A HISTORY OF SCIENCE 



of it being capable of creating large quantities of gold 

 and of prolonging life indefinitely. 



It would appear from many of the writings of the 

 alchemists that their conception of nature and the 

 supernatural was so confused and entangled in an inex- 

 plicable philosophy that they themselves did not really 

 understand the meaning of what they were attempt- 

 ing to convey. But it should not be forgotten that 

 alchemy was kept as much as possible from the igno- 

 rant general public, and the alchemists themselves had 

 knowledge of secret words and expressions which con- 

 veyed a definite meaning to one of their number, but 

 which would appear a meaningless jumble to an out- 

 sider. Some of these writers declared openly that 

 their writings were intended to convey an entirely 

 erroneous impression, and were sent out only for that 

 purpose. 



However, while it may have been true that the va- 

 garies of their writings were made purposely, the case 

 is probably more correctly explained by saying that 

 the very nature of the art made definite statements 

 impossible. They were dealing with something that 

 did not exist could not exist. Their attempted de- 

 scriptions became, therefore, the language of romance 

 rather than the language of science. 



But if the alchemists themselves were usually silent 

 as to the appearance of the actual substance of the 

 philosopher's stone, there were numberless other 

 writers who were less reticent. By some it was sup- 

 posed to be a stone, by others a liquid or elixir, but 

 more commonly it was described as a black powder. 

 It also possessed different degrees of efficiency accord- 



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