Chapter V.) the medicine is described as of a pale brimstone hue.

[35] _Of the Sum of Perfection_ (see _The Works of Geber_, translated by Richard Russel, 1678, p. 192). Most of the alchemists who claimed knowledge of the Philosopher’s Stone or the _materia prima_ necessary for its preparation, generally kept its nature most secret, and spoke only in the most enigmatical and allegorical language, the majority of their recipes containing words of unknown meaning. In some cases gold or silver, as the case may be, was employed in preparing the “medicine”; and, after projection had been made, this was, of course, obtained again in the metallic form, the alchemist imagining that a transmutation had been effected. In the case of the few other recipes that are intelligible, the most that could be obtained by following out their instructions is a white or yellow metallic alloy superficially resembling silver or gold. The Nature of the Philosopher’s Stone. § =24.= The mystical as distinguished from the pseudo-practical descriptions of the Stone and its preparation are by far the more interesting of the two. Paracelsus, in his work on _The Tincture of the Philosophers_, tells us that all that is necessary for us to do is to mix and coagulate the “rose-coloured blood from the Lion” and “the gluten from the Eagle,” by which he probably meant that we must combine “philosophical sulphur” with “philosophical mercury.” This opinion, that the Philosopher’s Stone consists of “philosophical sulphur and mercury” combined so as to constitute a perfect unity, was commonly held by the alchemists, and they frequently likened this union to the conjunction of the sexes in marriage. “Eirenæus Philalethes” tells us that for the preparation of the Stone it is necessary to extract the seed of gold, though this cannot be accomplished by subjecting gold to corrosive liquids, but only by a homogeneous water (or liquid)--the Mercury of the Sages. In the _Book of the Revelation of Hermes, interpreted by Theophrastus Paracelsus, concerning the Supreme Secret of the World_, the Medicine, which is here, as not infrequently, identified with the alchemistic essence of all things or Soul of the World, is described in the following suggestive language: “This is the Spirit of Truth, which the world cannot comprehend without the interposition of the Holy Ghost, or without the instruction of those who know it. The same is of a mysterious nature, wondrous strength, boundless power. . . . By Avicenna this Spirit is named the Soul of the World. For, as the Soul moves all the limbs of the Body, so also does this Spirit move all bodies. And as the Soul is in all the limbs of the Body, so also is this Spirit in all elementary created things. It is sought by many and found by few. It is beheld from afar and found near; for it exists in every thing, in every place, and at all times. It has the powers of all creatures; its action is found in all elements, and the qualities of all things are therein, even in the highest perfection . . . it heals all dead and living bodies without other medicine, . . . converts all metallic bodies into gold, and there is nothing like unto it under Heaven.”[36] [36] See BENEDICTUS FIGULUS: _A Golden and Blessed Casket of Nature’s Marvels_ (translated by A. E. Waite, 1893, pp. 36, 37, and 41). The Theory of Development. § =25.= From the ascetic standpoint (and unfortunately, most mystics have been somewhat overfond of ascetic ideas), the development of the soul is only fully possible with the mortification of the body; and all true Mysticism teaches that if we would reach the highest goal possible for man--union with the Divine--there must be a giving up of our own individual wills, an abasement of the soul before the Spirit. And so the alchemists taught that for the achievement of the _magnum opus_ on the physical plane, we must strip the metals of their outward properties in order to develop the essence within. As says Helvetius: “. . . the essences of metals are hidden in their outward bodies, as the kernel is hidden in the nut. Every earthly body, whether animal, vegetable, or mineral, is the habitation and terrestrial abode of that celestial spirit, or influence, which is its principle of life or growth. The secret of Alchemy is the destruction of the body, which enables the Artist to get at, and utilise for his own purposes, the living soul.”[37] This killing of the outward nature of material things was to be brought about by the processes of putrefaction and decay; hence the reason why such processes figure so largely in alchemistic recipes for the preparation of the “Divine Magistery.” It must be borne in mind, however, that the alchemists used the terms “putrefaction” and “decay” rather indiscriminately, applying them to chemical processes which are no longer regarded as such. Pictorial symbols of death and decay representative of such processes are to be found in several alchemistic books. There is a curious series of pictures in _A Form and Method of Perfecting Base Metals_, by Janus Lacinus, the Calabrian (a short tract prefixed to _The New Pearl of Great Price_ by Peter Bonus--see § 39), of which we show three examples in plates 3 and 4. In the first picture of the series (not shown here) we enter the palace of the king (gold) and observe him sitting crowned upon his throne, surrounded by his son (mercury) and five servants (silver, copper, tin, iron and lead). In the next picture (plate 3, fig. B), the son, incited by the servants, kills his father; and, in the third, he catches the blood of his murdered parent in his robes; whereby we understand that an amalgam of gold and mercury is to be prepared, the gold apparently disappearing or dying, whilst the mercury is coloured thereby. The next picture shows us a grave being dug, _i.e._, a furnace is to be made ready. In the fifth picture in the series, the son “thought to throw his father into the grave, and to leave him there; but . . . both fell in together”; and in the sixth picture (plate 4, fig. A), we see the son being prevented from escaping, both son and father being left in the grave to decay. Here we have instructions in symbolical form to place the amalgam in a sealed vessel in the furnace and to allow it to remain there until some change is observed. So the allegory proceeds. Ultimately the father is restored to life, the symbol of resurrection being (as might be expected) of frequent occurrence in alchemistic literature. By this resurrection we understand that the gold will finally be obtained in a pure form. Indeed, it is now the “great medicine” and, in the last picture of the series (plate 4, fig. B), the king’s son and his five servants are all made kings in virtue of its powers. [37] J. F. HELVETIUS: _The Golden Calf_, ch. iv. (see _The Hermetic Museum_, vol. ii. p. 298). [Illustration: PLATE 4. A. SYMBOLICAL ILLUSTRATION Representing the Coction of Gold Amalgam in a Closed Vessel. B. SYMBOLICAL ILLUSTRATION Representing the Transmutation of the Metals. [_To face page 33_] The Powers of the Philosopher’s Stone. § =26.= The alchemists believed that a most minute proportion of the Stone projected upon considerable quantities of heated mercury, molten lead, or other “base” metal, would transmute practically the whole into silver or gold. This claim of the alchemists, that a most minute quantity of the Stone was sufficient to transmute considerable quantities of “base” metal, has been the object of much ridicule. Certainly, some of the claims of the alchemists (understood literally) are out of all reason; but on the other hand, the disproportion between the quantities of Stone and transmuted metal cannot be advanced as an _à priori_ objection to the alchemists’ claims, inasmuch that a class of chemical reactions (called “catalytic”) is known, in which the presence of a small quantity of some appropriate form of matter--the catalyst--brings about a chemical change in an indefinite quantity of some other form or forms; thus, for example, cane-sugar in aqueous solution is converted into two other sugars by the action of small quantities of acid; and sulphur-dioxide and oxygen, which will not combine under ordinary conditions, do so readily in the presence of a small quantity of platinized asbestos, which is obtained unaltered after the reaction is completed and may be used over and over again (this process is actually employed in the manufacture of sulphuric acid or oil of vitriol). However, whether any such catalytic transmutation of the chemical “elements” is possible is merely conjecture. The Elixir of Life. § =27.= The Elixir of Life, which was generally described as a solution of the Stone in spirits of wine, or identified with the Stone itself, could be applied, so it was thought, under certain conditions to the alchemist himself, with an entirely analogous result, _i.e._, it would restore him to the flower of youth. The idea, not infrequently attributed to the alchemists, that the Elixir would endow one with a life of endless duration on the material plane is not in strict accord with alchemistic analogy. From this point of view, the effect of the Elixir is physiological perfection, which, although ensuring long life, is not equivalent to endless life on the material plane. “The Philosophers’ Stone,” says Paracelsus, “purges the whole body of man, and cleanses it from all impurities by the introduction of new and more youthful forces which it joins to the nature of man.”[38] And in another work expressive of the opinions of the same alchemist, we read: “. . . there is nothing which might deliver the mortal body from death; but there is One Thing which may postpone decay, renew youth, and prolong short human life . . .”[39] In the theory that a solution of the Philosopher’s Stone (which, it must be remembered, was thought to be of a species with gold) constituted the _Elixir Vitæ_, can be traced, perhaps, the idea that gold in a potable form was a veritable cure-all: in the latter days of Alchemy any yellow-coloured liquid was foisted upon a credulous public as a medicinal preparation of gold. [38] THEOPHRASTUS PARACELSUS: _The Fifth Book of the Archidoxies_ (see _The Hermetic and Alchemical Writings of Paracelsus_, translated by A. E. Waite, 1894, vol. ii. p. 39). [39] _The Book of the Revelation of Hermes, interpreted by Theophrastus Paracelsus, concerning the Supreme Secret of the World._ (See BENEDICTUS FIGULUS: _A Golden Casket of Nature’s Marvels_, translated by A. E. Waite, 1893, pp. 33 and 34.) [Illustration: PLATE 5. ALCHEMISTIC APPARATUS. A and B.--Two forms of Apparatus for Sublimation. _To face page 37_]] The Practical Methods of the Alchemists. § =28.= We will conclude this chapter with some few remarks regarding the practical methods of the alchemists. In their experiments, the alchemists worked with very large quantities of material compared with what is employed in chemical researches at the present day. They had great belief in the efficacy of time to effect a desired change in their substances, and they were wont to repeat the same operation (such as distillation, for example) on the same material over and over again; which demonstrated their unwearied patience, even if it effected little towards the attainment of their end. They paid much attention to any changes of colour they observed in their experiments, and many descriptions of supposed methods to achieve the _magnum opus_ contain detailed directions as to the various changes of colour which must be obtained in the material operated upon if a successful issue to the experiment is desired.[40] In plates 5 and 6 we give illustrations of some characteristic pieces of apparatus employed by the alchemists. Plate 5, fig. A, and plate 6, fig. A, are from a work known as _Alchemiae Gebri_ (1545); plate 5, fig. B, is from Glauber’s work on Furnaces (1651); and plate 6, fig. B, is from a work by Dr. John French entitled _The Art of Distillation_ (1651). The first figure shows us a furnace and alembics. The alembic proper is a sort of still-head which can be luted on to a flask or other vessel, and was much used for distillations. In the present case, however, the alembics are employed in conjunction with apparatus for subliming difficultly volatile substances. Plate 5, fig. B, shows another apparatus for sublimation, consisting of a sort of oven, and three detachable upper chambers, generally called aludels. In both forms of apparatus the vapours are cooled in the upper part of the vessel, and the substance is deposited in the solid form, being thereby purified from less volatile impurities. Plate 6, fig. A, shows an athanor (or digesting furnace) and a couple of digesting vessels. A vessel of this sort was employed for heating bodies in a closed space, the top being sealed up when the substances to be operated upon had been put inside, and the vessel heated in ashes in an athanor, a uniform temperature being maintained. The pelican, illustrated in plate 6, fig. B, was used for a similar purpose, the two arms being added in the idea that the vapours would be circulated thereby. [40] As writes Espagnet in his _Hermetic Arcanum_, canons 64 and 65: “The Means or demonstrative signs are Colours, successively and orderly affecting the matter and its affections and demonstrative passions, whereof there are also three special ones (as critical) to be noted; to these some add a Fourth. The first is black, which is called the Crow’s head, because of its extreme blackness, whose crepusculum sheweth the beginning of the action of the fire of nature and solution, and the blackest midnight sheweth the perfection of liquefaction, and confusion of the elements. Then the grain putrefies and is corrupted, that it may be the more apt for generation. The white colour succeedeth the black, wherein is given the perfection of the first degree, and of the White Sulphur. This is called the blessed stone; this Earth is white and foliated, wherein Philosophers do sow their gold. The third is Orange colour, which is produced in the passage of the white to the red, as the middle, and being mixed of both is as the dawn with his saffron hair, a forerunner of the Sun. The fourth colour is Ruddy and Sanguine, which is extracted from the white fire only. Now because whiteness is easily altered by any other colour before day it quickly faileth of its candour. But the deep redness of the Sun perfecteth the work of Sulphur, which is called the Sperm of the male, the fire of the Stone, the King’s Crown, and the Son of Sol, wherein the first labour of the workman resteth. “Besides these decretory signs which firmly inhere in the matter, and shew its essential mutations, almost infinite colours appear, and shew themselves in vapours, as the Rainbow in the clouds, which quickly pass away and are expelled by those that succeed, more affecting the air than the earth: the operator must have a gentle care of them, because they are not permanent, and proceed not from the intrinsic disposition of the matter, but from the fire painting and fashioning everything after its pleasure, or casually by heat in slight moisture” (see _Collectanea Hermetica_, edited by W. Wynn Westcott, vol. i., 1893, pp. 28 and 29). Very probably this is not without a mystical meaning as well as a supposed application in the preparation of the physical Stone. [Illustration: PLATE 6. ALCHEMISTIC APPARATUS. A.--An Athanor. B.--A Pelican. _To face page 38_]]