6oo THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



facts from these writings, and in the later references to Paracelsus, 

 which are in line with the judgments of earlier rather than of recent 

 scholarship, no reference is made to the similar contributions of Para- 

 celsus, thus conveying the inference of the priority of the works of the 

 pseudo-Basilius. 



Even Ernst von Meyer, 16 whose text-book is deservedly the most 

 popular of recent histories, has not broken loose from the traditional 

 mode of treatment. Referring to the writings in question, he recognizes 

 that " their genuineness has become more and more questioned, and 

 rightly so." But perhaps misled by the alleged " investigations, which 

 were carried out at the command of the Emperor Maximilian I.," he 

 still assumes that " a large number of facts were recorded by the writer, 

 who lived about a hundred years before the books were published." 



This rumor of the investigations by the Emperor Maximilian I. 

 (who died 1519) which, as above stated, Kopp has pronounced without 

 substantiation, is the most persistent of the traditions which have 

 served to give the impression that the Basil Valentine literature is 

 antecedent to Paracelsus. Naturally enough, accepting the truth of 

 this statement, Meyer omits from his treatment of Paracelsus the 

 enumeration of chemical data previously noted in Basil Valentine, and 

 in referring, for instance, to the doctrine of the three elements, which 

 to the best of our knowledge was original with Paracelsus he says: 



With respect to the constituents of organic bodies Paracelsus adhered to the 

 old assumption that the latter were composed of the three elementary substance- 

 forming qualities (elements) mercury (Mercurius), sulphur and salt. 



In view of the results of the scholarly researches into the history of 

 this period during the past thirty years by Kopp, Berthelot, Sudhoff, 

 Strunz, Lasswitz and others, it is time that the Basil Valentine litera- 

 ture should be assigned to its proper and subordinate place in history. 

 There is indeed great need of a thorough revision of the history of chem- 

 ical discoveries and theories from the earliest times up to the rise of 

 the phlogistic theory. The task will be no easy one, but the value of the 

 work thoroughly done will well repay the labor. 



16 "History of Chemistry," 3d edition, translated by McGowan, 1906. 



