From theArabs,alchemy found its way through Spain into Europe, and speedily became entan gled with the fantastic subtleties of the scholas tic philosophy. In the Middle Ages, it was chiefly the monks who occupied themselves with alchemy. Pope John XXII. took great delight in it, though it was afterward forbidden by his successor. The earliest authentic works on Euro pean alchemy now extant are those of Roger Bacon (died about 12941 and Albertus Magnus. Bacon appears rather the earlier of the two as a writer, and is really the greatest man in all the school. He was acquainted with gun powder. Although be condemns magic, necro mancy, charms, and all such things, he believes in the convertibility of the inferior metals into gold, but does not profess to have ever effected the conversion. He had more faith in the elixir of life than in gold-making. He followed Ocher in regarding potable gold—that is, gold dissolved in nitro-hydrochloric acid or aqua regia—as the elixir of life. Urging it on the attention of Pope Nicholas IV., lie informs his Holiness of an old man who found some yellow liquor (the solution of gold is yellow) in a golden vial, when plowing one day in Sicily. Supposing it to he dew, lie drank it off. He was thereupon transformed into a hale, robust, and highly accomplished youth. Bacon no doubt took many a dose of this golden water himself. Albertus Magnus had a great mastery of the practical chemistry of his times; he was acquainted with alum, caustic alkali, and the purification of the royal metals by means of lead. In addition to the sulphu•-and mercury theory of the metals, drawn from Geber, he regarded the element water as still nearer the soul of nature than either of these bodies. He appears, indeed, to have thought it the primary matter, or the radical source of all things— an opinion held by Tholes, the father of Greek speculation. Thomas Aquinas also wrote on alchemy, and was the first to employ the word (q.v.). Raymond Bully is another great name in the annals of alchemy. His writings are much more disfigured by unintelli gible jargon than those of Bacon and Albcrtus Magnus. He was the first to introduce the use of chemical symbols, his system consisting of a scheme of arbitrary hieroglyphics. He made much of the spirit of wine (the art of distilling spirits would seem to have been then recent), imposing on it the name of aqua vita: ardens.
In his enthusiasm, he pronounced it the very elixir of life.
lint more famous than all was Paracelsus, in whom alchemy proper nmay be said to have cul minated. lie held that the elements of compound bodies were salt, sulphur, and mercury—repre senting respectively earth, air, and water, fire be ing already regarded as an imponderable—but these substances were in his system purely repre sentative. All kinds of matter were reducible un der one or other of these typical forms; every thing was either a salt, a sulphur, or a nwreury, on, like the metals, it was a "mixt" or compound. There was one element, however, common to the four; a fifth essence or "quintessence" of crea tion; an unknown and only true element, of which the four generic principles were nothing but derivative forms or embodiments; in other words, he inculcated the dogma that there is only one real elementary matter—nobody knows what. This one prime element of things he ap pears to have considered to be the universal sol vent of which the alchemists were in quest, and to express which he introduced the term alca hest—a word of unknown etymology, but sup posed by some to be composed of the two German words all' Grist, "all spirit." lie seems to have had the notion that if this quintessence or fifth element could be got at, it would prove to be at once the philosopher's stone, the universal 'fled ieine, and the irresistible solvent.
After Paracelsus, the alchemists of Europe became divided into two classes. The one class was composed of men of diligence and sense, who devoted themselves to the discovery of new compounds rind reactions—practical .(vorke•s and
observers of facts, and the legitimate ancestors of the positive chemists of the era of Lavoisier. The other class took up the visionary, fantastical side of the older alchemy, and carried it to a degree of extravagance before unknown. Instead of useful work, they compiled mystical trash into books, and fathered them on Hermes, Aris totle, Albe•tus Magnums, Paracelsus, and other really great men. Their language is a farrago of mystical metaphors, full of "red bridegrooms." and "lily brides," "green dragons," "ruby lions," "royal baths," "waters of life." The seven metals correspond to the seven planets, the seven cosmical angels, and the seven openings of the head—the eyes, the ears, the nostrils, and the mouth. Silver was Diana, gold was Apollo, iron was Mars, tin was Jupiter, lead was Saturn, etc. They talk forever of the power of attrac tion, which drew all men and women after the possessor; of the alcaliest., and the grand elixir, •hieh was to confer immortal youth upon the student who should prove himself pure and brave enough to kiss and quaff the golden draught. There was the great mystery, the mother of the elements, the grandmother of the stars. There was the philosopher's stone and there was the philosophical stone. The philosophical stone was younger than the elements, yet at her virgin touch the grossest calx. (ore) among them all would blush before her into perfect gold. The philosopher's stone, on the other hand, was the first-born of nature, and older than the king of metals. Those who had attained full insight into the arcana of the science were styled wise: those who were only striving after the light were philosophers; while the ordinary votaries of the art were called adepts. It was these vision aries that formed themselves into Rosierucian societies and other secret associations. It was also in connection with this mock alchemy, mixed up with astrology and magic, that quackery and imposture so abounded, as is depicted by Scott in the character of Dousterswivel in the Anti quary. Designing knaves would, for instance, make up large nails, some of iron and some of gold, and lacquer them, so that they appeared common nails, and when their credulous and avaricious dupes saw them extract from what seemed plain iron an ingot of gold, they were ready to advance any sum that the knaves pre tended to be necessary for applying, the proJess on a large scale. It is from this degenerate and effete school that the prevailing notion of al chemy is de•ived—a notion which is unjust to the really meritorious alchemists who paved the way for the modern science of chemistry. Priest ley, Lavoisier, and Scheele, by the use of the balance, tested the results of alchemy, and thence the fundamental ideas of modern chemistry were born; but the work had already been begun by men of genius, such as Robert Boyle, Bergmann, and others. It is interesting to observe that the doctrine of the transmutability of metals —a doctrine which it was at one time thought that modern chemistry had utterly exploded— receives not a little countenance from a variety of facts every day coming to light; not to speak of the periodic law of the elements, which, while separating the elements as a class from all other chemical substances, seems to indicate the existence of unknown relations between the ele ments themselves. Consult: J. von Liebig, ramiliar Lettcrs on original in Ger man, exists in translations (London, 1851) ; F. Hofer, Histoire dc la ehimir (Paris, I469) ; G. F. Rodwell, The Birth of Chemistry (London, 1874) ; M. Berthelot, Les origincs de l'alchimie (Paris, 1885) ; II. Kopp, Dic Alchemic in iilterer end neuerer Zeit (18S6), etc. The literature of alchemy is enormous. See also CHEMISTRY.