232 History of Alchymy. 



convince any man endued with rational faculties, that there is a 

 possibility of the transmutation of metals; yet for all these 

 things, will not advise any man ignorant of the power of nature 

 and the way of operation to attempt the work, lest erring in 

 the foundation, he should suffer loss and blame me. Without 

 doubt it is a gift of God from above, and he that attains it must 

 patiently wait the moving of the waters ; when the destined 

 angel moves the waters of the pool, then is the time to immerge 

 the leprous metal, and cleanse it from all impurities." 



Vanhelmont says, " I am constrained to believe in the 

 making of gold and silver, though I know many exquisite 

 chemists to have consumed their own and other men's goods 

 in search of this mystery ; and to this day we see these un- 

 worthy and simple labourers cunningly deluded by a diabolical 

 crew of gold and silver sucking-flies and leeches. But I know 

 that many will contradict this truth ; one says it is the work of 

 the devil, and another, that the sauce is dearer than the meat." 

 Bergman, in summing up the evidence for and against the 

 possibility and probability of transmutation, and founding his 

 opinion upon the multitude of relations that have been handed 

 down to us by different writers of apparent veracity, and one or 

 two of which I shall presently quote, observes, that " although 

 most of them are deceptive and many uncertain, some bear such 

 character and testimony, that unless we reject all historical 

 evidence we must allow them entitled to confidence." For my 

 own part, the perusal of the histories of transmutation appears to 

 me to furnish solid grounds for a diametrically opposite opinion. 

 They are all of a most suspicious character ; sometimes the fraud 

 was open and intentional, seconded by juggling dexterity ; at 

 other times the performers deceived themselves ; they purchased 

 what was termed a powder of projection prepared by the adepts, 

 containing a portion of gold, and when they threw it into the 

 fire with mercury, and found that portion of gold remaining in 

 their crucible, they had not wit enough to detect its source ; 

 but the cases which are quoted as least exceptionable are often 

 exactly those which are really impossible : I mean, where 

 the weight of the powder of projection, and of the lead or other 



