em 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 t