rains after perfection. The alchemist found that metals were worn away, eaten through, broken, and finally caused to disappear, by many acid and acrid liquids which he prepared from mineral subs

fect in the alchemical s

-evident to the alchemical mind that nature must form gold slowly i

d and lead is not one of substance, but of digestion; in the baser metal the coction has not been such as to purge out its metallic impurities. If by any means this superfluous impure matter could be organically removed from the base

adduced as proofs that, as the author of The New Pearl of Great Price says, "Nature is continually at work changing other metals into gold, because, though in a certain sense they are complete in themselves, they have not yet reached the highest perfection of which they are c

metals was part and parcel of a system of natural philosophy. If this transmutation were impossible, the alchemical scheme of things would be destroyed, the believer in the transmutation would be left without a sense of order in the material universe. And, moreover, the alchemist's conception of an orderly material universe was so intimately connect

by nature brings to perfection other living things; for the alchemist's belief in

by careful breeding. By similar processes metals will be encouraged and helped towards perfection. The perfect state of gold will

re a

nature in the

instant; someth

be remote

rst beget the

she to th

ecomes very ultra-physical. It may, per

o have a body, a soul, and a spirit; there is a specific bodily, or material, form belonging to each metal; there is a metalline soul c

this kind of imagery, and it was very real to them. In like manner the spirit of metals will be laid bare and enabled to exercise its transforming influences, only when th

ndria in the 7th century; and in the 17th century Paracelsus said, "Nothing of true value is located in the

into another like itself; it will not suffice for the great transmutation, for in that process a metal becomes gold, the one

fic bodily and material forms of things; beneath these, there are certain Elements which are common to many things whose principles are not the same; an

conceptions of Elements and Principles, and in the next c

es, Basil Valentine speaks of the "three Principles," salt

centre another element which makes it what i

ly heavy, but naturally light.... It receives all that the other three project into it, conscientiously conceals what it should hid

xists in three degrees of excellence: the pure, the purer, and the purest. Of its purest substance the heavens were created; of that which is less pur

ile, but may be fixed, and when fixed renders all bodies penetrable.... It is nobl

s, penetrant, digestive, inwardly fixed, hot and dry, outwardly visible, and tempered by the earth.... This Element i

lly mingled and infected with the corruptible elements of the outer world, and thus his body became more and more gross, and liable, through its grossness, to natural decay and death." The process of degeneration was slow at first, but "as tim

ater acting on Earth produced Salt. Earth having nothing to act on produced nothing, but became the nurse of the three Principles. "The three Principles," he says, "are necessary because they are the

d determine which of the three Principles he is seeking, and should assist it so that it may overcome its contrary." "The art cons

given by Philalethes differs

analysing the properties of the three Elements, Philalethes reduced them finally to one, namely, Water. "Water," he says, "is the first principle of all things." "Earth is th

en Mercury has been matured, developed, and perfected, that it is able to transmute inferior metals into gold. The essential thing to do is,

nciples into expressions which shall have definite and exact meanings for us to-day, still we may, perhaps,

something was called the Element, Water. Similarly, the view prevailed until comparatively recent times, that burning substances burn because of the presenc

ing fire and water as material things; when we say "the house is on fire," or speak of "a diamond of the first water," we are thinking of the condition or state of a burning body, or of a substance as transpare

d before us; they used the words fire

r in size, weight, shape, colour, texture, &c. A soft thing may weigh the same as a hard thing; both may have the same colour or the same size, or be at the same temperature, and so on. By classing together various things a

Elements and Principles

s or the same Principles, they meant that these things contained a common substance. Their Elements and Principles were n

meaning to the sayings of Basil Valentine, which I have quoted. For instance, when that alchemist tells us, "Fire is the most passive of all elements, and resembles a chariot; when it is drawn, it moves; when it

re is still employed rather as a quality of many things under special conditions, than as a specific substance; but earth, water, air, salt, sulphur, and mercury, are to-day the na

e," he says, "is not the sulphur of another, to the great injury of science. To that one replies that everyone is perfectly free to baptise his infant as he pleases. Granted. You may if you like call an ass an ox, but you will never make anyone believe that your ox is an ass." Boyle is very severe on the vague and loose use of words practised by so many writers of his time. In The Sceptical Chymist (published 1678-9) he says: "If judicious men, skilled in chymical affairs, shall once agree to write clearly and plainly of them,

principles matured this seed and brought it to perfection. They supposed that each class, or kind, of things had

on seed, and that the nature of the products of this seed is con

e New Chemical Light, drawn from the fountain of

which cannot be used for vital generation is thrust forth in the shape of stones and other rubbish. This is the fountain-head of all things terrestrial. Let us illustrate the matter by supposing a glass of water to be set in the middle of a table, round the margin of which are placed little heaps of salt, and of powders of different colours. If the water be poured out, it will run all over the table in divergent rivulets, and will become salt where it touches the salt, red where it touches the red powder, and so on. The water does not change the 'places,' b