mpting doublets of gold and
silver might be thrown from the dice-box with which he was gambling.

But when the precious metals were found in lead and copper by the action
of powerful re-agents, it was natural to suppose that they had been
actually formed during the process; and men of well-regulated minds even
might have thus been led to embark in new adventures to procure a more
copious supply, without any insult being offered to sober reason, or any
injury inflicted on sound morality.

When an ardent and ambitious mind is once dazzled with the fascination
of some lofty pursuit, where gold is the object, or fame the impulse, it
is difficult to pause in a doubtful career, and to make a voluntary
shipwreck of the reputation which has been staked. Hope still cheers
the aspirant from failure to failure, till the loss of fortune and the
decay of credit disturb the serenity of his mind, and hurry him on to
the last resource of baffled ingenuity and disappointed ambition. The
philosopher thus becomes an impostor; and by the pretended transmutation
of the baser metals into gold, or the discovery of the philosopher's
stone, he attempts to sustain his sinking reputation, and recover the
fortune he has lost. The communication of the great secret is now the
staple commodity with which he is to barter, and the grand talisman with
which he is to conjure. It can be imparted only to a chosen few--to
those among the opulent who merit it by their virtues, and can acquire
it by their diligence, and the divine vengeance is threatened against
its disclosure. A process commencing in fraud and terminating in
mysticism is conveyed to the wealthy aspirant, or instilled into the
young enthusiast, and the grand mystery passes current for a season,
till some cautious professor of the art, like Tycho, denounces its
publication as detrimental to society.

Among the extravagant pretensions of the alchemists, that of forming a
universal medicine was perhaps not the most irrational. It was only when
they pretended to cure every disease, and to confer longevity, that they
did violence to reason. The success of the Arabian physicians in the use
of mercurial preparations naturally led to the belief that other
medicines, still more general in their application, and efficacious in
their healing powers, might yet be brought to light; and we have no
doubt that many substantial discoveries were the result of such
overstrained expectations. Tycho was not mer