Symbols for: To Lute. Sublimated Mercury. Precipitated Mercury. Nitre. Realgar. Sand. Soap. Sal Alkali. Sal Ammoniac. Salt. Talc. Vinegar. Verdigris. Vitriol. Urine. Day. Night.
CHAPTER VII.
THE PHILOSOPHER’S STONE.
The dominating ambition of the early alchemists was to discover the unknown. In the same spirit the modern worker in science gropes onward, and dreams of discovering some contribution towards solving the elixir of life, in the form, it may be, of conquering at least one fell disease. The ancient workers in alchemy confined their researches almost exclusively to metals; they believed that all natural things were composed of four elements, which they termed Fire, Air, Earth, and Water. “When these four elements are conjoined,” says Roger Bacon, in his Radix Mundi, “they become another thing, whereas it is evident that all things in Nature are composed of the said elements being altered and changed.”
But the patient researches of the alchemists were not so much due to a love for scientific investigation as to the overwhelming desire to gain wealth.
