OLD AND NEW ALCHEMY 255 



equally to silence doubts. Very few expressed any. One 

 of the rare skeptics on the subject, however, was the actual 

 Raymond Lully, a Spanish monk stoned to death by the 

 Moors of Africa in 1315, some three lustres before the date 

 of the alchemistic writings attributed to him. Yet nearly 

 all his eminent contemporaries and predecessors took an 

 opposite view. The noble figures of Albert the Great and 

 of St. Thomas Aquinas tower above the ranks of the Dbmin- 

 icans in the thirteenth century, and both admitted without 

 hesitation the asserted facts of transmutation. Roger 

 Bacon passed for an adept ; but popular fancy ascribed to 

 him many faculties never owned by him, and his metallurgic 

 power, too, is perhaps legendary. However this may be, 

 he thought it worth while to discuss, in a special treatise, 

 designated "Speculum Alchimiae" 1 the fabrication and 

 properties of the "citrine body," called by others the 

 "philosopher's stone," or "grand magisteriwn." He did 

 not minimize its marvels. It had efficacy, in his opinion, 

 not only to transform into gold one million times its own 

 weight of base metal, but also, if administered in the form 

 of a drug, to prolong human life. Nor was he exceptionally 

 sanguine. Votaries were to be found, more enthusiastic 

 or more deeply initiated, who taught that the elixir could 

 impart as well as lengthen life. 



Despite this riot of unreason, knowledge intermittently 

 advanced. Valuable items of information presented them- 

 selves unsought, and chemistry began dimly to shape itself 

 in the foggy atmosphere of occult persuasions. Alcohol 

 was distilled ; acquaintance was made with the uses and 

 peculiarities of metallic zinc, arsenic, and antimony; cor- 

 rosive sublimate, red precipitate, oil of vitriol (sulphuric 

 acid), and aqua fortis (nitric acid), took their places in 

 the laboratory; while the resources of the pharmacopoeia 

 were, from many quarters, materially enlarged. The ap- 

 portionment of credit, however, for these sundry inventions 

 is impossible. Evasive or misleading records completely 

 'H. Kopp, Die AlcMmie, &c., page 23. 



