lieves in the genuineness of their alleged authorship.

The most obvious example of a mediaeval animistic belief is that in
"elementals"--the spirits which personify the primordial forces of
Nature, and are symbolised by the four elements, immanent in which they
were supposed to exist, and through which they were held to manifest
their powers. And astrology, it must be remembered, is essentially a
systematised animism. The stars, to the ancients, were not material
bodies like the earth, but spiritual beings. PLATO (427-347 B.C.) speaks
of them as "gods". Mediaeval thought did not regard them in quite this
way. But for those who believed in astrology, and few, I think, did
not, the stars were still symbols of spiritual forces operative on man.
Evidences of the wide extent of astrological belief in those days are
abundant, many instances of which we shall doubtless encounter in our
excursions.

It has been said that the theological and philosophical atmosphere of
the Middle Ages was "scholastic," not mystical. No doubt "mysticism," as
a mode of life aiming at the realisation of the presence of God, is
as distinct from scholasticism as empiricism is from rationalism,
or "tough-minded" philosophy (to use JAMES' happy phrase) is from
"tender-minded". But no philosophy can be absolutely and purely
deductive. It must start from certain empirically determined facts. A
man might be an extreme empiricist in religion (_i.e_. a mystic),
and yet might attempt to deduce all other forms of knowledge from the
results of his religious experiences, never caring to gather experience
in any other realm. Hence the breach between mysticism and scholasticism
is not really so wide as may appear at first sight. Indeed,
scholasticism officially recognised three branches of theology, of which
the MYSTICAL was one. I think that mysticism and scholasticism both had
a profound influence on the mediaeval mind, sometimes acting as opposing
forces, sometimes operating harmoniously with one another. As Professor
WINDELBAND puts it: "We no longer onesidedly characterise the philosophy
of the middle ages as scholasticism, but rather place mysticism beside
it as of equal rank, and even as being the more fruitful and promising
movement."(1)

(1) Professor WILHELM WINDELBAND, Ph.D.: "Present-Day Mysticism," _The
Quest_, vol. iv. (1913), P. 205.

Alchemy, with its four Aristotelian or scholastic elements and its
three mystical principles--sulphur, m