character of the object of their search by naming it _the soul of all
things_. "Alchemy," a modern writer says, "is the science of the soul
of all things."

The essence was supposed to have a material form, an ethereal or
middle nature, and an immaterial or spiritual life.

No one might hope to make this essence from any one substance,
because, as one of the alchemists says, "It is the attribute of God
alone to make one out of one; you must produce one thing out of two
by natural generation." The alchemists did not pretend to create gold,
but only to produce it from other things.

The author of _A Brief Guide to the Celestial Ruby_ says: "We do not,
as is sometimes said, profess to create gold and silver, but only to
find an agent which ... is capable of entering into an intimate and
maturing union with the Mercury of the base metals." And again: "Our
Art ... only arrogates to itself the power of developing, through the
removal of all defects and superfluities, the golden nature which the
baser metals possess." Bonus, in his tract on _The New Pearl of Great
Price_ (16th century), says: "The Art of Alchemy ... does not create
metals, or even develop them out of the metallic first-substance; it
only takes up the unfinished handicraft of Nature and completes it....
Nature has only left a comparatively small thing for the artist to
do--the completion of that which she has already begun."

If the essence were ever attained, it would be by following the course
which nature follows in producing the perfect plant from the imperfect
seed, by discovering and separating the seed of metals, and bringing
that seed under the conditions which alone are suitable for its