70 THE LIFE AND LEGEND OF MICHAEL SCOT 



more remained untold, to await discovery by the 

 patient and undaunted chemist. The Therapeutse 

 or Essenes were among the earliest representa- 

 tives of this new tendency, as appears from the 

 testimony of Josephus, 1 who describes them as not 

 only devoted to ancient writings, but eager to in- 

 vestigate the properties of minerals. The chief 

 object of their inquiries, the maintenance of health 

 by medicines thus derived from the vegetable and 

 mineral kingdoms, is not only an early instance of the 

 connection between chemistry and pharmacy, but is 

 remarkable as the probable starting-point of the 

 search for the elixir of life : that other and nobler 

 dream which so much of the enthusiastic energy 

 of the mediaeval alchemists was spent to realise. 



The point of connection between these specula- 

 tions of Eastern philosophy and the practice of the 

 primitive chemistry may with probability be sought 

 in the fire which of necessity played so large a part 

 in the operations of the metal-worker. Fire bore a 

 highly sacred character in the philosophy and re- 

 ligion of the East. This element, it soon came to be 

 thought by those whom Eastern speculation in- 

 fluenced, might be trusted not only to melt, to 

 calcine and to sublime in the vulgar way, but to 

 form the long- sought link of sympathy between the 

 stars of heaven, themselves compact of fire, and the 

 elements of earth, as these were subjected to its 

 piercing and transforming power. In its due em- 

 ployment the suspected connection between the 

 higher and lower worlds would become an accom- 



1 '2irov$a.ovo'iv eicroVa)? TTC/JI TO. TO>V 7ra\ai)v 

 ra irpos o>(p\tav ^v^i}? nal trco/zaros' fK\fyovrfs. *^v6fv avrols Trpos 

 Ocpdnetav iraQStv /5i'at rt aXf 177-17/3101 *ai At$eoi/ iSiorqres evepcvvwrai, 

 Bell. Jud., il 8. 6. 



