TWO PSEUDO-SCIENCES 



By other alchemists the process of transition from 

 baser metals into gold was conceived to be like a pro- 

 cess of ripening fruit. The ripened product was gold, 

 while the green fruit, in various stages of maturity, 

 was represented by the base metals. Silver, for ex- 

 ample, was more nearly ripe than lead ; but the differ- 

 ence was only one of "digestion," and it was thought 

 that by further "digestion" lead might first become 

 silver and eventually gold. In other words, Nature 

 had not completed her work, and was wofully slow at 

 it at best ; but man, with his superior faculties, was to 

 hasten the process in his laboratories if he could but 

 hit upon the right method of doing so. 



It should not be inferred that the alchemist set 

 about his task of assisting nature in a haphazard way, 

 and without training in the various alchemic labora- 

 tory methods. On the contrary, he usually served a 

 long apprenticeship in the rudiments of his calling. 

 He was obliged to learn, in a general way, many of the 

 same things that must be understood in either chemical 

 or alchemical laboratories. The general knowledge 

 that certain liquids vaporize at lower temperatures 

 than others, and that the melting-points of metals 

 differ greatly, for example, was just as necessary to 

 alchemy as to chemistry. The knowledge of the gross 

 structure, or nature, of materials was much the same 

 to the alchemist as to the chemist, and, for that matter, 

 many of the experiments in calcining, distilling, etc., 

 were practically identical. 



To the alchemist there were three principles salt, 

 sulphur, and mercury and the sources of these prin- 

 ciples were the four elements earth, water, fire, and 



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