human thought and culture?

It was in order to elucidate problems of this sort, as well as to
determine what elements of truth, if any, there are in the theories of
the alchemists, that The Alchemical Society was founded in 1912, mainly
through my own efforts and those of my confreres, and for the first time
something like justice was being done to the memory of the alchemists
when the Society's activities were stayed by that greatest calamity of
history, the European War.

Some students of the writings of the alchemists have advanced a very
curious and interesting theory as to the aims of the alchemists, which
may be termed "the transcendental theory". According to this theory, the
alchemists were concerned only with the mystical processes affecting
the soul of man, and their chemical references are only to be understood
symbolically. In my opinion, however, this view of the subject is
rendered untenable by the lives of the alchemists themselves; for, as
Mr WAITE has very fully pointed out in his _Lives of Alchemystical
Philosophers_ (1888), the lives of the alchemists show them to have been
mainly concerned with chemical and physical processes; and, indeed, to
their labours we owe many valuable discoveries of a chemical nature. But
the fact that such a theory should ever have been formulated, and
should not be altogether lacking in consistency, may serve to direct our
attention to the close connection between alchemy and mysticism.

If we wish to understand the origin and aims of alchemy we must
endeavour to recreate the atmosphere of the Middle Ages, and to look at
the subject from the point of view of the alchemists themselves. Now,
this atmosphere was, as I have indicated in a previous essay, surcharged
with mystical theology and mystical philosophy. Alchemy, so to speak,
was generated and throve in a dim religious light. We cannot open a book
by any one of the better sort of alchemists without noticing how closely
their theology and their chemistry are interwoven, and what a remarkably
religious view they take of their subject. Thus one alchemist writes:
"In the first place, let every devout and God-fearing chemist and
student of this Art consider that this arcanum should be regarded, not
only as a truly great, but as a most holy Art (seeing that it typifies
and shadows out the highest heavenly good). Therefore, if any man desire
to reach this great and unspeakable Mystery, he must remember that it is
obtained n