It can be conquered only by a patient, unbiassed, searching
examination of some limited portion of natural events.




CHAPTER IV.

THE ALCHEMICAL ELEMENTS AND PRINCIPLES.


The alchemists were sure that the intention of nature regarding metals
was that they should become gold, for gold was considered to be the
most perfect metal, and nature, they said, evidently strains after
perfection. The alchemist found that metals were worn away, eaten
through, broken, and finally caused to disappear, by many acid and
acrid liquids which he prepared from mineral substances. But gold
resisted the attacks of these liquids; it was not changed by heat, nor
was it affected by sulphur, a substance which changed limpid, running
mercury into an inert, black solid. Hence, gold was more perfect in
the alchemical scale than any other metal.

Since gold was considered to be the most perfect metal, it was
self-evident to the alchemical mind that nature must form gold slowly
in the earth, must transmute gradually the inferior metals into gold.

"The only thing that distinguishes one metal from another," writes an
alchemist who went under the name of Philalethes, "is its degree of
maturity, which is, of course, greatest in the most precious metals;
the difference between gold and lead is not one of substance, but of