THE REVIVAL OF ALCHEMY. 20^ 



tropic forms of silver, and, most weighty of all, the mass of related 

 facts and phenomena which find their ultimate expression in the peri- 

 odic law of the elements, so that many chemists of the present day are 

 inclined to believe in the mutual convertibility of elements having 

 similar chemical properties. Daniel Berthelot, in his notable work 

 entitled "De I'allotropie des corps simples," boldly afiSrms his belief in 

 the unity of matter. He says: "Without seeking to find in any one 

 of the known elements the generator of the others, can we not invoke 

 the facts that we have revealed in our study of carbon in favor of the 

 hyiwthesis of a unique matter unequally condensed?" And elsewhere 

 he writes : "The transmutation of an element is nothing more than the 

 transformation of the motions which determine the existence of said 

 element and which gives it special properties into the specific motions 

 peculiar to the existence of another element." 



Simultaneously with the development of the truly scientific aspect of 

 alchemical theory, there has arisen an extraordinary revival of the 

 metaphysical side of the question; this goes hand in hand with the 

 interest in chiromancy, astrology, theosophy, and occult sciences which 

 occupy so large a place in modern thought, literature, and polite society 

 on both sides of the Atlantic. This tendency to cultivate the esoteric 

 manifests itself in the study of the Kabala, the investigation of the 

 mysteries of Buddhism, Confucianism, and other oriental philosophies, 

 in researches into the phenomena of spiritualism, so'called, and in the 

 foundation of societies to study psychic force and the tenets of the fol- 

 lowers of Madame Blavatsky; crystal gazing, reading in magic mirrors, 

 slate writing, plaiichette, the quasi-scientific study of apparitions, of 

 table turnings, of rappiugs by unseen jDowers, of telepathy, of sublimi- 

 nal self, are now regarded as legitimate pursuits in no wise necessarily 

 associated with the black arts of mediteval times, provided only they 

 are conducted in a spirit of inquiry and for the purpose of discovering 

 the latent power underlying these phenomena. And this line of research 

 receives stimulus from the results secured by students of experimental 

 psychology, of hypnotism, from such discoveries as the i)heuomena of 

 the X-rays, and from the transcendental physicists who theorize on the 

 miraculous consequences of four dimensional matter. Crowded lecture 

 halls reward exhibitions of trance mediums, speakers on theosoi)hy, 

 palmistry, and occultism; in lower walks of life fortune tellers and 

 clairvoyants reap a modest harvest; books treating of occult themes 

 Giijoy great notoriety ; writers of fiction find it profitable to introduce 

 the mysterious into the children of their brains; even secular journals, 

 especially those of France, give space to the all-absorbing discussions 

 on liermetism ; these are some of the evidences of great popular interest 

 in the unknowable. Only persons with special intellectual equipment 

 are able to measure, weigh, sift, and coordinate the novel phenomena 

 gathered by researches in the field of hypnotism, psychology, and 

 occultism ; those of weaker mental powers fail to perceive the real sig- 

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