ALCHEMY 166 



lie practical motive dominated, alchemy 

 became largely a search for the transmutation 

 of the metals, particularly of the baser metals, 

 into gold; for to gold by its attraction and its 

 associated value was assigned the virtue of 

 purity and superiority. In this pursuit there 

 was abundant opportunity for fraud and im- 

 posture as well as for misguided experiment 

 and self-delusion; these pursuits gave rise to 

 the accusation of necromancy against many of 

 the alchemists. This was true of Paracelsus 

 (1490-1541), -one of the best known of the 

 : practitioners, who made substantial con- 

 tributions to chemistry and medicine, yet 

 worked dominant ly under alchemistic concep- 

 tions; he gave special prominence to sulphur 

 and mercury as potent in transformation and 

 medicinal action. Even so late as the end 

 <f the eighteenth century, Caglistro an arch- 

 impostor played upon the belief in the possi- 

 bility of making gold, to practise his versatile 

 frauds, and presented his wife, who was twenty, 

 as a woman of sixty who had partaken of the 

 elixir of life. 



Alchemy is much more than the search for 

 a process of transmutation to turn baser metals 

 into gold; that became the central aim of its' 

 later pursuit. An alchemistic philosophy un- 

 lt rhiy its practices. The Greeks recognized 

 a rth, air, fire and water as the four elements; 

 these interacted and were responsible for the 

 many forms of matter, also for the human 

 body. Hippocrates, the "father of medicine," 

 thought that if the human body were formed 

 of but one element, man would never be ill. 

 He is composed of many elements which con- 

 flict; hence the complexity of medical treat- 

 ment, balancing the dry and light (fire), the 

 dry and heavy (earth), the moist and light 

 (air), and the moist and heavy (water). The 

 four elements and the four humors of the 

 body were closely related. Yet the Greeks were 

 not alchemists, but sought explanations in na- 

 ture forms. However, they reasoned similarly 

 to the alchemists, who sought it in mystic 

 bonds. The latter dealt in analogies and cor- 

 respondences. The celestial world gave the clue 

 to the things of earth. The sun represented 

 heat or fire or sulphur, and then gold; the 

 moon corresponded to silver; to complete the 

 system Venus corresponded to copper ; Mercury 

 is still the name of a planet and a metal; 

 Mars "became" iron; Jupiter, tin, and Saturn, 

 lead. The alchemistic search was originally 

 like that of the Greeks, for the quintessence 

 (fifth or ultimate essence) of things; they 



ALCIBIADES 



wished to repeat in their alembics the process 

 by which the world was made. Two other 

 ideas accompanied this search; the one the ap- 

 plication to the healing of the body, fof dis- 

 ease was a disproportion of the elements (hence 

 the preparation of tinctures, extracts, "spirits," 

 elixirs to restore health); the other was tin- 

 rather mystical notion of separating the spirit 

 from the form, the true essence from the ma- 

 terial shell. 



More and more the "chemical" side dom- 

 inated through the notion of transmutation, 

 presumably introduced by Albertus Magnus 

 (1193-1280). This implied a scale of evolution 

 or value through which matter passed on its 

 way to its more perfect form. The perfection 

 of the heavenly bodies, of gold, of true health 

 (immortality), moral perfection purity of ele- 

 ments and purity of spirit were assimilated, 

 and affinities in one world found for substances 

 and qualities in another. Such learning was 

 maintained in an atmosphere of secrecy and 

 mystery. Alchemy became more cumbersome, 

 elaborate and fanciful, while the temptation to 

 pretense and fraud increased as the test of the 

 system was concentrated upon the making of 

 gold. At the beginning of the seventeenth cen- 

 tury, already markedly on the decline, it gave 

 way to the growth of modern science, which 

 was then well launched upon its career of 

 natural explanation and proof. See SCIEM i;, 

 subhead Pseudo-Sciences. j.j. 



Relating: to Various Beliefs. The articles on 

 the following topics, while not bearing on 

 alchemy, are of interest in this connection be- 

 cause they too deal with pseudo-sciences or 

 superstitions : 



Astrology Palmistry 



Clairvoyance Phrenology 



Conjuring Psychical Research 



Demonology Psycho-Analysis 



Divination Physiognomy 



Faith-cure Spiritualism 



Hypnotism Suggestion 



Magic Superstition 



Medium Telepathy 



Mesmerism Theosophy 



Mind Reading Trance 



Necromancy Witchcraft 



Occult 



Other closely related topics are mentioned in 

 the above article, and will be found in their 

 alphabetical order in these volumes. 



ALCIBIADES, alsibi' adeez, (about 450-404 

 B.C.), a famous Athenian of noble birth, hand- 

 some in person and of remarkable ability, who 

 for many years bore a leading part in the af- 

 fairs of Athens. He was the nephew of Pericles 

 ( which see), whose talents he shared, but he 



