450 On Phyftognomy. 



feems to have attrafted a great number of followers from a 

 very early period. Suidas* mentions that the Emperor 

 Dioclefian ordered all the books of chemiftry to be burned, 

 left ihe Egytians learning from them the art of peparing 

 gold and filver Ihould thence derive refources to oppofe.the 

 Romans. Pope John XXII. in the fourteenth century, f 

 thought fit to ftigmatize the alchemifts as impoltors. In 

 England the ftudy was fo much in vogue that the flat. 

 5 Hen. IV. Ann. 1504 makes it felony to ufe the art of mul- 

 tiplying gold and filver. J In the 35 Hen. VI. however 

 letters patent were granted to feveral people, whereby they 

 were permitted to inveftigate an univerfal medicine, and 

 to perform the tranfmutation of other metals into gold 

 and filver, non objlante the former ftatute ; 1| this laft 

 ilatute remained in force till 1689, when it was re- 

 pealed (as is faid) through the private intereft of Mr. 



hitherto given, can be : nor indeed has any one yet prefumed to conjeftare 

 at the mode of deception ; nor was it ever till that time conceived that 

 mercury ufually did or even could, bring over with it in fublimation fo 

 large a proportion of gold and filver. That a perfon of Dr. Price's accu- 

 racy fliould refufe to publilh a procefs fo extraordinary, till he had afcer- 

 tained it by experiments fcrupuloufly repeated, I can eafily believe ; and 

 that not fucceeding in the repetition of an experiment fo anxioufly ex- 

 pefled, and in wliich his reputation was fo much involved, a perfon of 

 his known high fpirit fhould too haftily have recourfe to fuicide as a means 

 of avoiding general difgrace, carries with it nothing violently improbable. 

 Caution in giving credit to any thing very extraordinary is certainly a mark 

 ofgoodfenfe; but the fpirit of incredulity, is of all other fpirits the moft 

 oppofite to the fpirit of philofophy. 



• Suidas voce %)j,u£ia, Watfon's Eflays, vol. I. p. 14. 



■f In the Bull Spondent qua mn exbiber.t, &c. Bergman Hifl, Chem. 

 Med. ^vi. § I. KIrcher Mund. Subter, lib. XI. feft. 4. cap. i. WatfoH 

 vol. I. p. 22. 



X Watfon ubi fup. \\ Ibid, p. 24, 



Boyle. 



