What is Alchemy?

THE next stage of inquiry into the validity of the venous answers
which have heen given to this question will take us by an easy
transition from the nature of the Leide papyrus to that of the
Byzantine collection of ancient Greek alchemists. It will he
recollected from last month that the processes contained in the
papyrus are supposed to represent the oldest extant form of the 
processes tabulated by Zosinius, psendo-Democritus. and others of the
Greek school. The claims of this school now demand some brief
consideration for the ultimate settlement of one chief point, namely,
whether they are to be regarded as alchemists in the sense that
attaches to the term when it is applied as advigoration of men like
Arnold, Lully, and Schmurath. It was stated last month that the
compiler of the Leide papyrus could not be so regarded, and it will,
furthermore, pass without possible challenge that no person could
accuse that document of any spiritual significance. The abbreviated
formulae of a common medical prescription are as likely to contain the
secret of the tincture or the mystery of the unpronounceable tetrad.
In proceeding to an appreciation of the Greek alchemists, our
authority will he again M. Berthelot, who offers a signal and, indeed,
most illustrious instance of the invariable manner in which a genuine
and unbiassed archeologist who is in no sense a mystic can assist a
mystic inquiry by his researches. M. Berthelot offers further a very
special example of unwearied desire after accuracy, which is not at
all common even among French savants, and is quite absent from the
literary instinct of that nation as a whole. The fullest confidence
may always be reposed in his facts.
    The collection of Greek alchemists, as it now exists, was formed
during the eighth or ninth century of the Christian era, at
Constantinople. Its authors are cited, says Berthelot, by the Arabian
writers as the source of their knowledge, and in this manner they are
really the fountain-head of Western alchemy as it is found during the
middle ages, because the matter was derived from Arabia. The texts
admit of being separated into two chief classes, of which one is
historical and theoretical, the other technical and covered with
special fabrlcations, as for example, various kinds of glass and
artificial gems. It is outside the purpose of an elementary inquiry to
enumerate the manuscript codices which were collated for the
pubilcation of the text as it was issued by M. Berthelot in 1847. It
is sufficient to say that while it does not claim to include the whole
of the best alchemists, it omits an author who was judged to be of
value either to science or archeology, and it is thus practically
exhaustive. The following synthetic tabulation will be ample for the
present purpose:- a. General Indications, including a <I>Lexicon of
the best Chrysopeia,</I> a variety of fragmentary treatises, an
instruction of Iris to Honris, &c.   b. Treatises attributed to
Democritus or belonging to the Democritic school, including one
addressed to Dioscorus by Sycresius, and another of considerable
length by Olympiodorus the Alexandrian philosopher.  c. The works of
Zosinius the Panopolite. d. A collection of ancient authors, but in
this case the attribution is frequently apocryphal, and the writings
in some instances are referable even to so late a period as the
fifteenth century. Pelopis the philosopher, Ortanes, Iamthichers,
Agathodamion and Moses are included in this section.  e. Technical
treatises on the goldsmith's art, the tincture of copper with gold,
the manufacture of various glasses, the sophistic colouring of
precious stones, fabrication of silver, incombustible nelphom, &c. f.
Selections from technical and mystical commentators on the Greek
alchemists, including $tephanus, the Christian philosopher, and the
Anonymous Philosopher. This section is exceedingly incomplete, but M.
Berthelot is essentially a scientist, and from the scientific
standpoint the commentators are of minor importance.
    The bulk of these documents represent alchemy as it was prior to
the Arabian period according to its ancient remains outside Chinese
antiquities, and any person who is acquainted with the Hermetic
authors of the middle ages who wrote in Latin, or, otherwise, in the
vernacular of their country, will most assuredly find in all of them
the source of their knowledge, their method, and the terminology of
the Latin adepts. For, on examination, the Greek alchemists are not of
the same character as the compiler of the Leyden papyrus, though he
also wrote in Greek. With the one as with the other the subject is a
secret science, a sublime gnosis, the possessor of which is to be
regarded as a sovereign master. With the one as with the other it is a
divine and sacred art, which is only to be communicated to the worthy,
for it participates in the divine power, succeeds only by divine
assistance, and invokes a special triumph over matter. The love of God
and man, temperance, unselfishness, truthfulness, hatred of all
imposture, and the essential preliminary requlsites which are laid
down most closely by both schools. By each indifferently a knowledge
of the art is attributed to Hermes, Plato, Aristotle, and other great
names of antiquity, and Egypt is regarded as <I>par excellence</I> the
country of the great work. The similarity in each instance of the true
process is made evident many times and special stress is laid npon a
moderate and continuous heat as approved to a violent fire. The
materials are also the same, but in this connection it is only
necessary to speak of the importance attributed to many of the great
alchemists in order to place a student of the later literature in
possesion of a key to the correspondence which exist under this head.
Finally, as regards terminology, the Greek texts abound with
references to the egg of the philosophers, the philosophical stone,
the same which is not a stone, the blessed water, projection, the time
of the work, the matter of the work, the body of Morpresia, and other
arbitrary names which make up the bizarre company of the mediaeval
adepts. This fact therefore must be faced in the present enquiry, and
agaln with all its consequences: that the Greek alchemists so far as
can be gathered from their names were alchemists in the true sense of
Lully and Arnold: that if Lully and Arnold are entitled to be regarded
as adepts of a physical science and not as physical chemists, then
Zosinius also is entitled to he so regarded: that if Zosinius and his
school were, however, houseminters of metal, it is fair to conclude
that men of later generations belong to the same category: that,
finally, if the Greek alchemists under the cover of a secret and
pretended sacred science were in reality fabricators of false
sophisticated gold and riches, there is at any rate ome presumption
that those who reproduced their terminology in like manner followed
their ojects, and that the science of alchemy ended as it begun, an
imposture, which at the same time may have been in many cases
"tempered with superstition", for it is not uncommon to history that
those who exploit credulity finlsh by becoming credulous themselves.
    It is obvious that here is the crucial point of the whole inquiry,
and it is necessary to proceed with extreme caution. M. Berthelot
undertakes to shew that the fraudulent recipes contained in the Leyden
papyrus are met with again in the Byzantine collection, but the
judgment which would seem to follow obviously from this fact is
arrested by another fact which in relation to the present purpose is
of very high importance, namely, that a mystic element had already
been imported into slchemy, and that some of those writers who
reproduce the mystic processes were not chemists and had no interest
in chemistry. Now, on the assumption that alchemy was a great
spiritual science, it is quite certain that it veiled itself in the
chemistry of its period, and in this case does not stand or fall by
the quality of that chemistry, which, as M. Berthelot suggests, may
very well have been only imperfectly understood by the mystics who, on
such a hypothesis, undertook to adopt it. The mystic side of Greek
alchemical literature will, however, be dealt with later on.

***
Scanned from the periodical "The Unknown World", No. 3, Vol. 1; Oct.
15, 1894. Formatted and corrected by hand.