OLD AND NEW ALCHEMY 253 



century, the coinage was debased, with royal assent, by 

 claimants to the possession of the " great secret." 1 



From the "house of Saturn," where it still lingered, by 

 a belated association, in the verses of Firmicus Maternus 

 (fourth century A.D.), alchemy was early transferred to 

 the "house of Mercury." This is a figurative way of say- 

 ing that quicksilver was substituted for lead as the sub- 

 stratum of its operations. The choice had originally fallen 

 upon lead, because of its affinity to silver an affinity pos- 

 sibly of far-reaching import ; but it could not hold its own 

 against the new metal, spoken of by Theophrastus about 

 300 B.C. as "liquid silver." An ideal recipient for the 

 "powder of projection," it very soon displaced every 

 other. It was not all-sufficing, but it was indispensable. 

 Bricks might be made without straw more easily than the 

 precious metals without mercury. Recipes for its subtil- 

 ization, its "fixation," its coloration, abound in alchemistic 

 treatises. They are for the most part unintelligible, espe- 

 cially when introduced with promises of transparent can- 

 dor ; for adepts wrote, not to disclose secrets, but to enhance 

 the reputation of their depositaries, and they were skilled 

 in darkening counsel, and in taking while they appeared 

 to give. In a moment of exaltation, Raymond Lully (or 

 rather, a personator of the "Doctor Illuminatissimus") is 

 said to have proclaimed: "Mare tingerem, si mercurius 

 esset!". tingere signifying, in technical phraseology, to 

 transmute ; the method, however, to be employed in the con- 

 templated gigantesque performance he was prudent enough 

 to leave in obscurity. 



The Alexandrian school of science and of thought, al- 

 ready degraded by mysticism, received a crushing blow 

 through the destruction of the Serapeum in 391 A.D. Its 

 teachings were, nevertheless, propagated far and wide; 

 those who inculcated them still led the van ; and Byzantium 

 received many of the scattered elements of Graeco-Egyptian 



1 E. von Meyer, A History of Chemistry, third English edition, 

 page 35. 



