8 HISE AND PROGRESS 



lowing act of parliament, which Lord Coke calls the shortest he 

 ever met with, was passed 5 II. 4. " None from henceforth shall 

 use to multiply gold or silver, or use the craft of multiplication ; 

 and if any the same do, he shall incur the pain of felony." It has 

 been suggested, that the reason of passing this act, was not an ap- 

 prehension lest men should ruin their fortunes by endeavouring to 

 make gold, but a jealousy lest government should be above asking 

 aid of the subject. " After Raymund Lully, and Sir Georg 

 Ripley, had so largely multiplied gold, the lords and commons, 

 conceiving some danger that the regency, having such immense 

 treasure at command, would be above asking aid of the sub. 

 ject, and might become too arbitrary and tyrannical, made an act 

 against multiplying gold and silver*." This act, whatever might 

 be the occasion of passing it, though it gave some obstruction to 

 the public exercise of alchemy, yet it did not cure the disposition 

 for it in individuals, nor remove the general credulity ; for in the 

 35 H. 6, Letters patent were granted to several people, by which 

 they were permitted to investigate an universal medicine, and to 

 perform the transmutation of metals into real gold and silver, with 

 a non-obstante of the forementioned statute, which remained in full 

 force till the year 1689, when being conceived to operate to the 

 discouragement of the melting and refining of metals, it was for. 

 mally repealed +. 



The beginning of the sixteenth century was remarkable for a 

 great revolution produced in the European practice of physic, by 

 means of chemistry. Then it was that Paracelsus, following the 

 steps of Basile Valentine, and growing famous for curing the vene- 

 real disease, the leprosy, and other virulent disorders, principally 

 by the means of mercurial and antimonial preparations, wholly re. 

 jected the Galenical pharmacy, and substituted in its stead the che. 

 mical. He had a professor's chair given him by the magistracy of 

 Basil, was the first who read public lectures in medicine and che. 

 mistry, and subjected animal and vegetable, as well as mineral sub. 

 stances to an examination by fire. 



It seldom happens that a man of but common abilities, and in 



* Opera Mineralia explicatn, p. 10- 



f Mr. Boyle is s-ii.l liy hit interest to have procured the repeal of this singu- 

 lar -i.itutr, and to have been probably induced thereto, in consequence of his 

 having been persuaded of the possibility of the transmutation of metals into 

 gold. See his Life, prefixed to the folio edition of hit works, p. 85. 



