Such are some of the main contentions of the alchemists. It is evident that the whole structure of these seekers after the secret of nature rests on the ultimate unity of matter. The recent trend of science is interesting on this point. When men broke away from the philosophy of which alchemy was a part, they went to the opposite extreme. Strict separation of the sorts of existing things was the order of the day. In the domain of animal life separation of species reigned, and with it its corollary, special creation of each species. But now we are moving toward unity in

That the heate be equipolent to the Hen upon her Eggs.

11. Such heate continually loke thou doe not lack, Forty dayes long for their perfect union

In them is made; For first it turnes to Black,

12. Forty dayes more the Matter shall turne White, And cleere as Pearles;

Then you are to increase the fire and watch the changing colors until appeareth Yellow the messenger of the Redd,

13.

When that is come then hast thou well sped,
And hast brought forth a Stone of price,

Which Raymund calls his Basiliske and Cocatrice.

14. Then 40 dayes to take his whole Fixation,

16. Now give thankes to the blessed Trinity,
For the benefit of this precious Stone,

That with his grace hath so much lightned thee,
Him for to know being three in one,

Hold up thy hands to his heavenly Throne.

To his Majesty let us sing Hosanna,

Altissimo Deo sit honor & gloria.-Ashmole, 320 ff.

This is a fair specimen. I have shortened it by cutting out everything not pertinent to the 'confection.' Similar farragos of nonsense may be seen in Ashmole; Pater Sapientiae, pp. 194 ff., Pearce the Black Monk upon the Elixir, pp. 269 ff., and an anonymous work, pp. 344 ff., et alibi ad nauseam.

our beliefs as to the matter of the world. The seventy-odd inseparable elements of chemistry are suspected to be, at the bottom, merely different arrangements of the same elementary matter. Thus we may be coming back to the same belief in a prima materia that the alchemists held. Let it be clear, however, that this is not a recurrence to their cosmical scheme. They evolved the world from the prima materia, through essences whose presence in various portions of the fundamental matter differentiated those portions from each other into the substances which we know. We, if we come to such a belief, will account for the universe not by means of dominant essences, but by an explanation of the arrangement of component particles, their molecular motion, and the like. The alchemist hoped to obtain power over nature by concentrating in a small piece of matter these general principles; we hope—if we let ourselves look in that direction-to control nature by exact knowledge of the constitution of her substance. I quote from a paper read by H. C. Bolton before the New York Section of the American Chemical Society, October 1, 18971:

Recent discoveries in physics, chemistry and psychology have given the disciples of Hermes renewed hopes, and the present position of chemical philosophy has given the fundamental doctrine of alchemy a substantial impetus; the favorite theory of a prima materia, or primary matter, the basis of all the elementary bodies, has received new support by the discoveries of allotropism of the elements, isomerism of organic compounds, the revelations of the spectroscope, the practical demonstrations by Norman Lockyer, the experiments on the specific heat of gaseous bodies at a high temperature by Mallard and Le Châtelier, the discoveries of Sir William Crookes as set forth in his monograph on 'Meta-elements,' the discovery by Carey Lea of several singular allotropic forms of silver, and, most weighty of all, the mass of related facts and phenomena which find their ultimate expression in the Periodic Law of the Elements, so that many chemists of the present day are inclined to believe in the mutual convertibility of elements having similar chemical properties. Daniel Berthelot, in his notable work entitled 'De l'allotropie des corps simples,' boldly affirms his belief in the unity of matter. He says: 'Without seeking to find in any one of the known elements the generator of the others, can we not invoke the facts that we have revealed in our study of carbon, in favor

of the hypothesis of a unique matter unequally condensed?' And elsewhere he writes: The transmutation of an element is nothing more than the transformation of the motions which determine the existence of said element, and which give it special properties, into the specific motions peculiar to the existence of another element '.'

And again :

There is a growing belief among advanced chemists in the theory that the elementary bodies as known to us are compounds of a unique primary matter (protyle), and that transformation of one kind into a similar one is not beyond the bounds of possibility, but we do not think that the modern hermetists are pursuing the right path to accomplish this end; nor do we believe that the world of science is any nearer the coveted goal of alchemical avarice 2.

For the position of the alchemists of to-day-and there are such-I must refer to Bolton's paper quoted above. They try to keep in touch with modern chemistry. Their position is something in this sort: literal alchemy as the transmutation of metal rests on the theory that the nature of all things is the same, and that, if we knew the composition and mutual interrelations of all substances, we could as easily make gold from tin as the chemist performs his simplest operations.

Abuses and Knavery.

Alchemy and knavery have been yoked in one team as far back as we know aught of alchemy. 'Fraud, folly and failure have been deeply written into the annals of alchemy in all ages. The opportunities were so great that human nature could not but use them. Without doubt there were at all times honest alchemists who toiled hard and hoped nobly. But side by side with them worked the cunning swindler who traded on the credit of the craft and the gullibility of the people. Granted a belief that a magical device for creating limitless wealth is in the grasp of the alchemical student, and you can expect a crop of impostors to spring up like Jonah's gourd. Men in all ages are swindled by what they believe. The 1 Reprint, p. 3. 2 Ibid., p. 20.

3 Ibid.,

p. 1.

cunningest confidence-men are those who best understand your heart and see deepest into the secrets of your inmost soul. A clergyman like Jernegan, of sea-water fame, can 'give cards and spades' to the non-religious swindler and win easily.

Alchemy was an especially favorable field for swindling for several reasons:

1. The mystery surrounding it. None but the adepts professed to know aught of it, and whoso tried to read their books ever found but one clear statement, and that is to the effect that the author knew what he meant and could make the stone. He took good care that no one else should know what he meant.

2. The exacting attention and scrupulous fidelity to detail which all the authorities demanded. The slightest error in the proper temperature of a crucible, the slightest deviation from the true proportion of the ingredients, or the least impurity in them, invalidated all the work. This always furnished excuse for failure and hope for the next trial. Chaucer 1 well described a post-mortem held on an unsuccessful experiment by a group of alchemists. The vessel containing their hopeful mixture had burst under the strain of the gases generated within:

Whan that our pot is broke, as I have sayd,
Every man chit, and halt him yvel apayd.
Som seyde, it was long on the fyr-making,

Som seyde, nay! it was on the blowing;

'Straw!' quod the thridde, 'ye been lewed and nyce,
It was nat tempred as it oghte be.'

'Nay!' quod the ferthe, 'stint, and herkne me;

By-cause our fyr ne was nat maad of beech,

That is the cause, and other noon, so theech."

After a little more debate of this kind, they gather up the fragments and start over again. The gold-making hope is a will-o'-the-wisp that never dies.

3. Another condition conducive to facility in swindling was the semi-illegal character of the pursuit. Church and 1 Chanouns Yemannes Tale, G. 920-9.

state always looked on alchemy and its allied pursuits with suspicious eye. From time to time laws were passed against it. In 1404 the English Parliament declared the making of gold and silver a felony. The people had no doubts at all. In their mind the professor of alchemy was in league with the devil, and they took great joy in breaking his windows with stones. So do their successors to-day to those whom they suspect of knowing something more than their thick-skulled selves.

Alchemy being thus somewhat under the ban, and the more that its professors generally were suspected of sorcery, which had always been under the ban, tho never so vindictively and blindly pursued in England as after the accession of James I, men who resorted to the alchemists were likely to keep the matter to themselves even tho they were fleeced. An attempt to bring the 'cunning man' to legal punishment might bring unpleasant consequences to his late customer. Dealing with the devil's ministers was not highly thought of.

But these specific helps to alchemical knavery would be useless without popular belief to support them. Of that there was no lack. Indeed, the automatic swallowing apparatus of mankind has always been of preternatural power. Nowhere has it justified its repute more than in the annals of alchemy. Let us consider a moment the beliefs which rendered possible the alchemical swindle.

At the bottom the whole structure of medieval thought rested on magic1. Magic dominated the church, the scientists (save the name!), and the people. They thought in terms of magic. Now magic is a doctrine of external correspondences. Its essence is the production of effects in ways inconceivable by reason. Medieval science was magic. It sought effects not by natural laws but by transcendent correspondences. Hence there was nothing improbable in alchemy and astrology, in talking with spirits, in making the sun stand still. They were 1 Cf. V. Rydberg, The Magic of the Middle Ages, pp. 30 ff.