THEIR MYSTICISM. 225 



e imcy would be added to that of the hopes, and observation would not 

 be permitted to correct the delusion, or to suggest sounder and more 

 rational views. 



The exaggeration of the vague notion of perfection and power in the 

 object of the alchemist's search, was carried further still. The same 

 preparation which possessed the faculty of turning baser metals into 

 gold, was imagined to be also a universal medicine, to have the gift of 

 curing or preventing diseases, prolonging life, producing bodily strength 

 and beauty : the philosophers'' stone was finally invested with every 

 desirable efficacy which the fancy of the " philosophers" could devise. 



It has been usual to say that Alchemy was the mother of Chemistry ; 

 and that men would never have made the experiments on which the 

 real science is founded, if they had not been animated by the hopes 

 and the energy which the delusive art inspired. To judge whether 

 this is truly said, we must be able to estimate the degree of interest 

 which men feel in purely speculative truth, and in the real and sub- 

 stantial improvement of art to which it leads. Since the fall of 

 Alchemy, and the progress of real Chemistry, these motives have been 

 powerful enough to engage in the study of the science, a body far 

 larger than the Alchemists ever were, and no less zealous. There is 

 no apparent reason why the result should not have been the same, if 

 the progress of true science had begun sooner. Astronomy was long- 

 cultivated without the bribe of Astrology. But, perhaps, we may 

 justly say this; that, in the stationary period, men's minds were so 

 far enfeebled and degraded, that pure speculative truth had not its full 

 effect upon them ; and the mystical pursuits in which some dim and 

 disfigured images of truth were sought with avidity, were among the 

 provisions by which the human soul, even when sunk below its best 

 condition, is perpetually directed to something above the mere objects 

 of sense and appetite ; a contrivance of compensation, as it were, in 

 the intellectual and spiritual constitution of man. 



5. Magic. Magical Arts, so far as they were believed in by those 

 who professed to practise them, and so far as they have a bearing in 

 science, stand on the same footing as astrology ; and, indeed, a close 

 alliance has generally been maintained between the two pursuits. In- 

 capacity and indisposition to perceive natural and philosophical causa- 

 tion, an enthusiastic imagination, and such a faith as can devise and 

 maintain supernatural and spiritual connections, are the elements of 

 this, as of other forms of Mysticism. And thus, that temper which led 

 men to aim at the magician's supposed authority over the elements. 

 VOL. I. 15 



