170 



SCIENCE, 



[N. S. Vol. VIII. No. 189. 



concerning Valentine wliicli it is the fur- 

 pose of this note to i-esolve. 



This personage was never heard of until, 

 in 1599, Johann Tholde published, as editor, 

 the first of six treatises in the German lan- 

 guage which he successively gave to the 

 public as having been written by ' Basilius 

 Valentinns, Benedictine monk.' The last 

 of these, published, according to Kopp, in 

 1604, and entitled Trmmph- Wagen des Anti- 

 monii, is the one upon which the renown of 

 Valentine exclusively rests. All are works 

 of alchemy, a doctrine that, at the time of 

 their publication, had for generations been 

 a mark of derision.* I have only seen four 

 of them, the Trium-ph-Warjen, the Welt in 

 Kleinen, the Grosse Stein der idir-alten Weisen, 

 and the treatise Von natilrlichen und ilber- 

 naturlichen Dingen.f The Triumjih- Wagen is 

 the only one I have carefully studied. 



I begin with a logical consideration. It 

 is very important to bear in mind, at the 

 outset, that the all but universal custom of 

 alchemists was to publish their writings as 

 having been handed down from remote ages. 

 This custom had been traditional since the 

 remotest periods of Egyptian alchemy. Be- 

 sides, there was an obvious reason for it. 

 Announce to the world that a gold dollar 

 costs you but a dime, and either you are 

 poor, when your neighbors will laugh at 



*Thus, Gulielmus Gratarolus (an Italian physi- 

 cian, inclined to Lutherism, b. 1516, d. 1568), who 

 in 1561 published a collection of alchemical writings 

 in two volumes folio, concludes an introductory dia- 

 logue on the subject with these words : ' Sapientise 

 autem prsemia divitias esse * * * nemo unquam 

 sanse mentis fatebitur * * * Necessarium est, ut 

 priusquam capere incipiant, extremum infortunium, 

 et ipsa 'Ar?7, illo miserando casu foedoque interritu 

 dejioiat atque pessundet.' 



I I only know these in the edition of 1740, which 

 professes (for these treatises) to follow the text of 

 Tholde, except that it corrects obvious misprints and 

 adds some plates to those illustrating the Grosse 

 IStem. I have seen these same figures attached to a 

 different text attributed to Valentine and bearing the 

 date 1625. 



you, or your circumstances are comfortable, 

 when you will be besieged by importunities 

 as well as exposed to the resentment of 

 those who dread your overturning the ex- 

 isting status of property. So it would be 

 even in our well-governed age ; how much 

 more in wilder states of society ! For this 

 reason, although for books in general the 

 prima facie presumption that they were writ- 

 ten by the persons whom they name as 

 their authors is even stronger than critics 

 are apt to think, yet for alchemical books 

 this initial presumption is reversed. If a 

 book of alchemy professes to be written by 

 an adept, that is, by one who can make gold, 

 there is a probability amounting almost to 

 certainty that its real authorship is con- 

 cealed, and if it professes to be written 

 long before its publication the presumption, 

 founded on the general practice of such 

 writers, is that the real author is he who 

 has given it to the world. That is the 

 theory which logic demands should first be 

 tried. 



Now these books of Valentine state re- 

 peatedly that the author has achieved the 

 ' great work ' of the alchemists. Hence, 

 until facts drive us from the position, we 

 ought to begin by presuming that ' Basilius 

 Valentinns ' was the worn deplume of Tholde. 

 Nevertheless, in order to satisfy those who 

 may not assent to this view, I shall begin 

 by showing that it is impossible to believe 

 the averments of the books themselves in 

 regard to their authorship. 



First of all, a slight sketch of the con- 

 tents of the four treatises above named may 

 be interesting. The tract ' Von der Welt in 

 Kleinen,'' or, as it is entitled in the edition I 

 use, 'De Microeosmo, oder von der Meinen W el 

 des menschlichen Leibes,' fills but 15 small 

 octavo pages. The author opens with an 

 attempted explanation of the creation of 

 the universe, or Macrocosm, and of man, or 

 the Microcosm. The matter out of which 

 the world was formed was nothing. The 



