378 . ON THE SCOPE AND INFLUENCE OF THE 
There can be no doubt, that Bacon did believe in the possi- 
bility of discovering the means of converting other substances 
into gold; a belief, which was far from being so complete- 
ly abandoned by all “ sober inquirers,” as this writer imagines ; 
for it was entertained by Boyz, and some other experimen- 
talists, and not greatly discouraged even by Newron, at a 
period when experimental philosophy was much farther ad- 
vanced *. There was no man of his day more thoroughly ap- 
prised than Bacon was, of the follies of the Alchymists, or who 
has mentioned them in terms of stronger ridicule and reproba- 
tion +. He nowhere holds out the making of gold as a prime 
object of philosophical inquiry ; on the contrary, he point- 
edly censures the Alchymists, with whom he has been so ab- 
surdly classed, for directing their main views to such an ob- 
ject {. The belief which he entertained as to the possibility 
of making gold, had a very different foundation from that 
upon which it rested among this fantastical fraternity. With 
him, the belief in question formed part of his general belief, 
that the essences of all material substances were capable of be- 
ing discovered by the inductive process. It was a belief which 
flowed from his lofty notions of the yet untried resources of 
experimental science. There was then no sufficient stock of 
experience to authorise any one to lay it down as an esta- 
blished principle, that the knowledge of these essences is 
placed 
* There is a curious letter upon this subject from Newron to Mr Otpen- 
pore, Secretary of the Royal Society, printed in the account of Boyxe, in the 
Historical Dictionary. His remarks apply wholly to a particular process of trans- 
rautation, and not to the impossibility of the thing itself. See General Historical 
and Critical Dictionary, vol. iii. p. 558. 
+ See Novum Organum, Lib. i. Aph. 85. 87. 
* Ibid. Lib. i. Aph. 70. 
