II. of _The New Chemical Light_: “The three Principles of things are

produced out of the four elements in the following manner: Nature, whose power is in her obedience to the Will of God, ordained from the very beginning, that the four elements should incessantly act on one another so, in obedience to her behest, fire began to act on air, and produced Sulphur; air acted on water, and produced Mercury; water, by its action on the earth, produced Salt. Earth, alone, having nothing to act upon, did not produce anything, but became the nurse, or womb, of these three Principles. We designedly speak of three Principles; for though the Ancients mention only two, it is clear that they omitted the third (Salt) not from ignorance, but from a desire to lead the uninitiated astray.”[28] [28] _The New Chemical Light_, Part II., _Concerning Sulphur_ (see _The Hermetic Museum_, vol. ii. pp. 142-143). Beneath and within all these coverings of outward properties, taught the alchemists, is hidden the secret essence of all material things. “. . . the elements and compounds,” writes one alchemist, “in addition to crass matter, are composed of a subtle substance, or intrinsic radical humidity, diffused through the elemental parts, simple and wholly incorruptible, long preserving the things themselves in vigour, and called the Spirit of the World, proceeding from the Soul of the World, the one certain life, filling and fathoming all things, gathering together and connecting all things, so that from the three genera of creatures, Intellectual, Celestial, and Corruptible, there is formed the One Machine of the whole world.”[29] It is hardly necessary to point out how nearly this approaches modern views regarding the Ether of Space. [29] ALEXANDER VON SUCHTEN: _Man, the best and most perfect of God’s creatures. A more complete Exposition of this Medical Foundation for the less Experienced Student._ (See BENEDICTUS FIGULUS: _A Golden and Blessed Casket of Nature’s Marvels_, translated by A. E. Waite, 1893, pp. 71 and 72.) The Growth of the Metals. § =20.= The alchemists regarded the metals as growing in the womb of the earth, and a knowledge of this growth as being of very great importance. Thomas Norton (who, however, contrary to the generality of alchemists, denied that metals have seed and that they grow in the sense of multiply) says:-- “_Mettalls_ of kinde grow lowe under ground, For above erth rust in them is found; Soe above erth appeareth corruption, Of mettalls, and in long tyme destruction, Whereof noe Cause is found in this Case, Buth that above Erth thei be not in their place Contrarie places to nature causeth strife As Fishes out of water losen their Lyfe: And Man, with Beasts, and Birds live in ayer, But Stones and Mineralls under Erth repaier.”[30] [30] THOMAS NORTON: _Ordinall of Alchemy_ (see _Theatrum Chemicum Britannicum_, edited by Elias Ashmole, 1652, p. 18). Norton here expresses the opinion, current among the alchemists, that each and every thing has its own peculiar environment natural to it; a view controverted by Robert Boyle (§ 71). So firm was the belief in the growth of metals, that mines were frequently closed for a while in order that the supply of metal might be renewed. The fertility of Mother Earth forms the subject of one of the illustrations in _The Twelve Keys_ of “Basil Valentine” (see § 41). We reproduce it in plate 3, fig. A. Regarding this subject, the author writes: “The quickening power of the earth produces all things that grow forth from it, and he who says that the earth has no life makes a statement which is flatly contradicted by the most ordinary facts. For what is dead cannot produce life and growth, seeing that it is devoid of the quickening spirit. This spirit is the life and soul that dwell in the earth, and are nourished by heavenly and sidereal influences. For all herbs, trees, and roots, and all metals and minerals, receive their growth and nutriment from the spirit of the earth, which is the spirit of life. This spirit is itself fed by the stars, and is thereby rendered capable of imparting nutriment to all things that grow, and of nursing them as a mother does her child while it is yet in the womb. The minerals are hidden in the womb of the earth, and nourished by her with the spirit which she receives from above. “Thus the power of growth that I speak of is imparted not by the earth, but by the life-giving spirit that is in it. If the earth were deserted by this spirit, it would be dead, and no longer able to afford nourishment to anything. For its sulphur or richness would lack the quickening spirit without which there can be neither life nor growth.”[31] [31] “BASIL VALENTINE”: _The Twelve Keys_ (see _The Hermetic Museum_, vol. i. pp. 333-334). [Illustration: PLATE 3. A. SYMBOLICAL ILLUSTRATION Representing the Fertility of the Earth. B. SYMBOLICAL ILLUSTRATION Representing the Amalgamation of Gold with Mercury. (See page 33.) _To face page 26_]] Alchemy and Astrology. § =21.= The idea that the growth of each metal was under the influence of one of the heavenly bodies (a theory in harmony with the alchemistic view of the unity of the Cosmos), was very generally held by the alchemists; and in consequence thereof, the metals were often referred to by the names or astrological symbols of their peculiar planets. These particulars are shown in the following table:-- -----------+----------------------+-------------- Metals. | Planets, &c.[32] | Symbols. -----------+----------------------+-------------- Gold | Sun | ☉ Silver | Moon | ☽ Mercury | Mercury | ☿ Copper | Venus | ♀ Iron | Mars | ♂ Tin | Jupiter | ♃ Lead | Saturn | ♄ -----------+----------------------+-------------- Moreover, it was thought by some alchemists that a due observance of astrological conditions was necessary for successfully carrying out important alchemistic experiments. [32] This supposed connection between the metals and planets also played an important part in Talismanic Magic. Alchemistic View of the Nature of Gold. § =22.= The alchemists regarded gold as the most perfect metal, silver being considered more perfect than the rest. The reason of this view is not difficult to understand: gold is the most beautiful of all the metals, and it retains its beauty without tarnishing; it resists the action of fire and most corrosive liquids, and is unaffected by sulphur; it was regarded, as we have pointed out above (see § 9), as symbolical of the regenerate man. Silver, on the other hand, is, indeed, a beautiful metal which wears well in a pure atmosphere and resists the action of fire; but it is attacked by certain corrosives (_e.g._, _aqua fortis_ or nitric acid) and also by sulphur. Through all the metals, from the one seed, Nature, according to the alchemists, works continuously up to gold; so that, in a sense, all other metals are gold in the making; their existence marks the staying of Nature’s powers; as “Eirenæus Philalethes” says: “All metallic seed is the seed of gold; for gold is the intention of Nature in regard to all metals. If the base metals are not gold, it is only through some accidental hindrance; they are all potentially gold.”[33] Or, as another alchemist puts it: “Since . . . the substance of the metals is _one_, and common to all, and since this substance is (either at once, or after laying aside in course of time the foreign and evil sulphur of the baser metals by a process of gradual digestion) changed by the virtue of its own indwelling sulphur into GOLD, which is the goal of all the metals, and the true intention of Nature--we are obliged to admit, and freely confess that in the mineral kingdom, as well as in the vegetable and animal kingdoms, Nature seeks and demands a gradual attainment of perfection, and a gradual approximation to the highest standard of purity and excellence.”[34] Such was the alchemistic view of the generation of the metals; a theory which is admittedly crude, but which, nevertheless, contains the germ of a great principle of the utmost importance, namely, the idea that all the varying forms of matter are evolved from some one primordial stuff--a principle of which chemical science lost sight for awhile, for its validity was unrecognised by Dalton’s Atomic Theory (at least, as enunciated by him), but which is being demonstrated, as we hope to show hereinafter, by recent scientific research. The alchemist was certainly a fantastic evolutionist, but he _was_ an evolutionist, and, moreover, he did not make the curious and paradoxical mistake of regarding the fact of evolution as explaining away the existence of God--the alchemist recognised the hand of the Divine in nature--and, although, in these days of modern science, we cannot accept his theory of the growth of metals, we can, nevertheless, appreciate and accept the fundamental germ-idea underlying it. [33] “EIRENÆUS PHILALETHES”: _The Metamorphosis of Metals_ (see _The Hermetic Museum_, vol. ii. p. 239). [34] _The Golden Tract Concerning the Stone of the Philosophers_ (see _The Hermetic Museum_, vol. i. p. 19). The Philosopher’s Stone. § =23.= The alchemist strove to assist Nature in her gold-making, or, at least, to carry out her methods. The pseudo-Geber taught that the imperfect metals were to be perfected or cured by the application of “medicines.” Three forms of medicines were distinguished; the first bring about merely a temporary change, and the changes wrought by the second class, although permanent, are not complete. “A Medicine of the third Order,” he writes, “I call every Preparation, which, when it comes to Bodies, with its projection, takes away all Corruption, and perfects them with the Difference of all Compleatment. But this is one only.”[35] This, the true medicine that would produce a real and permanent transmutation, is the =Philosopher’s Stone=, the Masterpiece of alchemistic art. Similar views were held by all the alchemists, though some of them taught that it was necessary first of all to reduce the metals to their first substance. Often, two forms of the Philosopher’s Stone were distinguished, or perhaps we should say, two degrees of perfection in the one Stone; that for transmuting the “imperfect” metals into silver being said to be white, the stone or “powder of projection” for gold being said to be of a red colour. In other accounts (see