It is needless to say that with this method any meaning could be extracted from any allegorical writings. The author of the “Suggestive Inquiry” is far more profound and evinces a far keener insight. It is evident, however, that the truth (or the fallacy) of both methods of interpretation depends on the connection of the alchemists with practical chemistry. On this vital question, the uniocular condition of both writers is utterly astounding.
“No modern art or chemistry has anything to do with alchemy, beyond the borrowed terms which were made use of in continuance chiefly to veil the latter.” That is to say, the alchemists did not lay the foundations of the science, the beginnings of which are attributed to them, and in this matter we are not by any means indebted to them. This extreme statement is qualified by the later commentator, who gives a more detailed expression to his views.
“That chemistry is indebted for its introduction among the sciences indirectly to the alchemists is certainly true; at least I have no disposition to question it; but not to the immediate labours of the alchemists themselves, whose peculiar work was one of contemplation and not of the hands. Their alembic, furnace, cucurbit, retort, philosophical egg, &c., in which the work of fermentation, distillation, extraction of essence and spirits, and the preparation of salts is said to have taken place, was man—yourself, friendly reader; and if you will take yourself into your own study, and be candid and honest, acknowledging no other guide or authority but Truth, you may easily discover something of Hermetic philosophy; and if at the beginning there should be ‘fear and trembling,’ the end may be a more than compensating peace.
“It is a plain case, that, for the most part, the experiments which led the way to chemistry were made by men who were misled by the alchemists, and sought gold instead of truth; but this class of men wrote no books upon alchemy. Many of them no doubt died over their furnaces, ‘uttering no voice,’ and none of them wrote books upon the philosopher’s stone, for the simple reason that they never discovered anything to write about. I know that some impostors purposely wrote of mysteries to play upon the credulity of the ignorant, but their works have nothing alchemical about them. It is true also that many books were written by men who really imagined that they had discovered the secret, and were nevertheless mistaken. But this imaginary success could never have had place when gold was the object, because in the bald fact no man was ever deceived: no man ever believed that he had discovered a method of making gold out of inferior metals. The thing speaks for itself. It is impossible that any man can ever be deluded upon this bare fact; but it is quite otherwise with the real object of alchemy, in which men have been deceived in all ages ... for the subject is always in the world, and hence the antiquity claimed for the art by the alchemists.”
This passage is a long series of simply incredible misstatements. The history of chemistry and the lives of the adepts alike bear witness against it. My object in publishing this book is to establish the true nature of the Hermetic experiment by an account of those men who have undertaken it, and who are shewn by the plain facts of their histories to have been in search of the transmutation of metals. There is no need for argument; the facts speak sufficiently. It is not to the blind followers of the alchemists that we owe the foundation of chemistry; it is to the adepts themselves, to the illustrious Geber, to that grand master Basilius Valentinus, to Raymond Lully, the supreme hierophant. What they discovered will be found in the following pages; here it will be sufficient for my purpose to quote the views of a French scientist who has made a speciality of alchemy, and who is also a high authority on the subject of modern chemistry.
“It is impossible to disown that alchemy has most directly contributed to the creation and the progress of modern physical sciences. The alchemists were the first to put the experimental method in practice, that is, the faculty of observation and induction in its application to scientific researches; moreover, by uniting a considerable number of facts and discoveries in the order of the molecular actions of bodies, they have introduced the creation of chemistry. This fact ... is beyond every doubt. Before the eighth century, Geber put in practice the rules of that experimental school, the practical code and general principles of which were merely developed later on by Galileo and Francis Bacon. The works of Geber, the ‘Sum of all Perfection,’ and the ‘Treatise on Furnaces,’ contain an account of processes and operations wholly conformed to the methods made use of to-day in chemical investigations; while Roger Bacon, in the thirteenth century, applying the same order of ideas to the study of physics, was led to discoveries which, for his time, were astounding. It is impossible, therefore, to contest that the alchemists were the first to inaugurate the art of experience. They prepared the arrival of the positive sciences by basing the interpretation of phenomena on the observation of facts, and openly breaking with the barren metaphysical traditions which had so long checked the progress of the human mind.”[B]
With all their mystery, their subterfuges, and their symbolism, the testimony of the alchemists themselves to the physical nature of their object is quite unequivocal and conclusive. One of the most celebrated experimental treatises in the English language is that entitled “The Marrow of Alchemy.” It professes to discover the secrets and most hidden mystery of the philosopher’s elixir, both in theory and practice. It was published by Eirenæus Philoponos Philalethes, that is George Starkey, and is generally supposed to be the work of the true Philalethes; at any rate it develops his principles, and derives its inspiration from the author of the Introitus Apertus. Now, this little book testifies over and over again, and that in the most emphatic manner, to the physical object of the alchemists, and to the fact that they operated on common gold.
“The first matter which we take for our work is gold, and with it mercury, which we decoct till neither will forsake the other, in which work both die, rot by putrefaction, and after that are regenerate in glory. It is actual gold and nothing else. What does not equal a metal in weight will never enter it in flux. Nothing but the metalline will dwell with metals.” A severe criticism is passed on the blind folly of those who endeavour to reap the secret stone from strange material subjects. “Gold is the subject of our art alone, since by it we seek gold.” Those who, like the noble son of art, Morien, advise students to descend into themselves to find the true matter, only intended to point out how kind begets kind:—
“As then himself his likeness did beget,