858 
sayer, M. Levol, but with little success. 
The substance of his memoirs was published 
in 1855 in a volume entitled ‘Les Métaux 
sont des Corps Composés ;’ of this a new 
edition was published by Lermina in 1889. 
Tiffereau has never abandoned his claim, 
and as recently as October, 1896, he ad- 
dressed another memoir to the Academy, 
in which he attempts to prove that the 
metal aluminum is a compound. Briefly 
stated his process is as follows: He placed 
in a stout glass tube a piece of aluminum 
foil with pure nitric acid and sealed the 
tube hermetically. He then exposed the 
tube and contents to the sun’s rays during 
two months; at the end of this time he 
opened the tube ; it gave out an odor which 
he thought was due to ether, and it yielded 
a few grammes of crystals which he 
thought tasted like acetic acid. Since 
both ether and acetic acid are compounds 
of carbon, Tiffereau concluded that this ele- 
ment was derived from the aluminum. 
Analytical chemists would criticize this ex- 
periment in several points; they would say 
Tiffereau did not demonstrate the absence 
of carbon in the metal used, and that he 
depended upon smell and taste for proofs 
of the carbon compounds; the tongue and 
the nose are incontestably useful adjuncts 
to the reagents of a chemical laboratory, 
but additional tests for .ether and acetic 
acid would have been more conclusive. In 
Tiffereau’s recent writings he attributes 
the transmutation of a base metal into the 
most precious one, to the action of the ‘ mi- 
erobe of gold.’ 
For a student of chemistry to read, digest 
and write down in intelligible language, in 
a limited space, the principles of this new 
school of chemical philosophers is a difficult 
task, even for one somewhat familiar with 
the literature of the ancient alchemists ; 
consequently the following analysis falls far 
short of the ideal. It is properly the work 
of a kabalist, a theosophist and a magician, 
SCIENCE. 
[N. 8. Von. VI. No. 154. 
proud designations which the writer dis- 
claims. The modern alchemists accept all 
the traditions of their ancient predecessors, 
but give them a new significance, and in- 
terweave the novel phenomena derived from 
researches in pure science. They claim that 
during the fourteenth, fifteenth and six- 
teenth centuries the official schools of in- 
struction taught exclusively the physical 
part of the sciences, and that the metaphys- 
ical part (which is the real life and soul of 
the study) has been rejected under the op- 
probrious name of occult science. This 
living aspect of science has, however, been 
studied in the secret societies of the in- 
itiated, which have preserved the traditions 
of the kabala, the mysteries of hermetism 
and the practice of transmutation. The 
study of science is as much a religious 
question as an intellectual one, and worship 
at an altar should sustain and enlighten the 
worker in a laboratory. ‘Chemistry, al- 
chemy and hermetic philosophy form three 
steps of the ladder which leads the initiated 
from the laboratory, through artistic realiza- 
tion, to the oratory: ‘ Labora, Opera, Ora et 
Invenies.’ ”’ ‘ 
The modern alchemists also maintain that 
Darwin and his disciples appreciated but a 
small part of the great doctrine of evolu- 
tion, which should be applied to the chem- 
ical elements as well as to living beings. 
The starting point in the evolution of ele- 
ments is the ether (the universal astral 
fluid of the kabalists), the infinitely divisi- 
ble particles of which form chemical atoms 
by agglomeration. This ether is condensed 
energy, and hence all matter is resolved 
into energy. 
Energy, matter and motion form a trinity 
analogous to the Divine Trinity, one in 
substance, three in appearance. Matter is 
one in kind, and the diversity of chemical 
bodies results from differences in grouping 
and in motions of the constituent particles. 
Intelligence is allied in a mysterious way 
