THE REVIVAL OF ALCHEMY.^ 



By H. Ca.e,rington Bolton, Ph. D. 



" Superfluous rehearsalls I lay asyde, 

 lutendyug only to give trew informatyon 

 Both of the theoryke and practical! 



operatyon ; 

 That by my wrytyng who so will 



guyded be, 

 Of hys intente perfyctly speed thall he." 



George Eipley (1471). 



'' Fraiid, folly, and failure have been deeply written into the annals of 

 alchemy in all ages. It was early characterized as an " art without art, 

 beginning with deceit, continued by labor, and ending in poverty," and 

 in modern times its extravagant pretensions have been condemoed by 

 an exact and critical science; yet notwithstanding there are to day 

 indications of a resuscitation of the captivating theories and of renewed 

 attempts at their practical application, of great interest to students of 

 the intellectual vagaries of mankind. 



Belief in the possibility of prolonging life by an artificial elixir and 

 of transmuting base metals into silver and gold was generally enter- 

 tained in the Middle Ages, not only by the ignorant masses, but even 

 by serious-minded philosophers imbued with all the learning of the 

 time; and the popular faith was sustained by the tricks of unx)rinci- 

 l)led imposters who found it profitable to prey upon the credulity and 

 avarice of their fellow-men. Those who in modern times have written 

 of alchemists find in the extravagant views of a Paracelsus, and in the 

 careers of a Flamel, a Sendivogius, or of a John Dee more entertain- 

 ing materials than in the abstract conceptions of sober i)hilosophers, 

 and consequently most readers are more familiar with the misdeeds of 

 adventurers than with the honest beliefs of respectable men of science. 

 Before condemning those who labored day and night to solve the prob- 

 lems of transmutation and the elixir of life, we should consider their 

 intellectual environment. Superstitious beliefs of every kind prevailed ; 

 even the sciences were in bondage; astronomy was dominated by 



iRead before the New York ISection of the American Chemical Society, October 1, 

 1897. Reprinted from Science, N. S., Vol. VI, No. 154, pages 853-863, December 10, 

 1897. 



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