Alchemy: Ancient and Modern (Illustrated)

Alchemy is generally understood to have been that art whose endwas the transmutation of the so-called base metals into gold bymeans of an ill-defined something called the Philosopher’s Stone; buteven from a purely physical standpoint, this is a somewhatsuperficial view. Alchemy was both a philosophy and anexperimental science, and the transmutation of the metals was itsend only in that this would give the final proof of the alchemistichypotheses; in other words, Alchemy, considered from the physicalstandpoint, was the attempt to demonstrate experimentally on thematerial plane the validity of a certain philosophical view of theCosmos. We see the genuine scientific spirit in the saying of one ofthe alchemists: “Would to God . . . all men might become adepts inour Art — for then gold, the great idol of mankind, would lose itsvalue, and we should prize it only for its scientific teaching.”1Unfortunately, however, not many alchemists came up to this ideal;and for the majority of them, Alchemy did mean merely thepossibility of making gold cheaply and gaining untold wealth.