things. "Alchemy," a modern writer says, "is the science of the soul of all things."

The essence was supposed to have a material form, an ethereal or middle nature, and an immaterial or spiritual life.

No one might hope to make this essence from any one substance, because, as one of the alchemists says, "It is the attribute of God alone to make one out of one; you must produce one thing out of two by natural generation." The alchemists did not pretend to create gold, but only to produce it from other things.

The author of A Brief Guide to the Celestial Ruby says: "We do not, as is sometimes said, profess to create gold and silver, but only to find an agent which ... is capable of entering into an intimate and maturing union with the Mercury of the base metals." And again: "Our Art ... only arrogates to itself the power of developing, through the removal of all defects and superfluities, the golden nature which the baser metals possess." Bonus, in his tract on The New Pearl of Great Price (16th century), says: "The Art of Alchemy ... does not create metals, or even develop them out of the metallic first-substance; it only takes up the unfinished handicraft of Nature and completes it.... Nature has only left a comparatively small thing for the artist to do—the completion of that which she has already begun."

If the essence were ever attained, it would be by following the course which nature follows in producing the perfect plant from the imperfect seed, by discovering and separating the seed of metals, and bringing that seed under the conditions which alone are suitable for its growth. Metals must have seed, the alchemists said, for it would be absurd to suppose they have none. "What prerogative have vegetables above metals," exclaims one of them, "that God should give seed to the one and withhold it from the other? Are not metals as much in His sight as trees?"

As metals, then, possess seed, it is evident how this seed is to be made active; the seed of a plant is quickened by descending into the earth, therefore the seed of metals must be destroyed before it becomes life-producing. "The processes of our art must begin with dissolution of gold; they must terminate in a restoration of the essential quality of gold." "Gold does not easily give up its nature, and will fight for its life; but our agent is strong enough to overcome and kill it, and then it also has power to restore it to life, and to change the lifeless remains into a new and pure body."

The application of the doctrine of the existence of seed in metals led to the performance of many experiments, and, hence, to the accumulation of a considerable body of facts established by experimental inquiries. The belief of the alchemists that all natural events are connected by a hidden thread, that everything has an influence on other things, that "what is above is as what is below," constrained them to place stress on the supposed connexion between the planets and the metals, and to further their metallic transformations by performing them at times when certain planets were in conjunction. The seven principal planets and the seven principal metals were called by the same names: Sol (gold), Luna (silver), Saturn (lead), Jupiter (tin), Mars (iron), Venus (copper), and Mercury (mercury). The author of The New Chemical Light taught that one metal could be propagated from another only in the order of superiority of the planets. He placed the seven planets in the following descending order: Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sol, Venus, Mercury, Luna. "The virtues of the planets descend," he said, "but do not ascend"; it is easy to change Mars (iron) into Venus (copper), for instance, but Venus cannot be transformed into Mars.

Although the alchemists regarded everything as influencing, and influenced by, other things, they were persuaded that the greatest effects are produced on a substance by substances of like nature with itself. Hence, most of them taught that the seed of metals will be obtained by operations with metals, not by the action on metals of things of animal or vegetable origin. Each class of substances, they said, has a life, or spirit (an essential character, we might say) of its own. "The life of sulphur," Paracelsus said, "is a combustible, ill-smelling, fatness.... The life of gems and corals is mere colour.... The life of water is its flowing.... The life of fire is air." Grant an attraction of like to like, and the reason becomes apparent for such directions as these: "Nothing heterogeneous must be introduced into our magistery"; "Everything should be made to act on that which is like it, and then Nature will perform her duty."

Although each class of substances was said by the alchemists to have its own particular character, or life, nevertheless they taught that there is a deep-seated likeness between all things, inasmuch as the power of the essence, or the one thing, is so great that under its influence different things are produced from the same origin, and different things are caused to pass into and become the same thing. In The New Chemical Light it is said: "While the seed of all things is one, it is made to generate a great variety of things."

It is not easy now—it could not have been easy at any time—to give clear and exact meanings to the doctrines of the alchemists, or the directions they gave for performing the operations necessary for the production of the object of their search. And the difficulty is much increased when we are told that "The Sage jealously conceals [his knowledge] from the sinner and the scornful, lest the mysteries of heaven should be laid bare to the vulgar gaze." We almost despair when an alchemical writer assures us that the Sages "Set pen to paper for the express purpose of concealing their meaning. The sense of a whole passage is often hopelessly obscured by the addition or omission of one little word, for instance the addition of the word not in the wrong place." Another writer says: "The Sages are in the habit of using words which may convey either a true or a false impression; the former to their own disciples and children, the latter to the ignorant, the foolish, and the unworthy." Sometimes, after descriptions of processes couched in strange and mystical language, the writer will add, "If you cannot perceive what you ought to understand herein, you should not devote yourself to the study of philosophy." Philalethes, in his Brief Guide to the Celestial Ruby, seems to feel some pity for his readers; after describing what he calls "the generic homogeneous water of gold," he says: "If you wish for a more particular description of our water, I am impelled by motives of charity to tell you that it is living, flexible, clear, nitid, white as snow, hot, humid, airy, vaporous, and digestive."

Alchemy began by asserting that nature must be simple; it assumed that a knowledge of the plan and method of natural occurrences is to be obtained by thinking; and it used analogy as the guide in applying this knowledge of nature's design to particular events, especially the analogy, assumed by alchemy to exist, between material phenomena and human emotions.

CHAPTER III.

THE ALCHEMICAL CONCEPTION OF THE UNITY AND SIMPLICITY OF NATURE.

In the preceding chapter I have referred to the frequent use made by the alchemists of their supposition that nature follows the same plan, or at any rate a very similar plan, in all her processes. If this supposition is accepted, the primary business of an investigator of nature is to trace likenesses and analogies between what seem on the surface to be dissimilar and unconnected events. As this idea, and this practice, were the foundations whereon the superstructure of alchemy was raised, I think it is important to amplify them more fully than I have done already.