will thus be clear f or admir ingthe virtues of those illusive substances, the Philosopher’s Stone and the Elixir of Lif e. Next willcome an attempt to estimate the amount and the valueo f the contributions made to positive science. Andlastly we will ask whether the art be really dead ; or

whether, rather, it is not taking a new lease o f lif e ,and promising to attain results which may surpassanything that could be suspected or imagin ed by thesages Of a bygone day.

PART I

GENERAL HISTORY

CHAPTER I

MYTH AND EARLY HISTORY

HEN did a lchemy begin its long career Thequestion cannot be answeredwith any certa inty.

Trustworthy evidence is lacking. It is known, indeed, that it has an ancient ancestry. But not untilthe fall of the Roman Empire does it emerge into thelight o f valid history. This much, however, can b e

inf erred, that the art properly called alchemya rose in the second or third century of the Christianera , and that it resulted f rom a union of the practica lart o f the Egyptians with the philo sophy of the

Greeks, and with the mysticism which f ound its homein Alexandria . Let us take careful note of this tripleconjunction it is of fundamental impo rtance.

MYTHICAL ACCOUNTS.

The origin of alchemy is ancient even when tracedback no further than the second or third century o f

our era . But the adepts and historians of the art

were by no means thus easily satisfied, and sought toinvest it with the imposing dignity of a hoary ant i

quity. Some of them were very bold and cla imed

Adam as its f ounder, with the naive desire of makingit as old as the race. The loss of the secret came with

11


the loss of Paradise. Olaeus Borrichius is on somewhat firmer ground when he fixes on Tubal- cain, thef amous smith of the Bible, f or it is certain that themetallurg y of primitive times provided the practicalbasis o f alchemy. Noah was enlisted among thesepatriarchal adepts. It was arg ued that he must havepossessed the Elixir of lif e, otherwise he could not havebegotten children when he was five hundred years old.

The contention, however, is not quite convincing.

A supposition of a very dif ferent and far soundcr

kind is advanced when the word alchemy is

derived f rom the name Shem, or Chem, the son o f

Noah. But even were the name Chem proved to b ein evidence, we should not on this score conclude ,with a seventeenthcentury History of the HermeticPhilosophy,

! that Shem was an alchemist !Once started on this track, historians could not

f a il to enrol Moses. Was he not learned in all the

lore of the Egyptians, and would not alchemy beincluded Moreover, it is recorded that when Moseswas angered at the ido latry of the Israelites, he

took the calf which they had made, and burnt it withfire, and ground it to powder, and strewed it upon thewater, and made the children o f Israel drink o f it.”

Here, they triumphantly inf er, is proo f positive thathe had the Philosopher’s St one. For how, save byits agency, could he have made the gold powderfloat on the water And if it be objected that thereis no trace of knowledge of the Stone in the subsequen tnarratives, the answer is ready. Moses kept the

knowledge to himself , and would never entrust thesecret to his people.

Long let du Fresney, born 1674 .


The significance of the prominent place given toHermes lies here . It was undoubtedly the meta llurg icaland chemical knowledge and skill possessedby the Eg yptians that started the idea of the practica lpossibility of transmutation. From the earliesttimes that pioneer civilisation worked with meta lsand alloys, with the making of glass and enamel, andwith the concoction of medicines. And Berthelothas shown that it is the material thus accumulatedwhich is embodied in the oldest treatises on alchemy,If , then, we take Hermes Trismegistus to be therepresentative of a whole succession o f Eg yptianpriest-metallurg ists, instead of a single individualdiscoverer, the cla im on his behalf may be accordeda large measure of validity.

We must be careful, however, not to press thecla im too far. For this core o f historical fact wasoverla id by enormous accretions of myth and fantasticlegend. Nor can we wonder that this should havehappened. For during the whole of our Christianera there has been a widely spread convict ion (notyet extinct !) that the ancient Egyptians had dis

covered many secret arts, occult doctrines, and

magical f ormulae which had been lost to the world.

The veil that hung over the ruin ed retreat s at Thebesand Memphis, the ignorance o f what was known and

practised there, allowed f ree play f or imagination and

cast a glamour over the little that had survived.

Medie val sages (and not a f ew modem s) firmlybelieved that the bizarre signs and emblems of thatalmost obliterated past concealed secret s and revelations of the deepest import. Hence exaggerationsand absurdities. The fact nevertheless remains that

MYTH AND EARLY HISTORY 15

this ancient metallurg y gave a starting-

point fora lchemy properly so called)“At last, then, we approach the confines o f history.

We have discovered the existence in Eg ypt of a largeaccumulation of the kind of materials with whicha lchemy concerned itself . Jewellers , pain ters, potters,glass-makers, and pre- em inently metal-workers—eachcraf t had its own store of technical secrets handed ongeneration af ter generation by personal instruction as

between masters and apprentices. Doubtless therewere a lso manuals and treatises but these have notb een preserved, and in any case played a quite subsidiary part. Berthelot lays great emphasis on theimportance of such pro f essional tradition. He contends that the Egyptian lore was in this way transmit ted to the artisans of Rome, preserved during theDark Ages in the workshops o f Italy and France, andgradually absorbed into the general body of alchemicaldoctrme and practice.

THE IDEA or TRANSMUTATION.

Although we are now in touch with historicalf acts, we have not yet reached the time when testimonyderived f rom contemporary documents is available .

We have to trust to inf erences more or less probablef rom statements f ound in later records. And it isin this period o f semi- obscurity that we have to findthe rise of the idea o f transmutation. Can we

succeed Certain ly not by tracing any series of

For detailed proo fs, see Berthelot Les Orig ines de l’

Alchimie,

pan im, especially pp. 31 f f .


specific happenings, as is so of ten possible in the caseof scientific discoveries in modern times. Still, it ispossible to surmise how men came to think that theprecious could be made f rom the baser metals.How about those goldsmiths and metal-workers

in Egypt They would soon Observe that certa inalloys o f metals could be compounded which closelyresembled gold and silver. Now would they b e slowin putting t o use their knowledge, some legitimate ly,others illegitimately. The dishonest artificers wouldget great gain f rom debasing the precious meta ls andf rom uttering false co inages, being thus the precursorso f the f raudulent alchemists who flourished to the endo f the long history.

But alchemy, as we have seen, a imed at more thanproducing alloys that resembled go ld or silver ; itlaboured f or genuine transmutation. How came itabout that there arose an honest belief in the possib ility of this process ‘P A full answer to the questionwould anticipate too much our study o f the threeconjoining f actors— knowledge of technical processes,Greek philosophy, and Alexandrian mysticism. Butspeaking quite generally, may we not saf ely imaginethat something of this kind happenedCertain workers in the making o f these a lloys

were really puz z led by the results o f some o f the irexperiments. With the imperf ect means of analysisat their command, they would at times be deceivedinto thinking that they had perceptibly increased theamount of the precious metal they were treating. Byway of reinf orcement o f a growing suspicion Of success,there would come to the minds of the more learned of

them the Greek doctrines concerning the one substance


out of which all others were supposed to be compounded. And further, there would be a keen edgeput upon their research by the hem of a sure and

easy way o f multiplying their wealth. Under the

sway o f these converging influences, it is not difficultt o see how a cra f tsman might become an alchem ist.For when once the idea of transmutation had begunto take definite shape, it would speedily establishitself with peculiar strength. The magnitude of thestake would fire the imagination, and would lead tospecia lised concentration o f effort. Alchemy wouldthus be launched on its extraordinary career.

EARLY REFERENCES.

Supposing the above surmise to be somewherenear the mark, we ask whether there is any evidence

,

direct or indirec t, which would lend it support.Fortunately such does exis t, and is valuable, thoughalltoo scanty. This much is clearly proved, that inthe earliest centuries of our era there had come intobeing a definite class of Operat ive chemists who madeit their business to eff ect genuine transmutation.

They were not alchemists in the full sense of the term,

but were well on the way.

The authorities f or justifying this statement areat first authors who make mere incidental and mattero f - fact allusions to an accepted belief in the possibilityo f transmutation.

The first bit of testimony I shall adduce is f roman author of uncerta in, but very early, date (firstcentury) —Manilius. He wrote a poem entitledAstronomica , in which he did his best to emb ellish


the dull details of his astrological and astronomica lthemes . In the f ourth book he discourses on the

action o f fire. He tells how fire makes possiblethe search f or hidden meta ls and for buried riches,the calcining of veins o f minerals, and the special arto f doubling the material in the case o f articles madeo f go ld and silver.

” In this passage we havemention of the process o f doubling the preciousmetals, brought in with no idea o f a necessity f orexplanation ; and yet it Of course implies transmutation.

The second allusion to be quoted is to be f oundin Pliny the Elder. He records that the EmperorCaligula , greedy Of gold, ordered a large amount O f

orpiment (arsenic sesquisulphide— a yellow powder)to be calcined ; that the result was some excellentgo ld ; but that the amount o f it was so small that itdid not repay the cost involved .1

' We may not bewarranted in taking this to mean transmutation ;but at any rate it does mean artificial manufacture.Berthelot thus comments on the passage The f actin itself , such as Pliny reports it, is nothing else thanprobable f or it seems that we have here an operationanalogous to cupellation (refining), having f or end

and result the extraction of the gold conta ined incerta in compounds Of sulphur with metals, dist in

Quidquid in ususIg nis ag it . Scrutari cwca metalla

et Opes, terra que exurere venas,

Quidquid ct arg en to fab ricetur quidquid et auro .

1' Inviteverit Spec Caium principem avidissimum auri, quamo

brem jussit excoquI mag num auripigmen ti ndus, et plane f ecit

aurum excellens, sed ita parvi ponderis, ut etrimen tum sentiret

(Bk . xxiii, ch. iv) .


g uished by their coloiIr as possibly containing gold.

The extraction o f pre- existing gold, or the making of

it out and out , these are two ideas quite distinct f orus but they were confused in the minds of ancientoperators (Les Orig ines de l

’Alohimie, p.

The two passages just quoted are not quite,though nearly, f ree f rom suspicion. There is, however,no doubt cast upon a testimony which points to thetime of Diocletian (284 Suidas, a Greeklexicographer (0. 975 tells us that this Emperoro rdered allEgyptian books on the making of gold andsilver to be burnt. We are thus taken back to

practically the same time as by Manilius and Plinya time which was noted f or secret and magical artsand writings. Alchemy was plainly on its way, buthad not attained to the dignity o f an art of transmutation.

THE PAPYRI OF LEYDEN.

The o ldest authentic documents in existencedea ling with this early phase Of the art are certaingroups o f manuscripts stored in the libraries Of Leyden ,

Venice, and Paris. They are not treatises on alchemy,

but rather g uides to the technical practices of thechemistry of their period. The most ancient Of themare in the Leyden collection, and on the score of theirhistorica l value and characteristic contents call f or a

brief description and critical notice.According to Berthelot, the greater number of

this co llection are Egyptian, dating f rom the thirdcentury, and so Of the same order as those destroyedby order Of Diocletian . They were probably f ound


together in the tomb o f some magician o f Thebes .They conta in, in intimate association, magic, astrology,the study of metallic alloys, dyeing, and the virtueso f plants . Here is a heading which displays a singularcombination of magic and gold- craf t. How to

make a ring that sha ll act as a talisman, by gravingon a jasper, set in the ring, the f orm of a serpentwhich bites its tail, the moon with two stars, and thesun above.”

From the more specially alchemic point of view,

we remark a number o f receipts f or working metaland alloys, and descriptions o f methods o f imitatingand f alsifying gold and silver. There is, f or example ,an explanation of how a white colour may be givento certa in metals by the use o f arsenic and how, bythe addition of cadmia , copper acquires the co lour o f

go ld. All this is leading up to a belief in the possibilityo f real transmutation. And, indeed, we actually findparagraphs treating of the multiplication of go ld byf orming a lloys . We reca ll the doubling a lludedto in the classical authors previously quoted. The

idea was evidently taking possession o f the nascenta lchemists.

THE MYSTICAL FACTOR .

These ancient manuscripts also give us a glimpseinto the manner in which magic and mysticismblended with practice and philosophy— the thirdf actor contained in alchemy properly so called. So

strong is the thaumaturgical ingredient that it pointsto Alexandria, that great home of mysticism, as theactual centre in which the Hermetic art had its origin .


Garwus, that is f ound what is said to be the earliestmention of alchemic transmutation. Be this as itmay, the work is o f much broader historical interestas a specimen of its class. It is what we shouldanticipate f rom a period of decadence. Boerhaave ,in his History of Chemistry, says of these writers that,“f rom this great laz iness and solitary way of lif e,they were led into va in enthusiastical speculations tothe great disservice and adulteration o f the art .

”

Since it thus appears that the rise of alchemy was,roughly speaking, contemporaneous with that o f

Christianity, it is natural to ask what sort o f relationswere ma intained between ecclesiastics and adepts.

The question will come up again. Here it will b esufficient to say that, whether f rom conviction or

f rom prudential motives, alchemists managed toadjust themselves to the new religious order, and so

escaped oflicial condemnation. In af ter days theydid not succeed so well, though their art was nevercompletely banned.

At the close o f this preparatory period, then , we

find that alchemy had become extinct in the RomanEmpire . Wars, revolutions, invasions, crushed it

out . We now turn to see how it was resuscitated bybeing adopted into an alien civilisation.

CHAPTER II

ARABIAN ALCHEMY

N the seventh century Egypt was invaded by theArabs, and f or a time its a ff airs were thrown into

dire confusion. But when the conquerors had

settled down, they began to interest themselves in thespeculations, arts, and sciences they had suppressed .

The Alexandrian f orm o f the Hermetic art , amongothers, was given a new lease o f lif e, and attracted toitself many devoted students who were very genuinechemists.

THE TESTIMONY or WORDS.

We owe to this Arabian era certa in words which insome cases are pure Arabic ; in others, Greek words

preceded by the Arabic article, al. Such are alcohol,

eliwir, alembic, aludel. The word alcohol, f or instance ,is al-kohl—kohl being a fine black powder, used stillby Orienta l ladies f or darkening eyebrows and lashes.The use of the word was extended to various powdersand liquids, and was at last attached to the particular

g roup of liquids now known as the alcoho ls. As an

example of a Greek word adopted we may takeeliwir. El is o f course the Arabic article the iwiris said to be the Greek merion , meaning dry powder.

23 o


But it may be pure Arabic, iksir, f rom a root kasara ,meaning “to grind.

The chief of this group Of words is alchemy itself .It would seem to be in line with those above ; butits origin is much disputed ; and a glance at the rivalderivations will be not only interesting etymo logically,but will give us some valuable side- lights on thehistory o f the art . As was pointed out in the lastchapter, one derivation would link it to Shem, or

Chem, a son of the patriarch Noah. If we substituteanother son, Ham , or Cham, the case is by no meansdesperate f or there is little doubt that this word isthe Egyptian name of Egypt, and we have seen howclosely this country was c oncerned in the f ounding o falchemy. We need not, then, seek f or a purelyHebrew meaning, as those do who ref er it to the

Hebrew shaman , a mystery. It is saf er to f o llow the

lead of Plutarch, who tells us, in his treatise Isis and

Osiris, that in the sacred dialect of Egypt, the countrywas called Chemla , the same word as that used f orthe b lack of the eye. The name would thus b edescriptive of the blackness of the soil. There are

still some authorities who think that Plutarch wason the right track. And strongly in his f avour is thef act that the arts which provided the practical parto f a lchemy were peculiarly Egyptian.

Other authorities, however, argue that alchemyis one of the terms resulting f rom prefixing the Arabicarticle to a Greek word. There is a Greek word,chemic , which appears in the decree of Diocletian ,

bef ore mentioned, against the makers Of go ld and

silver.” And a commentator on Aristotle, writing inthe f ourth century of our era , calls attention to various

ARABIAN ALCHEMY 25

Vessels and instruments used f or fusion and calcinationwhich were named chaika org ana

— that is, apparatusf or melting and pouring. It is to this set of termsthat many would ref er the substantive part o f theword alchemy.

Perhaps the dispute is best settled by declaringthat both contentions are sound l— and this, not byway of convenient harmonising, but on grounds ofhistorical probability. The suggestion thrown out

by Plutarch would make alchemy mean the Eg yptianart. The Greek derivation would describe its chiefproce sses, melting and pouring. May there not havebeen an early confusion of the Egyptian chemid withthe Greek chameia It would be reflected in thedifference o f spellings—alchemy, and the Renaissancealchymy conta ined in our chemistry and chymistry.

Both f orms would thus be def ensible, though thef ormer has the greater weight of authority. And weshould also have a ref erence to each of the twocountries which contributed to the f ounding o f the

art— Egypt supplying the practical part, and Greecethe speculations on the nature o f matter whicho ff ered a rational basis f or the idea of transmutation.

Then, the prefixing o f the Arabic article testifies tothe importanceof theArabian phase Of its development.In any case, the art of transmutation, so f ar as we

know, is first called alchemy in the sixth and seventhcenturies. In its earlier stages it had no specialname, but was known as the sacred art ,

”the

Hermetic art ,” the divine science, and other

designations of a like kind, many o f which werereta ined right through the history, though alchemycame to the f ront.


DOCUMENTS.

So much for derivations. Let us turn to considerwhat f orm the art assumed in the hands of the Arabs.The mass o f documents which .claim to be Arabian isvery great. But inasmuch as, in later times, manyimpudent forgeries were issued in the names o f

f amous adepts , it is matter of great difficulty to sif tthe true f rom the false. I shall keep to the evidencewhich is most generally accepted as t rustworthy,relying specially on the researches and conclusions o fBerthelot in his splendid treatises on this subject.The o ldest o f the documents are three ascribed to

Halid (704 who was reputed to have had f o rmaster a Syrian monk to whom he dedicated a

t reatise. There seems to be no good ground f ordoubting the tradition. At any rate, the dependenceo f Arabian alchemy on the Greek is clear as daylight.The Arabs, however, did not simply take over theirmaterial without modification. Many o f the f antasticf eatures which Boerhaave condemned so severely inthe Greek alchemy were abandoned, and the art wasmain ly practised as a means to healing. This changecame about because the Arabian adepts were mostlyphysicians who devoted themselves to chemica lmedicines. It is curious to note that the final phaseo f the art, with Paracelsus as its prophet, was likewisechiefly concerned with healing. The wheel came f ullcircle.

GEBER .

The most famous name is that of Geber, whoselif e is assigned to the end of the eig hth century.

ARABIAN ALCHEMY 27

Little is known about him . But he was illustrious inhis own right, and became still more so in the MiddleAges when hewas honoured by being made the subjectof numerous legends. NO less than 200 works are

ascribed to him ! It can be easily imagined that, inhis case, the distinguishing Of genuine and spuriousis extremely hazardous. Even those which bearmarks Of authenticity, though f ree f rom many of theabsurdities of later periods, abound in Obscure termsand modes o f exposition. It is amusing to find

Dr. Johnson deriving gibberish f rom his name.Needless to say, he waswrong.

‘The mere fact, however, that such an error was possible shows whatimpression had been made on the minds o f thosehardy enough to explore those tangled disquisitions.Recent critics, with fuller and better opportunities f orunderstanding what Geber wanted to say, put a highestimate on the value o f his work.

The titles given to these treatises are usuallysymbo lic, such as The Book of Royalty, The Little Bookof Pity, The Book of Balances, The Book of Concenf ration , The Book of OrientalM ercury. They conta inmatter which is strangely mixed, and include f ormulasand receipts which embody what was known of

chemistry at that period. Let us glance at the contentso f one Of these—The Book of Royalty.

The author sets out , as usual, with the Muslimf ormula In the name of God compassionate andmerciful — and asks for blessings on Mahomet andhis family. He then proceeds The present littlework is one in which I have specially indicated twoclasses of Operations. The first is that in which

Gibberish is really akin to g abble and jabber.


execution is rapid and easy f or princes do not f eelthemselves drawn towards complicated operations,not being able to undertake them. The second, o r

inn er work, is that which sages only execute f orprinces. That is the reason why I have given to thistreatise the name Book of Royalty. Seiz e firmly, mybrother, what I am go ing to expound in this work, andthe thing will appear easy to you, if you are a clearthinker. I swear it by my master. But f orheaven’s sake, my dear brother, do not let thisf acility lead you to divulge this proceeding, or to showit to any of those around you, to your wif e, or yourcherished child, and still less to any other person .

My dear brother, if you do not heed this advice, youwill repent o f it when repentance is too late.”

He quotes with approbation the saying o f theancients If we divulge this work, the world willbe corrupted f or gold would then be made as easilyas glass is made f or the baz aars .” And yet, he couldnot make it l A needless warning lThe ma in body of the treat ise is occupied with

descriptions of Operations f or concocting the Elixir ofElixirs, the f erment Of f erments, which will transf ormthe elements at the same time that it transf ormsitself .” They are seemingly simple, but, in reality,unintelligible. The author does, indeed, allow thatwhile he has spoken Of what he calls the balance ofwater in plain terms, he has wrapped up his instruct ions about the balance Of fire in termsenigmatic and a little complicated . Illuminatingis his concluding paragraph. In all this, dearbrother, the fundamental principle is that the

elements of the lam (them transmuting Essence)


THE SPREAD or ARABIAN ALCHEMY.

Once firmly established in the East, alchemy wascarried into allthe countries a ff ected by the triumpho f Arab arms . Itwas thus that, in the eighth century,it reached Spain , where it was enthusiasticallycultivated in those centres Of learning which are

deservedly so famous . By the time of the Crusades,that is to say, towards the twelfth century, it wasbeginning to travel into other European coun tries,and to merge with the general stream Of Westernc ivilisation. The idea of transmutation thus acquireda new environment, and took on the complexion o f

mediaeva l thought. Bef ore passing to the consideration o f this next phase o f the art , it is interesting tonote that Islamic alchemy, though moribund, is noteven yet extinct. In Morocco , in Mecca , and otherplaces, there are individuals who cherish Old treatises,and jealously guard them. The hope that stirred theirrenowned ancestors still burns in their breasts .They believe that the Philosopher ’s Stone was reallydiscovered, and that the secret Of its production isrecorded. Ah What if the hard formulas could b einterpreted ! Their Geber ’s boast would be vindicated— go ld would b e made as easily as glass ismade f or their unchanging ba z aars.

CHAPTER III

MEDIE VAL ALCHEMY

ROM Spa in, then, a lchemy Spread out throughthe Western nations. The process o f expansion

was so steady that, by the time the Arab rule waso verthrown, the future o f the art was saf e. Byt he fif teenth century it was cultivated throughoutt he whole of Christendom, and in the seventeentha tta ined the apogee Of its success. The prominenceit atta ined in the Middle Ages is manifest when werun through a list of the famous men who believed init, practised it, and wrote about it— such names asR aymond Lully, Roger Bacon, Albertus Magnus,Thomas Aquinas. AS in the case of the precedingperiod, the multitude of Spurious treatises renders itexceedingly difficult to distinguish f act f rom fictionand to f orm reliable historical estimates. But thereis this advantage over the earlier sources, that thepseudo- literature nearly all appeared within thelimits of the period it concerns, and can thus be usedas at least reflecting the ideas, doctrines, and practiceswhich characterised it. A f a ir number Of authoritiesare above suspicion. By putting true and spurioustogether, it is possible to ga in a full and living pictureof mediaeval alchemy. The simplest way of goingto work is to study the teaching and activities o f a

31


f ew representative adepts— not biographically, butmerely in so f ar as they throw light on our particularsubject.

GERBERT AND MICHAE L SCOTT.

The complete dependence of mediaeval alchemy on

the Arabian is manif ested by the fact that the firstWestern students gained their knowledge in theSpanish universities . An illustrious example is f oundin Gerbert , af terwards Pope Sylvester II (999As a young man , he attracted the attention o f Borel,Count o f Barcelona , and went with him to Spa in ,

where he studied science and philosophy, moreespecially chemistry. His attainments were SO greatthat, a f ter the manner o f the times, he was reputedt o be in league with the devil. It would seem thatsuch a charge should have put an end to his chanceso f ecclesiastical promotion. He was, however, madeAbbot of Bobbio by Otto II, became Archbishop Of

Ravenna , and then climbed into the Papal cha iritself . His career thus not only proves dependenceon Spa in, but shows that an alchemist could atta in tothe highest office . He was the precursor o f a longseries of men of note who honoured the art by beingadepts. Perhaps it might b e more accurate to callhim a chemist than an alchemist but the distinctionis hardly worth drawing, as the two classes were inthose days inseparable.We descend 200 years to come to Michael Scott.

The Muslim influence was still great ; f or we findthat he studied Arabic in Sicily, and spent ten yearsin Spain. Frederick II became his patron, and it

MEDIE VAL ALCHEMY 88

was to this monarch that in 1209 he dedicated a

treatise , De Secretis. He did much to bring the art

into notice, . but apparently in doubtful g uise . For

Ferg usson writes thus At Toledo he learnt magicf or which the city was famous— natural magic or

experimental physics or jugglery, as well as blackmagic, invo lving the invocation o f the in f erna lpowers . There, too , he experimented in alchemy.

”

Evidently the magic was much in evidence

ALBERTUS MAGNUS.

Contemporary with Michael Scott was a man o f a

very dif ferent type , Albertus Magnus— an alchemistin the best sense , and also one o f the most distin

g uished men o f his time . He was a Dominican monk,and became Bishop of Ratisbon. Af ter three years,he resigned his see to devote himself to his studies.While cultivating many branches of learning , he neverrelaxed in his ef forts to discover the Philosopher’sStone and the Elixir. He published a treatise, hisLibellas de Alchimia , in which he gave Copious inst ructions f or the practice o f the art , describedapparatus and Operations, and gave accounts o f the

o rigin and ma in properties o f the chem ical substancesknown to him. In Short, he proved himself to be,under the limitations o f his day, a man Of genuinescientific Spirit A brief quotation f rom his Libellasreveals much. I f ound many rich scholars, ab ts

,

superiors , canons, physicians, and unleam ed f olk,who, in prosecuting this art , expended much time andlabour, and who had to desist f rom lack of means.O f himself he says, I did not despair, but expended


infinite labour and money. Clearly, the hold of

a lchemy on all sections Of society was very strong ,and the enthusiasm evoked was immense.

AQUINAS.

The renowned scho lastic, Aquinas, was a pupil ofAlbertus, and Shared in the a lchemic labours o f hismaster. An amusing story concerning a livingstatue the pair were popularly supposed to havef ashioned will b e told when we come to treat morefully Of the magic mingled with the practice Of theHermetic art . It is mentioned here only as proo f O fthe closeness o f the collaboration. In the famousSumma , when discussing adulteration, he determinesthat gold and Silver made by alchem ists, if it be truemeta l, may b e sold ; but if it have not the nature Ofthe true meta l, the transaction is f raudulent. Thatis to say, he knows there is f raud, but he a lsorecognises that there may be successful transmutation. He also decides that the art is not un lawful ifit b e confined to the investigation Of natural causesand eff ects, though some think it demoniaca l

(Pt. ii, 2, qu. lxxvii, art . He here has in mindthe distinction between white and black magic— thedistinction that appeared in Ferg uson

’s estimate o f

Michael Scott.

vROGER BACON (1214

Practically contemporary with the last named

was Roger Bacon, undoubtedly one Of the g reateStmen our nation has produced. His range o f scientific


inquiries was wide ; but alchemy was not the leastf avoured o f his subjects. He devoted the third booko f his Compendium Philosophice to the art , and it isone of the earliest authentic (some mainta in , the

earliest) European works that treat Of it. Hefirmly believed in the Philosopher’s Stone, and wasunwearied in his ef forts to discover it . He definesAlchemy as the science o f the generation of thingsH OW E variouskinds o f substances can be built up out o f simplerones. This would seem to be much the same as our

m odern notion. If differs, however, in the use o f thete rm generation, which brings in the animisticelement so characteristic of alchemical doctrine f romfirst to last. The consideration Of it is postponed tothe chapter dealing with the alchemist philosophy.

By the year 1267 he had spent more than 2000 libraeon secret books and in various experiments. Thathe was a true man of science is pla in f rom the varietyand number o f his remarkable discoveries.‘Hadm ore of the adepts been animated by his spirit, andpossessed his power of throwing Of f the shackles o f

tradition, modern science would have come moreSpeedily to the birth. He was less f ortunate thanGerbert and Albertus, and suffered much persecutionand imprisonment. How far his alchemy was a

provoking cause is hard to say.

RAYMOND LULLY (1235

Less prominent on the science ro ll Of honour, buthigher on that of alchemy, comes the name of Raymond

See p . 208.


Lully. His lif e was one exceptionally full of romanceand adventure, and presented a most remarkablecombination o f f ervour in religion and enthusiasm f orknowledge . It was not un til af ter middle ag e that heturned to the Hermetic art ; but when once he hadtaken it up, he soon acquired great f ame as an adept,and, as a writer on the occult sciences, earned the titleo f Doctor Illuminatus . He applied himself withardour to the study o f Arabian philosophy, chemistry ,and medicine . It appears to be certa in that he no t

only countenanced a popular belief in his power t omake gold, but actually cla imed it. It is sa id that ,in response to an invitation f rom Edward I o r

Edward II, he came to London, where apartmentswere allotted to him in the Tower. The story g oesthat he replenished the royal cof fers by transmutingiron, lead, pewter and quicksilver into go ld . Some ,however, ma inta in that the replenishing came throughhis advising a tax on woolThe evidence for the English episode is disputable .

But there is a specific statement in his last will whichdefinitely proves that, at the time when the docu-n

ment was drawn up, he claimed to have put to usethe grand secret. He therein asserts that he hadconverted no

'

less than pounds weight Of basemeta ls into gold.

‘This is very puz zling, especiallyas he had consistently shown himself to be f ree f rommost of the delusions of his day. It has been suggestedthat in his Old ag e his mental powers were wan ing,and that he dreamt himself into the idea . Willinglywe accord him the benefit of the doubt.

I: u converti una vice in aurum ad L mlllia pondo urg enti Vivi,


Anyt hing less like the description of an experimentin a modern manual of chemistry it would be hard toconceive l Figuier remarks that Arnold himself seemto have no high estimate o f the value o f this exposition. For when the pupil excla ims, Master, I donot understand,

”the master promises to be more

clear another time. The interpretation would indeedbe hard to find. Certa in terms will gain a meaningwhen we come to consider alchemist phraseology,such as the sun f or gold, the moon f or silver, and so

f orth. But the genera l tenour and spirit o f the

exposition belong to another world than ours.

UNIVERSAL DIFFUSION.

It will now be apparent how firm was the hold thatthe art had got in Christendom at large. The con

viction had seized on soc iety that the Philosopher ’sStone was a known substance, and that its secretmight be discovered by any one. The contagion o f

example fanned these high hopes to a flame. Reasonwas compelled to play a subsidiary role ; emotionblinded and led it captive.Its spell was on all ranks, f rom the monarch to

the peasant. A Pope himself , John XXII was an

ardent alchemist. He was careful, indeed, to pronounce censures on black magic but he had his ownlaboratory at Avignon, where he conducted experi

ments in person. He was said to have lef t behindhim 25 million fiorins— a thing quite possible, thoughthe source of the wealth has to be sought elsewherethan in transmutation ! Nor was the highest roya l

MEDIE VAL ALCHEMY

patronage lacking. The Emperor Rudolph II, forexample, earned the title of the Hermes of Germany,

”

f rom the fame of his laboratory at Prague, wherethere was Open welcome for alladepts who cared touse it. Almost every court in Europe had its alchemist, to whom were accorded, as has been said, theprivileges of the court f ool or the poet laureaAnd at the other end of the social scale, many a

peasant’s cottage had its smoking furnace and itsmodest store of stills and crucibles. In the sixteenthcentury the art became almost a religion—so earnestwas the study devoted to it, so intense the f eeling itstimulated. Indeed, the knowledge o f the secret,many declared, could only come by the grace of God

- by a special inspiration. One adept thus addressesthe Operator : Now thank God, Who has granted

you so many favours as to lead your work to this

point of perf ection. Pray to Him to guide you, andt o keep your precipitation f rom bringing about theloss of a labour which has come to a state so perf ect.”

Another adept, af ter an experiment, breaks forth intoa doxology, long and f ervent, such as might concludea devotional manual. It is quite common, in technica ltreatises, t o meet with injunctions that no operationshould be undertaken without prayer f or its success.

MEDIE VAL CRITICISM .

There was, however, another side to allthis. We

remember how Geber had conf essed to grave doubtsabout the accomplishing of transmutation. SO, in

the Mediaeval period, there were some who wereD


sufficiently detached to become critics o f the art .

One lin e Of criticism was theo logical—alluded to , as

we saw, by Aquinas in his Summa . The attempt totransmute, it was urged, is impious ; it presumes onthe prerogatives Of the Creator. Parallel argumentsare not unknown in the present day, as in the case o finquiry into Spiritualistic phenomena. They are

based on a perverted sense of reverence. AS Aquinasdecided, so we, too , may regard all avenues to knowledge of nature to be open, provided, of course, thatno moral principles are transg ressed.

Another line of criticism was sug g ested by theenormous amount of knavery which accompaniedand tainted the development of the art. We find itquaintly, but strongly, sta ted in Chaucer

’s Canon ’

s

Yeoman’s Tale. We find it in Dante From the

arch of the tenth chasm he sees alchemists he hadknown suff ering among Falsifiers of every sort. Heregards them as f alsifiers in things, in distinction f romf alsifiers in deeds and words. Grif folino of Arez z otells him that “for the alchemy I practised in theworld, Minos, who may not err, condemn ed me .”

Capocchio, a Florentine, laments, so shalt thou see

that I am the shadow Of Capocchio who falsified themeta ls by alchemy. And thou must recollect , if Irightly recognise thee, how well I aped nature .

Adam of Brescia is accused by Sinon If I spokef alse , thou too didst f alsify the coin.

” The poet inthese passages speaks of def rauders of whom he hadactual knowledge, and who misused the art . Hedoes not imply, however, that the art itself wasspurious. It is even arg ued by some that the phrase,

t Dante, Inf erno, Can to xxix. 118- 139 ;xx , 115.


How well I aped nature, implies its impiety ratherthan its misuse ; but the whole context negativessuch an in terpretation.

A third line of criticism was more leg itimate thanthe first, and more fundamental than the second. Itmay be called scientific. It questioned the possibilityo f transmutation. Not many ventured to advanceit in the times when tradition held a sway so imperiousstill it made its appearance here and there. For

example, Peter the Good Of Lombardy, a physician,in 1330 wrote a treatise on Chemistry—Marg arita

preciosa (a name for the Stone), in which he usedscholastic arguments to disprove the alchemistassumption . Here is one of his syllogisms .‘ NO

substance can be transf ormed into another kind unlessit be first reduced to its elements. Now alchemy doesnot proceed thus. Theref ore it is an imaginaryscience.” Again, Natural gold and silver are notthe same as artificial gold and silver. Theref ore,

” etc.This criticism is deprived o f much of its weight (suchas it is) when we find its author asserting that he canwith equal ease prove that alchemy is a soun d scienceStill, it raised the issue.

PERSECUTION.

There was also a practical side to the eff ectsproduced by constant failures. Kings and rulerswho patronised alchemists looked f or tangible results.

How f ared it, then, with adepts who disappointedthem Some saved themselves by plausible ex

planation8— some by flight. Not a f ew suff ered

Quoted by Fig uier, L’Alchimic, p. 87.


severe pun ishments, or perished by untoward f ates.Honest prof essors who f ailed came o ff no better thandeceivers and rogues— it was the fact of f ailure thatreally mattered It was thus that a f emale adept,Marie Z ig lerin , was burnt by Duk e Julius o f Brunswick in 1575 . David Benther killed himself to avo idthe anger of the Elector Augustus o f Saxony.

Brag adino was hanged at Mun ich in 1590 by theElector o f Bavaria . William de K rohnemann was

bang ed by the Margrave of Beyreuth, who, with grimirony, had this inscription posted on his gibbet :

ff

'f‘I once knew how to fix mercury, and now I am

myself fixed.

” Some were invited to courts, and

then imprisoned until they fulfilled their promises .The device became so comm on that wise alchemistslearnt to avoid even the most flattering invitations .Thus strangely were intermingled tragedy and comedy—na1ve fanaticism and gross f raud. Mediaeva la lchemy was in harmony with the spirit o f its time .

CHAPTER IV

DECADENCE

ITH the passage o f years, alchemy multipliedits a ims, its doctrines, and its Operations.

Had it been a genuine science, increasing complexitywould have been all to the good . It would haveprovided materials f or further advance . But it wasessentially chimerical ; its avowed Objects were

W W II—

o

'

e came a parting of the ways.W one

—Han

'

dT men Of careful, sob er thoug htsif ted out the true f rom the f alse, made it the startingpo int f or further experiments, and la id the f oundationo f a realscience o f chemistry. On the other hand,less balanced minds, visionaries and quacks abandoned

to"

ever-i'

w'

ildef ab surdities, and wanderedf urther and

~

further away'

f rom the world Of f acts.ASa consequence, the art was overwhelmed with a

burden o f monstrosities too heavy f or even thef oolishly credulous to bear. And thus the acmeof the popularity o f the art was f ollowed by a periodo f decadence which ended in a total discrediting Of

its cla ims .This period of decadence lasted until well into the

e ighteenth century, and in its later stages was contem

porary with that general advance in knowledge o f

nature which ushered in the triumphs o f modem43


science. Steady lights were coming into view whichguided earnest students out of the quagm ires o f

f antasy and rescued them f rom the irresponsiblepranks of will-O ’

- the-wisps.

MEDICAL ALCHEMY.

Perhaps the most characteristic f eature of thedecadent period ' was the extension of the powersattributed to the Philosopher’s Stone . Hithertothe main, though not the only, Object had been thetransmutation Of metals. Attention is now fixedrather on the medical, mora l, and even spiritualvirtues of the wonder-worker. Alchemists becameprof essed healers of bodily and mental sickness or

disease . The new development was based on theidea that vital processes were chemical in their nature.If anything went wrong, then, with a living organism,

there was need of a chemical remedy. Not that thehope Of transmutation was abandoned. With themore sober-minded alchemists it rema ined the one

great aim ; and even with the visionaries and reac

t ionaries, it was merely subordinated to the ga iningo f health, prolonged lif e , and happmess, by alchemica lmeans . Concurrent with growth of the new tendencythere wasa startling increase of nebulous mysticism ,

superstition, and trickery.

When once the idea of chem ical remedies had takenroot, it naturally led to the making of many eXperi

ments. It is f earful to contemplate what poormortalshad to suffer at the hands o f practitioner adepts !We had a very f a int reflection of it in fa irly recen tdayS, when drugs were fashionable , and patients were

46 ALCHEMY -ITS SCIENCE AND ROMANCE

was sa id to have cured thirteen princes whose caseshad been declared hopeless. His f ame rapidlyincreased, and in 1526 he was appointed prof essor ofMedicine and Natura l Philosophy at Basle. At the

end of two years he was ejected on a charge of q uackery. He led a lif e of unbridled intemperance, becamea hopeless sot , took again to travelling, and died at

the ag e of f orty- eight in a condition Of abjectpoverty.

His glaring faults and weaknesses, his vanity and

ef f rontery, his intemperance and quackery, have ledmany to condemn him as a worthless charlatan.

Perchance he was not so bad as he was painted ; f orhe had the hardihood to attack with unsparingvehemence the medical traditions of the th e ;and

we may be sure that his reputation would not gainby venturing on such a course 1 Still, there can b elittle doubt that he gave the enemy ample cause toblaspheme . And yet Lavater declared him to bea prodigious genius .” The Encyclopaedia Britannicacalls him the pioneer o f modern chemists and theprophet o f a revolution in science .

” Brown ingchooses him to be the subject of one of his mostambitious poems, not extenuating aught, but recognising in him elements o f a noble stra in and o f truegreatness . It is assuredly necessary that a man who

can give grounds f or such encom iums should be clearedo f the prejudiced and superficial judgments whichhave so long obscured his exceptional gif ts and solidmerits .

“

Take as an example o f misunderstanding, or misrepresenting, a practice adopted by Paracelsus . It isrecorded of him that he had a jewel in which he kept

DECADENCE 47

imprisoned a spirit who was at his command. Insome o f the Old portraits he is represented with thisjewel in his hand, and on it inscribed the wordAz oth, the name he gave to it. Now, as Browning

remarks in the notes at the end of his poem, thisAz oth was simply laudanum mum—one Of his mostnotable discoveries. It is possible, nay, probable,that b e f ostered the popular delusions concerning thenature and powers of his potent drug— but the factrema ins that he knew it and used it. Who Shallestimate what it has accomplished as a remedy and

as an alleviator o f human suff eringAS to his personal character, there are at least two

traits which stand to his credit. He must have beenloved and respected by his pupils. For they callhim their noble and beloved monarch,

” the GermanHermes,

”and our dear Preceptor and King Of

Arts.” And his epitaph records of him that he was

g enerous to the poor. From another source we findthat he Of ten dispensed medicines and gave persona lattendance f ree o f charge to thosewho could not affordt o pay him .

The works that can be critically attributed to hima re full Of turgid, incoherent writing. The obscuritiesn ecessarily incident to describing non - existent substances and imaginary powers were in his case exaggerated by the inflamed condition of his brain. Butone thing is certa in. He is in rebellion aga instthe medical system of the school of Galen. He isunsparing in his diatribes— his language is unrestra inedin its vigour. And although we may be repelledby his coarseness and self - assertion, we must allowthat he initiated a great reform . He burst through

48 ALCHEMY— ITS SCIENCE AND ROMANCE“

the f etters with which the centuries of tradition hadstrangled progress in chemistry and medicine. Hisalchemy, even, was of a new type. He ma inta inedthat it Should aim , not so much at the making Of

gold, as at the furthering of healing and the artsand hewas ever ready to make direct appeal to naturein place of searching for authorities in the works Ofthose who had written about nature with but smallknowledge of her ways.Violent as was his rebellion aga inst the received

systems, he could not , of course, rid himself completelyOf their influence . Indeed, in many respects b estrengthened prevailing superstitions, and startedf resh ones. How deeply he erred in such matters isevidenced by the f act that the Rosicrucians claimedhim as one of their greatest f ounders. Even hismedical chemistry is adulterated with old and new

absurdities. For instance, he connects potable goldwith the Elixir o f Lif e. He held that ossification of

the heart and allmanner of diseases could thus becured, provided that the gold had been obta ined bytransmutation. He is here leaning on certa in astrological analogies derived f rom the past, and f rom the

same source he borrowed his idea that medicines shouldbe administered at particular conjunctions Of the

planets.One of his doctrines will be judged by most to be

biz arre. He taught that in the stomach Of everyhuman being there dwells a spirit who is a sort o f

alchemist, mixing in due proportions the variousf oods that are brought together in that living laboratory. Is this really so f ar removed f rom the teachingof many modern authorities ‘I Driesch, f or example,

DECADENCE 49

has his entelechy, the unknown unif ying ag ent inan organism which g uides and contro ls the physicaland chemica l processes that build and sustain itslif e. Perhaps in this case also Paracelsus was a

prophet !At any rate Paracelsus chose the nobler Side Of

a lchemy—medicine. It was also the more difficult.Bacon has a judicious comment on this subject.Man’s body (hewrites) is of allthings in nature most

susceptible of remedy; but then that remedy is mostsusceptible Of error. For the same subtlety and varietyO f the subject, as it supplies abundantmeansOf hea ling,so it involves great facility Of fa iling. And theref oreas this art (especially as we now have it) must bereckoned as one of the most conjectural, so the inquiryO f it must be accounted one of the most exact anddifficult.” It was in this exactness that Paracelsusf ailed. He was rash, headstrong, prone to fancies andmyst ica l f ollies. Hence it is that Bacon repudiateshim. Not that I Share (he proceeds) the idle notiono f Paracelsus and the alchemists, that there are to bef ound in man’s body certa in correspondences and

parallels which have respect to all the species (asstars , planets, minerals) which are extant in theuniverse f oolishly and stupidly misapplying theancient emblem (that man was a microcosm or epitomeo f the world) to the support of this f ancy of theirs .

”

Bacon is right. Nevertheless even errors such as

these had their share in bringing in a better system ,

because they served to break down the prestige o f

tradition.

Another aspect of Paracelsian healing has an oddlyDe Augmentia Scientiamm, chap. ii.


modern look. It anticipates Christian Science, byemphasising the power o f mind on body. Fascination (says Bacon) is the power and act of imaginationupon the body of another ; wherein the schoo l o fParacelsus and the disciples of pretended naturalmagic have been so intemperate, that they haveexalted the power o f the imagination to be much one

with the power of miracle-working faith.

” ‘l‘ Paracelsus wrote a special tract upon this subject, De Viimag inative: and mentions it in many other partso f his writings. Here also he was a prophet 1Once again, he anticipated organic chemistry.

Bacon mentions, to condemn, his notion tha inbread and meat lie eye, nose, bra in, liver ; and

that Archaeus, the internal artist, educes out of

f ood by separation and rejection the several membersand parts of our body.

”

T Here Paracelsus is af terallnearer to the truth than his critic. For it is nowestablished that the nitrogenised components o f

animal bodies are derived f rom the correspondingelements of their f ood. There is separation and alsotransformation o f the materials. It is remarkableat how many points this irresponsible Speculatortouches on modern discoveries. He was verily a

genius. How tragically his powers were wasted l

SUCCESSORS or PARACELSUS.

So much f or the great master. What of his disciplesand successors Healthy development was slow and

Dc Augmentis Scim tiamm , chap. iii.

1' Novum Organon , 2ud Book Of Aphorism , xlviii.

DECADENCE 51

laborious. The store of physica l and chemical knowledge was still too scanty to enable even strong and

steady thinkers to avoid entangling errors. Theunbalanced minds seized on all the worst elementsin the new doctrine, exaggerated them, and gloriedin absurdities. For example , Paracelsus taught, as

we just now saw, that digestive processes were aecom

plished by a subtle alchemy— that they were vitalt ransmutations. Certain of his f ollowers improvedon this. They held that everything—meta ls and

material substances of all kinds, aswell as animals andmen—digests, eats, drinks, assimilates, rejects. Oragain, the master had taught that a spirit presidesover these digestive processes. His f ollowers improvedon this idea also. They multiplied the spirits untilt hey had corresponded in number with allthe manif oldworkings o f nature. Sylphs inhabit the air, nymphsthe water, pigmies the earth, salamanders the fire

.

In medicine, rashly responding to a rashly given lead,t hey wrought untold harm by employing, withoutskill or knowledge, strong metallic poisons. And,l ike their master, they provoked by their irrationa lzeal reactions that seriously retarded much-neededref orms . Nevertheless they were breaking up thecake of custom and tradition. In this strangelym ixed world, even fanatics have their function. Itis sometimes wise to suf fer f ools gladly—within

In cheering contrast was the progressive work o f

calm and acute intellects who carried on inquiriesinto the scientific value o f the new teaching. It wast hese wiser disciples who have secured f or Paracelsusthose striking encomiums f or they seized upon and


developed what was best in him. It was thus thatthere came the f ateful parting of the ways. The verylength to which the visionaries went had a steadyingef fect on those who were not carried away by theirmysticism and occult speculations.

THE R OSICRUCIANS.

A famous, romantic, and altogether extraordinarydevelopment of the irresponsible alchemy was thatknown as the secret brotherhood of the Rosicrucian s.This society contrived to surround itself with so muchmystery that popular imagination had f ree scope inguessing at what it was, and what it was able to do .

As a consequence ext ravagant stories g ot afloat ; and

the excitement they caused was artfully f ostered and

maintained by the issue of books purporting to comef rom authorised members of the f raternity, as alsoby dramatic advertising Of their powers and their

It is not even certain that such a society existedat all;

'

f or it had not any known meeting-place, norwas there a recognised roll of membership, thoughvarious individuals prof essed more or less defin iteadhesion to its prof essed principles. At any rate,those who represented it by their publications repudiated any other derivation Of its , name than that whichref erred it back to the reputed f ounder, Rosenkreut z .

This man certa inly had a career which fitted him to

play the rOle assigned to him . Born in 1378 , educatedin a monastery, he , f ell into the hands o f certa inmagicians when he was but sixteen years old, was

in itiated f or five years into their secrets, travelled in


our college make our abode, visible and invisible,in this city each without books or notes. and

speak the lang uage of the country wherever we are ,to draw men, like ourselves, f rom the error of deatThe word invisible ref ers to the f act a lreadymentioned, that the Society had no settled centre,nor visible government ; and its members weresupposed to have the gif t of being unseen and un

known—thereby in no small measure increasing theexcitement when they proclaimed that they wereabout to visit any city.

This late development of the Hermetic art soughtto give prestige to its fantastic doctrines by assigningas authorities spurious treatises attributed to Hermes,Aristotle, and other o f the ancients, as wellas thoseattributed to Albertus Magnus, Paracelsus, and othermodem s. Gradually the name Rosicrucian came tobe used generally f or any kind of occult pretension.

The Stone continued to be the great centre of mystery.

It was supposed to give command over elementa lSpirits, enable men to defy limitations of space, time,and matter, af ford intimate knowledge of the arcanaof the universe. This f arrago of nonsense was expressed through a welter of symbols and metaphorsred bridegrooms and lily brides, g reen dragons andruby lions, royal baths and waters of lif e. At last suchextravagances overshot the mark, and sealed the f ate,not only of the Brotherhood, but of the art . Allthatone can say is that the sylphs, pigmies, gnomes,salamanders, and the rest, ousted the cruel demono logyo f the Middle Ages— incubi, succubi, demons, and

other horrors that had terrified Christendom—and

SO f ar made the world a happier place to live in.

DECADENCE 55

Addison has a charming Essay on Contentment.” He opens it by telling us he was onceengaged in discourse with a Rosicrucian about thegreat secret. As this kind of men (I mean those ofthem who are not prof essed cheats) are over- run withenthusiasm and philosophy, it was very amusing tohear this religious adept descanting upon his pretendeddiscovery.

” Then f ollows an account which is muchto our present purpose, because it summarises theleading ideas of the Society. He talked o f the Secretas o f a Spirit which lived within an emerald, and

converted everythin g that was near it to the highestperf ection that it was capable of . It gives a lustre ,

’

says he, to the sun, and water to the diamond.

It irradiates every metal, and enriches lead with all

the properties of gold. It heightens smoke intoflame , and light into glory.

’ He further added,that a Single ray of it dissipates pain and care andm elancholy f rom the person on whom it f alls. Inshort,

’ says he, its presence naturally changesevery place into a kind of heaven.

’ Af ter he hadgone on for some time in this unintelligible cant, If ound that he jumbled natural andmoral ideas togetherinto the same discourse, and that his great secret wasn othing else but content.”

THE CHIEF CAUSE OF DECADENCE.

Addison hits on the gravest fault o f alchemy ,

tIie‘juniblé Of naturaland moral ideas

’ —Or in more

g en eral statement, the conf usion o f objective facts and

NO . 574 , July 3oth, 1714 .


sub jectixtem tions, This f ault was f rom the first amarked characteristic of a lchemy but came to a headin this closing period o f its long career. Adeptsread themselves into their experiments, instead of

patiently Observing what nature had to teach them.

No true science could develop so long as research wasconducted on so fatuous a method. And when truescience did at length lif t up its head, subjectivealchemy was doomed . The hope o f transmutationdid not , however, disappear. It survived the art

l

which had fo stered it, and engaged the minds of suchmen as Ashmole and Newton— but only by way o f

sober experiment. Indeed, it is even yet to b e

reckoned among those which may engage the highestactivities of the science Of the f uture.

CHAPTER V

TRANSITION TO SCIENCE

HE old a lchemy and the new chemistry—howgreat the g ap between them ! They seem to

b elong to dif ferent worlds. True. And yet the

incidents treated of in the last chapter will have

prepared us to recogn ise that, wide as is the dif ference,t here was nevertheless continuity. This continuitywas not that which characterises the g rowth o f an

individual plant, as Thorpe Observes, unbroken inevery detail;but rather that which links parent andchild—a living bond, but an independent existence.If we trace the steps by which the change has come

about we shall find that the new science did not cutitself o f f at a stroke, any more than a child is straight

way self -sufficient . The central idea of transmutation

long retained its hold, and only yielded to the growing

pressure of f act s slowly but surely accumulated by

careful experiment.It would b e artificial to assign a date f or the

b eginning of the transition period. It ran its courseconcurrently with the decadence of alchemy, and waswell on its way in the m iddle of the seventeenth

century. Its close may be put at the beginning of thenineteenth century, when alchemy was fin ally dis

credited and modern chemistry set on a firm f ooting.57


The essential dif ference between the Old and the new

may be conveniently paralleled by that betweenParacelsus, the representative of the mystical development, and Robert Boyle, a splendid example Of thealchemist merged in the scientist.

ROBERT BOYLE (1626

Paracelsus died about 1540. Robert Boyle wasborn in 1626. Hardly a century intervenes. And yetthe contrast in the environments, the characters, andthe a ims of the two pioneers is most striking. The

early education of Paracelsus had been neglected.

Boyle was sent by his f ather, the first Earlof Cork,to Eton. Paracelsus set out on almost vagabondtravels. Boyle spent six f ruitf ul years on the Continent

, accompanied by a tutor. Paracelsus f rom firstto last was violent, ung ovem ed, chaotic. Boylef rom first to last was studious, gentle, restrained .

On returning f rom his travels, Paracelsus hurried on

f rom one turbulent experience to another, never at

rest. Boyle settled quietly down at his home and at

Oxf ord. Both men cultivated the sciences, moreespecially chemistry. But whereas Paracelsus buriedwhat was good in his reforms under a load of inco

herencyand charlatanry, Boyle manif ested the cautiouscritica l temper that gave susta ined purpose to his

labours and advanced the cause Of systematic research.

Just as diverse in aim, method, and spirit were theold alchemy and the newly-born chemistry. And

yet , as was bef ore stated, they were in the relation o f

parent and child.

TRANSITION TO SCIENCE 59

Equally striking was the dif ference in the outcomeo f their labours. The Paracelsian tradition f ound itsmost congenial expression in the Rosicm cian brother

hood. Boyle was one Of the first members of an

association o f scientists which, af ter holding privatemeetings, was incorporated in 1663 as the Roya lSociety. He was Offered the presidency, but hismodesty and retiring disposition made him declinethe honour. It is strange to think that the rise o f

these two SO dissimilar societies was practically con

temporaneousWe naturally ask how f ar Boyle accepted the cur

rent doctrines of the Hermetic art . He certainlydid not deny the possibility of transmutation. Hewasf ar too cautious to commit himself on a point so

crucial when the evidence f or and against was so

scanty and imperf ect. He went to work to collectf acts and Observations, and to clear away false notionsand was thus led to doubt the explanations on whichthe alchemists relied . He was specially anxious thataccount should be taken o f the part played by theair in their calcining experiments, and thus broughtinto prominence the problem o f combustion. It was

the solution of this problem that ultimately subvertedthe Old doctrine o f the elements, and prepared the wayf or the discovery o f the really fixed elements, inthe sense now accepted . He has been called the true

precursor of the modern chemist. Paracelsus was an

eruptive f orce. Boyle was a patient investigator.

Each heralded advances, but Boyle’s career was

more evenly in line with the onward march o f

t ruth.


ALCHEMY A'r OXFORD .

An interesting episode in the history of the art

during this periodwas the establishing of an a lchemica lcentre at Oxf ord. Boyle there organised a f amouschemistry class. A f amous Rosicrucian chemistwas brought over f rom Strasburg Lock and Christopher Wren were among the pupils . Elias Ashmo lejo ined in the venture and provided f or its continuance .He agreed that he would hand over to the Universityhis many treasures, artistic, antiquarian, and scien

t ific , on condition that a fitting museum was built ,the lowest room o f which was to be a well -fit ted laboratory. Ashmole was perhaps the last o f these Oxforda lchemists. His treatise, Theatrum Chemicum Britan

nicum, published in 1652, conta ins many extracts f romold Hermetic philosophers, while at the same time itplaces the study o f chemistry on a sound f ooting.

N0 less a person than Sir Isaac Newton co llaboratedwith him f or a time in the investigation Of the transmutation doctrine, including the question of theexistence o f some transmuting material, Philosopher

’sStone or other. We may regard Ashmole and Newt on as eminent examples o f the class o f scientists whogave alchemy a f a ir trial, and who reluctantly abandoned the hopes it had stimulated.

The gradual undermining of belief in the principles

o f alchemy, on their scientific side, was ma inly theresult o f research and experiment. But it was in no

small degree accelerated by the unmasking o f f raudulent pretenders . Even the most credulous couldnot avoid being influenced by the atmosphere of


suspend his judgment until further evidence wasava ilable . In the light of our present knowledge,this hesitation may appear excessive. But if we thinkourselves back into those days, we shall acknowledgethat his expectant attitude was thoroughly scient ific .

And we shall be allthe more sympathetic when werealise that the whole problem of the constitution o f

matter is again an open one, though some of the Oldbeaten paths have been closed.

Scientifically, the reign o f alchemy came to an

end with the new theories of combustion. As our

subject is alchemy, we need not enter into deta ilconcerning the development of experimental physicsand chemistry. There are a multitude of works whichcover this ground. Let it suffice to say that theelements o f the Hermetic art were replaced by theelements of the modern chemist. The Old art

was doomed.

DR . PRICE .

Scientifically,”a lchemy came to an end with the

emergence o f new views o f matter ; experimentgradually supplied explicit refutations o f it. It wasotherwise with what we may disting uish as the emo

tionalSpell of the art , and the popular belief in thecla ims made by adepts. Here it was rather thedramatic unmasking of illusions or f rauds that rupturedthe uncritical hopes of success. In England the coupdc g rdcewas given by the tragic case of Dr. Price, o fGuildford, which shall be briefly related.

He was a wealthy and learned man , and wrotesome interesting works on chemistry. In 1781 he


imagined that he had succeeded in compounding apowder which would change mercury or silver intogold. At first he confided his secret to a f ew f riends,and had no thought o f publicity. But the rumouro f his discovery got abroad, and embo ldened him to

come out into the open. He went so far as to givepublic exhibitions of his transmutations, and eveninvited a disting uished company to his laboratoryto see a series Of experiments calculated to produceconviction. Waxing yet more bo ld, he printed an

account of these proceedings, and induced eminentpersons to give their signatures as witnesses to thetruth of his statements.It is startling to realise that such pretensions were

seriously advanced within twenty years o f the comingin of the nineteenth century ! The f act af fords a

striking proof both of the persistence of the idea of

transmutation, and of the slowness with which thenew views of matter matured. We must not think,however, that Price

’s statements were universallyaccepted, or that they were unchallenged. Theundermining had gone too far f or that ! Un f ortu

nately f or the belated alchemist, though fortunatelyf or the cause Of truth, it happened that the RoyalSociety was concerned. Price was a member. TheSociety conceived its honour to be at stake, and

summoned him to appear before a duly qualifiedcommittee, in order that the cla im might be submittedf or an authoritative judgment. Price refused to bethus tested. He excused himself on the plea that thestock of his transmuting powder was exhausted, andthat its replenishment would be a long and arduousundertaking. Under further pressure, he sought


to escape by prof essing that he was a Rosicrucian,and theref ore not permitted to divulge the secret.These pretexts were of no ava il —the Society wasinsistent, granted him time, but demanded a test.In 1783 he returned to Guildf ord to prepare the

powder. Six months passed and nothing was heardof him. The Society then fixed a date on which heshould fulfil his engagement. He invited the Societyto Guildford. Only three members responded. Hereceived them, and then committed suicide in theirpresence .Thus tragically ended the career of England’s last

public alchemist. Up to what point was Price reallydeluded When and why did he enter on a courseo f systematic deception These questions cannot b eanswered. Nor can even the prior puz z le be solved,how, supposing him to have been originally reallyconvinced that he had gained the secret, he had arrivedat such a conclusion. At any rate, the Royal Societywas amply justified in its determination to investigate.

And the dramatic f eatures o f the failure, brought soprominently into notice, completed in this countrythe overthrow of an already discredited art .

SEMLER.

Sing ularly enough, at about the same time a similarf a ilure led to the final rejection o f the art in Germany,though the attendant circumstances were in theregion, not Of tragedy, but o f comedy. There was atHalle a certain prof essor o f theology, Semler by name ,who had been strongly attracted by the literature andpractice of the Hermetic art . His own labours were


without success. But he took up warmly a discoverymade by Baron Leopold de Hirschen—to wit , amarvellous Salt of Lif e. He asserted that this saltwas not only a transmuting substance but also auniversal medicine. No elaborate process was necessary for the production of gold it sufficed to dissolveit in water and to leave it f or some days in a glassvessel at a uniform temperature. Semler obta inedsome of this, and was surprised to find g old in thecrucible. Another chemist, Klaproth, analysed theSalt of Lif e,

”and f ound it to consist o f Glauber’s

sa lt and sulphate of magnesia . There was also ,however, some gold ! It was evident to Klaproththat particles of gold had been f rom the first in theliquid to be proved, and that the addition of the saltwas a work of supererogation. Semlerwas perturbed,and sent a second supply of the liquid and the salt,and the ana lyser went to work aga in— this time inthe presence of a large company. Semler

’

s positionas a prof essor demanded respect, even though scepti

cism bordered on ironic denial. He solemn ly assuredthose taking part in the experiment that he himselfhad never once f ailed to obta in a successful result.SO the testing proceeded. And 10 instead o f gold,Klaproth f ound a kind of brass called tombac Thejoke spread f rom the room throughout the country.

The explanation of the fiasco put an edge on it. Itappeared that Semler had a servant who was muchattached to him. To this man was entrusted the tasko f f eeding the fire and attending to the apparatus.He saw how eager his master was to find g o ld in thecrucible, and being anxious to please him, purchasedsome gold- lea f and put it into the mixture. Being


called away on military service, he entrusted the taskto his wif e, The good woman saved the situationby purchasing brass instead Of gold, and poor Semlerbecame a laughing stock. This was better, however,than being a disseminator Of a falsity which might havegiven a longer lease of lif e to a mischievous delusion .

Of course every one acknowledged the prof essor’sperf ect honesty. He resumed the saf er part Of his

duties at the University. But the art he would f a inhave f ostered was discredited— laughed out o f court .The general public in Germany, as in Eng land, at lastconcluded that the Philosopher’s Stone and the Elixirwere, even if possible, beyond human reach.

THE END OF ALCHEMY.

AS a recognised pursuit alchemy came to an end atthe close o f the eighteenth century. What rema inedwere merely flickering s o f an exting uished fire . In

Germany, a society f or alchemical research existedas late as 1819 . In France, Chevreul , who lived wellinto the nineteenth century, records that he knewOf several persons who were convinced of the truth O f

the art , among them being generals, doctors, and

ecclesiastics.” Ben ighted dreamers there may evenyet be who dabble in the f orgotten lore. But the

transmutation idea , in its old f orm, is a thing of the

past, and can never be resuscitated. A new physicsand a new chemistry have made clear the futility o f

its traditional doctrines and methods, though theyhave also, under wondrously changed conditions ,rekindled the hope they had exting uished . But letus not f orget that the old provided a basis for the new.


As Georg e Eliot has put it Doubtless a vigorouserror vigorously pursued has kept the embryos of

t ruth a -breathing : the quest of gold being at thesame time a questioning of substances, the body of

Chemistry is prepared f or its soul, and Lavoisier isb orn .

”

Such, in outline, is the history of the Hermetic art .It covered a long period, travelling down f rom theA lexandrine mystic to the modern scientist. We can

now enter on the study in fuller detail without a

rigorous adherence to chronologica l order. We can

t reat separately of doctrines, practices, notions,orientating ourselves f rom time to time by referringt o the chequered story of origin, development, and

decay.

M iddlcmarch, chap. xlviii.

CHAPTER I

SUGGESTIONS FROM NATURAL PROCESSES

ET us begin our more deta iled study by makingsure that we understand the alchemist’s idea

o f transmutation, and the ext ernal phenomena whichsuggested it. To assume that he occupied our own

standpoint, and to crit icise accordingly, is to missentirely the who le significance of the story. Betweenhim and the modern scientist intervenes a tremendousrevolution in physical and chemica l conceptionso f the nature of matter. The advance is hardly yeta century old, but is of fundamental and deep importance. It a lters our whole outlook on the universe.Brought up, as we are, in an atmosphere pulsing

with the conceptions characteristic of the new physicsand the new chemistry, it requires an ef fort if we aret o think ourselves back into the old order. The verylang uage of the alchemists is strange to us . But thee f fort is well worth the while. For we shall the betterappreciate our conquests if we know something o f

how they were won ;we shall enter more thoroughlyinto their purport if we study the errors which wereoverthrown.

Can the fundamental dif ference between the old

and the new b e briefly stated in a preliminary f ashionPerhaps the simplest way Of do ing this is to define

71 F


roughly whatwas the alchemist’s idea of the behaviourof matter. He, and many of us, are thus far on

common ground, that we agree in assuming a primarykind of matter out of which allthe dif ferent substancesin the world are f ormed. The g ap between us yawnswhen we proceed to ask how the primary substancecomes to manif est f orms so diversified . The modernscientist holds that the cosmic process has brought intobeing certain f orms of atoms which are, relativelyto our power of dealing with them, fixed and un

changeable. At present more than eighty dif ferentkinds are recognised. It is not, o f course , denied thatfurther discoveries may diminish or increase thisnumber. But the principle involved is firmly adheredto.

Quite other was the alchemist’s assumption.

He held—that all

“

thedifiere-

nt'

kind'

s of sub stances arefluid,

”so_to say , and_p_ass natura lly f rom one form

to another. Each kind he conceived to be activelystriving to develop, or grow, into a nobler state. And

his art aimed at hastening, by special means, what isessentiallya natural process. The poinf sfi STEiSed

will bediscussed In due course. But with the sharplydrawn distinction in our minds, let us ask how the

a lchemist came to embrace the doctrine that governedf or so long a time his speculation and his practice.

A WORLD OF CHANGE.

On the grand scale and on the small, the universemanif est s all- pervading and unceasing change. And

the more closely nature’s ways are examined, the more

SUGGESTIONS FROMNATURAL PROCESSES 73

clearly emerges this fundamental fact. Moreover,many of these changes have the appearance of beingt ransmutations. Take a f ew simple examples g ermane to our subject. Water evaporates; vapourcondenses into water. The fuel on the fire disappearsin gases and smoke, leaving but a dead ash ; the deadash, in turn, may g o to the building up of living plantsand animals. Foods are taken, and f orm flesh and

blood ; the body decays and returns to the dust f romwhich it sprang. S

'

o compelling is the evidence thatit suggested the first philosophical systems of the

Greeks, and is thus fundamental to allthe subsequentphilosophy of the Western nations. One of theseearly thinkers, Heracleitus, concluded that existenceis an eternal flux.

” He likens it to the flow of the

water in a river ; the current moves on ever ; so thata man can never really step twice into the samestream. Add to this conception the idea of change inf orm and appearance, and we have the world viewedas a series of transmutations.

THE ALCREMIST’S AIM.

Alchemists busied themselves with meta llurgy

and practical chemistry. They theref ore app 1e t isreasoning with Special ref erence to their art . Theirexperiences were largely of a kind to illustrate and

enf orce it, g athered as they were f rom striking changeswrought by chemical reactions, and by fire . Firenot only melts substances, but of ten metamorphosesthem. Mercury can be heated so that it becomes a

brig ht red powder—colour, mobility, g leam, allvan ish,

f 74 ALCHEMY— ITS SCIENCE AND ROMANCE

to give place to a substance with almost oppositequalities. What were they to conclude ‘P Theyknew nothing of the part played by the oxygen o f

the air : the discovery o f that was the result of longand laborious experiment in quite recent times. Firealone seemed to have ef fected the startling transmutation. And if so, could not the same agent, or otherOperations, bring about the seemingly f ar simplerchange o f tin into Silver, or Of brass into go ld Such aline Of arg ument was natural . We know that as a

matter of f act it was f ollowed, and that it led toconclusions which, though erroneous, were reasoned.

We must theref ore allow that, under the conditions then prevailing, the inf erence f rom Observationsof external happenings to the possibility of transmutation was warranted. Indeed, the supposition may begranted the rank o f scientific .” That in the longrun it proved to b e a mistake does not deprive it O fthe claim. Otherwise there will be little of our up

to -date science which on like grounds may not ult imately be degraded !

THE QUALITY OF COLOUR .

The early a lchemists were in possession of a largenumber of receipts f or making a lloys that imitated theprecious metals. Their problem was, not to imitate ,but to transmute ; not to make the baser metals

course, that the qualities in which the dif ferences

Consisted must be modified.


The first of the qualities to receive attention wasthat o f colour. The Alexandrian adepts conceiveditm fid§fi fi rOcé SS

"

Of—dyeing. But we must

be careful to understand what the genuine alchemistm eant by dyeing.

” We ourselves think of a

dye as a colouring matter which imparts a particularhue to a material, but does not become a part of itby chemical combination with it. The alchemist’sidea , however, was that his dye should be so intimateam p ete t at l shi fld Chang e

'

th'

é nature"

of tifeand Inalge _i_t really become that to which it

was made like. According to this school of operators ,there were two fundamental dyes, answering to theco lours of the two precious metals—Xanthosis, or

dyeing yellow, and Leucosis, or dyeing white. Itwas further held that the two dyes, though dif feringin appearance, were one and the same substance .And it came to be thought that therewas a master dyewhich, if it could be discovered, would be veritably atransmuting agent. The idea developed and gradually merged in that of the Philosopher’s Stone. Forinstance Salmon, in the seventeenth century, describesthe master substance thus The universal medicinef or all imperf ect metals, which fixes those that are

volatile, purifies those that are impure, and gives acolour and brilliance greater than that of nature.”

The dye and the Stone coalesce.It may be said that, although the idea of transmu

tation might merit the rank of scientific, we herepass into the region of uncritical fantasy. Not so .

The full excuse must wait until we come to discuss thephilosophical basis of alchemy, and the doctrine of

qualities.” But even on the g round of observations


f rom external happen ings, we can see how the mistakearose. Experiences gained in the dyeing of cloth,enamels, glass, and the rest, deceived and misled .

Moreover, the colour of metals could actually bechanged by alloys, and by chemica l actions. Underthe circumstances, misinterpretations were naturaland inevitable.

DYEING THE METALS.

f"

Let us look into the matter a little more closely.

These early alchemists knew that there are agentswhich can make a meta l white—as mercury whitensCopper ; that there are agents which can make a

metal yellow— as sulphur and arsenic can give

La golden tint to silver. Nowadays we know that thechanges result f rom the formation of new compounds.We must keep this knowledg e out of sight, and jointhe alchemists in regarding the changes as dyeingprocesses of varying degrees of perf ection. The lessperf ect the dye, the smaller the amount of transmutation eff ected. The two examples just g iven were notregarded as fixed dyes, f or they could not resistthe action of chemical agents or o f fire—the transmutations were only partial. Whereas in the case o fgold itself , the colour could resist such agents, and wasone of the marks of the perf ect metal. We may

perhaps put ourselves most easily at their point O f

view if we suppose that the colour of gold, whereverit occurs, arg ues the presence of gold-nature. Then

fiearer to being gold is the substance that possesses


perm each change must be a real t ransmut .ta n Shall we recog nise t

—hat this was a legitimate

arg ument f rom analogyCome down the centuries to one who is regarded

as the herald of modern science . We find him thusdiscussing the possibility of transmutation. Ingo ld, f or example, the f ollowing properties meet.It is yellow in colour, heavy up to a certa in weightmalleable or ductile to a certa in degree of extensionit is not volatile, and loses none o f its substance by theaction o f fire it turns into a liquid with a certa indegree o f fluidity; it is separated and dissolved byparticular means ; and so on f or the other natureswhich meet in gold. He who knows the f ormsOf yellow, weight, ductility, fixity, fluidity, solution ,

and so on , and the methods f or superinducing them,

and their gradations and modes , will make it his careto have them joined together in some bodywhence may

f ollow the transf ormation of that body into gold.

”

It does not need a critical knowledge o f the

Baconian terminology to understand the general drif tof this passage. The governing idea is that men may

come to have the means f or so uniting the qua litiesf ound in gold as to produce the metal . This is true .

Chemists may yet succeed in building up a meta l .This speculation will be more fit ting ly discussed at theclose, than at the beginning of our inquiry.

FIXED ELEMENTS.

But not by alchemist means. It is important tonote the reservation. Let us return f or a moment to

Novum Org am n , Second Book of Aphorisms, v.

SUGGESTIONS FROM NATURAL PROCESSES 79

the treatment of copper with arsenic. St. ThomasAquinas mentions it : Add to Copper some whitesublimated arsenic ; you will see the copper turnwhite. If you then add some pure silver, you transf orm allthe copper into veritable silver.” It is pla inthat the great doctor misconceives the conditions o fhis problem. The modern chemist will expla in thatthere is no chang e of copper into silver, but the f ormation o f an alloy of the three ing redientH ach beingpresent in exactly the same quantity throughout, andeach recoverable, by suitable means, in exactly theoriginal quantity. That is to say, the alloyed silveris not an imperf ect f orm o f that metal, as the alchemists thought, but a compound o f fixed elements.

The alchemy o f the future, should it come to flourish,

will g o to work with a who lly diff erent set o f fundamental conceptions. How f ar the atoms o f the elements themselves are compounds will be consideredlater. The principle involved remains the samethroughout —fixity of conditions, not growth.

Nevertheless the alchemists f rom the first had a

suspicion -

t hat alloys were“

not“

true transmutations .—Hence—a - distinc tion they drew b etween naturaland art ificial metals . The latter atta ined to a

cef t'

ai'

IT'

numb er of the qualities of the meta l to beimitated but did not attain to perf ect likeness. Andin proportion as accuracy in

‘

measuring, weighing,and testing was ga ined, so did the problem of alchemybecome more complex. Superficial results did notso easily pass muster, and more delicate processeswere tried. The parallel has been drawn, in thisregard, with the increasing delicacy of present-daymixing of alloys and tempering of steel. We mav


gladly accept it, because the cases are genuinelysimilar. And the application is closer than might a tfirst sight appear ; f or the alchem ists believed thatgo ld and silver themselves were a lloys, and .couldtheref ore be reproduced by proper compounding .

IMPERFECT ANALYSIS.

Another source o f error in alchemist conclusionswas the imperf ection of their methods o f analysis.ConsiderPliny’s account of the go ld-making institutedby the Emperor Caligula .

"s He caused a considerable amount of orpiment to be calcined to get thegold out Of it, and quite succeeded in making excellentgold.” There was no attempt at f raud—all was ingood f aith. But the gold was there to start with,undetected. A modern chemist would have explainedthe Situation in a f ew minutes his tests are Speedyand accurate. We cannot wonder that honest andcareful observers were f requently misled into thinkingthat they had succeeded in producing or augmentinggo ld, when they were so poorly equipped f or analysiso f their materia ls.

Even Boyle was sorely perplexed by the result o f

a chemical action . He dissolved some gold in a

royal water conta ining chloride o f antimony.

To his surprise there appeared a noticeable amountof silver.” He did not know that the chloride contained a certa in quantity of this meta l and he wastheref ore tempted to believe that some sort of transmutation had taken place .

Given in full, p. 18.


Two RECEIPTS FOR MAK ING GOLD .

It will be interesting, on several counts, to give inthis context two receipts f or making gold—one brief ,the other more complicated. They are taken f rom an

ancient treatise entitled Mappaz Clavicula—a manu

script Of the twelf th century, with matter belongingto the tenth; the sources date back to Alexandriantimes, and behind these again to the previous Egyptianperiod. The brief receipt is as f ollows To makego ld— take silver, 1 lb . ; COpper, Qlb . ; gold, 1 lh.,

melt, etc.” This would seem to be a case of plain

f alsification. The tit le of the receipt proves that theresult ing alloywas to be passed Of f as gold. We must,however, distinguish between a merely empirical

falsifier and a speculative alchemist. The f ormermerely ann s at scoring wealth. The latter lookson the alloy as an approach to what he wants— a

stage on the path of transmutation. Many alchemists there were who would make b ad use o f

the receipt ; but with such we are not at presentconcerned. We are trying to understand whatgenuine alchemy stood f or.The longer receipt runs thus Take mercury,

8 parts filings of gold, 4 parts filings of good silver,5 parts ; filings of brass, and flower o f Copper calledby the Greeks chalcantum (sulphate of copper), 12parts ; yellow orpiment (sulphuret of mercury), 6parts electrum (an alloy of gold and Silver), 12 parts.Mix all the filings with the mercury to the consis

tence o f wax. Add electrum and orpiment ; thenadd vitriol and alum. Place the whole in a dish on


burning charcoal ; boil it gently, sprinkling into itsa f ran (probably an orange sulphide of arsenic) infused in some vinegar, and a little natron (carbonateof soda ) 4 parts of the saf ran are to be used. Sprinklelittle by little until it is dissolved and drunk up .

When the mass is solid, take it and you have goldwith increase. You will add to the preceding substances a little moonstone, which is called in GreekAf roselinum (selenite, a name applied to sulphate o flime , m ica , and transparent Here we havea m ixture which might well defy the analysis o f earlychemists The comparative simplicity o f the resultwould be grievously disguised. Once again we mustdistinguish between the mere f raudulent Operatorwhowould consciously take advantage of the spuriousmetal, and the Speculative alchemist who mightreason himself into believing that the alloy was reallyand truly an imperf ect sort of gold.

PRECIPITATES.

Evidence of a like kind was furnished by the studyo f the precipitates of metals. For example, if a filingo f copper be dipped into a solution o f a Silver sa lt,the copper is immediately covered with a coat of

silver or if an iron filing be dipped in a salt of copper,it is immediately covered with a coat of copper. Now

adays we are not misled by such phenomena . Butwe must remember that until comparatively recenttimes it was not known that the salts Of ten includemeta ls among their elements ; nor was it suspectedthat metals could exist in solution in a liquid. For


us , blue vitriol (sulphate of cOpper) is a salt containingatoms of copper in combination with atoms of sulphurand oxygen ; and when it is dissolved, the meta l isin the solution. The alchemists, however, had nomeans of knowing this. The salt and the meta l were,f or them, simply dif ferent states of certa in substances .And thus, when copper was deposited on an ironfilingfl ung ed In a solution o f the salt, it a_ppeared totlié m as a transmutat iOIi.

"

WEE5?“

that the atomsof cgpper III the salt are disp laced by atoms o f

iron they sa id that something was changed intocopper.

”

T I carTy example of the sort of reasoning employedis f ound in E neas of Gaz a (fif th century) The

f orm subsists, while the matter undergoes chang esbecause it is made to assume allthese qualities. Letit be a statue of Achilles made of iron suppose it isdestroyed and its f ragments reduced to tiny morsels .If now a workman collects this iron, purifies it, and byE peculiar science changes it into gold, and gives itthe figure of Achilles, this will now be a golden statueinstead of an iron one ; but it will still be Achilles.It is in this way that the matter in bodies that arecorruptible behaves, and by art becomes pure and

imperishable.” ZEneas makes his meaning clearerby saying, a little further on, that the change o f

matter into a higher condition has nothing incrediblein it. It is thus that those learned in working upmatter take gold and tin, make them apparentlydisappear, colour the matter, and change it intoexcellent gold.

” He evidently regards the intervening chem ical actions, which make the meta ls

Quoted by Berthelot , Les Orig inalsdc l’

Alchimie, p. 75.


apparently disappear, as so many stages in a transmuting process. Note the special mention of theOperation Of colouring, and also the pla in statemento f the idea that matter can pass

“into a highercondition.

”

This extract presents a very early attempt toexpla in chemical actions. We know more about themthan did !Eneas we have reduced them to laws, andcan calculate them by equations. But do we yetunderstand them

‘I What really happens in such a

f am iliar case as two atoms Of hydrogen un iting withone of oxygen to f orm a molecule of water 5? Are

the f orms Of the constituent atoms modified Is thewater-molecule really something other than a mereconjunction of two dif ferent substances ‘I We are

stillgroping.

APPEAL To HISTORY.

We may class under the head of external evidencef or transmutation the persuasive f orce o f the testimony borne by generation af ter generation Of adepts tothe successof their ef forts. So great was this that itmust have required a mind of exceptional independenceto resist it. As late as 1832, Schmieder, in his

Geschichte der Alchimie, actually concludes that theweight of evidence in the seventeenth and eighteenthcenturies is so remarkable that it impels belief int ransmutation. We may well f orgive, then , thosewho , in preceding epochs, honestly held alchemy tobe a true art, even though they themselves had nOt

succeeded. The g reat secret might illude them ; butthe appeal to history satisfied them that others, morelearned or more f ortunate, had penetrated it.

CHAPTER II

PHILOSOPHY OF TRANSMUTATION

E have seen, in the historical sketch, that thealchemists derived the technical Side o f their

art f rom the Egyptians . They were practical chemistsand metallurgists. But they were a lso philosophers.They were students o f Byz antine and Alexandriansystems which had fused certa in doctrines of the

Greeks with mystical and magical elements. Andthus , though they were in quest of a discovery whichinvolved manipulation o f laboratory materials and

apparatus, they brought to bear on their task theresults o f abstract thought. It was this combinationo f the theoretical and the practical that constitutedthe peculiar character of the Hermetic art . We haveconsidered the external aspects of the belief in transmutation. We now turn to examine its philosophicalbases.

A PASSAGE FROM PSELLUS.

An excellent introduction to this phase Of the

sub ject is provided by an extract f rom a letter writtenin the eleventh century by a Byz antine alchemistnamed Psellus. The Patriarch Xiphelin had askedhim to expla in his art . Here is a passage in his reply.

86

PHILOSOPHY OF TRANSMUTATION 87

You desire that I should make known to youthis art which resides in fires and furnaces, and whichexpresses the destruction o f substances and transmutations of natures . Some believe that it is a knowledge f or the initiate, held secret, which they have notattempted to reduce to a rational f orm— a thing whichI regard as an enormity. For myself , I have soughtf rom the first to know the causes, and to draw f romthem a rational explanation of the facts. I havesought it in the nature of the f our elements f romwhich allcomes by combination, and into which all

returns by dissolution. I have seen in my youththe root Of an oak turned into stone while conservingit s fibres and allits structures, participating thus inthe two natures (that is to say, wood and stone).Af ter quoting Strabo’s account o f the properties ofan encrusting f ounta in which produced the f orms ofimmersed objects, he proceeds thus In this waythe changes of nature can take place naturally, notin virtue o f an incantation, or a miracle, or a secretf ormula . There is an art of transmutations. I havewished to set f orth its precepts and its Operations.You wish to knowby what substances and by the aido f what science gold can be made. You would f a inknow its secret, not to have great treasures, but topenetrate into the secrets of nature as did the ancient

philosophers. I will reveal to you all the wisdomo f Democritus of Abdera ; I shall leave nothing inthe sanctuary.

”

We note in this remarkable statement severalpoints of great significance. Its scientific spiritshines out clearly—its reliance on knowledge of natureand on observation. There is the determination,

G


moreover, to get down to the causes of things— itsphilosophical temper. And there is the ref erenceto Democritus, and through him to the whole field o f

Greek thought about nature. The core of the wholematter is the making of gold—t ransmutation.

PLATONIC THEORIES OF MATTER.

Psellus sends us to the Greeks, and to the Greeks

we will go. Fortunately we can limit ourselves, f orour special purpose, to the lines of speculation whichcentre in Plato and his f ollowers. For the Alexandrianphilosophy was largely Platonic in spirit and in sub

stance.Plato’s theory of matter is obscure, and has give n

rise to much discussion . We are concerned, however,with its teaching as interpreted by the alchemistsand we can theref ore steer clear of entangling con

t roversies. The fullest exposition is f ound in thedialogue known as the Timmus.We there find that he seems to teach the existence

o f an eternal something which can hardly be calledmatter. It is f ormless and indeterminate, beyondthe reach of thought and the senses. Though so

dimly apprehended and so hard to be Cxpla ined, yetit underlies allthings ; it orig inates and constitutesthe material universe—the principle out o f which all

things are f ormed. Plato calls it sometimes thewomb or mother of all becoming. He con

ceived that the Creator imposed upon it certain f orms,and that there thus came into being the f our kinds o fsubstance so widely declared to be elementswater, earth, air, and fire. Of these, he said, water is


PLATONISM AND ALCHEMY.

The alchemists assimilated this teaching- so

completely that Geber, the greatmaster of the Arabianschool, goes to the length of asserting that meta ls cannot be transmuted until they have been reduced totheir first matter.” In other words, he not onlymainta ined that metals are compounded out Of thismother stuff ,

” but also that, if they are to be broughtby artificial means to higher states of perf ection, theymust necessarily first be decomposed into their primordial condition. This teaching af fords a strikingexample of the influence o f philosophy on laboratoryoperations, and with various modifications, reta inedits hold down to the days when alchemy was decadentand discredited.

A typical instance is f ound in the writings Of BasilValentine, an adept of the thirteenth century. The

f ollowing passage is clear and to the po int Thinkmost diligently about this, bear it of ten in mind,observe and comprehend, that all mInerals and

meta ls are produced and generated in the same timeand in the same f ashion, and o f one and the sameprincipal matter.” This is Simple and straightf orward.

We must not , however, imagine that all who developedthe central idea were equally sober-minded, or thatt heir teachings were always in harmony with eachother. Many were vague and incoherent, mystica land f antastic. But we should not on that accountdeny the rational element which underlay them all,

and which f rom time to time reasserted itself in thespeculations of the nobler sort o f adepts.


Take as a f avourable example of an attempt at arational development o f the Platonic doctrine thesystem expounded in the works o f the Va lentinusabove quoted. He sets out f rom the idea that beneathall the sensible qualities of a substance there is an

incorporea l Essence . He therefore distinguishes thespec ific bodily, or material , part f rom theIn the bodily part he holds there are the f our generallyrecognised elements—earth, water, air, fire. SO f ar

there is nothing really new. But he then makes anadvance . He ho lds that f rom the relations betweenpa irs of these elements result what he calls the threePrinciples. Fire acting on air produces Sulphur ;air acting on water produces Mercury ; water actingon earth produces Salt. The Sulphur, Mercury, andSalt thus produced are not to be thought as being ofthe ordinary sort in common use. They have an

exalted or sublimated nature which implies specia lpowers and virtues, and become a recognised Triadf or alchemy, as distinct f rom the Four of philosophy.

Can man make the three Principles out of theElements 7 NO , says Valentine God alone can dothat ; man has simply to accept them. But man

can g o to work with the three Principles and minglethem in various ways and proportions. He is thusable to ef fect transmutations of the substances withwhich he is actually dealing.

The strangeness of this speculation may blind usto its merits. It is an original attempt at analysis.And we may parallel its conclusions under our modernconditions. May we not f a irly say that the placeo f Valentine’s Principles are our chemical elements

For a further consideration of this, see the next chapter, p. 107.


which the scientist can neither make nor unmakeBut he can combine them in endless ways and propo rtions. Eliminate the idea o f a passing o f one substanceinto another, substituting that o f a building up o f

fixed kinds o f atoms, and the kinship of the Old and

the new is apparent.

As regards the underlying Essence, Valentine saysit is hidden by the wrappings of Elements and

Principles. But though impalpable, it acts as a mysticuniting bond. Have we not here an anticipation o f

the modern concept o f the ether of space Readany recent account o f this mysterious, illusive, all

pervading entity postulated by our physica l philoso

phers, and you will sympathise with Valentine’

s

speculation.

TnE MERCURY OF THE PnILosornERs.

What has preceded will enable us to apprehendthe a lchemist notion o f whatwas called the Mercury—a— l.

o f the Philosophers.

” It was reached in this way.

By a specialised application o f the doctrine o f a firstmatter,

”adepts came to think that there must b e

some-

particular kindOf sub stancewhich i s thm is'

o f all the metals, rendering them allessenIIally—O

'

i a

uniform compositiOn . The diff erences b etwem

enfi

themare duetOvarIous colouring matters and impurities .For various reasons to be given later, the metalmercury had attracted exceptional attention, and itwas generally agreed that this was the commoninmost substance o f the metals. Theory and practice,however, were here at loggerheads. For it was


f orm o f it goes into detail thus. Gold is engenderedb y a clear mercury associated with a clear red sulphur

silver by a clear mercury and a white, or slightly red,sulphur ; iron by an impure mercury and a sulphurwhite and clear ; lead by a thick mercury and a whitesulphur, thick and a little red ; and so on . Thequestion does not seem to have been dealt with as to

what the impurities are . Perhaps it is covered bythe idea o f a passing through stages to perf ection.

A further cause o f the dif ferences was f ound inthe amount o f baking which the mixtures had undergone down below in the earth. (The notion that theygrow comes under another head.) Gold, f o r

example, was baked a long time at a gentle heatsilver, some said, required a hundred years to bakeiron was metal spoilt by too much baking ; tin, iffurther baked, would become silver lead is detestablesulphur badly baked. The idea o f passing throug hvarious stages is still fundamental.

SULPHUR.

If we ask why sulphur should be chosen as a

necessary ingredient in the composition o f meta ls,the answer still keeps us in touch with Greek philosophy. The element of mercury provided the metallicproperties , such as lustre, malleability, ductility.

But the f act that fire had the power o f altering metalshad to be accounted f or. Now Plato had taught thatfire is a substance— excessively attenuated, indeed,b ut nevertheless to be ranged with air, water, and

earth. There are several kinds o f it, he says flame


which gives light to the eyes without burning themand fire which rema ins in substances that have beenenflamed, af ter the flame is extinct. The alchemistscame to associate their elemental fire with the sulphuro f the Philosophers. To this constituent was at tri

buted the combustibility o f meta ls, by whichterm was intended their a lterability under the actiono f fire.

The notion o f fire as a rea l substance compounded

sistent. It made its last appearance In the f amous

M imi: theory, promulgated by Stahl at theb eg inning

fi

o f“

the“

eighteenth" "

century? B riefly Statedthe tlf é OryW Ias When a substance burns, itis losing _phlog_iston ; the flame , heat, and light are

evidence of the violence o f the process. All com’

bustible substances conta in phlogiston as a common

principle. It is so intimately combined with themthat it cannot be seen until it is escaping. That whichrema ins af ter combustion is the original

'

sm inus its phlogiston.

Apply this to the meta ls. Some o f them, such as

zinc, can be made to burn, and earthly substancesremain. Others, like lead and mercury, do not burnbut if exposed to heat lose their meta llic appearance .It was therefore argued that the meta ls were compounds of phlogiston and the materials that were lef ta f ter the combustion. Moreover, the colour o f themetalwas connected with the amount of the phlogistonconta ined. For example, if lead is heated, it yieldslitharge— a yellow substance ; if heated f urther, ityields I'ed lead. Evidently, said the champions Of

this theory, there are dif ferent quantities o f the


fire- substance present. Could t_l_Ie_phlogiston b e putback ag ain In

not a f ew cases. Thus, if thedephlqg isticated g

z inc— the earthy substance remaInln g

a f ter burning— beheated withwood Or charcOar tiITa‘

meta l reappears“

It has acquired a f resh stock f romthe burnin of thewood or charcoal.M ine in a scientificdress. Sub stitute ..sfl plmP f or phlogiston, and theessential f eatures In the two are the

-

Same . The laterexperimenters did not

” u h -

lay“

sucm upon the firstmeta l substance, and they worked out their theorymuch more thoroughly and logically but the rootprinciple is the same .Now Stahl’s theory led up to the discovery Of

oxygen. It f ocussed attention on the phenomena o f

combustion, and brought together the scattered f actsby means of an explanation which, though erroneous ,enormously helped scientists to get on to the righttrack. Why should we be so unf air as to deny to thealchemists the merit o f preparing the way f or StahlFo llies and falsities ought not to obscure the sharethey had in achieving the ultimate success .

THEORY AND PRACTICE.

We have now seen how Greek philosophy largelymoulded the development of the Hermetic art . Letus get a general idea of theway in which the alchemistsset about their task.

Som particular substance, usually a metal, wouldbe chosen as likely to allow o f transmutation Intosilver or g old. The g reat object th en was tO strip it


QUALITIEs AS SEPARATE ENTITIEs.

There arises out Of the statements just made a

further po int which it is important to understand ifwe would enter into the minds o f the alchemists.Several times the expression was used , a substancemust be stripped of certain of its qualities.” Vincentde Beauvais definitely claims that adepts can rob

substances of their qualities. Now we must beprepared to interpret this language literally. That isto say, we must realise that the alchemist imaginedthe qualities o f substances to be separate thingsexisting in their own right. We need not g o deeplyinto the metaphysics. implied . It will be enough tograsp the profound dif ference between their point ofview and ours. When the operator who would fixmercury determined to get rid of its volatility and

liquidity, he had much the same idea in his mind as

a man who would fish out o f a liquid any substancesthat were scattered through it.Let us contrast our way of viewing a parallel

process. Ifw ndenses some steam into water,and then f reez es thehe

“

is.

TOb—

bin‘

g the Orig inal sub st ance’

Of'

anyqualities

,but merely that he is causing it to chang e

what we call its states .” He is caIiSiITg'

Th'

e

'

mole- _F

cules o f water to come closer and clOSertogether. THOalchemist, on the other hand, would conceivfi hat

when he had condensed the steam, h e had robbed itof a quality that made it an

“air that when he

f roz e the water, he had robbed it of a quality

fl

that

made it a liquid. Tworeally exiStent things hadlie—Ou


abstracted f rom it . It was thus that by strippingO f f thefl sgw f rom ofdiriary mercury,he_ho to ct a residue that would b e the Bhiloso

M R is clear that this profound difference must be kept well in view if we would interpretaright the theories and receipts in alchemica l treatises.

The subject will come bef ore us in another context.Meanwhile let us acknowledge that the Hermeticart , taken at its best, was founded on observat ion andreason.

CHAPTER III

ALCHEMY AND ANIMISM

NOTHER range of ideas, akin to , but less strictlyphilosophical than, those considered in the last

chapter, strengthened and enriched the belief in the

possibility of transmutation. The alchemists were f romthe first deeply impressed by the processes o f g rowth inthe world of plants and animals. And they conceivedthat inorganic substances, more particularly themetals, were endowed with a kind of lif e similar tothat of organisms. In fact, broadly speaking, theyadopted the fundamental principles of what is knownas Animism.

It is sufficiently well known that primitive maninterpreted the events and changes around him on

the analog y of human activities ; he looked uponthem as manif estations of living wills. The noisybrook, the roaring waves, the cracklings in the woods,no less than the growing tree or the beast of prey,f or him argued the presence of lif e. Indeed it wasonly by such a view that he could at allunderstandthem or bring himself into practical relations withthe thing s around him ; for he knew of no mode o factivity other than his own . This orig inaltendency

persisted on into times when reflective thought,such as that of the earliest Greek philosophers, strove

100

in ten sive—an sSCIENCE AND ROMANCE

their native state. It is not difficult to see how,

in the ignorance of the true nature of what we ca llthe elements,

” this varying deg ree of purity might

g ive rise to the belief in an upward progression. Butthe notion of g rowth is so far removed f rom our

present modes of thought that we are tempted to

regard it as aflight of unbridled imag ination. And

yet, in the popular mind at any rate, it persists evenin this enlightened ag e. A poet is warranted in

describing stones as hewn f rom the living rocAnd there can be little doubt that many still harboura vague theory that under the earth minerals and

rocks do somehow come into being and increase.

(In the days when coal was being f ormed, therewould b e a certain amount of justification f or itBut that metals actually g row—that is a dif ferentmatter.The alchemists, however, put a yet greater strain

on our capacity f or sympathy. Having entertainedthe notion o f growth, they developed it with a startlingthoroug hness. Metals, they held, grow like plants.How do pla_nts start their lif e Y From seedT

'

E iiI'

é e

nature proceeds on the same plan throughout, theremust be something corresponding to seed In the caseo f metals. They could not define exactly what thismetal- seed was, but they f elt quite safeIn assumingits existence, and determined to discover it in orderthat they might

“grow metals as they g rewplants.

The processes, of course, wOuId b eOiff eré nt , but the

prlnciple would be the same. The seed, once obtainedand put under proper conditions, would set out on a

course of development which would ultimately givethem the perf ect metal. Under the earth the growth

ALCHEMY AND ANIMISM 103

was indefinitely slow, and was hindered in manyways they would

'

by artificial devices come to theaid of nature and speed up her operations.Such was the train of reasoning which led to these

strange conclusions, kindled such chimerical hopes,and prompted such endless labours. And yet evenhere we must not be too hasty in condemnation.

Does not modern chemistry aim at speeding updivers natural processes Does it not build upmolecules, and increasingly aim at invading the sphereo f lif e itself by f abricating organic compoundsAnd do we not speak o f the g rowth o f crystals—a

term which some think to be more than a fig ure or

analogyGiven the premisses, the alchemist’s reasoning

was log ical. He had to meet, however, an obviousdifficulty. If the seed Of metals develop into the

- I -o

perf ect_In_etal, gold, whence Come metalsThe explanatioh advanced was singular. The f ormat iOn

" '

of'

these was ré gai'ded as due to a thwart ingResistances were encounteredovercome. Iron, tin, lead, and

the f est were compared to abortions or monstrosities.Again modern science can help us to seiz e their ideawhen it describes to us the clash of forces which causemalf ormations in crystallisation, or which altogetherpreclude it. There are f ew of the really fundamentalconcepts of alchemists that are quite beyond the

pale o f such suggestive parallels and although theywere so largely the outcome of imaginative guessingadvances in science may prove them to possess nusus

pected kernels of truth.


METALS AND ANIMAL BIRTH.

Certain of the alchemists were not content withref erring to the plant world when they speculated on

the development of the metals, but brought in notionsderived f rom the g eneration and birth o f animals.Applying st ill more thoroughly their doctrine of theunity of plan and action in nature, they likened thegenesis of metals to that of the f oetus. The com

parison is at least as old as the time of Geber. ThisArabian f ather of the art , in one of the works withmost confidence ascribed to him, works it out in detail,and i

'

n

'

cTudes the“

cOn é epts“

of mErTi’

ag e‘

, Conceptlon ,

rearing, and“

education;claiming that“

the conditions

f ollowed upTIIntilit lost itself in the mystical absurdities of the latest phases of the art. Some did not

shrink f rom disting uishin g between male and f emaleelements in the process, aflirming that there must bea conjoining of sex- elements bef ore metal- g rowth canbe initiat ed.

At this stag e, the protests of the enlightened criticbecome vehement ; and it requires no small amountof courage to resist them. Nevertheless it may beurged that, stripped of f oo lish accretions, the notion

is a log ical result of the orig inal animism. Moreover,we may ask ourselves whether we have yet f athomedthe nature and function of sex distinctions in the

great upward curve o f evolution. If there be no

dividing line between the organic and inorganic (asso many now assume), how far down does the sex


apples, and pears. The same thing may be observedin regard to vegetable lif e. Nettles and other weedsspring up where no such seed has ever been sown.

This occurs only by putrefaction.

”

It is needless to say that Valentine’s instances

are capable o f quite other explanation ; but heerred in good company, and he makes plain the

principle he wishes to establish. He proceeds togive it the alchemical application. Know that inlike manner no metallic seed can develop or multiplyunless the said seed by itself alone, and without theintroduction o f any f oreign substance, can be reducedto a state of putrefaction.

” His practical inf erenceis that gold must be brought to putrefy and die ifthere is to be a new lif e f or it with increase of its

substance.Consider how puz z ling must have been such an

experiment as this. They would take a metal, say

lead, and calcine it in the air. They watched it loseits well-known appearance and change into a powderykind of cinder. Assuming, as they did, that the metalhad a lif e of its own , what more natural than to saythat it had died It was in the condition which theyimagined a seed would be that had died in the ground.

They then reheated this cinder in a crucible alongwith some grains of wheat. They watched the metaltaking on again its wonted characteristics and resuming its original state. What more natural than tosuppose that the lif e in the grain had brought about aresurrection of the metal We, of course, knowthat it was the carbon in the wheat which took f romthe lead the oxygen it had combined with in the firstcalcining. But they had nothing to g uide them t o


such an explanation, and should not, therefore, becharged with f olly for arguing as they did. The blamecomes in when some of them, starting f rom this misunderstood chemical action, gave loose rein to theirimag ination, and launched out into all manner o f

occult and mystical theories which led them furtherand further away f rom the world of f acts. Theseaberrations, however, should not tempt us to ignorethe rational character o f the broad considerations o fwhich theywere the perversions.

METALS HAVE BODY AND SOUL.

It has been shown how that the alchemists, settingout f rom the comparatively simple idea of a metalseed analogous to the seed o f plants, introduced themore complicated ideas connected with generationin the animal world. They were not content to stopat even this advanced stage o f speculation. Man is

the crown o f the animal world, and consists o f bodyand soul. They asked themselves whether a similardistinction does not exist in the case o f metals, anddecided in the affirmative. And having venturedon this further analogy, they developed it with theutmost seriousness and exploited it in their practicalwork.

The philosophical basis f or their notion was largelyderived f rom the teachings o f the Platonists. According to these mystical idealists man’s body was an

incumbrance—a clog on the activities of his truenature. It had theref ore to be subdued and mortifiedbef ore that true nature could show itself . If , then, therichest virtues of the metals were to be f ree f or higher


transmutations, theirmaterial f orm must be destroyed.

Thus in the seventh century an alchemist, Stephanusof Alexandria, declared that

“it is necessary to deprivematter of its qualities in order to draw out its soul.”

And thus, too, in the sixteenth century Paracelsusdeclared that nothing of true value is located inthe body o f a substance, but in the virtue. Theless there is of the body, the more in proportion isthe virtue.” Between these two writers there is a

g ap of nearly a thousand years Yet the continuityo f the doctrine is manif est.But by some of the Hermetic philosophers a further

refinement was elaborated. They made a threef olddistinction—body, soul, and spirit. Spirit was conceived to be a primal element, not peculiar to any onesubstance but fundamental to all. We may perhapssay that it was first matter sublimated into auniversal essence —the spirit of nature. Thesoul, on the other hand, was held to be the particularlif e that characterised any substance or g roup of

substances that is to say, it was specific, notuniversal.A substance was held to be more perf ect the more itcontained of this essence. Gold, being the mostperf ect of all, was richest of all in this regard. Buteven gold did not exhibit the essence in completepurity ; it obscured it by possessing certain specificproperties which had to be stripped off bef ore thespirit could be really f ree. And the stripping of

it was the supreme problem which the practicalalchemist had in view. It was these imperf ectionsthat led the alchemists to distinguish between ordinarygold and the gold o f the sages —the latter beingthe pure essence.


man . The alchemists were impressed by certainempirical phenomena which transcended their powersof explanation. The power o f a mag net, for example,is mysterious even to us

'

;much more was it mysteriousto them. More especially striking was its power o f

attracting iron in spite of the presence of interveningsubstances. This virtue seemed to them to arguethe action o f some spiritual ” f orce, intang ible,invisible, pertaining to the inmost nature o f the

attracting body, and also of that attracted. Theyplaced in the same category of subtle essences theaction of poisons on organisms, supposing that thepermeating power was due to some f orce which couldbe reg arded as spiritual in its nature.

INTRODUCTION OF MORAL IDEAS.

It was not , therefore, any considerable step on~wards to endow substances with moral qualities.For if they possess that which constitutes the highestpart o f human nature, they would also possess itscharacteristic activities—the moral among the rest.Modern thought entirely rejects such a notion. Itstrives to be perf ectly Ob jective, assuming that thephysical universe is wholly under the sway o f unvarying, determinate, natural laws. Accordingly scienceraises no moral questions in studying physical phenomena , not even as regards the uses to which substancesare put, much less any supposed inherent good or

bad qualities they may manif est. The juice of a

plant, f or instance, is studied purely f or its own sake,its composition

,its ef fects, quite irrespective of the

use any individual may put it to - say, to heal or to


poison. Or in the case of such a drug as alcohol, itfinds a place f or it in a certain interesting series ofchemical compounds, and describes its various

properties notes its powers as a solvent, its ef fectso n living tissues, and so f orth. But it leaves to them oralist and social ref ormer practical quest ionsregarding its consumption by human being s ; andwould scorn the idea that the drug is intrinsicallyevil.The alchemists had not attained to this objective

way of studying their materials. They read themselves into what they observed in their experiments,and thus unduly confused both their theory and their

practice. It is curious to Observe how traces o f theold modes of thought survive in some of our mostscientific terminology. We still speak of baseand noble metals, o f good and bad con

ductors of electricity, of perf ect and imperf ec’2

gases—terms of distinctly moral connotation, though,in such connections, their real f orce is now severelyignored or completely f orgotten. They may stillserve, when historically considered, as aids in puttingourselves at the alchemist’s point of view.

We sawthat in supposing a spirit in substances,there were certain material phenomena which streng thened the leading s of philosophical speculation. SO

it was here also . Consider the eff ect on the alchemistmind of such an experiment as this. Some mercuryis allowed to fall in a fine rain on to melted sulphur.A black substance is produced. When this blacksubstance is heat ed in a closed vessel, it is volatilisedand condenses into a beautiful red solid. We

’

I'

Iow

know that the black product is the same as the red,


being composed o f the same g uuantities o f -

c1_Iryand sulphur. But the alchemists did not know this,and at

'

t'

rlBuied the change to the influence o f fire'

s—

SE"

qualities of substances,And here comes in the

t ransitiQIL tQ moral ideas. Black was f or the alchemists the _s_ymbol of darkness red the symbol o flight. By an inevitable association o f ideasthe experiment is interpreted as a ChangFft

'

I

'

bad

t o be f air, we must not hastily attribute to the playo f irresponsible imagination notions which, being so

f ar removed f rom our own , appear strange and

f antastic.Reviewing the whole development o f these ani

mistic speculations, we may arrive at this generalconclusion. The exaggerations and f ollies whichaccumulated round them are rightly to be condenmed.

Nevertheless they contain a solid core Of reasonableinf erences which, in not a f ew cases, have their sequelsor analog ies in scientific speculations o f the presentday.

This and several other examples and quo tations in this

chapter are taken from Muir’

s Story of Alchemy.


their Telchines, reputed the first workers in metals.and of ill - fame as spitefulenchanters. So it was withthe Buergers of Teutonic myth, malicious being s whowrought in northern mines. So , too , with the supernatural Daktuloi o f Mount Ida in Phryg ia, to whomthe discovery o f iron was attributed, and the art o f

treating it by fire. In Teutonic Saga, we have our

Wayland the Smith, a kind of demi-god, the hero o f

many exciting adventures. Nor can we be surprisedthat mag ic should thus widely be associated withmetallurgy, The discovery o f metals, and the art

of working them, meant much in those early dayspower in war, advance in civilisation. And the

processes employed were so little understood thatthey seemed to surpass the limits of human knowledgeand skill.Yes, alchemy had a bad start. And the position

was made the worse by the f act that alchemy wasengaged, not with ordinary metallurgy, but with thetransmuting o f base metals into gold, and that it

opened up prospects of boundless wealth. Add thedecoction o f an elixir which would indefinitely prolongthe term o f human lif e, and we see ample reasons, notonly f or the popular view, but f or the belief not

seldom held by adepts themselves that supernatura lpowers must be enlisted if success were to be attained.

ATTITUDE or THE CHURCH.

The reputation for magical arts f requently rousedthe suspicion and hostility of Christian theolog ians.

Some, indeed, were inclined to regard the veryattempt at transmutation as an encroachment on the

MAGIC AND ASTROLOGY 115

divine prerogatives. Zosimus and Tertullian, f or

instance, attributed the origin of alchemy to theteaching of bad angels. The notion is as old as

Genesis, with its tree of knowledge, its demo’

niact emptation, and its condemnation of the f oundingof cities, and of their attendant arts and craf ts. The

passage f rom this book which asserts that the sons ofGod took wives f rom among the children of men isof ten quoted by Tertullian and others who shared hisviews. The story had been adopted and expandedin the book that bears the name of Enoch— thepatriarch whose lif e was passed in those fateful times.There we find that these sin ful angels dwelt withmortals and taught them sorceries, enchantments,the properties of roots and trees, magical signs, andthe art of observing stars.” They betrayed thesecret of worldly pleasures, showed how to obtaingold and silver and things made of them, and taughtthe art of dyeing fleeces. We note the combinationo f the making of gold, the observing of stars, and thepractice of magical incantations. The application of

this to alchemy was obvious.In the Middle Ages the suspicion was intensified

rather than removed. For in those times of darksuperstitions, every f act that transcended ordinaryexperience was attributed to supernatural agents,good or bad. And any man who exhibited unusualpowers or made unf amiliar experiments was brandedwith the dangerous name o f sorcerer. The tendencyto such unf avourable judgments was increased by theattitude and behaviour o f many of the adepts themselves. Some who knew that they were g uiltless of thecharge against them could not resist the temptation


of leaving uncontradicted, if they did not actuallyfoster, the rumours which shrouded them with an

air of mystery and enhanced their reputations. Othersconsciously traded on the popular ignorance. Howdearly they sometimes paid f or the advantage wesaw in the historical sketch ; also how the Churchdrew a distinction between white and black mag ic,and how, by virtue of this distinction, even Popesf reely and ardently practised alchemy. Speakingg enerally, we may takeit that in this mediaeval periodmag ic and sorcery were much talked o f , but were inreality little practised. Here and there an adept

might dabble in the dark lore. The great majority,however, confined themselves to arduous labours intheir laboratories.

ALCHEMIST MAGIC AND PHILOSOPHY.

Though the varied f orms of magic are mainlyproducts of imagination, alchemists sought to vindicate their acceptance of them by ref erring to theteachings of philosophers. Plato, Pythagoras, Democritus, and other great authorities, were held to havebeen mag icians. True, they had not lef t any evidence

of this role in their authentic writings ; but traditiongenerously supplied the deficiency, and enthusiastic

adepts composed treatises which they published underthe shelter of their venerated names.The most celebrated of these philosopher-magicians

was Iamblicus, the Alexandrine, who lived in thef ourth century. He was accounted a Neo -Platonist

,

a lthough his teaching was in many important pointso f quite a diff erent trend More especially he held


supernatural; and they therefore became ardentdef enders of mag ic, astrology, and alchemy. Theinterdependence thus established was far- reaching andlasting in its results.

ASTROLOGY AND ALCHEMY.

Most alchemists believed that the planets had thepower o f maturing metals, and so could influence theoperations which aimed at their transmutation.

Concerning the pseudo - science, or art, o f astrolog y,there is no need to enter into detail. For the astrologer, as such, confined himself generally to judg ingthe influence of the heavenly bodies upon humanaf fairs, and to f oretelling events by their positionand aspects ; whereas the alchemist was concernedwith substances and their changes. The g roundcommon to both was that the planets were activeagents.It was natural that the Arabians, under the sway

of Eastern star- lore as well as of Alexandrian philosophy, should believe in astral influences. Geber,f or example, held that the planets, arrived at a certainpoint of the sky, aided the f orming and perf ecting o fthe metals, whether under the earth, or when manipulated in the laboratory. He denied, however, thatman had power to direct or use this influence, and so

saved himself f rom the cruder superstitions of his

time. Kalid went so f ar as to say that the actionof the planets constituted one of the g reatest difliculties in reg ulating chemical operations . The rulingideas on the subject were mainly derived f rom thatstrange store-house o f heterogeneous materials, the

MAGIC AND ASTROLOGY 9

Hebrew Kabala, and were adopted and developed inthe strangest ways by mediaeval and Rosicrucianadepts. Some of the ideas are more ancient, and

can be traced back to the Babylonians. Geber assertsthat the conjunction and the revolution of the sevenplanets across the spheres o f the signs (of the z odiac)direct the mutations of the f our elements, make themvary, and allow of their being predicted.

” TheSabaean orig in Of the idea is plain, though it is presented as coming f rom Pythagoras and Aristotle.A passage f rom Basil Valentine (fif teenth century)

will show how such notions took root and developed.

Matter is no other than a mere vapour , which isextracted f rom the elementary earth by the superiorstars, or by a siderialdistillation of the macrocosm ;

which siderialhot infusion, with an airy sulphurousproperty, descending upon inf eriors, so acts and

operates that there is implanted spiritually and

invisibly a certain power and virtue in those metalsand minerals.” The statement is vague, the terminology intentionally technical and obscure. Still themain purport is plain— a ponderous attempt to givefuller detail to the Arabian doctrine.

THE METALS AND THE PLANETS.

A prominent f eature o f alchemist astrology isthe assig ning of the chief metals to the sun and

the planets. The individual assignm ents are not

a lways the same ; but Chaucer’s quaint list in his

Chanoun’s Yemannes Tale g ives those most usually

accepted


The bodies seven eke, lo ! hem heer m oon ;801g old is, and Luna silver we thripe,Mars yren , Mercury quik -silver we clips ,Saturnus lead, and Jupiter is tin,And Venus copper, by my fader kin.

This mystical connection is probably due to theBabylonians ; but knowledge of it was widelydisseminated. Pindar, f or example, mentions the

relation between gold and the sun.! The scholium

on the passage is also full of interest. To each o f

the planets some substance is attached. To the

Sun gold, to the Moon silver, to Ceres iron, to Kronoslead, to Zeus electrum,1

'

to Hermes tin, to Aphroditebronz e.” A condensed account, f rom a treatise entitledThe Open Entrance, will furnish an example o f how

in later alchemy these astrolog ica l ideas were com

b ined with chemistry. The author is describing thevarious stages in the perf ecting of the Philosopher’ sStone. I quote f rom MuirJt The beg inning o f the

heating o f gold with mercury is likened to the Kingstripping o ff his golden garments and descendinginto the f ountain ; this is the regimen of (the planet)Mercury. As the heating is continued, all becomesblack this is the regimen of Saturn. Then is noticeda plan of many colours ; this is the regimen o f

Jupiter ; if the heat is not regulated properly, the

young ones o f the crow will g o back to the nest. ’

About the end o f the f ourth month you will see the

sign o f the waxing moon,’

and all becomes white ;this is the regimen of the Moon. The white colour

Isthmian Odes, IV , 1- 3.

1' Elect rum was orig inally an alloy o f g old and silver. See

p. 182.

1 The Story of Alchemy, p. 72.


His brother, Typhon, introduced twelve black pyramids, symbols of the ills which were to afflict anddestroy. Another Egyptian leg end tells howKhoum,

desiring to create, put f orth f rom his mouth the eg gof the universe. He is of ten represented as f ashioningon a potter’s wheel the mysterious oval from whichwere to come the human race and the whole of nature.The alchemist’s egg symbolised this range of

notions ; but in addition it was taken to sig nify thespecial work of the Hermetic art . In an earlymanuscript it is thus described : The ancients callthe Egg the Stone of copper, the Stone o f Armenia ,the Stone of Eg ypt. Others call it the Imag e of theworld. Its shell is of copper, the alloy of copper andlead, the alloy of iron and copper. The calcined shellsignifies chalk, arsenic, sandarac, Chian earth, etc.The liquid parts of the Egg are the rust of copper, thewater of g reen copper. The white of the Egg iscalled g um , juice of the fig, juice of the euphorbia .

The yellow of it is called mineral of solid copper.

Attic ochre, Cilician saf ran.

” Thus did imagination, when g iven f ree rein, elaborate fancies intendedto invest the art with high mysteries. The application of the symbol in laboratory operations will findmention later.Yet another symbol of prime importance is the

or dragon, which bites its own tail .This too was widely known in the ancient world, andwas connected with the doctrine that in nature thereis a constant round of recurrent changes. Thealchemists, while retaining its orig inal significance,applied it with special ref erence to their own work,

Quoted by Berthelot , Les Orig anes dc l’Alchimie, p. 24.

MAGIC AND ASTROLOGY

which they conceived, in its larger aspect, to haveneither beginning nor end— imitating, as they maintained, a universal natural process. They also usedit as a symbol f or the mois principle, withoutwhich nothing can exist : of the soul of the worldwhich g ives birth to, and envelops all that has being

-the starry sky which surrounds the planets, thebeauty and harmony o f the universe. The symbolismthus practically coincides with that of the Philosopher’s Egg. Sometimes it is pictured with threeears which represent the three vapours; and withf our f eet which represent the f our fundamental substances or metals, lead, copper, tin, and iron. Theselast details recall the mysterious salamander whichcan live in the fire.

MAGIC FORMULAS.

Many and interesting,are the f ormulas and

symbols f ound in the ancient manuscripts. One o f theo ldest is theMappw containn very variedmaterial . By the use of a certain figure (not preservedin the manuscript, but probably that distinctive o f

the metal, lead) you can work wonders. You can

make a well run or stop running ; a cup will hold or

lose its liquid ; a cask will empty itself and so on .

By its virtue applied to a lantern and its oil, a phantomwill come out of the house and enter it again soldierswill come out of their camp without their lances.

Then comes a description of the concentric circles o fCardan in which a suspended vase will never upset.

See p. 178.


In a Greek manuscript which is very ancient wefind the f ormula of the Scorpion, the Labyrinth of

Solomon (a Kabalistic design), an astrolog ical sphere,teachings of Nicephorus on the art of interpretingdreams, the prognostics of the f our seasons, mag icalalphabets, the Philosopher

’s Egg. In another ancienttreatise, mixed up with chemical receipt s, are tablesto calculate the lif e or death of a sick man , a f ormulaf or bringing about the separation of a man and hiswif e, another to cause insomnia to a

'

man until hedies of it, a philtre to excite f riendship, composed o f

plants, minerals, and mag ic letters. Thus closelywere astrolog y, magic, and chemistry uncriticallyintermingled in the same treatises, and regarded as

being really connected .

VARYING STRENGTH or THE MAGICAL ELEMENT.

In the treatises o f the Greek adepts magicalf ormulas are m ingled with practical . But theydecrease in number as the art develops. MichalPsellus definitely affirms that the destructions andtransf ormations of matter have natural causes and

are not influenced by incantations and secret f ormulas.

We must make allowance, however, f or the f act thatin the Middle Ages many things which off ended the

prevailing sentiment were purged out of the old

manuscripts. The magical element may theref orehave been g reater than it appears. Broadly speaking,the Arabians were dominated by a scientific spiritwhich kept mag ic in the background. Quotations

See p. 86.


Aquinas. It was said that the master had got possession of some portion of the Elixir of Lif e. With thishe succeeded in animating a brazen statue which,under proper conjunctions o f the planets, he had madewith immense toil. He and Aquinas completed ittogether, endowed it with the faculty of speech, and

condemned it to undertake various duties, domesticand other. It acquitted itself excellently and proveditself a most useful servant. But owing to some def ectof construction (wrong planetary influence itspower of speech unduly asserted itself , and its chattering became a nuisance. The two adepts tried all

sorts o f remedies, but in vain. One day whileAquinas was struggling with a mathematical problem ,

he was so irritated by its untimely garrulity that heseiz ed a hammer and pounded it to pieces. Itrepented him sorely that he had allowed his tempert o work such dire mischief , and Albertus severelyreproved him f or the outburst. It appears they madeno attempt to repair the statue ; at any rate it was

no more heard of .

We cannot imagine that such men would lendtheir countenance to the idle tale. Nevertheless themere f act that it was invented and f ound credence isevidence o f the lengths to which popular credulitycould g o , and reveals the atmosphere in whichalchemy then flourished. But Aquinas himself wasnot able to throw overboard all belief in magic, as

is shown by his distinction between the white and

the black.

‘

See p. 34.

MAGIC AND ASTROLOGY 2 7

PALLIATION.

That the quest of the Philosopher’s Stone wasa lways accompanied in greater or less deg ree by a

belief in mag ic cannot be denied, though, as was

bef ore urged, the place it filled was not nearly so

large as is generally thought. What shall be saidon this count in def ence

“of the alchemists ‘1 In

answering the question, we must confine ourselvest o the case of those who were honest inquirers andthinkers. Rog ues and charlatans do not meritapo logies, in whatever ag e they may appear.The outstanding palliation was the f act that

during the whole development of the art (save f orthe reaction in the last stage) the pseudo- sciences of

astrology and magic were almost universally acceptedwithout criticism. If alchemy is to be condemnedbecause it did not rise superior to their prestige, itmust share the blame with the Christian Churchitself . This consideration seems to meet the casewithout further pleading. Why the prestige shouldhave been so great and so lasting is another matterwhich would call for special treatment. The f actremains.Further, let us ask ourselves what is our Own

position in this regard. It is true that the enormousexpansion of our knowledge o f nature and her wayshas altered our outlook, and has liberated us f rom the

sway of many f oolish or harmful creations of men’sf ears and vain imaginings . Magic is now a harmlessthing— the means used by conjurers to amuse and

mystify. And yet, even in our enlightened Western


civilisation, how strong is the hold which the fascination of the uncanny and the occult retains—and that,not only on the minds o f untrained thinkers, but o fthe educated and the scientific ! No, the twentiethcentury has not yet won the right to cast the firststone at those who , in ages o f dim knowledge, yieldedto the pressure of the conceptions ruling in theirworld o f thought. Rather must we keep undulledthe edge of our g ratitude to the adventurous pioneerswho had to throw o ff the load of superstitions, and

who blazed a track f or others destined to enjoy fullertruth and wider liberty.

CHAPTER I

THE PHILOSOPHER’S STONE

AVING gained a general idea of the history of

alchemy, and of the main conceptions, philosophical and other, on which the art was based, weare now in a position to come to closer quarters withthe definite aims and practices of the adepts. We

shall first consider the Philosopher’s Stone, the

Elixir o f Lif e,the Universal Solvent, their supposed

properties ani powers, and the claims made t o Havediscovered them.

“

The materials £3e the methodsemployedwillhaire separate consideration.

WANTED— A TRANSMUTING AGENT.

The idea of , and belief in, the possibility of transmutation have been explained and expounded in thepreceding part. They render the alchem ist’s originaland master problem sufficiently pla in. Given thepossibility of transmutation, how can it be eff ectedMore particularly, how can the baser metals be transmuted into gold The earliest alchemists, as wesaw, had adopted the philosophical doctrine of a

-fih“

first matter out of which all the various substances

«

in existence were constructed. They argued

from this that there"

must b e samefundamental f orm131


o f substance which is possessed of perf ect qualities,and therefore of special virtues. They gave to it

many names of more or less vague connotation— theGrand Magisterium, the Elixir, the Tincture (the Dyer) ,the Quintessence, and

‘

others yet—a i‘e

—strang

‘

e and

f anm his, they held, when comBIned with otherbodies—would act powerfully upon them ; in the

case of the imperf ect metals, it would purif y and

vivify them, and change them into the perf ect metal,

g o ld.

To this idea of a transmuting substance wasgenerally added that of its generating power. Its

action was regarded as being akin to that o f a seedwhich sets go ing a process of development, and as

being a necessary means to the genesis of the perf ectmetal. We here have an explanation of the term

the philosophical egg,” used of the furnace in which

the f ecundation was supposed to be eff ected, thesymbolism of which has been adequately described

EARLY DESCRIPTIONS OF THE AGENT.

The early alchemists had no clear or settled ideawhat this substance might be. They used variousmethods to find it, and looked f or it in various places.They did not regard it as exclusively m ineral, buteven made use of organic bodies in its preparationblood, hair, eg g , and so f orth. The majority of the

Greek and Arabian authors contented themselveswith establishing theoretica lly the fact of transmutation without ventur ing to specify any particularagent for eff ecting it. Geber was an exception, and


Quintessence is dear and glorious to him who knows itand uses it, vile to him who is ignorant of it ;finiteand specific f or the one, infinite and indeterminate f orthe other. In any case it is plain that the authorhimself had not discovered it. He is merely writingabout it, keenly determined to exalt its virtues andcreate an atmosphere of mystery.

Other adepts, of a more positivist turn o f mind ,tell us it is mercury, or gold but they are carefulto add that we must not think of these metals as weordinarily have them. Supplement (says one) yourcommon mercury with the inward fire which it needs,and you will soon get rid o f its superfluous dross .”

The agent is gold (says another), but gold that isas highly matured as natural and artificial digestioncan make it, and a thousand times more perf ect thanthe common metal o f that name.” As a sort o f

corollary to this distinction, we are told that if thetransmuting agent has not been brought t o the highestdegree o f purity, it will only change the commonmetals into silver, not into gold. Others advancedthe opinion that there were really two diff erent kindso f the agent— the Grand Mag istry and the LittleMag istry the f ormer being needed f or the productiono f gold, the latter only capable of ennobling a metalas f ar as the stage o f silver. All such statementsare necessarily vague and illusive, especially when wet ry to harmonise them with the doctrine that metalsgrow— that is to say, develop continuously f rom stageto stage. Nevertheless we recognise throughout theinfluence of philosophical presuppositions which supplya rational basis f or even the most rhapsodical andmystical of these speculations.

THE PHILOSOPHER’S STONE

THE STONE.

Thefi rnost famous of the names g iven to the trans

muting_sub stance— the Philosopher’s Stqne

— is firstw _w - _ m

heard of in the twelf th century. The word Stone

equivalent to the more abstract term substratum—the something which underlies and supports. It

was applied to any substance—powder, liquid, solid—that was supposed to have the magisterial power o ft ransmuting. The emergence o f this definite nameimplies that purely theoretical descriptions were

g iving place to more practical attempts to define thenature and properties of the much- sought- f or wonderworker. Zosimus, the oldest extant author on

alchemy, keeps to the early style in his description o f

it. In speaking of the Philosopher’s Stone, receivethis stone which is not a stone, a precious thing whichhas no value, a thing of many shapes which has noshapes, this unknown which is known of all.

” Andagain, Its kind is one, its species multiple. Allcomes f rom the One, and allreturns to it. Hereis the Mithriat ic mystery, the incommunicablemystery But in strong contrast with this antithetical rigmarole, we have express assurances thatthe Stone has been seen and handled.

DESCRIPTIONS OF THE STONE .

It is usually described as a red powder. Lullyment ions it under the name

‘

Of C arb unculus. Paracelsus presents it as a solid body of the colour

—

O

—f—a

K


ruby, transparent, flexible, and nevertheless breakinglike glass. Van Helmont writes : I have seen and

handled the Stone. It had the colour of saf fron inpowder ; it was heavy, and brilliant as glass brokeninto bits.” Berig ard de Pisa, who saw it in thetransmutation which an unknown adept eff ected f orhim , is very precise, telling us it is the colour o f a

poppy and smelling like burnt sea- salt)“Helvetiusgives it the colour of sulphur. In short, the descriptions are as diverse as they are numerous. Oneauthor, Kalid, is determined to be comprehensive,and t o reconcile the contradictions. He says thestone unites in itself allthe coloursT It would seemthat, af ter such specific experiences as these, theStone should have been a real object with known andproved properties. And yet, af ter all, no suchsubstance ever has been, or ever will be, known IAs a specimen of longer descriptions we may take

this f rom Philalethes in his Brief Guide to the CelestialRuby The Philosopher’s Stone is a certain heavenly,spiritual, penetrative, and fixed substance, whichbrings allmetals t o the perf ection of gold or silver

(according to the quality of the medicine), and thatby natural methods,which yet in their eff ects transcendNature. Know then that it is called a stone, notbecause it is like a stone, but only because, by virtueo f its fixed nature, it resists the action o f fire as

successfully as any stone. In species it is gold, morepure than the purest it is fixed and incombustible

Colors non absimilis flore papaveris Sylvestris, Odore vero sal

marinum adustum referen tis.

”

1' Lapis iste habet in se omnes colores. Est enim albus, rubens,

rub icundissimus, citr mus, citrissimus, celestinus, viridis.

”Quoted

by Fig uier, from whom most o f the above references are derived.


He tells us that in the Middle Ages the pretensionswere f ar more ambitious . Arnauld de Villeneuvedeclared that the Stone could convert a hundredtimes its own weight ; Roger Bacon said a thousandtimes ; Isaac the Dutchman, a m illion t imes. Ray

mond Lully was not content with this last estimate,generous as it was. He held that not only could theStone change mercury into gold, but it could also

give to the gold thus f ormed the virtue of playingthe ré le of that which had converted it. This view

is not quite so beside the mark as Figuier seems tothink. For if , as was of ten supposed, the action of

the Stone was of the nature of a f erment, its ef fectswould be unending provided the necessary condit ionscould be fulfilled— as in the case of the continuedproduction of yeast. Ferment theories, by theway, are coming into f ashion again in solving problemso f advanced biology and physics The really f ata lobjection, o f course, is that the Stone could not be af erment because it did not exist. Lully, however,had not arrived at this conclusion, and boldly exclaimed that he would transmute the ocean, were itmercury.

! Another alchemist, Salmon, took thefinal step, and asserted that the transmuting power o fthe Stone was infinite.

HEALING POWERS.

It was only to be expected that an ag ent of suchmyst ic potency should be thought capable o f do in gmuch more than transmuting common metals in t ogo ld. A simple extension of this most promin en t

“Mare ting erem Si mercurius esset .”

THE PHILOSOPHER ’S STONE

virtue was that the Stone could make, artificially,precious stones, such as diamonds, pearls, rubies. Amore sing ular claim was that it could revive deadtrees. And this brings us naturally to a new and

wider range of notions which flourished exceedinglyin the Middle Ages, and in the later stages of the art .Wealth was an object of anxious longing—but soalso was health. And it came to be an almostuniversal belief that the Stone could be used as a

panacea f or bodily ills, and could extend the termo f lif e. We here touch upon one o f the philosophicalelements in alchemy. We recall how that the FirstMatter was held to be, in its essence, the soul ofthe world— the spirit constituting the ultimate realityo f all substances and existences in nature, includingman . Small wonder, then, that the Philosopher

’sStone, so akin to this spirit, if not the spirit itself ,should come to be credited with lif e- g iving virtues.Boerhaave has suggested a further explanation

o f this development. Geber, the Arabian, in one ofhis works, speaks thus Bring me six lepers that Imay hea l them.

” He means, Bring me six commonmetals that I may transmute them into gold.

”Now

the judicious historian of chemistry suspects that theidea of a universal medicine had its origin in a misunderstanding of these words. They were interpretedliterally. However this may be, the healing power thusattributed opened out a wider career f or the Stone. Itfirst receives notice in the thirteenth century. In the

f ourteenth and fif teenth centuries, it was g ravely prescribed as of sovereign efficacy

— taken interior!y, themost precious of all medicines Let Denis Zachary set

f orth the manner of its use To use our g rand king


(the Stone) f or the recovery of health, it is necessaryto take a grain-weight and to dissolve it in a silvervessel with good white wine, which it will turn tothe colour of Citron. Then let the patient drink a

little af ter midnight, and he will be healed in a day if

his malady is a month old if the malady is a yearold, he will be healed in twelve days ; if the maladyis of longer standing, he will be healed in a monthby using it each n ight as above prescribed. And tokeep always in good f aith, it is necessary to take itat the beginn ing of the autumn and the beginning o fspring af ter the manner of a syrup. And by thismeans the man will live always in perf ect health tothe end of the days that God Shall have granted him ,

as the philosophers have written.

”

Note the last clause to the end of the daysthat God shall have g ranted him.

” This is modest.And no doubt f aith in the remedy would g o f ar tojustify the statement. Isaac of Holland and BasilValentine say pretty much the same things as Zachary,with subsidiary variations. But others were not so

cautious. Artephius, f or instance, put the limit of

human lif e, thus fortified, at a thousand years. Otheradepts brought in as evidence the prolonged lives ofthe Patriarchs, assigning as a cause the use of the

Stone. As mentioned in an early chapter, Noah wasespecially a favour ite in this regard because he begatchildren in his old ag e.

MENTAL AND MORAL PROPERTIES.

But the keener spirits demanded more than themedical properties. If the Stone was essentially akin


spirit o f Moses or o f a Christian Apostle Wouldto God all men might become adepts in our art ;f or then -gold, the common idol of mankind, wouldlose its value, and we should prize it only f or itsscientific teaching .

”

CHAPTER II

THE STONE AND MYSTICISM

AVING taken a general view of the object sa imed at in the search f or the Philosopher’s

Stone, and considered its supposed properties and

powers, let us g o into further detail concerning whatmay be broadly called its mystica aspects .During the Arabian period, these were not prominent.The Semitic mind does not easily lend itself to abstractspeculations, but pref ers to keep close to the concrete. In modern termino log y, we should call itpositivist.” Nevertheless in the Arabian treatises,we find many passages that contain matters f arremoved f rom the world of f act— f anciful allegories

purposely obscure statements— a decided vein of

mystery. In the Book of Ostanes, f or example, poorAristotle is credited with this description of the StoneIt is a lion reared in a f orest. A man has desired

to use it f or a mount and has put on it a saddle andbridle. Vainly he tries and cannot succeed. He isthen reduced to trying a more clever stratagem whichallows him to keep it in solid bonds and to put onthe saddle and bridle. Then he conquers it with a

whip, with which he deals it grievous blows. Laterhe looses it f rom its bonds and makes it march likean ordinary creature—so completely that one would

143


a ffirm it has never been savage a single day. TheArabian author’s comment is this The stone isthe lion ; the bonds are the preparations ; the whipis the fire. What say you, O seeker (he triumphantlyasks), to a description so close ‘l The readers o f

these treatises are not always f avoured with a keyto these allegories Even with the key, things are a

little vague. But we gain a good idea of the anthro

pomorphising , emotional, and mystical Spirit in whichthe alchemist prosecuted his researches. Nature, f orhim, was alive ; and the properties of substanceswere regarded as beings with wills which had to besubjug ated.

The f ollowing passage f rom the same treatisemanif ests yet more clearly this characteristic attitude.The object of the search apostrophises the seekers.O troop o f seekers, take me, slay me. Then,having slain me, burn me ; f or I will af ter allrevive,and enrich him who Shall have slain and burnt me.If he comes near me with fire, then I am alive. If Ishall endure it allthe night, even if he sublimes mecompletely and enchains me in an absolute f ashion,

(I am still alive). 0 marvel 1 How, being alive, canI bear ill- treatment

‘l By heaven ! I will bear it

until I am watered with a poison which will kill me,and then I shall no longer know what the fire hasdone to my body.

”

Compare these alleg ories with a collection broughttogether by the author of A Brief Guide to the CelestialRuby

—a treatise written when the art was enteringon its decadence. (The Essence) is our door-keeper,our balm, our honey, our oil may

-dew, mother,eg g , secret furnace, oven, true fire, venomous dragon,

146 ALCHEMY—JTS SCIENCE AND ROMANCE

science is nothing less than the perf ect inspiration of

God.

”

The alliance of alchemy with religion was, as hasbeen shown in earlier chapters, in itself no new thing.

Geber, f or example, excla ims Courage, then, sonso f sc ience. Seek, and you shall inf allibly find thismost excellent gif t of God which is reserved f or youa lone The connection, however, is comparativelysimple ; and, indeed, superficial, in the sense thatreligion was not mingled with science, except as

inspiring and guiding it. Whereas in the MiddleAges, little by little the prevailing religious ideas wereworked into the very texture of alchemicaldoctrineand practice. To illustrate the extent to which sucha lliance could develop, take the f ollowing passagef rom Basil Valentine’s Alleg ory of the Holy Trinityand the Philosopher

’

s Stone

Dear Christian amateur of the blessed art , oh

how the Holy Trinity has created the Philosopher’sStone in a brilliant and marvellous manner ! ForGod the Father Is a Spirit, and He appeared, however,under the f orm of a man , as is told in Genesis ; inthe same way we ought to regard the Philosopher’s

Mercury as a body spirit. Of God the Father isborn Jesus Christ, the Son , Who is at the same timeman and God, and without sin. He had no need todie but He died voluntarily, and rose again to makeus live eternally with Him as His brethren withoutsin. Thus gold is without stain, fixed, glorious, andable to undergo alltests ; but it dies f or its imperf ectand sick brethren ; and soon, rising glorious, itdelivers them, and colours them f or lif e eternal ; itrenders them perf ect in the state of pure gold.

”

THE STONE 'AND MYSTICISM 147

In judging such a statement as this, we must becareful to put ourselves at the standpoint of its

author. In the first place, we must remember that,f or him , the perf ect metal ” was, in its essence,the soul of the world, the Spirit that underlies allmodes of existence. Again , the more earnest of theadepts, especially in religious houses, were wont toenter on their Operations with prayer, thus givingthem a definitely religious atmosphere and significance.We can realise, theref ore, that the object of so manyhopes and vows, of so much mystical exaltation,should come to be regarded as sacred and divine .

Attempts to read into alchemical doctrines certa inf undamentals of Christian belief are thus seen to benatural products Of a peculiar combination of con

ditions, and we judge them according ly.

DEATH AND RESURRECTION OE METALS.

We saw, in dealing with the philosophical basis ofalchemy

,that distinctions between the body and

the soul of metals led on to notions of their deathand resurrection. This line of speculation easily lentitself to analogies with religious doctrines. We findthe connection even in the Arabian treatises. Thus,in the 7lst section of that named The Book of Pity,we read as follows The souls and bodies (o f metals),when they unite and are transf ormed to become a

homogeneous whole which cannot be divided, havebeen compared to the dead which God will raise on

the day o f the last judgment. Souls are jo ined to

subtilised bodies which will never more die, and that


because light Spirits are jo ined to bodies equallylight. Moreover, their place will be fixed, either inan eternal happiness which will endlessly renewthem, or in a grievous chastisement which will increasewithout ceasing. Af ter this, the spirits will be no

more separated f rom the bodies, as they were in thisworld, where spirits are simply in contact with bodies,without being intimately combined with them. Itis this contact o f neighbourhood that, in the currentspeech, is called mixture .

’

This assimilation of the transmutation of meta lsto the death and resurrection o f men became quitecommon in the Middle Ages . It is curious and

unexpected to be told that it was highly pleasing toLuther. It ga ined his support f or the art , whichon this score he praised in strong and enthusiasticterms. The notion was advanced to a yet higherstage when it was assumed by some that the resurrec

tion of men’s bodies would itself be, literally, an

a lchemical change, a transmutation o f a superiororder. Thus whole- heartedly did the alchemistsstrive to give their art a universal and cosmica lbearing.

THE GRAND SECRET.

The pursuit o f the Hermetic art ma inta ined in no

small degree its mystical character by the jealouscare with which it guarded the secret o f the Philo

Sopher’s Stone. This secrecy had its origin in theEgyptian workshops, where receipts f or making

alloys and f alsifying the precious metals were handeddown f rom generation to generation of the Operators ,who were generally priests and so members of close


Secrets. How the Rosicrucians developed the occultelements need not be f urther described af ter what hasbeen said in the historical sketch.

How much in earnest the early alchemists were in

g uarding these secrets is shown in this quotation f romanother of the Leyden manuscripts He (Ostanes)commands that no one shall dare to alter his bookshe commands every one and prescribes that his wordsshall in no wise be made known to the vulgar. Heputs out terrible oaths in order that they may b e

revealed to none, unless it be to a worthy person, orone who seeks the truth and loves God,

” etc.This is why philosophers have changed the languagein their words, and have substituted one sense f oranother, one passage f or another, one species f oranother, one vision f or another.! That this is no

misrepresentation of the teaching of the 'Book ofOstanes is proved by this passage f rom the book itselfThese men have def ended the secret of the Stone

at the point of the sword, and have absta ined f romgiving it a name, or at any rate have given it a nameunder which the crowd may know_it . They havedisguised it under the veil of enigmas, so that it hasescaped even penetrating spirits, and so that themost lively intelligences have not been able to comprehend it, and hearts and souls have despaired o f

knowing its description. There are only those whoseunderstanding God has Opened who have understoodit and have been able to make it known.

” How wellthese obscurantists succeeded in their endeavourswill be abundantly proved in a later chapter when wecome to consider the interpretation o f their f ormulas

Berthelot , La Chimie an M open ag e, vol. iii, pp. 326- 7.

THE STONE AND MYSTICISM 151

and receipts 1 Their task, however, was not so

difficult as it might appear. There was, in reality,no secret to hide— at any rate no secret f or makingthe Philosopher’s Stone . What they had really to

conceal was the f act of their f ailure to attain theirsupreme object. Nevertheless we see how they

!re

v

e

lled

in the sphere of the mystical and the occult.

SUMMARY OP THE CHIEF CHARACTERS OF THE STONE u

Putting together what has been said in this andthe preceding chapter, we may emphasise the f ollowingpo ints. The whole series Of notions concerning thePhilosopher’s Stone are f ounded on a basis providedby ancient doctrines concerning the First Matterand the lif e that pervades allthe substances composingthe known world. They can thus claim to b e so f arrational. The primary object of the art was theacquisition o f wealth by transmuting common metalsinto gold. The occult virtues attributed to thein strument for ef f ecting transmutation— the Stoneled to an extension o f its area of action. It came tobe looked on as a universal panacea f or human imperf ections. It could give health, heighten thef aculties, ennoble the character, prolong lif e. Itcould bring men into touch with the soul of the world,and thereby enable them to hold communion withspiritual beings and live on a higher plane of being.

Its modes of working could be compared to , or con

nected with, the mysteries of the Christian religion.

These were indeed adequate grounds f or naming itthe Grand Magisterium , and f or holding the means o f

procuring it to be the Grand Secret.

CHAPTER III

CREDULITY AND IMPOSTURE

ITHERTO attention has chiefly been coneentrated on the belief s, aims, and pract ices o f

honest, though of ten deluded, searchers f or thatundig nified and undefinable substance, or essence,which should fulfil their large and comprehensivehOpes. There has been no attempt, however, to

disguise the f act that the art has been continuouslyturned into f olly by credulity, debased by superstition,and degraded by impostors . Let a chapter be devotedto this shady side o f our subject. We can thenenter, without further mention of aberrations andf ollies, on the study of its scientific aspects .

THE SECRET ELIXIR.

Ben Jonson makes his alchemist speak thus

He that has once the Flower of the Sun,The perfect rubywhichwe callElixir,Can confer honour, love, respect , long lif e,Give safety, valour, yea, and victory,Towhom he will. In eight -and-twenty daysI’

llmake an old man of f ourscore a child.

”

Here is the lang uage of a charlatan, who could not

help knowing that his claim s were vain and f oolish .

152


condemnations, we must make generous allowancef or the influences o f environment and the vagariesof temperament.

THE ALK AHEST.

Van Helmont’s belief in the discovery of the

Universal Solvent, ca lled by Paracelsus the Alkahest,a ff ords another striking instance of over- credulity.

He enthusiastically took up the idea that this solventcould give to bodies of every kind a liquid f orm, and

in his works he gravely retails allthe absurdities thatcharlatans had promulgated concerning it s powers .This treasure, he tells us, was committed to him byan unknown adept. Unf ortunately he was not ablet o keep it long but he assures us in the most cate

g oricalfashion, that he had actually proved its efficacy.

Having put some oak charcoal and alkahest, inequal parts, into a glass vessel sealed hermetically, Icaused this mixture to digest f or a period of threedays at the heat of a bath. At the end o f this timethe solution was completed, etc. What is behind allthis Certainly not the Alkahest l And yet VanHelmont was honest. Perhaps we may compare hisexperience to that of certa in modern savants who haveborne testimony to occult phenomena which wereaf terwards shown to be due to trickery.

However this may have been, Alkahest, in the

seventeenth century,and f or a considerable part of the

eighteenth, had a considerable vogue. Boerhaave saysthat a library could b e f ormed of the treatises writtenabout it . Many boasted that they had discoveredit , or obta ined it . And there is no telling how long it

CREDULITY AND IMPOSTURE 155

might not have mainta ined its reputation, had not acritic po inted out the simple reflection that if thesolvent really existed, it could not b e stored or usedf or it would dissolve the vessels in which it wascontained

REJUVENATION.

In Ben Johnson’s Masque , Mercury Vindicated

f rom the Alchemists, Mercury loquitur They willcalcine you a grave matron, as it might be the mothero f the ma ids, and spring up a young virg in out of

her ashes, as f resh as a phoenix ; lay you an old

courtier on the coals, like a sausage or bloat-herring,and, af ter they have boiled him enough, blow a soulinto him with a pair of bellows.” This is hardly a

travesty of what had been popularly believed of the

powers of the greater adepts ; nor were certa in o f

these adepts themselves slack - in stimulating suchdelusions. Artephius, f or example, who lived earlyin the twelf th century, and who made f or himself a

f amous name, affirmed that, when he wrote histreatise on the art of prolonging human lif e, he wasin the thousand and twenty-fif th year of his ag e .

Many accepted his statement, and were confirmedby the skill with which he answered questions concerning what had happened to him at various tim esin this prolonged span.

We have a glimpse o f the manner in which suchideas may be suggested, and take root, in the storyo f Alain de Lisle. He was a man of great learning,contemporary with Albertus Mag nus, and became a

f riar of the abbey of Citeaux. He died in 1298 at


about the ag e o f a hundred and ten years . Now ithappened that when he was in his fiftieth year, hehad a severe illness, f rom which he recovered. He

was reputed to have discovered the Elixir ; and therecoverywas stra ightway attributed to this marvellousmedicine. How far the sage acquiesced in this conelusion, or how f ar he encouraged it, we do no t

know. But at least we can trace, in this instance,the origin and ground of the f allacy.

!

Akin to the rejuvenation idea was that of palingenesis— the art of making plants spring a f resh f romtheir ashes. Figuier suggests 1

' that this probablyhad its origin in a natura l phenomenon. When theashes of certain plants are dissolved in water, thesolution, lef t to itself , deposits crystals of which somemay take the f orm of an arborescence. We may

readily accept the suggestion. But it does not excusethe bare- faced impostures that in the seventeenth andon into the eighteenth centuries, were based upon theexperience. It is not inapposite to compare the Indiantrick o f the mango- tree, if the plant produced by thealchemist conjurors were at allspeedy in its growth.

If the development were slow, by sprouting f rom seed,the trick becomes absurdly easy.

FALSE TRANSMUTATIONS.

We have seen that alchemy had its ori in in themetal work of the Egyptians, and have noFed thatmI have taken the two stories from Mackay

’s Extraordinary

Popula r Delusions, in which the lives of the chief alchemists are

racily told.

1' L

’Alchimie, p. 66.


crucible in which large iron nails had been fused but

the nails had been partly made of gold, and the combination skilfully disg uised. Or chemicals might b eemployed which conta ined the meta l in unrecognisablef orms. Double -bottomed crucibles, the under surfaceo f iron or copper, the upper of coloured wax, withgold packed in between ; holes drilled in lumps o f

lead, gold inserted, and the opening filled up aga inwith the original metal ; and endless like devices.

The resources o f knaves are inexhaustible , as is alsothe credulity on which they impose— peculiarly so

when the lure of ga in puts an edge on the cunning o f

the one, and blunts what little of calmer judgmentmay be possessed by the other. So it ever has been,and so it is still . Alchemy enjoys no monopoly inthis regard.

DYER AND KELLEY.

An amusing dialogue is recounted by Bacon in hisApothegms New and Old which gives a livelypicture o f the conflict between credulity and criticism.

Sir Edward Dyer, a grave and wise gentleman,did much believe in Kelley the alchymist ; that hedid indeed the work, and made gold insomuch as hewent himself into Germany, where Kelley then was,t o inf orm himself fully thereof . Af ter his return hedined with my Lord o f Canterbury, where at thattime was at the table Dr. Browne, the physician. Theyf ell in talk o f Kelley. Sir Edward Dyer, turning tothe Archbishop, said I do assure your g race, that that

I shalltellyou is truth. I am an eye-witness thereof ,

and if I had not seen it, I should not have believed it.

CREDULITY AND IMPOSTURE 159

I saw Master K elley put of the base metal into the

crucible, and afler it was set a little upon the fire, and

a very smallquantity of the medicine put in and stirred

with a stick of wood, it came f orth in g reat proportion

perf ect g old, to the touch, to the hammer, to the test.

Sa id the Bishop You had need take heed what you

say, Sir Edward Dyer, f or here is an infidelat the board.

Sir Edward Dyer said again pleasantly I would have

looked f or an infidelsooner in any place than at your

Grace’

s table. What say you, Dr. Browne saith theBishop. Dr. Browne answered, af ter his blunt andhuddling manner, The Gentleman hath spoken enoug h

f or me. Why (sa ith the Bishop), what hath he said

M arry (saith Dr. Browne), he said he would not have

believed it ewcept he had seen it ; and no more willI

ALCHEMY AND SPIRITUALISM.

The f raudulent exploitation o f alchemy was so

common at all stages of its history that it has pre

ponderantly coloured the popular estimate o f its

value. We may perhaps draw a profitable parallelb etween the old art and modern spiritualism. Upholders of the possibility o f communication withdiscam ate spirits, when they are faced with theacknowledged f rauds of many mediums, protest thatsuch cases should not prejudice our minds aga instthe larger cla ims made, or render us unwilling toundertake a dispassionate investigation o f unta intedexperiences. They have right on their side. Whatever our conclusions may be, they should be f oundedon an impartial weighing of the available evidence.


The Society of Psychica l Research devotes itself to a

study of such little understood phenomena . Now

suppose this Society to have declared itself on theside of spiritualism to the extent o f allowing thatthere is a residuum which ca lls for serious study, thef rauds and deceits would be neglected. To con

centrate attention on them would be unreasonableand unscientific. The case f or alchemy is muchstronger than this. The art has to its credit a longlist of discoveries it has advanced to a considerableextent our knowledge of nature many of its speculations have a future be f ore them. If we are fair toit, we shall, while laughing at or condemning the

charletans, acclaim the successes won by the genuineadepts.


Bernard was the son of a wealthy man— a fact,as we shall see, of central importance. He was bornat Tré ves, or Padua , in 1406, a tim e when the searchf or the Philosopher’s Stone was in full swing ; and at

the early ag e of f ourteen he came under the spell.He had read, in the original, certa in Arabian treatiseson the art , and they had fired his youthf ul imagination.

From among these authors , Rhaz es more especiallysecured his adherence and confidence. He was

certa in that he had ga ined f rom him the grand secret,and that g uided by his directions he would be ableto augment gold a hundredf old. He at once proceeded with intense ardour to put his conclusions tothe test, setting up a laboratory, and conductingendless experiments. He worked hard f or f ouryears, and, during that time, spent no less than 800crowns on his researches. All in vain— the secreteluded him.

He was not at alldiscouraged. He merely con

cluded that the directions given by Rhazes wereincomplete or imperf ect, and he turned to the mastero f Arabian alchemists, Geber. With this new g uide ,he toiled f or two years more, and called in the aid o f

various brother alchemistswho were only too delightedto join a man so wealthy. Among them they spent2000 crowns, with no result. His faith in Geber,however, was not disturbed. He concluded that hisown equipment was not equal to the task of inter

preting his authority, and he theref ore launched out

on a wider range of study.

About this time he chanced upon a student as

enthusiastic as himself— a monk of the FranciscanOrder— and struck up with him a f riendship o f the

LIFE OF BERNARD OF TREVES 163

closest kind. The pair explored together the teachings of certa in obscure authors, who ma inta ined thathighly rectified Spirits of wine constituted the Alkahest, or Universal So lvent— a substance which wouldgreatly f acilitate the making o f the Stone. This,therefore, now became the object of their labours.

They rectified alcoho l till it burst the conta iningvessels. Three years were spent in the f ruitlessenterprise— 300 more crowns were expended. Something was wrong. Had they mistaken the materialrequired They would try others, not shrinkingf rom the filthiest . For twelve long years the experiments were continued— larger and larger sums o f

money were expended. SO earnest was Bernard that,as he tells us, he prayed to God night and morningthat success might b e his. And yet allwas in va in.

The quest was never won.

His f riend, the monk, had died. His place wastaken by a magistrate of the city, a man no lessenthusiastic, who was firmly persuaded that the

transmuting Stone could b e found in sea - salt. Bernardresolved to put the notion to the test, transportedhis laboratory to the shores of the Baltic, and f or morethan a year sublimated, crystallised, calc ined sea - salt—and even drank it f or the sake o f other experiments.Still no encouragement.He was now nearly fif ty. Lif e was basting on,

and the goal seemed as f ar off as ever. What was tobe done Might it not be that adepts in other landspossessed the secret and would impart it He determined to try his f ortune, and set out on his travels,j ourneying in Ita ly, Germany, France, and Spaineverywhere searching out alchemists and making trial


of the suggestions he obta ined. His goodness o f

heart is proved by his constant readiness to relievehis poorer f ellow- students. In France he settleddown f or five years. While in that country, he heardthat the conf essor to Frederick III ., Master Henry,had discovered the Stone. So o f f to Vienna he went,taking along with him five dependent alchemists.

At last his perseverance would be rewarded. Not

so . Master Henry honestly conf essed that, thoughhe had been toiling allhis lif e, the secret had eludedhim ; but at the same time stoutly declared that hewould keep up the search, if necessary till he died.

Here was a man af ter Bem ard’s own heart. It was

natural that the two should swear eternal f riendship.

Then came a curious episode.Bernard gave a grand banquet to his newly found

partner and the alchemists of the district. Thosepresent, stimulated by the promise of Master Henrythat he would increase fivef o ld the gold subscribed,clubbed together and collected f orty- two marks. Themetal was put into the crucible together with otherchemicals and rubbish, and the grand experim ent wasmade. Three days the furnace decocted the mixture,but no transmuting could be discovered. Ah, well,the temperature had been too high or too low, someingredient was missing, some necessary process hadbeen omitted. Further trials must in due course bemade . The curious part, however, of this particular

result was, that when the amount of gold“

in thecrucible was exam ined, it had decreased to sixteenmarks 1The fiasco proved too much even for Bernard’s

long- suff ering spirit. He abjured further ef forts to


Addison, quoted when the Rosicm cians were underour consideration. Was it f rom Bernard that Addisonborrowed his climaxIt is easy and tempting to indulge, with Mackay,

in reflections on a wasted lif e. Deeper reflectionshould restrain them. Compare the story of anotherand a later Bernard— Bernard Palissy, the Frenchpotter. The chance sight of an enamelled cup ledhim to resolve that he would discover how to makeenamels. He gave up all other pursuits, devotedhimself for sixteen years to tireless experimenting,exhausted his resources, had not money to buy fuel ,burnt the furniture and the flooring of his house .His neighbours, even his wif e, mocked him. Hischildren cried to him f or f ood. Still he grimlypersevered. Moralists, like Smiles, hold him up as ashining example of what perseverance may aecom

plish. Yet what is the dif ference between him and

Bernard of Treves Only this, that the one succeededand the other failed. If it be urged that the questof one was within the range of the practical, the othermerely visionary, the answer is simple . Bernard wasas convinced of the possibility o f discovering theStone as Palissy was of making enamel. Let us befair to the alchemists.


entangle those who strove to extract directions f orundertaking experiments. The real cause o f theseperversities is not to be mistaken. The writers themselves seldom had any clear ideas, and disg uised thef act by shrouding their vagueness in an assumptiono f the pose and the language o f a pseudo-mysticism.

Moreover, and chiefly, as regards the great and

central object of their quest, the Philosopher’s Stone,

they had nothing to tell— they never possessed it ;it did not exist. Their position was truly a difficultone ! How did they meet it ‘P It was not to b e

expected that they would avow their ignorance and

their f ailure. And so they invented allmanner of

high- sounding excuses f or their reticence. Sometimesthey dwelt on the danger of making known the greatsecret, alleging that if it became common propertysociety would go to pieces, f or allwould make go ldad libitum. Sometimes they emphasised the sacredness o f the secret, and refused to profane it by revealingit to the ignorant and vulgar. Or taking still higherground, they declared that it passed human intelligence, and that God alone could unveil it, and thenonly to the elect. We must not unreservedly attributeto sheer deception these singular subterfuges. For

the honest alchemists were really convinced that, eventhough they themselves had f ailed, others had succeeded. They believed in transmutation and in theexistence of the Stone. Their thinking was conf usedand their motives were mixed. In short , theircircumstances were strangely puzzling, and theythemselves were human.

DIFFICULTIES OF INTERPRETATION 17 1

EXAMPLES OF OBSCURITY.

Intentional obscurity was carried to extremeswhich are both amaz ing and amusing. Rhaz es thusbegins a description of how to make alcohol. Takeo f something unknown the quantity that you wish.

”

Figuier tells us it is not rare to find simply Take .

In the days when such directions were set down in

g rave treatises, it would at any rate have been easy topass examination in chemistry Here is an examplef rom Basil Valentine (f ourteenth century) : Causethat which is above to be below ; that which is visiblet o be invisible ;that which is palpable to b e impal

pable. Aga in let that which is below become that whichis above ; let the invisible become visible, and the

impalpable become palpable . Here you see the

perf ection o f our art,

without any defect or diminution .

” This might be taken as a roundabout way of

telling us to heat some water in a glass flask until itwas allturned into steam, and then cooling it untilthe steam was condensed into water ; but the sageevidently had something much more recondite in hism ind. Who shall say what And yet the sameauthor in several places reproaches himself bitterlyf or having spoken too pla inly in his writings, and

trembles lest he has revealed too muchAt a later period there is the same avoidance o f

definite statement, but an infusion o f more fantasticsymbo lism. The f ollowing passage f rom Ripley’sTwelve Gates of Alchemy gives a good idea of the newstyle The work must b e undertaken at sunset,when the husband, Red, and the wife, White, are

united in the Spirit o f lif e to live in loveand tranquillity,


in the exact proportion o f water and earth. Fromthe west advance across the shadows towards thesouth ; alter and dissolve the husband and the wifebetween winter and spring ; change the water intoa black earth, and raise thyself across the variedcolours towards the East when the full moon showsitself . Af ter the purgation, the sun appears, whiteand radiant ; it is summer af ter winter, day af ternight. The earth and water are transformed intoair, the darkness is dispersed, light is made ; the

west is the beginn ing o f practical work , and the eastthe beginn ing o f the theory ; the principle of destruction is comprised between the east and the west.

”

If we are to enter into the spirit of such direct ionsand descriptions as these we must remember thatalchemy was not a science in the modern sense o f theword, but a mixture o f science, philosophy, theosophy,and mysticism. It was only gradually that the moretra ined and ba lanced thinkers separated f acts f romf ancies. Not until the sixteenth century did alchemistsbegin to drop the veil f rom their speculations and

pract ices, and try to set down in straightforwardlanguage what they really saw and discovered. Andeven then the advance in this direction was slow and

partial.A highly curious example o f af fected precision is

g iven by Thorpe.! To fix quicksilver. Of several

thing s take 2, 3, and 3, 1 ; 1 to 3 is 4 ; 3, 2 and 1.

Between 4 and 3 there is 1 ; 3 f rom 4 is 1 ; then

1 and 1, 3 and 4 ; 1 f rom 3 is 2. Between 2 and 3

there is 1, between 3 and 2 there is 1. 1, 1, 1, and l,2, 2, and 1, 1 and 1 to 2. Then 1 is 1. I have told

History of Chemistry, vol. i, p. 39.


sometimes they intentionally twist and substituteterms, in their determination to be abstruse. Sometimes, with the best will in the world, they fail inprecision because of their necessarily imperf ectanalysis of their materials. Sometimes they are

rendered careless of finer distinctions by their theorythat all substances have a common essence . For

these and other reasons, accurate interpretation isalways difficult and not seldom impossible. Moreover,it must be conf essed that the cases where the ef fortto interpret is worth the while are fewand far between .

We ourselves have not reached cleam ess in the

use o f allour terms."I For example, we may use the

word fire in three senses. If we say, Do not

touch the fire,” we imply, even if we have not in our

minds, the idea that the fire is a thing , a substance.Not so long ag o we should have called it phlogiston.

”

If we say, The house is on fire,” we mean it is in

a state, or condition , of burning . If we say, Put outthe fire,

” we mean, Stop the process of combustion—we are thinking o f action . From a practical standpoint, there is in this case little danger o f real confusion of thought. Nevertheless it should enable usto sympathise with the alchemists when, in similarf ailures to be precise, they land themselves in con

fusion . When they spoke of sof t,” hard,

” cold,”

hot , they did not simply mean the states of sof tness,hardness, coldness, hotness, in which thing s are f ound,but imagined that these qualities can exist apart f romthe things that is to say, that there are such thing sas sof tness, hardness, and the rest. And although wemay not even yet have cleared ourselves o f this error,

Both Muir and Thorpe use this illustration .

DIFFICULTIES OF INTERPRETATION 175

at any rate when we are speak ing with philosophicalor scientific accuracy, we know we are using abstract ”

terms. Hence we f requently find it hard to seizewhat the alchemists had in their minds. For instance,a famous axiom, attributed to Hermes, runs thusIf you do not take away f rom bodies their corporeal

state, and if you do not transf orm them into thing snot corporeal, you will not get what you wanThe idea is, as explained in a previous chapter, thatthe metals must be stripped, or robbed, of the qualitieswhich make them metals by means of substanceswhich have not those qualities. We now expressideas of this kind by saying that substances are

changed in their qualities when submitted to variousphysical or chemical processes. We never think of a

metal-quality as something separate f rom a metal,and capable of being taken away f rom it like colourout of a cloth.

STRAIGHTEORWARD RECEIPTS.

It is only f air to note that allthe receipts of thea lchemists are not of a cryptic character. When thePhilosopher’s Stone is the subject, obscurity couldnot be avoided f or the substance sought or describeddid not exist. But when ordinary chemical actions,o r the making Of alloys, are dealt with, the directionsa re f requently straightforward enough, and the chiefd ifficulties are the meanings to be attached to theterms. In the following chapters, various exampleswill be given of quite intelligible receipts and dircetions. A good average specimen of the earlier periodis this, taken f romtheBook o f Democritus (Arabian)


An Elixir which transforms silver into gold.

One pound of mercury;two pound of Persian Copperas.Break up the copperas well, and throw it on themercury ; add of dulcified salt thirteen pints ; stirthem in a basin until all is well incorporated. Put

into a new boiler and adjust the retort ; heat it belowuntil you hear the noise of the crackling salt. Takeaway the fire. When the vessel is cooled, take itand Open it. The product which has mounted f romthe boiler into the receiving vessel g ather and kneadwith juice o f the round aristolochus, coloquint (lit.serpent vine) and white hellebore. Put in a glassphial. Plaster the Opening and the bottom of thiswith mud mixed with horseha ir, and leave untilquite dry ; then bring a lump of cow-dung ; placethe phial in the middle, light the fire, and let itrema in there f or a night. The substance will hardenand become like stone. Throw it into a boiler, andpour over it acid vinegar ; add flaky alum and

whitened sulphur, of each a dram. Boil it until theproduct becomes sof t like mastic. Pro j ect o f thisElixir a dram on a pound of gold, and you will seeappear a brilliant gold which will not lose its lustre .This has been tried, and is true.

” Sufficiently com

plicated ! and yet f ree f rom mysticism or f ancifulallegory.

A little further on in the same work there is areceipt f or making an Elixir o f Eggs which is stillmore complicated. It prescribes no less than twelvedif ferent operations bef ore the final product is Obtained

- some o f them taking days to complete, and one ofthem to be carried out in the shade, not in sunlig ht .

”

But even in this lengthy experiment there is no

CHAPTER II

THE MATERIALS

HE most vital aim of the Hermetic art was themaking o f go ld. It theref ore busied itself with

a particular kind o f metallurgy, calling to its aid all

the known resources of chemistry. What were thematerials employed by the alchemist What werehis notions of their nature and properties ‘3 Thesequestions present themselves, both on their own

account and also as preliminary to an estimate o f theamount and value of the discoveries which added tothe existing stock.

MAPPlE CLAVICULA .

The treatise Mapple Clavicula , as has already beensa id, belongs to the twef th century in regard to its

f orm, but to the tenth in regard to its matter. Thetenth- century matter, aga in, carries us back to Byz ant ine and even Egyptian days. A glance at itscontents will thus give us a good general idea o f thekind o f chemistry practised in the early days of theart . We find directions f or making various drugs,soap, starch, sugar ; f or the preparation o f colours ,white, dark blue, and a z ure f or cutting and mouldingglass. There are various receipts with a military

17s

THE MATERIALS 179

ref erence— a lead arrow to set on fire that which ithits ; poison to po ison the arrows ; the mak ing of

resins, Oils, and naphthas, f or incendiary purposesthe most f amous being the Greek Fire, of which saltpetre is the fundamental constituent. One receiptruns thus By mixing a pure and very strong winewith three parts o f salt, and by warming it in suitablevessels, an inflammable water is Obtained which consumes itself without burning the matter on which itis spread.

” This is alcohol. While the discovery of

f ermentic liquors is o f extremely ancient date, wehere have a determinate, scientific way of dealingwith it. The property of burning on the surface of abody without setting it on fire has arrested the attention of these Observers.A f ewof the receipts f ormakin g and f or augmenting

gold are given in other contexts .! The chief sub

stances mentioned in them will be dealt with directly.

There are also a large number of receipts f or writingin letters of gold, or silver, on papym s, stone, or

metal. Here is one f or making powdered go ld.

Minium, sand, gold filings, and alum. Beat togetherand heat with vinegar in a copper vessel.

” This,

though brief , proves a very considerable skill in the

manipulation of the materials named. How manyexperiments continued through how many years hadgone to the rendering of it possible ! In the thirdpart Of the work are articles treating of the workingo f copper, iron, lead, and tin ; of the colouring of

glass, the making of pearls. In the f ourth part comea miscellaneous set of f ormulas, including thosementioned at the beginning of this section. Of

See p. 81.


special note is the hydrostatic balance f or analysingalloys o f gold and silver— the problem which Hierosolved. There are directions f or soldering metals bymethods divided into f our classes. Even architecturehas a place !It is impossible, owing to the excessively mixed

character of the contents, to assign dates to the di s

covery of the compounds named in this sing ularmanual we may be sure that not a f ew o f them weredue to the labours of adepts. Taking a broad view,

however, it is saf e to say that the great bulk o f the

materials used and the technica l processes adopted,were transmitted f rom the laboratories o f Egypt.Their very variety proves that they belong to a

period when the learned had not concentratedmetallurg ica l and chemical act ivities so exclusivelyon the one great quest.

GOLD .

Let us consider some of the chief materials individually, keeping to the alchemist’s po int of view.

And first of gold. Why was it that this particularmetal came to occupy the place it did in the Hermeticart , and to be chosen as the perf ect f orm which all

the rest were striving to attainWell, was there ever a time when gold did not

have a distinctive honour and repute At the

beginning o f the Book of Genesis, when Paradise isbeing described, we read of a certa in country, the

gold o f that land is good.

” Its brilliance and beautyf ascinate. It was probably the first meta l to bediscovered. It has remarkable qualities ; it is

182 ALCHEMY~- ITS SCIENCE AND ROMANCE

it was wealth, Cspecially in countries which did notenjoy the opulence of Solomon’s glory ; and it thusbecame a subsidiary Object of alchemica l labours .The moon (said Zosimus) is pure and divine whenyou see the sun shine on its surface. That is tosay, silver attains its highest perf ection in refiningwhen the molten metal shines like the sun. Yes, butit is only the moon, af ter all—not the glorious sunthat, as Shakespeare has it,

Plays the alchymistTurningwith Splendour of his precious eye

loddy earth to glittering gold.

One of the irnperf ections of silver, estimated bya lchemist philosophy, is its comparative lack o f

fixity.

” It does, indeed, resist the action of the

atmosphere and of many chemical agents ; but itreadily tam ishes in the presence of sulphurettedhydrogen, and even a solution of common salt converts its surface into a chloride ; it is also dissolved

sulphuric acids. In these respects it isr to go ld, which only yields to the roya l

water. In alchemic language, it has progressedfar in its development f rom the metalseed but ithas not attained to perf ection.

ELECTRUM.

A Specially important alloy which f or long rankedas a separate metal, was that known as electrum. Itderived its name f rom its similarity to amber (Lat .

electrum, the usual term f or amber whence ourelectricity Some Of the oldest coins in existence

THE MATERIALS 183

are o f this alloy o f gold and silver. It is probablethat it was not always artificially produced f or inthe extraction of silver f rom the minerals there wouldo f ten be smelted out a percentage of gold . Thisnatural origin is of great significance f or alchemy, andexpla ins much. The likeness Of the alloy to goldand to silver tended to Obscure the f act that thesemetals are definite substances, and tempted to theconclusion that they could b e produced by suitablemixtures and operations. Electrum would be regardedas an intermediate stage in a continuous development .We can thus see how honest theory and intentionalf raud could glide into one another. For a certa inamount of silver could b e added to gold withoutdetriment to the fundamenta l nature Of the noblermeta l. That is to say, gold could be multiplied.

”

Especially would this consideration apply to pro

cesSes Of colouring impure silver which, alchemicallyviewed, was already approaching the state of complete

As their skill in analysing and separating go ld andsilver increased, alchemists would be gradually ledto understand the real nature Of electrum, and theycame to neglect it. In spite o f this, however, itsname still appeared in t he list of alchemic signs.

Jupiter being the planet associated with it —af fordinga good example o f the difficulties Of interpret ingf ormulas . Later, the name was applied to variousbrilliant alloys, particularly bronz es and brass. The

ground f or the transf er was evidently the analogy o f

colour.

See p. 120.


COPPER.

We come to the meta ls known as base, regardedby the alchemists, not as Of direct value, but as

means to their end. The one likest to gold is cOpper.

It possesses a fine rich colour, takes a brilliant polish,and is highly malleable and ductile. In Spite o f

these advantages, its comparative plentifulness precluded its ranking as a precious metal. Nevertheless its use in alchemy was o f the highest importance ; there is no substance which appears more

f requently in tran smutation f ormulas. And thereason is not hard to find— not only its similarity togold, but its f requent employment in the manuf actureo f alloys.Pure Copper is too soft a meta l to be made into

weapons and cutting instruments, though some prehistoric implements are f ound which are unalloyed .

But in nature , copper ores Of ten conta in associatedmetals which give it the necessary hardness ; and

primitive meta l-workers discovered that the natureo f the copper dif fers much in dif ferent mines. Later,men learnt how to modify the metal by artificia lmixtures. It was thus that bronze was manuf acturedby an admixture o f tin. Once started, the art o f

a lloying it made rapid strides and atta ined to a

notable degree Of efficiency.

See how readily allthis played into the hands o fthe alchemists . Given all the variety o f coppera lloys, natural and art ificial, it was evident thatthere were stages Of increasing likeness to gold .

Moreover, these stages could be made to pass into one

another by insensible gradations. There was thus a


lack ing, we should be sure that a substance withcharacteristics so marked could not fa il to havestimulated research and speculation. One o f itsearliest names was “living silver —our quicksilver.” It was not called mercury until the MiddleAg es, when it had become the Hermetic substance

par excellence. Its liquidity, and the extreme mobilitywhich makes it seem alive, always produced a prof ound impression upon thosewho reflected on naturalphenomena hardly less so, its corrosive and poisonousproperties which led Pliny to call it venenum rerum

omnium. The same author knew of its amalgamatingpowers, and of the readiness with which it dissolves

It dissolves gold ! Could anything be morecalculated to excite an alchemist’s wonder and

expectation 7 He concentrated on this meta l hismost earnest study. It is hardly ever absent f romthoughts or his experiments . Ben Jonson, in

his Masque, Mercury Vindic f rom the Alchymists,

presents it as a tortured victim. He makes itexpostulate thus : I am their crude and theirsublimate ; their precipitate and their unctions ;their ma le and their f emale, sometimes their b ermaphrodite—what they list they style me. See ,they begin to muster again, and draw their f orcesout against me. The genius of the place def end me

If we go back to the early days of the a rt, we findZosimus giving vent to his emotions in the f ollowingrhapsody Concerning the divine water (that is ,Mercury). Here is the grand mystery, the thingmost chiefly sought. It is everyt hing. Two natures,one single essence ; f or one of them draws on and

THE MATERIALS 187

controls the other. It is liquid silver ; it is of bothsexes and is always in movement. It is the divin ewater of which none knows. Its nature is difficultt o understand f or it is neither a metal, nor water,nor a (meta llic) substance. It cannot be tamed, f orit is allin all. It has lif e and it breathes. He whounderstands this mystery possesses both gold and

silver. Its power is hidden ; it resides in theEroytle .

” Zosimus fitting ly appends to his description magic figures and f ormulas. There are alsothree concentric circles with the mystic axioms :The All is one ; by it is all, and in it is all. The

Serpent is one ; it has the two emblems and thepo ison . Below this aga in are the a lchemic signsf or the f our metals, lead, mercury, silver and gold,surmounted by that o f the world and the cosmic egg.

We must remember that more was in view than theordinary meta l— it was the Philosopher’s Mercury,the inner essence of allthings. Some said it could beobta ined by distillations others sa id it was out of

human reach. It was sa id to be liquid, yet not

wetting things volatile, yet negativing the volatilityo f other substances. It was at once a substanceand not a substance, but an intangible Essence a

bodily spirit and a spiritual body. If we stumble at

these contradictions, it may do us good to read a

modern description of the luminif erous ether !“MERCURY AND SULPHUR.

With mercury was associated another substancewhich also had a peculiar f ascination f or alchemists

A fabulous stone , the use o f which (as said the alchemists)Democritus exalted for divining .


- sulphur. We have seen how it was supposed tobe a constituent of the metals, supplying the fieryelement in them. They watched wonderingly as theysaw mercury disso lving gold. They also wonderedwhen they saw a stick o f sulphur, when placed on

red- hot iron, penetrate the meta l like a spirit, and

dissolve it in a stream o f molten drops. Theyobserved, too , how that by the contact o f the two

substances a new one was f ormed. A mysteriouschange had taken place. Evidently, they concluded,sulphur has a peculiar power over the meta l and

cont rols its f orm and qualities .Some unknown alchemist, impressed by the

peculiar properties o f mercury and sulphur, coupledthem together as components of allthe metals. The

mercury was supposed to supply the lustre, malleability, ductility, fusibility— in short, the meta llicqualit ies;sulphur suppliedcombustibility (andcolourThis remarkable theory is mentioned by Geber, andhe himself attributes it to the ancients. It wasaccepted up to the middle of the sixteenth century,and f orms a characteristic part of alchemist doctrine.Thorpe, so f ar f rom condemning it, hails it as thefirst manif estation of scientific thought in this department of research.

TIN.

Tin is another metal which had its appeal f ora lchemists, not so much in ref erence to gold as t o

silver. The qualities that attracted them were itssilvery white colour, and the brilliant lustre it has

See p. 94 .


that lead is one of the products f ormed by the break ingdown of radium. Of this, more anon.

IRON AND MAGNESIA.

These two substances, thoug h of prime importance, do not ca ll f or special description . The lattercame to be almost a synonym f or the Stone .

OTHER MATERIALS.

The alchem ists were in quest of a metal. Naturallythey began with the metals in their ef forts to transmute . The Cosmopolite says If you want tomake a meta l, take a metal ; f or a dog is neverengendered but by a dog . But the continuedfa ilure o f their experiments led them to try othersubstances. In the later stages of the art, thoseselected are sometimes as startling as they are

disgusting.

Arsenic was one of the first less usual meta ls tob e tried, and f or long inspired great confidence . Its

power o f bleaching copper suggested transmutat ioninto silver. Mercury and tin f ailed. Antimony cameinto fashion only to b e discarded in its turn. ThenRoger Bacon ruled out all the metals on the scorethat they were too poor to generate gold.

If n ot metals, what next The salts were givena chance, especially sea - salt . We remember how

Bernard o f Treves moved his laboratory t o the Balt icto test the possibilities o f sea - salt .

! Saltpetre alsowas in great requisition— then vitriol. Still the great

See p. 163.

THE MATERIALS 191

secret was unsolved. The whole realm of mineralswas f ound wanting.

If not minerals, what next Well, there was thevegetable world. And had not some of the Greeka lchemists suggested that here there might be hope 7Let their f ormulas be extended. Accordingly juiceso f the celandine and of the primrose were tried, inreliance on their colour— rhubarb, honesty, andmany other plants . Still no success.Ah But is not the animal world higher than the

vegetable ; and its materials, are they not richerLet those he tried, said the adepts. So to work theywent on organic matters derived f rom animalsbones, flesh, blood, saliva , hair, and other materialsnot always fit to be mentioned. The ruling idea wasthat in such substances there resided the principle o flif e , which can transmute f ood into tissues. Verysingular was one of the arguments used for holdingthat this principle could even produce metals . Therewas testimony, they sa id, that children had growngo ld teeth And with allthis, unceasing f a ilure .

One last venture . Was not the Philosopher’sStone in reality the soul o f the world— spiritus mundi .

9

What in nature was most akin to this The air. If

so , those substances which are most exposed to theaction of the air would be likely to absorb most o fthe spiritual essence— such as, f reshly f allen rain,snow, and dew. It is hard to believe that in 1665

an adept submitted to the Roya l Society observations on the dew o f the month o f May.

” Others tooka yet wider flight. Meteoric matter, that of

“falling

stars,” would absorb the spirit in traversing the atmo

sphere . Others tried to side - track the problem .


They reflected that crabs, liz ards, and serpents, ifdeprived of f ood, could live f or a long time on air.

Must this not involve a considerable condensation of

the spirit So these wretched creatures were madeto f ast , and were then distilled ! To what strang elengths even clever men can g o when they set out on

a wrong track , if there be a touch of the occult andthe mysticSolvuntur tabula: risu. Well may Surley, in Ben

Jonson’s Alchymist, exclaim disdain f ully

Your broths, your menstrues, and materials,Of lye and eg g -shells, women ’

8 terms, man’

s blood,Hair 0 ’

the head, burnt clout , chalk, merde, and clay,

And moulds of other strange ingredients,Would burst a man to name.

And yet, af ter all, as we shall see, underneath all

these eccentricities and f ollies, there was being builtup a so lid basis on which the science of the futurecould be reared .


Egyptians and the Greek a lchemists. At the start,it is a matter of the mag ic whichwas always associatedwith industrial and medical operations. In medie va ltimes, the magic yielded place to a dependence on God.

Am ong some f rag ments of Arabian treatises occursa passage which is highly characteristic. Af terdiscussing certa in curious questions, the authorsuggests a prayer which will keep the adept in a properf rame of mind Our Father which art in heaven,give intelligence to the eyes Of Thy servant, that hemay participate in Thy pure light which dwells inheaven. (Thus f ar the petitions are pla inly Christian .)Thou holdest the keys of the world ; Thou art thebeginning and the end ; Thou dwellest in the midsto f the fire on earth, Thou alone canst inflame waterand the sea, make fish t o dwell on land, reca ll the deadf rom the dark abyss and Open Tartarus. Thy personis fire, Thine eyes stars . The air is the brighteningo f Thy flame . (These are invocations o f the f ormcommon in ancient Egypt and are connected withmagic.) Abandon me not , 0 God , but give mewisdom o f Thy right hand and the aid o f Thy people.O God, deign to enter quickly my heart . Penetratemy spirit and fill me with the flame o f true sciencelet it dwell in my being . Chase f rom my soul evil andenvy. It is Thou Who givest the heart to producewhat is good and the tongue to divulge hiddenmysteries .’ Such is the extraordinary mingling of

Christian prayers and invocations borrowed f romancientEgypt, of the kind common among thegnostics.It is f ollowed by a biz arre account o f how the authorf ought aga inst personified envy, which he overcamewith a hatchet.

THE LABORATORIES 195

But this play of emotion did not render thea lchemists idle dreamers. Their laboratories werescenes of genuine hard work. Muir quotes, on thispo int, a passage f rom Paracelsus : They are not

g iven to idleness, nor go in a proud habit, or plush,or velvet g arments, Of ten showing their ring s on theirfing ers, or wearing swords at their sides with silverhilts, or fine and g ay gloves on their hands ; butdilig ently f ollow their labours, sweating whole daysand nig hts at their furnaces. They do not spend theirtime abroad f or recreation, but take delig ht in theirlaboratories. They put their fingers among coals,into clay and filth, not into gold and rings. Theysooty and black, like smiths and miners, and do notpride themselves upon clean and beautifuldress .”

APPARATUS.

The apparatus of alchemy was primarily devisedof course f or practica l uses but, like allelse connectedwith the Hermetic art , was invested with an atmo

sphere of the mystic and occult. Mammon, in BenJonson’s Alchymist, declares that the fable of Medea

’scharms had ref erence to

The manner of our work ; the bulls, our furnace,Stillbreathing fire ; our argent -vive, the dragonThe dragon ’

s teeth, mercury sublimate,

That keeps the whiteness, hardness and the b itingAnd they are gathered into Jason ’

s helm.

The alembic, and then sow’

d in Mars his field,And thence sublimed so oft en , t illthey’re fix’

d.

In some of the Arabian treatises, and in others o f

the thirteenth century, there are simple outline


pictures of many kinds of vessels.‘We there findaludels, or pear- shaped pots Open at both ends, andmade to fit into each other ; a lembics f or distilling ,retorts and stills, f or heating and sublimating ;flasks ,f or burying in beds of hot sand or cinders furnacesgreat and small athanors, or furnaces speciallyconstructed to ma inta in a certa in degree of heat ;cucurbits, or gourd- like alembics ;pellicans, or vesselswith arms ; and many a quaint device beside. Aspecial kind of bath was that named Balneum Marise.

In the midst Of a series o f processes denoted by lettersof the alphabet Subtle reports to Mammon

F is come over the helm too ,

I thank my Maker, in S. Mary’s bath,And showslac virg inis. Blessed be heaven

It is mentioned in the older treatises, and connectedwith Mary the Jewesswho is supposed to have inventedit. Nothing definite is known o f her. A writer of theseventh century affirms that she was initiated into thesacred art in the temple of Memphis. Another legendmakes her the sister of Moses. This particular instanceis typical of the way in which alchemists mingled fact,legend, and f ancy in their ef f ort to preserve the senseof mystery, even in regard to their f amiliar utensils .It also incidenta lly illustrates the constant backwardlook to Egypt.Further deta il under this head ”

is not necessary.

But it is well to note that many of the vessels stillretain their places, even as regards specific f orms, inour modern laboratories.

Berthelot , in his La Chimie an M oyen ag e, vol. i. ch . vi. , reproduces many o f these, and is g enerally able to determine the use tqwhich they were put .


PROCESSES—BEN JONSON’

S LIST.

Geber gives a list of the principal processes invog ue in his time. He mentions sublimation, volatilisation, distillation by evaporation or by simplefiltration, calcination, solution, coag ulation, whichincludes crystallisation and fixation, coupellation ,

sof tening of hard bodies, and so f orth. Most of these ,save f or technical modifications, date b ack to Greeks ,and, behind them again, to the Egyptians. They are ,indeed, simply adaptations o f quite familiar processesbut they were given new settings and specialisedpurpose by the a lchemist philosophy, as means f orhastening the advance of various substances towardsperf ect ion. This point is well brought out by BenJonson. Subtle addresses his servant

Sub. Sirrah, myvarlet , stand you f orth and speak to himLike a phiIOSOpher : answer in the language.

Name the vexations, and the martyrisationsOf metals in the work.

Face. Sir, put refaction,Solution , ablut ion , sublimation ,

Cohobation , calcination, ceration , and

Fixation.

Sub. (to ANANIAS). This is heathen Greek to you, now1(to FACE ). And when comes vivification f

Face. Af ter mortification.

Sub. What ’s cohobation 1Face.

’

Tis the pouring onYour aqua regis, and then drawing him off ,To the trine circle of the seven Spheres.Sub . What ’s the proper passion of metals 1

Sub. What ’s your ultimum supplicium auri

Sub. (to ANANIAS). This is heathen Greek to you.(to FACE). Andwhat

’

s your mercury 1Face. A very f ugit ive, hewillbe gone, sir.


Sub. How knowyou him 1

His oleosity, and his suscitability.

Sub . Howdo you sublime him 1

Face. With the calce of eg g -shells,

Sub. Your magisterium, now,

What ’s that 1Face. Shif ting, sir, your elements,

Dry into cold, cold into moist , moist into hot ,Hot into dry.

Sub . (to ANANIAS). This IS heathen Greek to you still!

(to FACE ). Your lapis philosophicusFace.

’

Tis a stone

And not a stone a spirit , a soul, and a bodyWhich if you do dissolve, it is dissolvedIf you coagulate , it is coagulated ;If you make it to fly, it flieth.

This passage brings out many points o f interest,especially the idea that qualities are separate things.But its main drif t seems to be f ounded on GeorgeRipley’s Twelve Gates, or twelve successive processeswhich open out on the Paradise of the Philosopher ’sStone. Indeed, Jonson mentions Ripley a littleearlier in the scene. Let us examin e a f ew of theseprocesses f rom the alchemist’s standpoint.

PROCESSES IN DETAIL.

Calcination was employed by Geber for renderingmetals more fixed ; that is to say, f or robbing them

of the qualities which made them unlike gold or silver.

Tin, f or example, was thus robbed of its ‘‘cm” lead

of its fusibility. The result of the process was, in

reality, g enerally some f orm o f Oxidation.

Sublimat ion, so far as the”

process is concerned,meant much the same as with ourselves. A substance


With us this strong expression has worn down to bea mere figure of speech ; but it was not always so .

p rocesswhich causes a substance to

become sof t and flow lik ewax . It would o f ten involve

of the right deg ree of heat. Ripley calls it Fermentation. But this term had usually a more fundamenta l

alleysr conld _b e reproduced and multiplied by develop“ h ‘ n a m “

ing in their mixtures ! Change analogous to f ermenta

Fem me which we'

liaVe not yet heard the last.

the p ring iples or virtues desired In the finial—product.

“ h “ MI' ll- l..

The word is probably o f Arab ic origiiI; andT he

operation itself is still at times employed. Ceration

Solut'

ve

in so f ar as to note the mystica l character assigned tothese and other similarly simple Operations in the

Hermetic art.Fixation has already been explained.

! Anotherterm with an equally specialised meaning is Pro jection,Q i

'ig inally this signified Elie throwing o f any kind of

inaterial into the” crucible. It cam

'

E—‘tob e applied,

however, to the prfe-

in'

gTUII’ Y—R hat

powder.o f_project ion , T)?hhé T hflOSOpher

’

s

See p 181,


multiplication that was to reward the adept f or all

is toil. The idea of a powder of transmutation seemst o date back to the days o f ancient Eg yptian metallurgy. For in an early document it finds ment ionthus We must know in what places of the Theba idthe mysterious powder is prepared.

” There f ollowsa list of the Egyptian cities and districts in which itm ight be sought, evidencing the existence of some

pre-alchemist tradition.

The adepts o f the sixteenth century wg g g neaj lyconcerned with the bringing together o f the male andf emale seeds hy t Eh goldwas

“t o he generated. For

accomplIshIng this purpose the seed-materials wereenclosed In an oval o f paste or mud, and hermeticallysealed. Thus was f ormed what was called the

Philosopher’s Egg, ! or the house of the pullet o f thewise,

”or Athanor. Salmon tells us how this Operation

is to be carried out . Here is the way in whichphilosophers make sure that the thing is accomplished.

The Philosopher’s Mercury being jo ined and amalgamated with gold of great purity, and in leaves or

filings (gold being the male , mercury the f emale), isput into the Philosopher’s Egg. This Egg is placedin a dish full of charcoal which is put on the fire, andt hen the mercury, by the heat o f its internal sulphurexcited by the fire kindled by the operator f romwithout, and f ed continually in the degree and pro

portion necessary— this mercury, I say, dissolves the

g old without violence, and reduces it to atoms .” Atthe end of six months, a black powder is Obta inedwhich Salmon calls the crow’s head,

”or Saturn, or

The mysticaldoctrine of the Eg g was discussed before, see p. 121.


Cimmerian darkness . If the action of the heat isprolonged, the substance becomes white . This isthe white colouring substance, or the Little Philo

sopher’s Stone, and is able to convert ordinary metalsinto silver and to produce pearls. Lastly, if the fireis increased, the substance melts and changes into a

red powder. It is the veritable Philosopher’s StoneProjected on a common metal, it immediately changesit into gold.

We find, then, that the alchemists devised a veryconsiderable set of experiments and operations, which,

though devoted to an unatta inable end, went a longway towards bringing into existence the apparatusof the modern laboratory.


good and f ruitful inventions and experiments as wellf or the disclosing o f nature as f or the use of man’slif e .

”Let us now review the more important o f

these g ood and f ruitful inventions and experimen

THE COMBINING OF THEORY AND PRACTICE.

The first great merit of alchemywas that it broughttogether phIIOSOphical Speculation and the practica larts . The Egyptian metallurgists and chemists, eventhose of them who were priests, were neither scientistsnor philosophers . No doubt there would be amongthem a certain Spirit of inquiry concerning the natureo f the materials they employed ; but they neverevolved any system of speculative thought whichdeserves the name of a philosophy of nature. Whvthis should have been so is an interesting problem,

the so lution o f which would tempt us f rom our track.

Suffice it to note the f act. The alchemists inheritedf rom the Egyptians little but an accumulation of

technical receipts and directions .On the contrary, the Greek thinkers who supplied

the Speculative ideas of alchemy were not skilled inthe practical arts, nor were they, in any strict sense,natural scientists. They did not even f oster a

scientific spirit ; f or they despised all handlin g of

materials f or purposes of manuf acture or experiment,leaving such tasks to slaves and ignorant workmen.

And they were thus debarred f rom ga ining any f actualbasis f or their reasonings.

Nowby a happy concurrence o f circumstances, the

Advancement of Learning , Bk . i.

ADVANCES AND DISCOVERIES 205

a lchemist, while interested in philosophy, had himselfto become an Operative, and actually handled thematerials he employed. The ga in was great. Theorieshad perf orce to be submitted to the test of facts. And

it was gradually realised that f acts are decisive whenknowledge of , or power over, nature is the object inview. A new start was made on principles notdefinitely recognised, but none the less revolutionary

-principles rendered explicit in Bacon’s Novum

Org anon . The rate o f advance, however, was lamentab ly slow. Theory, though no longer in a solitaryt hrone, was unduly despotic, and blinded the experim enters to the real significance of nearly allthey saw.

They lost themselves in many a maze f orlorn when theymight have been expatiating on Nature’s highways.Hence it was that their scientific achievements wereso scanty as compared with the leng thy period duringwhich the art was prosecuted.

DAWN OP THE SCIENTIFIC SPIRIT.

Alchemy, then, heralded the dawn o f the scientificspirit in the sphere o f chemistry and the kinde arts.

The rigidity of the subjective attitude was relaxed.

A passage f rom the Arabian treatise, The Little Bookof Clemency, will illustrate this po int. Wise mendo not pride themselves on the quantity of materials,but on the perf ection o f their Operations. I urge you

-t o act with precaution, to go to work slowly, and tof ollow the example of Nature in all that you desireto do : when dealing with natural things . There ishere manif ested an incipient tendency to look without


rather than within. We must not , however, lay toomuch stress on the phrase “f ollow the example o f

Nature,”f or ancient philosophy g ave to it a turn which

was far f rom natural in our modern scientific senseof the term . Nevertheless, the ef fort towards detachment is full of promise .A passag e from The Book of Ostanes shows an

insight into the possibilities of natural processes.Sc ience bring s it about that thing s the most precious

are made out of the most common. See, f or example,the loveliest garments in the world are of silk ; and

silk comes f rom a worm. The fin est of the thingswe eat is honey ; and honey comes from a fly. Muskis the product of an animal, ambergris that of a fish,and the pearl that of an oyster. So with this marvellous stone ; it comes f rom matter that in eyes of theignorant is of the commonest.” Though the objecta imed at is chimerical, the reasoning is in the spiritof science, and could be supported by many modern

parallels.Yet more striking is this f rom The Book of Pity,

which describes an observation f ounded on f act.There was a mag netic stone which lif ted a piece o firon weighing 100 drachmes. We kept it f or a longtime, and we tried it on another piece o f iron whichit was not able to lif t . We thought that the weightof this piece o f iron must exceed 100 drachmes, theweight which the magnetic stone before lif ted. Butwhen we came to weigh it, we f ound that it weighedless than 100 drachmes. The power of the stone,then, had diminished, although its own weight hadrema ined the same as at the first. This is quite inthe modern manner, particularly the weighing of the


f oregone conclusion. For the scientist, an experimentis a question put to Nature to see if she will supporthis theory or throw further light upon his problem.

The two methods are thus sharply Opposed, and

postulate two widely dif ferent outlooks . It was not

until the latter had been consciously adopted thatscience could advance with sure and rapid strides.

ROGER BACON.

Roger Bacon (1214 - 1294 ) was one of the first torealise the importance o f the distinction just drawn .

His remarkable gif ts enabled him to break away f romthe traditions which had enslaved so many greatminds, explore new territory, and open out new routes.For a long time he was looked upon as an alchemisto f the orthodox kind, and even branded as a sorcerer.

But of late years he has come to his own , and weappreciate him at his true value . The secret of hissuccess was this—he had learnt how to put questionsto Nature. In the Arabian, Rhaz es, we find thisnoble statement The secret of chemistry is ratherpossible than impossible. Its mysteries are onlyrevealed by dint of hard work and tenacity. Butwhat a triumph when man is able to ra ise a corner o fthe veil which covers nature ! Rhaz es and FriarBacon join hands. Both are hungry f or f acts ; butthe later sage had the larger outlook and the deeperpower of penetration . How varied were Bacon’sinterests He corrected the Julian Kalendar ;analysed the properties of lenses and convex glasses ;invented spectacles f or the short - sighted propounded


t he theory of telescopes, if he did not make them ;

prepared the way f or the discovery of g unpowder ando f the air-pump ; and, most significant of all, drewa ttention to the chemical role of the air in the processo f combustion. Truly a splendid record when wet hink of the times in which he lived— a record which,t hough exceeding the bounds o f alchemy, may f a irlyin its ma in tendency redound to the credit of that art .And how was it attained

‘l By the definit e adoption

of the experimentalmethod. The success, it is true,was achieved in spite of the shackles imposed bya lchemist traditions still, the means to the successhad largely been provided by the art they weredestined to destroy. And Boyle was a leg itimatesuccessor of the alchemist Friar.

ARISTOTLE.

It was stated just above that Bacon had to f orcehis way through a mass of traditions which blockedthe way to prog ress. The bulk of these were supposedto depend on the authority of that pre- eminent thinker,Aristotle the Master o f those who know. How

g rievously that gloriously f ree and original genius hassuf fered in the house of those who imagined themselvesto be his f riends 1 It is certa in that his authoritywas supreme in Europe f or nearly twenty centuries,and that his influence, even in the history of chemistry,can be traced down into the eighteenth century. Butwas the appeal to the real Aristotle ‘l So far was thisf rom being the case that it was more of ten than notto teachings quite Opposed to those which he hadpromulgated. Dialecticians had robbed his arguments


o f their living force, or twisted them to alien issues.Commentators had tortured his doctrine or buried itunder mounta ins of uninspired disquisitions. Spurioustreatises, published under his name, had misrepre

sented and supplemented it out o f all recognition.

What wonder, when the liberation came, that he wasblamed and abjuredAs a matter of fact, Aristotle himself had strongly

emphasised his conviction that natural science can

only be advanced by increa se of the knowledge of

Nature. He was, of all the ancients, the one who

comes nearest to the moderns in aim , spirit, and

method. And it was indeed an irony of fate thatmade the repudiation of dogmatism seem to be a

triumph over, instead of a continuance of , his work.

The interest in practica l chemistry which, despite allits def ects and aberrations, the Hermetic art had

susta ined, the flickering s o f the scientific spirit whichit had f ostered, the experiments it had suggestedthese were the true Aristotelian elements in anotherwise f ruitless quest.

ARABIAN DISCOVERIES.

An attempt to enumerate in detailthe discoveriesupon which, in the course of so many centuries, the

seekers f or the Philosopher’s Stone had more or less

accidentally happed would be tedious . But an

apolog y for alchemy would be deprived of its chiefvindication were it not to record some of the morenotable additions made to the store of human knowledge . It is an easy task to show that they wereneither fewnor unirnportant .


solution, aqua reg alis, he regarded as the Elixir o f Lif e.

It was administered as potable gold.

” In this viewhe was f ollowed by Roger Bacon, who told HisHoliness Pope Nicho las IV. a story concerning itsmarvellous virtues. An old man , he sa id, f ound someyellow liquor (the solution is yellow) in a golden phialwhile ploughing one day in Sicily. Supposing it t obe dew, he drank it. He was thereupon transf ormedinto a hale, robust, and highly accomplished youth.

We do not know whether the Pope tried the Elixir ;or, if he did, what was the ef fect upon his constitution .

However these things may have been, the recordis given in certain Latin manuscripts of the thirteenthcentury, and the discoveries must therefore havepreceded this period. Of Geber himself we may saf elyaver that he was the first to give precise descriptionsof the metals mercury, silver, lead, Copper and go ldand that he first noted the uses o f corrosive sublimate ,red precipitate, and flowers and milk of sulphur.Rha z es prepared brandy and employed alcohol as a

solvent in several pharmaceutical preparations. Heexamined the properties of orpiment, rea lgar powdero f the mine borax, and various compounds of

sulphur with iron and copper. The school as a wholemade valuable advances in medicine, and manif esteda fine spirit o f scientific research in s many otherdirections. There can be no doubt that our debt to it,though not capable o f detailed determination, is veryconsiderable.

MEDIE VAL DISCOVERIES.

It is not until the time o f Roger Bacon that thework of individual adepts stands out with sufficient


prominence to render possible the dating of specificdiscoveries, and the honouring of the discoverers . Aswe saw in the chapter on Materials, substance af tersubstance makes its appearance in the early mediaevalperiod of a lchemy, but without mention of particularsThe store simply accumulates. None the less therewas steady, if slow, advance— similar, we may f a irlyassume, to that of the days when historica l evidence ismore abundant.Roger Bacon we have considered above—his pre

paring the way f or the discovery o f gunpowder, andhis suggestions about the part played by the air inthe process of combination . Another f amous al

chemist, Albertus Magnus, was even more successfulin respect o f chemical discoveries. Not only was heacqua inted with the purification o f metals by mean so f lead, with various chemical uses of alum, and withcaustic alkali, but he determined the composition o f

cinnabar (an ore of mercury) by f orming it who llyf rom the metal and sulphur, described accurately thepreparation of acetates o f lead and Copper, noted theef fects of heat on sulphur, and utilised the action o f

aqua f ortis in separating alloys of gold and silver.

No mean achievement this, when we take account o fthe times and the Opportunities Moreover, he wasthe first to speak of the affinities of substances— an

idea o f fundamental importance in modern chemistry.

His pupil, Aquinas, employed the term amalgam,

”

connected probably with the Greek malag ma , softness.The amalg ams of which he treated were those o f

mercury with another metal or combination of metals.Medallists came to use the word of any kind of sof talloy then the idea of so f tness f ell away, leaving


merely that of intimate mixture. This developmentadmirably illustrates the way in which alchemistterminology and practice may be quietly absorbedwith but little recognition of the source.Raymond Lully was another genius who took the

whole field o f knowledge f or his province. In thesphere of chemistry, he prepared carbonate of potashby means of tartar and wood-ash, and discoveredseveral essential oils. He was especially interested inspirit of wine,

” the art of distilling which wouldseem to have then been but recently learnt. Hebestowed on it the honourable name o f aqua vita:

arden s, and in his enthusiasm declared it to be the veryElixir of Lif e.To BasilValentine were assigned many triumphs.

But it has been shown that his namewas assumed by acertain Johann ThOlde , an author o f the seventeenthcentury, and it is therefore no easy matter to say whatreally belongs to him or to a later date. But in anycase the discoveries were made by alchemists and,

bearing in mind the need for critical caution, let usgroup them under his name. He prepared metalsby what are called wet methods. For example,he transformed pyrites into sulphate of copper throughthe action o f humid air, and then plunged a plate o firon into a solution o f the sulphate, thus obtain ingpure copper. He prepared sulphide of potash,fulminating go ld, and sulphuric ether. He wrote a

complete treatise on salts,” with particular treat

ment o f spirit s of salt (hydrochloric acid) - an

achievement of great sig nificance. He obta ined theacid (as now) f rom sea - salt or oil o f vitriol . He

devoted much attention to antimony, and examined


periods, prof essional physicians . The result was two

f old. Chemistry which had been despised by philoSophers, became a subject of serious study by men o f

learning and distinction. Medicine was broughtwithin the range of physica l experiment. It is to theHermetic art that we must credit these two enormous

g a ins, since, but f or the hope o f transmuting, the handof tradition would have la in yet more heavily on thesenascent sciences.The alliance between alchemy and medicine has

been adequately dealt with in previous chapters, moreparticularly in connection with the teachings o f

Paracelsus and the Rosicrucians, and does not hereneed f urther emphasis. Those who realise the

tyranny of blind authority in any branch of humaninquiry, and not least in the healing art , will be themo st ready to acknowledge our indebtedness to thosewho burst its bonds and helped to give us a science o fmedicine .

CLASSIFICATION.

It is generally acknowledged that classification isessential to the development o f science. The manif oldobjects of our Cxperience must be grouped into orderedclasses, each characterised by certa in definite marks,selected, as f ar as may be, according to the real natureof the things classified. Think what the Linnmansystem effected f or Botany, and what advance indeeper knowledge of plant- lif e is secured in the

natural system.

” What can alchemy say f or itselfin this regardIt has been f reely granted that the Hermetic art


was unsystematic. Even as late as the eighteenthcentury, Kunkel, a critic of the art , could write

I, old man that I am , who have been occupied withc hemistry for sixty years, have never yet been ablet o discover their fixed sulphur. They are not

agreed among themselves respecting the kind o f

sulphur. The sulphur of one is not the sulphur o f theo ther. To that one may reply that each is at libertyt o baptise his child as he likes . I agree . You mayeven, if you are disposed, call an ass a cow ; but youwill never make any one believe that your cow is anass.

”

And yet there must be reservations. From theearliest times there were ef forts made to classify. Weremember how the philosophy o f the art was based ont he f ourf old divisions proposed by Greek thinkersearth, water, air, fire—d ry, moist, cold, hot. Metalswere distinguished f rom non-metals, though them arks o f separation were imperf ectly selected. Hereis a curious example of attempts to classify in fullerdetail. It is taken f rom The Book of Pity. Thed istinction between animal and earthy substances isas f ollows Animal substances are mercury, gold,silver, lead, Copper, iron . Earthy substances are

divided into two categories, living and dead. Amongthe living are sulphur, arsenic, sal- ammoniac, andeverything which burns or melts, and of which fire can causethe Spirit to depart. The second category, that of

dead things, comprehends allthat does not melt, or

burn , or give of f vapours for example, chalk and likesubstances.” The ground of distinction is evidentlythe presence or absence o f combustibility, or responseto the action of heat—fire is taken to be the principle


of lif e. The result is crude, but full of promise. The

characteristic alchem ist triad, Elements, Principles,Essence, though more subtle, is really much lessnatural, save in so f ar as it led up to the distinctionbetween elements and compounds.A Byz antine example is full of interest, not only

on the score o f its astrologica l flavour, but also, andchiefly, because of the singular medley of hits and

misses . With one exception, the substances are

grouped under the metals. Under lead (Saturn)appear litharge, agate, and other like materials.Under tin (Jupiter) appear coal, sulphur and whitestones similar to enamel. Under iron (Mars) appearthe magnet and pyrites . (A good hit. ) Under go ld

(Sol) appear hyacinth, diamond, carbon, and the mostbrilliant of the precious stones . (The conjunction o f

diamond and carbon is striking !) Under copper

(Venus) appear pearls, amethyst, bitumen, sugar,honey, myrrh, sal-ammoniac, incense. Under emerald

(Mercury) appear quicksilver, amber, mastic. (Thisis the case in which the metal is not in the place ofhonour ; but emerald was regarded as a metal, so

that it is merely a matter of precedence .) Lastly,under silver (Luna) appear glass and white earths.The reasons f or most o f these groupings are obscure,but the intention is plain— to group under comprehensive heads a variety of substances which had

attracted attention by special qualities or activities.Paracelsus propounded a three- f old set o f

harmon ies which secured wide acceptanceSoul Spirit BodyMercury Sulphur SaltWater Air Earth

CHAPTER V

TRANSITION TO MODERN CHEMISTRY

ERE is a passage f rom Zosimus, the oldest ofthe known writers on alchemy. I saw a

priest standing bef ore an altar in f orm o f a cup, havin gseveral steps by which it was approached. The priestanswered I am the priest of the sanctuary, and Iam under the weight of the power which crushes me .

At the break of day there came a workman who seiz edme, slew me with a sword, divided me into morselsaft er having lif ted the sk in f rom my head, he m ixedmy bones with the flesh and calcined me in the fire,to teach me that the spirit is born with the body.

That is the power that oppresses me While the

priest Spoke thus , his eyes became like blood, and hevomited all his flesh. I saw him mutilate himself ,tear himself with his teeth and f all to the g round.

Seized with terror, I awoke, reflected, and asked myselfif this is really the composition of water. And Icongratulated myself on having divined rightly.

”

Compare this symbolical jargon with the directionsgiven in a modern manual of chemistry. Can therebe a passage f rom one to the other Had we not

undertaken a sympathetic study of the alchemists ’

aims, doctrines, and methods, we should assuredlybe tempted to an swer in the negative. But we are

220

TRANSITION TO MODERN CHEMISTRY 221

n ow in a position to understand that in the strangepassage f rom Zosimus there are allusions to rea loperations— calcinations, f ermentations, dissolutions,and the rest. It was these underlying experiencesthat were gradually seiz ed upon, cleared of theirobscurities, and given a place in an ordered scheme.The process was long drawn out , but inevitable. For

Nature presses on men’s attention fundamental liken esses and dif ferences among her phenomena , and

so suggests larger inductions and wider g eneralisat ions. The presuppositions and wayward strivingso f inquirers are gradually corrected and curbed.

Facts carry the day, and modern chemistry comes tothe birth.

DIFFICULTY IN DISCOVERING ELEMENTS.

When a modern scientist is contemptuous of

a lchemy, it may be surmised that he has not

adequately realised the difficulties under which theOld chemists laboured. Right down to the days o f

the brilliant discoveries made by the greatest of

chemists, Lavoisier, there were not any known fixedelements to serve as starting-points f or synthesis oras goals f or analysis . It was thought that allmatteris endlessly transformable, backwards and f orwards .The serpent biting its own ta ilwas a legitimate symbolo f the doctrine universally accepted. Hence problemsthat are to us quite straightforward were f or the

alchemists hopelessly baffling and complex.

Take a simple case mentioned by Berthelot. Iquote his own statement of it. I have a minera l ofiron , say one o f the oxides so widely distributed in


nature . I treat it with carbon and chalk, and I obtainmetallic iron. But this in its turn, by the quick actiono f fire and in contact with air, or by the slow actiono f atmospheric agents, passes back to the state of anoxide , identical with, or analogous to, the prim itivegenerator. Where is the primordial element, if wejudge by appearances Is it the iron which disappears so easily Or is it the oxide which existed tostart with and is f ound at the end The idea o f the

elementary body would seem it priori to suit rather thelast product in so far as it manifests stability and

resistance to agents o f every kind.

” The merest

tyro,nowadays can give the correct answer but the

great chemist Berthelot realises howhard that was f orthose who had not the means of determ mmg Iron to bean element, and who did not know that the oxygeno f the atmosphere was concerned in an explanation o fthe changes .Or take the case which puz z led and misled even so

sound an investigator as Van Helmont, when,

he triedto account f or the growth o f a plant. He put a willowweighing 5 lbs . into 200 lbs . o f earth previously driedin an oven, and watered it regularly. At the end o f

five years he f ound the plant weighed 169 lb s. , whereasthe earth, af ter redrying, had lost only 2 o z s. inweight.What was he to conclude He had not the mean s ofknowing the real nature o f water, nor of the carbondioxide absorbed f rom the atmosphere . His answer,theref ore, seemed to be irrefutable that the 164 lbs.of woody matter, leaves, roots, and so f orth, wereproduced by the water. That is to say, the water toall appearance had been changed into a variety of

Les Orig ines de l’Alchimie, p. 283.


solid substances A clever scientist was thus f orcedt o a conclusion which was quite in harmony witha lchemica l doctrine, and yet g rievously out of

harmony with the f acts . A modest amount, then , o f

historical imagination should enable the proud or

cynica l modern to realise that to be an alchemistwas not necessarily to be a f ool.

DISCOVERY OF THE ELEMENTS—BOYLE.

It will now be apparent that the crucial dif ferencebetween the old and the new chemistry was thedoctrine of the nature of matter. For the old, matter

was indefinitely transmutable ; f or the new, theelements were fixed and unchangeable ultimates. Letus see, in broad outline, how the advance to thesounder view was brought about. As in almost everycase of scientific discovery, the final result was notga ined at a bound, but by successive steps, and by theaccumulation of guiding experiences.

Boyle was one of the first to question the olddoctrine . We saw how the Greeks had decided therewere f our elements— earth, water, air, fire, and howParacelsus and his school had substituted f or thesethe three—salt, sulphur, mercury. Boyle, on thebasis of his many and original experiments, wasdissatisfied with both these classifications, and introduced a conception of an element which was notf ar removed f rom that now accepted. The alchemist sregarded the metals as compounds he in clined to thebelief that they were simple . He adopted the theory

See p. 58.


o f atoms, which he regarded as small part icles of

diff erent shapes and siz es, united into small parcelsnot easily separated, and contended that the alchemistelements are not simple bodies, but are built up of

particles more simple than themselves. In this wayhe came to disting uish between an element and a

compound in a manner quite opposed to the olderconception, and in line with the chemical doctrineof the present day. He also realised that a true compound must not be confused with a mixture, since itinvolves a peculiar and intimate kind of action due toaflinities between substances. Had the fine lead

he gave been f ollowed up, the transition period mighthave been much curta iled. The phlogiston theory,however, intervened, and, though by no means whollymischievous, retarded progress in this particulardirection.

DISCOVERY OP GASES.

One of the greatest bars to progress was the beliefthat all gaseous substances were essentially a like,diff ering only in degrees o f purity. That is to say,

the ancient doctrine of air as an element blocked theway to a knowledge of gases generally, and, conse

quently, of the part played by oxygen in the process ofcombustion . The men , therefore, who first solvedthe diflicult problems presented by the constituentsof the atmosphere occupy places of Special honour on

the scientists ’ roll of f ame, and have the fullest rightto be called the f ounders of modern chemistry.

Needless to say, the truth was not ga ined all at

once. A much-neglected pioneer, John Mayow, born


his accurate observations on this same g as, and alsoon hydrogen. His most brilliant achievement, however, was his discovery that water is composed o f

two gases Another of the ancient elements was

dethroned— another blowwas levelled at the alchemistideas of matter.

JOSEPH PRIESTLEY (1733

A still more revolutionary success was scored bythe famous Joseph Priestley. The title of his chiefwork is Experiments and Observations on Dig

'

erent

K inds of Air. His chief attention at first was devotedto carbonic acid ;but many other gases were detectedby him, and new methods of examining them devised.

It is now generally acknowledged that he merits thename of the f ather of pneumatic chemistry.

” Thorpeasserts that he was the first to establish that the airis not a simple substance, as the alchemists believedit to be. Above all, he is now credited with the

discovery of oxygen. He was experimenting with ourold f riend, oxidised mercury. He thus describes thef ateful experiment : On the 1st of August, 1774, Iendeavoured to extract air f rom mercurius calcinat

per se and I presently f ound that, by means of thislens, air was expelled f rom it very readily. Having

g ot about three or f our times as much as the bulk of

my materials , I admitted water to it, and f ound thatit was not imbibed by it. But what surprised memore than I can well express was, that a candle burnedin this air with a remarkably vigorous flame . Iwas utterly at a loss how to account f or it.”


Priestley himself , in spite of his marked originalitya nd independence of mind, did not quite escape f romt he influence of alchemistic ideas. He thought of

m atter as built up, so to speak, of properties whichc ould be stripped o ff or added . He was, moreover,sorely hindered in arriving at sound deductions by hisunquestioning acceptance o f the phlogiston theory.

Nevertheless, his work gave a notable impulse to a

ref ormed and expanded chemistry which was soon tob anish the old ideas f or ever. Let us aga in observe,in passing, how largely the overthrow o f alchemyt urned on the investigation of gases, more especiallyo f oxygen. As Thorpe puts it, the discovery of

o xygen, and the recognition of the part it plays in the

phenomena which phlogiston was invoked to explain,m ark the termination of one era in chemical historyand the beginning of another.

” This seems to be a

sounder way of putting the case than Muir’s when hesays that Priestley’s discovery was destined tochange Alchemy into Chemistry. For there werem any contributing influences, as we have seen abovet he greatest being, perhaps, the new spirit infusedby Boyle which led to the study of chemical affinity,t o more careful analysis, the use o f the balance , ando f quantitative methods generally. Nevertheless,Muir’s enthusiasm is more than pardonable .

LAVOISIER (1743—17

Priestley, then, was the first to recognise theexistence of oxygen as a separa te g as but he did notgrasp the full sig nificance of his great discovery. The


true theory of combustion is due to the great Frenchchemist, Lavoisier, who was murdered by the Frenchcommunists in the reign of terror of the first FrenchRevolution. In to the technical deta ils of the methodshe adopted, or of the process of combustion we neednot enter ; they belong rather to the history o f

chem istry, and we are only concerned with them so f aras they led to the overthrow o f alchemy. The centra lf act is this. All ordinary cases of burning are theresults of the union of the burning substance with theoxyg en of the atmosphere. Ca lcination is thus a kindo f combustion in that the meta l combines with this

g as, and thereby increases its weight by the amoun tit takes up.

The ma in point to be seized is this. From his

time onwards chemistry became a science o f exact

quantitative measurements . True, Lavoisier was not

the originator of the use of the balance in chemicalinvestigations but it was his teaching that gave it anindispensable place in sound method. An examplef rom his own use of it will serve both to illustrate itsvalue, and also to Show how it led to the rejection o f

an idea that had preva iled f rom the earliest times o fGreek philosophy down to the nineteenth century.

It was believed, as we have seen, that air can becondensed to water, as in the case of f alling dew,

”

and that water can be changed into a solid, as in VanHelmont’s arg ument f rom the growing willow, or inthe residue obtained when even carefully distilledwater is evaporated in glass vessels. Now Lavoisierdid not assent to this doctrine. He determined toput it to the test of a decisive experiment. So he

distilled water in hermetically sealed glass vessels


nature. Thus if iron be melted we speak of it as

molten iron ; if it be heated until it is in the

gaseous f orm, we should ca ll it vaporised iron, orsome similar name. We know that the substance isiron throug hout.The new doctrine cannot be better stated than in

Lavoisier’s own words, If we apply the termelements or principles to bodies to express our idea o f

the last po int which analysis is capable of reaching, wemust admit, as elements, all substances into whichwe are able to reduce bodies by decomposition. Not

that we are entitled to aflirm that these substanceswhich we consider as simple may not themselves becompounded of two, or even of a greater number of

more simple principles ; but since these principlescannot be separated, or rather, since we have not

hitherto discovered the means of separating them, theyare, with regard to us, simple substances, and we oughtnever to suppose them compounded un til experimentand observation have proved them to be so. Lavoisierwrote this in 1789 , but it remains substantially true.Mellor, in his Modem Inorg anic Chemistry, quotes thepassage with complete approval, and summ arises itthus An element is a substance which, so far as weknow

,contains only one kind of matter.”

Thus it was that f or the vague, fluid ideas of

chemical composition held by the old chemists therewas substituted a clear notion of what such composition really involves— a peculiarly intimate union o f

certa in quantities of dif ferent and unchanging kindso f matter. The fact that the proportions in which thecombinations can take place are not haphaz ard, butdefinite, is a discovery of fundamenta l importance

TRANSITION TO MODERN CHEMISTRY %1

which renders it possible to represent chemical actionsby mathematically exact equations . But we neednot here inquire into this further development. It isa refin ement on a genera l principle . And the genera lprinciple, by itself , won for the new science its completeand lasting victory.

ALCHEMIST TRANSMUTATION ABANDONED .

Atoms are now f or us the ultimates, so f ar as

practica l chemistry is concerned. And atoms are

composed of definite unchangeable kinds of matter, sof ar as our manipulation of them can be eff ective. Itis insistence on this truth that constitutes the radica ldiff erence between the transmutation of metals andthe f abrication of compound substances. From the

early days of the Hermetic art onwards, there hadbeen individuals who had cast doubts on the possib ility of transmutation. Such intuitive sceptisicm ,

however, had little influence on the theory or the

practice of alchemists . It was the gradual accumulation of facts, culminating in the work of Lavoisier,that at last bore allbef ore it. No longer do adeptslabour to strip f rom substances their supposedseparable qualities, or superinduce those more desired.

No longer do they search f or hidden virtues and

essences by the commingling o f which they may speedup a natural growth towards perf ection and procurethe perf ect metal . The modern adept goes to workin very diff erent f ashion. He starts with the knowledge that certain of his materials are unalterable.He examines the properties of these with unwearying

Q


exactness learns how to analyse existing compoundsof them, and how to build up new ones . The ancient

g lamour no longer lures him on . He never expects tosee his tin transmuted into silver, or his copper into

g old. But he knows that there are f ar g reater marvelsto be discovered than even the most daring of thealchemists could ever imag ine.


theory of matter came a period of eclipse. Scientistsenthusiastically concluded they had decided thequestion in the negative. Further discove and

reflection proved them to have been too hasty and

we find no less an authority than Faraday writing asf ollows There was a time when this fundamenta ldoctrine o f the alchemists (that of transmutation) wasOpposed to known analogies. It is now no longer soopposed to them, only some stages beyond theirpresent development.” This most brilliant o f

modern discoverers deliberately ranges himself on theside of the transmutation ists . Has anything sincecome to light that would aga in weaken the beliefRather is the contrary to be emphatica lly asserted.

The trend of discovery is distinctly in its f avour. Therigidity of the older f orm o f the atomic theory israpidly disappearing , if it has not quite disappearedand scientists are f eeling their way out into worldsthe very existence of which was not suspected bythose who had comf ortably settled down to a systemof physics which was go ing t o count the unalterablenumber of atoms in the universe .

THE ELEMENTS ARE NOT ULTIMATES.

At the present time there are some eighty elementswhich chemists hold to be diff erent kinds of matter,so f ar as existing means o f disting uishing them can

determine. There are, however, f ew, if any, authori

ties who would now maintain that the recognition of

elements is the last word of science on the ultimate

Lectures on Non -M etallic Elements, p. 106.

THE OUTLOOK 235

n ature of matter. Tilden, f or example, warns usaga inst such a conclusion. The molecular (atomic)theory has been adopted in a somewhat rigid f orm,

n ot by reason of any special conviction of my ownregarding its permanence as a scientific truth, butbecause I am satisfied by long experience that, whatever f orm it may ultimately assume , it is even now a

m ost important and almost indispensable aid to

teaching chemistry.

” More recently Soddy, whostrongly emphasises the persistence o f the elements,a ffirming that not without reason have the atomsbeen termed the f oundation stones of the universe,

”

nevertheless looks f orward, as we shall see directly,to a time when science may be able to pull them to

pieces and construct them. He points out that, at

the daz z ling temperatures in the sun and the hotstars, dissociation o f the elements into siInpler

f orms has been imagined to be and may be takingplace ; 1

‘and contents himself with recording the

f act tha so f ar, even at the highest temperaturerendered available by the use of the electric furnace ,no indications of a transmutation o f the elements is

yet f orthcoming. Whetham writes Some yearsag o the constancy o f the chemical elements was, in thethen state of knowledge, a law o f Nature. Latterly,the phenomena of radioactivity have f orced us tobelieve that true transmutations o f matteroccur.

”

1: Recent science, then, is f ar f rom beinginimical to the hope that the elements may be reducedto some simpler kind, or kinds, of substance. And

In trod. to ChemicalPhilosophy p. VII.

TM atter and En erg y, p. 143.

1“Recen t DeveZOpment of PhysicalScience p. 36.


what is this but to allow the possibility of transmutation Lord Kelvin , indeed, in 1907, challenged theinf erences then being drawn f rom radioactivity ; buthis objections were eff ectively countered in the courseo f the proceedings at which his pronouncement wasmade ; and subsequent discoveries have overthrownthem.

ISOMERISM AND ALLOTROPISM.

The idea of the alchemists that qualities are

separable thing s, to be taken f rom or added to sub

stances, was erroneous. But it has its measure of

truth. When two atoms of hydrogen are chemicallyunited, there comes in to being a molecule of watera substance so diff erent f rom its constituents thatuntil quite recent times it was held to b e a fundamental element. The discovery of its compoundcharacter was one of the triumphs of the new science.Now what happens when the chemical combinationtakes place Do the hydrogen and oxygen atoms

g ain or lose certa in qualities which are separable f romthem Not at all. They merely manif est certa inqualities which they all along possessed, but couldnot exercise until they were brought into this part icular relation. So a man may have allthe qualitiesof a good general but they cannot, as such, b e putinto action unless he is in relation to an army.

This f act leads us to realise that, even were atomsthemselves absolutely unchangeable, their apparentqualities may be altered by bringing them into new

relations—mew substances may appear. That is tosay, there is a kind o f transmutation possible by giving


the diamond. Could anything be more startlinglydiff erent than the liquid, glancing, transparentdiamond and the Opaque blackness of the other twoAnd yet their ultimate atoms are absolutely the same .

And the diamond heated in the electric are, out of

contact with air, blackens and swells up into a cokelike mass.

” Other well-known instances are oxygenand oz one, and the diff ering f orms o f phosphorus andsulphur. In the case o f sulphur, it would even seemthat the number of atoms in the molecules o f theallotropic f orms—amorphous, plastic, crystalline— isthe sameNow these f acts suggest wider applications. May

it not be possible t o modify simple bodies which are

physica lly alien (so to Speak) in such f ashion that onemay pass into the other Oxygen and sulphur mightf all into such mutual relations. Cobalt and nickelhave the same atomic weights (within a f raction), arealike in most o f their properties, and produce twoparallel series o f compounds. So , also, gold, platinumand iridium are remarkably alike, and suggest thatthey are constituted by the same fundamental matterwith dif ferent arrangements o f atoms . The outlookwould seem to be not altogether hopeless. It mustb e granted, however, that such reciprocal genesiswould have t o be accomplished by some operation o f

quite another order than any now in our power toexecute .

NATURAL FAMILIES OF ELEMENTS.

The considerations last adduced raise a larg erquestion on a grander scale . Allthe known elements

THE OUTLOOK 239

have now been fitted into a series o f f amily groupswhich are themselves united by close and almostsymmetrical relations. The classification is in accordance with what is called the Periodic Law. The

anomalies and exceptions, which are not serious,evidence the interference o f some secondary per

turb ations not yet discovered but the general planis clear, and profoundly suggestive . It is evendefinite enough to allow o f predicting the existence o f

unknown elements, and describing their chief pro

perties.

Now the outstanding f act in all this is that o f

gradated relationship . We find atoms united intogroups o f compound substances with closely relatedproperties, and we know that the result is due to thebuilding up o f these atoms in definite proportions .And when we see that the atoms themselves f all intosim ilar groups, possessing likewise closely relatedproperties, it is emin ently reasonable , if not com

pulsory, to assume that they are built up o f subatoms . That is to say, they are not ultimate , indecomposable things, but composite ; they were not

always what they now are , but have come intobeing by a constructive process. The inf erence isobvious . In the great laboratory o f Nature theycan be made and unmade ; and if scientists can

discover the conditions and the means necessary,they too can make and unmake the elements . Thedifficulty may, as Soddy says, be prodigious ; butthe possibility is there . And thus a new light isthrown upon the old alchemist dictum that Vulcanis a second nature, and im itateth that dexterouslyand compendiously which nature worketh by

240 ALCHEMY- ITS SCIENCE AND ROMANCE

ambag es and leng th of time.” There is a goalf or a new alchemy.

RADIOACTIVITY.

Even were we to limit ourselves to whatwas knownat the close of last century, we should be justified incla iming that a belief in the possibility of transmutation, in a modernised sense of that term, could berationally def ended. But the case was enormouslystrengthened in the Opening years o f the presentcentury in consequence o f the astounding phenomenamanif ested by what are called the radioactive bodies .The story o f how M. and Madame Curie discoveredradium is f amiliar to most of us, and need not here beretold. Nor need we consider in any deta il theradical modifications introduced into scientificdoctrines of matter by the conclusions which the f actof radioactivity compels. Let us simply try to grasp the

main f acts in so f ar as they bear on our special subject.In the first place, let it be clear that chem ists have

not given up their eighty elements ; they still rightlyhold to them as their working ultimates. But theycan no longer point to their science as being fundamental. For atoms cannot now be considered, evenf rom the practical standpoint, to be unchangeable.

Certa in of them can be actually seen, under our Veryeyes, in the process of slow spontaneous disintegration.

The most f amiliar instance is that of radium, which

(as Soddy says) if it is no true element, then the wordelement has no meaning. Its atoms are con

t inuously breaking down into simpler substan ces .They pour f orth a never- ceasing stream of energ y

Bacon , Advancemen t of Learning , p. 59 .


Let us consider in the light o f persent knowledgethe problem of transmutation, and see what theattempt o f the a lchem ist involved. To build up an

ounce of a heavy element like gold f rom a lighterelement like silver would require in allprob ab ility theexpenditure of the energy of some hundreds of tonso f coal, so that the ounce of gold would b e dearlybought. On the other hand, if it were possibleartificially to disintegrate an element with a heavieratom than gold and produce gold f rom it, so great anamount of energy would probably be evolved that thegold in comparison would be o f little account. Theenerg y would be f ar more valuable than go ld. Althoughwe are as ignorant as ever of how to set about transmutation, it cannot be denied that the knowledgerecently gained constitutes a very great help towardsa proper understanding of the problem and itsultimate accomplishment. We see clearly the magnitude of the task and the unsufficiency of even the mostpowerful o f the means at our disposal in a way n ot

bef ore appreciated, and we have nowa clear perceptionof the tremendous issues at stake. Looking backwards at the great things science has already aecom

plished, and at the steady growth in power and f ruitf ulness o f scientific method, it can scarcely be doubtedthat one day we shall come to break down and buildup elements in the laboratory as we now break downand build up compounds, and the pulses o f the worldwill then throb with a new source of streng th as

immeasurably removed f rom any we at presentcontrol as they in turn are f rom the natural resourceso f the human savage.”

The Interpretation of Radium, pp. 237, 238.

THE OUTLOOK 243

THE m m OF LIFE.

But what of the alchemist’s hope o f discoveringan Elixir which should give health and longevity, ifnot imm ortality That surely must be dismissed as

,an idle dream. Well, it must be acknowledged thatthe outlook in this regard is not nearly so hopeful asin the case f or transmutation. The advances madein the healing art are wonderful, and have secured f orus a longer average lif e . But there is little expectationof discovering some wholly new panacea like thef amed Elixir. There are, indeed, not a f ew authoritiesamong physicians who contend that death is not an

inevitable f ate, but that it is due to disease. If theyare right, and if they can trace the causes of thatdisease—atrophy, sclerosis of the arteries, and so f orth—then the remedy may be f orthcoming. The generalOpinion, however, is that old ag e and death are theresults o f processes inherent in the organism, and

theref ore inevitable .

But another point of View may be taken. Thealchemists linked together the ideas o f the PhiloSopher’s Stone and of the Elixir, and held that to findone would be to find the other. The Stone wouldgive the power to transmute, and so would put men

in possession o f virtues and influences exceeding thoseof normal experience . Translate this into modernterminolog y. If scientists can find a key to unlockthe structure o f the atom, they will be in possession o f

boundless supplies o f new f orms of energy. Whoknows but that in some of these f orms there may be

f ound the lif e- f orce which has rendered possiblethe whole upward impulse of organic evolution The


Speculation is a daring one. It must not claim to bemore than a Speculation. And yet there is nothingin it that is contrary to reason—nothing, even, thatis out o f harmony with positive science . An d thusonce again we may acknowledge that Hermeticphilosophers had glimpses of possibilities which m ayyet be realised. For if the prima l mysterious lif ef orce can be brought under control, it cannot fa il to beexploited f or the healing of disease and the wardingoff of decay.

CONCLUSION.

The long story has been unf olded. A glance intothe future has been ventured. What shall be our

final verdict on alchemy A superficial judge willseiz e on its superstitions and errors, its f ollies and itsf rauds. He will condemn. If he be a man inclinedto mercy, he will temper his sentence by an expressionof regret that so f anatical a devotion should havebeen wasted on a f alse and useless art . Would hedecide thus in the case Of astrolog y If not , whynot

‘2 The lore o f the astrologer issued in the science

of astronomy. The lore o f the alchemist issued in thescience of chem istry. The advantage of comparative

Simplicity in subject matter rested with the men whostudied the phenomena o f the Spangled heavens. Let

this f act be kept in mind, and a juster verdict will b epronounced. The errors were mostly the couse

quences of the extraordinary complexity and subtletyof chemical actions, and of adherence to the tenets o f

a misleading philosophy.

A generous and large-minded judge will disregardthe f ollies, will thrust aside the .

charlatans, to fix his

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