, 92 CHEMISTRY AND ALCHEMY. 



Nettesheim, philosopher, physician, and alchemist, underwent the same fate 

 at Grenoble (1535), after having been imprisoned at Brussels as a magician. 

 We will not attempt to justify the strange theory which has been called the 

 pantheism of Paracelsus, a theory in which he only pretended to believe 

 to suit his own purposes and strike the imaginations of those who would 

 not, perhaps, have paid any heed to more sober ideas. But it must be 

 pointed out that in his chemical operations Paracelsus had constantly in view 

 the simplification of the processes resorted to, and the discovery of the 

 elementary principles and of the truly active mediums of nature. His 

 celebrated arcana amount to this, and he says, "The true object of alchemy 

 is to prepare arcana, not to make gold." Starting from this principle, 

 he denounced the tavern-keepers and cooks, who drown the virtue of -the 

 best arcana in soups ; the apothecaries, who can only compose insipid syrups 

 and repulsive decoctions, when they have ready to hand, at the bottom of 

 their stills- (Figs. 138 to 147), extracts and dyes derived from the best 

 vegetables and minerals. Paracelsus was equally indignant with the doctors, 

 whose barbarous prescriptions embodied a mass of substances which 

 neutralised each other. He was very much opposed to the use of correctives 

 added to -certain pharmaceutical preparations, especially when these cor- 

 rectives had no natural relation with the preparations used. He argued that 

 it was necessary to discover the quintessence of plants the ether of Aristotle 

 and the active principles of organized bodies, isolating them with great care, 

 and using them to avert the different functional disorders of the animal 

 machine. Bones of the hare, coral, mother-of-pearl, and other analogous 

 bodies, from which he claimed to extract, by chemical process, the arcana, 

 were doubtless used by him for the sole purpose of misleading the inquisitive ; 

 and when he wished to render these mixtures efficacious, he added to them 

 certain potent substances of which he had previously ascertained the 

 influence. 



In any event, it may safely be said that, owing to the labours of 

 Paracelsus, alchemy exchanged its speculative for a practical character ; and 

 this is so true that George Agricola (born at Misnia in 1494), who proceeded 

 with greater caution than Paracelsus, effected, without any disturbance or 

 noisy discussion, the auspicious revolution in metallurgy which his ardent 

 contemporary was unable to achieve without a fierce struggle in medicine and 

 the pharmacopoeia. Agricola resided at Bale, and his sedate temperament was 



