ot by the might of man, but by the grace of God, and that not
our will or desire, but only the mercy of the Most High, can bestow it
upon us. For this reason you must first of all cleanse your heart,
lift it up to Him alone, and ask of Him this gift in true, earnest and
undoubting prayer. He alone can give and bestow it."(1) Whilst another
alchemist declares: "I am firmly persuaded that any unbeliever who
got truly to know this Art, would straightway confess the truth of
our Blessed Religion, and believe in the Trinity and in our Lord JESUS
CHRIST."(2)

(1) _The Sophic Hydrolith; or, Water Stone of the Wise_. (See _The
Hermetic Museum_, vol. i. pp. 74 and 75.)

(2) PETER BONUS: _The New Pearl of Great Price_ (trans. by A. E. WAITE,
1894), p. 275.

Now, what I suggest is that the alchemists constructed their chemical
theories for the main part by means of _a priori_ reasoning, and that
the premises from which they started were (i.) the truth of mystical
theology, especially the doctrine of the soul's regeneration, and (ii.)
the truth of mystical philosophy, which asserts that the objects of
Nature are symbols of spiritual verities. There is, I think, abundant
evidence to show that alchemy was a more or less deliberate attempt
to apply, according to the principles of analogy, the doctrines of
religious mysticism to chemical and physical phenomena. Some of this
evidence I shall attempt to put forward in this essay.

In the first place, however, I propose to say a few words more in
description of the theological and philosophical doctrines which so
greatly influenced the alchemists, and which, I believe, they borrowed
for their attempted explanations of chemical and physical phenomena.
This system of doctrine I have termed "mysticism"--a word which is
unfortunately equivocal, and has been used to denote various systems
of religious and philosophical thought, from the noblest to the most
degraded. I have, therefore, further to define my usage of the term.

By mystical theology I mean that system of religious thought which
emphasises the unity between Creator and creature, though not
necessarily to the extent of becoming pantheistic. Man, mystical
theology asserts, has sprung from God, but has fallen away from Him
through self-love. Within man, however, is the seed of divine grace,
whereby, if he will follow the narrow road of self-renunciation, he may
be regenerated, born anew, becoming transformed into the likeness