suddenly began to speak, and asked the Alchemist why he had troubled
him so much, and so on. The Alchemist replied, and questioned the
Mercury. The Mercury makes fun of the philosopher. Then the Alchemist
again torments the Mercury by heating him with all manner of horrible
things. At last Mercury calls in the aid of Nature, who soundly rates
the philosopher, tells him he is grossly ignorant, and ends by saying:
"The best thing you can do is to give yourself up to the king's
officers, who will quickly put an end to you and your philosophy."

As long as men were fully persuaded that they knew the plan whereon
the world was framed, that it was possible for them to follow exactly
"the road which was followed by the Great Architect of the Universe in
the creation of the world," a real knowledge of natural events was
impossible; for every attempt to penetrate nature's secrets
presupposed a knowledge of the essential characteristics of that which
was to be investigated. But genuine knowledge begins when the
investigator admits that he must learn of nature, not nature of him.
It might be truly said of one who held the alchemical conception of
nature that "his foible was omniscience"; and omniscience negatives
the attainment of knowledge.

The alchemical notion of a natural state as proper to each substance
was vigorously combated by the Honourable Robert Boyle (born 1626,
died 1691), a man of singularly clear and penetrative intellect. In _A
Paradox of the Natural and Supernatural States of Bodies, Especially
of the Air_, Boyle says:--"I know that not only in living, but even in
inanimate, bodies, of which alone I here discourse, men have
universally admitted the famous distinction between the natural and
preternatural, or violent state of bodies, and do daily, without the
least scruple, found upon it hypotheses and ratiocinations, as if it