458 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



the modern chemist makes impossible his consideration of the alchem- 

 ist's search, we may note how far the inherent constitution of the ele- 

 ments, to say nothing of their possible transmutation, has eluded his 

 most ultimate analysis. How immeasurably farther it was removed 

 from the grasp of the alchemist can hardly be expressed. But this is 

 a scientific and not an occult view of the matter; it was not by progres- 

 sive training in marksmanship that the occultist hoped to send his ar- 

 rows to the stars. His was a mystic search for the magical transmuta- 

 tion, the elixir of life or the philosopher's stone. One might suppose 

 that once the world has agreed that these ends are past finding out, 

 the alchemist, like the maker of stone arrow-heads, would have 

 found his occupation gone and have left no successor. His modern 

 representative, however, is an interesting and by no means extinct 

 species. He seems to flourish in France, but may be found in Ger- 

 many, in England and in this country. He is rarely a pure alchemist 

 (although so recently as 1854 one of them offered to manufacture gold 

 for the French mint), but represents the pure type of occultist. He 

 calls himself a Eosicrucian; he establishes a university of the higher 

 studies and becomes a Professor of Hermetic Philosophy. His thought 

 is mystic, and symbolism has an endless fascination for him. The 

 mystic significance of numbers, extravagant analogies of correspond- 

 ence, the traditional hidden meanings of the Kabbalah fairly intoxi- 

 cate him; and verbose accounts of momentous relations and of unintel- 

 ligible discoveries run riot in his writings. His science is not a mere 

 Chemistry, but a Hyper-Chemistry; his transmutations are not merely 

 material but spiritual. Like all followers of an esoteric belief, he must 

 stand apart from his fellow-men; he must cultivate the higher 'psychic' 

 powers so that eventually he may be able by the mere action of his 

 will to cause the atoms to group themselves into gold. 



The modern alchemist is, however, a general occultist; he may be 

 also an astrologer or a magnetist or a theosophist. But he is foremost 

 an ardent enthusiast for exclusive and unusual lore — not the common 

 and superficial possessions of misguided democratic science. He goes 

 through the forms of study, remains superior to the baser practical 

 ends of life, and finds his reward in the self-satisfaction of exclusive 

 wisdom. In Paris, at least, he forms part of a rather respectable salon, 

 speaking socially, or a 'company of educated charlatans,' speaking scien- 

 tifically. His class does not constitute a large proportion of modern 

 occultists, but they present a prominent form of its intellectual tempera- 

 ment. "There are also people," says Mr. Lang, "who so dislike our 

 detention in the prison house of old unvarying laws that their bias is 

 in favor of anything which may tend to prove that science in her con- 

 temporary mood is not infallible. As the Frenchman did not care what 



