Bygone Beliefs: Being a Series of Excursions in the Byways of Thought

by H. Stanley Redgrove

By mystical philosophy I mean that system of philosophical thought which emphasises the unity of the Cosmos, asserting that God and the spiritual may be perceived immanent in the things of this world, because all things natural are symbols and emblems of spiritual verities. As one of the Golden Verses attributed to PYTHAGORAS, which I have quoted in a previous essay, puts it: "The Nature of this Universe is in all things alike"; commenting upon which, HIEROCLES, writing in the fifth or sixth century, remarks that "Nature, in forming this Universe after the Divine Measure and Proportion, made it in all things conformable and like to itself, analogically in different manners. Of all the different species, diffused throughout the whole, it made, as it were, an Image of the Divine Beauty, imparting variously to the copy the perfections of the Original."(1) We have, however, already encountered so many instances of this belief, that no more need be said here concerning it.

(1) Commentary of HIEROCLES on the Golden Verses of PYTHAGORAS (trans. by N. ROWE, 1906), pp. 101 and 102.

In fine, as Dean INGE well says: "Religious Mysticism may be defined as the attempt to realise the presence of the living God in the soul and in nature, or, more generally, as the attempt to realise, in thought and feeling, the immanence of the temporal in the eternal, and of the eternal in the temporal."(2)

(2) WILLIAM RALPH INGE, M.A.: Christian Mysticism (the Bampton Lectures, 1899), p. 5.

Now, doctrines such as these were not only very prevalent during the Middle Ages, when alchemy so greatly flourished, but are of great antiquity, and were undoubtedly believed in by the learned class in Egypt and elsewhere in the East in those remote days when, as some think, alchemy originated, though the evidence, as will, I hope, become plain as we proceed, points to a later and post-Christian origin for the central theorem of alchemy. So far as we can judge from their writings, the more important alchemists were convinced of the truth of these doctrines, and it was with such beliefs in mind that they commenced their investigations of physical and chemical phenomena. Indeed, if we may judge by the esteem in which the Hermetic maxim, "What is above is as that which is below, what is below is as that which is above, to accomplish the miracles of the One Thing," was held by every alchemist, we are justified in asserting that the mystical theory of the spiritual significance of Nature—a theory with which, as we have seen, is closely connected the Neoplatonic and Kabalistic doctrine that all things emanate in series from the Divine Source of all Being—was at the very heart of alchemy. As writes one alchemist: "... the Sages have been taught of God that this natural world is only an image and material copy of a heavenly and spiritual pattern; that the very existence of this world is based upon the reality of its celestial archetype; and that God has created it in imitation of the spiritual and invisible universe, in order that men might be the better enabled to comprehend His heavenly teaching, and the wonders of His absolute and ineffable power and wisdom. Thus the sage sees heaven reflected in Nature as in a mirror; and he pursues this Art, not for the sake of gold or silver, but for the love of the knowledge which it reveals; he jealously conceals it from the sinner and the scornful, lest the mysteries of heaven should be laid bare to the vulgar gaze."(1)

(1) MICHAEL SENDIVOGIUS (?): The New Chemical Light, Pt. II., Concerning Sulphur. (See The Hermetic Museum, vol. ii. p. 138.)

The alchemists, I hold, convinced of the truth of this view of Nature, i.e. that principles true of one plane of being are true also of all other planes, adopted analogy as their guide in dealing with the facts of chemistry and physics known to them. They endeavoured to explain these facts by an application to them of the principles of mystical theology, their chief aim being to prove the truth of these principles as applied to the facts of the natural realm, and by studying natural phenomena to become instructed in spiritual truth. They did not proceed by the sure, but slow, method of modern science, i.e. the method of induction, which questions experience at every step in the construction of a theory; but they boldly allowed their imaginations to leap ahead and to formulate a complete theory of the Cosmos on the strength of but few facts. This led them into many fantastic errors, but I would not venture to deny them an intuitive perception of certain fundamental truths concerning the constitution of the Cosmos, even if they distorted these truths and dressed them in a fantastic garb.

Now, as I hope to make plain in the course of this excursion, the alchemists regarded the discovery of the Philosopher's Stone and the transmutation of "base" metals into gold as the consummation of the proof of the doctrines of mystical theology as applied to chemical phenomena, and it was as such that they so ardently sought to achieve the magnum opus, as this transmutation was called. Of course, it would be useless to deny that many, accepting the truth of the great alchemical theorem, sought for the Philosopher's Stone because of what was claimed for it in the way of material benefits. But, as I have already indicated, with the nobler alchemists this was not the case, and the desire for wealth, if present at all, was merely a secondary object.

The idea expressed in DALTON'S atomic hypothesis (1802), and universally held during the nineteenth century, that the material world is made up of a certain limited number of elements unalterable in quantity, subject in themselves to no change or development, and inconvertible one into another, is quite alien to the views of the alchemists. The alchemists conceived the universe to be a unity; they believed that all material bodies had been developed from one seed; their elements are merely different forms of one matter and, therefore, convertible one into another. They were thoroughgoing evolutionists with regard to the things of the material world, and their theory concerning the evolution of the metals was, I believe, the direct outcome of a metallurgical application of the mystical doctrine of the soul's development and regeneration. The metals, they taught, all spring from the same seed in Nature's womb, but are not all equally matured and perfect; for, as they say, although Nature always intends to produce only gold, various impurities impede the process. In the metals the alchemists saw symbols of man in the various stages of his spiritual development. Gold, the most beautiful as well as the most untarnishable metal, keeping its beauty permanently, unaffected by sulphur, most acids, and fire—indeed, purified by such treatment,—gold, to the alchemist, was the symbol of regenerate man, and therefore he called it "a noble metal". Silver was also termed "noble"; but it was regarded as less mature than gold, for, although it is undoubtedly beautiful and withstands the action of fire, it is corroded by nitric acid and is blackened by sulphur; it was, therefore, considered to be analogous to the regenerate man at a lower stage of his development. Possibly we shall not be far wrong in using SWEDENBORG'S terms, "celestial" to describe the man of gold, "spiritual" to designate him of silver. Lead, on the other hand, the alchemists regarded as a very immature and impure metal: heavy and dull, corroded by sulphur and nitric acid, and converted into a calx by the action of fire,—lead, to the alchemists, was a symbol of man in a sinful and unregenerate condition.

The alchemists assumed the existence of three principles in the metals, their obvious reason for so doing being the mystical threefold division of man into body, soul (i.e. affections and will), and spirit (i.e. intelligence), though the principle corresponding to body was a comparatively late introduction in alchemical philosophy. This latter fact, however, is no argument against my thesis; because, of course, I do not maintain that the alchemists started out with their chemical philosophy ready made, but gradually worked it out, by incorporating in it further doctrines drawn from mystical theology. The three principles just referred to were called "mercury," "sulphur," and "salt"; and they must be distinguished from the common bodies so designated (though the alchemists themselves seem often guilty of confusing them). "Mercury" is the metallic principle par excellence, conferring on metals their brightness and fusibility, and corresponding to the spirit or intelligence in man.(1) "Sulphur," the principle of combustion and colour, is the analogue of the soul. Many alchemists postulated two sulphurs in the metals, an inward and an outward.(1b) The outward sulphur was thought to be the chief cause of metallic impurity, and the reason why all (known) metals, save gold and silver, were acted on by fire. The inward sulphur, on the other hand, was regarded as essential to the development of the metals: pure mercury, we are told, matured by a pure inward sulphur yields pure gold. Here again it is evident that the alchemists borrowed their theories from mystical theology; for, clearly, inward sulphur is nothing else than the equivalent to love of God; outward sulphur to love of self. Intelligence (mercury) matured by love to God (inward sulphur) exactly expresses the spiritual state of the regenerate man according to mystical theology. There is no reason, other than their belief in analogy, why the alchemists should have held such views concerning the metals. "Salt," the principle of solidity and resistance to fire, corresponding to the body in man, plays a comparatively unimportant part in alchemical theory, as does its prototype in mystical theology.