What is Alchemy?

WHEN the transcendental interpretation of alchemical literature was
first enunciated, the Leyden papyruses had indeed been unrolled, but
they had not been published, and so also the Greek literature of
transmutation, unprinted and untranslated, was only available to
specialists. This same interpretation belongs to a period when it was
very generally supposed that Greece and Egypt were sanctuaries of
chemical as well as transcendental wisdom. In a word, the origines of
alchemy were unknown except by legend. Now this paper has already
established the character of the Leyden papyrus numbered X. in the
series, and it was seen that there was nothing transcendental about
it. On the other hand, it was also stated that the Byzantine
collection of Greek alchemists uses the same language, much of the
same syrnbolism, and methods that are identical with those of the
mediaeval Latin adepts, whose writings are the material on which the
transcendental hypothesis of alchemy has been exclusively based, plus
whatsoever may be literally genuine in the so-called Latin
translations of Arabian writers. Does the Byzantine collection
tolerate the transcendental hypothesis? Let it be regarded by itself
for a moment, putting aside on the one hand what it borrowed from
those sources of which the Leyden Papyrus is a survival, and on the
other what it lent to the long line of literature which came after it.
Let it be taken consecutively as it is found in the most precious
publication of Berthelot. There is a dedication which exalts the
sovereign matter, and seems almost to deify those who are acquainted
therewith; obviously a spiritual interpretation might be placed upon
it; obviously, also, that interpretation might be quite erroneous. It
is followed by an alphabetical <I>Lexicon of Chrysopeia,</I> which
explains the sense of the symbolical and technical terms made use of
in the general text. Those explanations are simply chemical. The Seed
of Venus is verdegris; Dew, which is a favourite symbol with all
alchemists, is explained to be mercury extracted from arsenic,
<I>i.e.,</I> sublimed arsenic; the Sacred Stone is chrysolite, though
it is also the Concealed Mystery; Magnesia, that great secret of all
Hermetic philosophy, is defined as white lead, pyrites, crude vinegar,
and female antimony, <I>i.e.,</I> native sulphur of antimony. The list
might be cited indefinitely, but it would be to no purpose here. The
Lexicon is followed by a variety of short fragmented treatises in
which all sorts of substances that are well known to chemists, besides
many which cannot now be certainly identified, are mentioned; here
again there is much which might be interpreted mystically, and yet
such a construction may be only the pardonable misreading of
unintelligible documents. In the copious annotations appended to these
texts by M. Berthelot, the allusions are, of course, read chemically.
Even amidst the mystical profundities of the address of <I>Isis to
Horis,</I> he distinguishes allusions to recondite processes of
physical transmutation. About the fragments on the Fabrication of Asem
and of Cinnabar, and many others, there is no doubt of their chemical
purpose. Among the more extended treatises, that which is attributed
to Democritus, concerning things natural and mystic, seems also
unmistakably chemical; although it does term the tincture, the
Medicine of the Soul and the deliverance from all evil, there is no
great accent of the transcendental. As much may be affirmed of the
discourse addressed to Leucippus, under the same pseudonymous
attribution. The epistle of Synesius to Dioscorus, which is a
commentary on pseudo-Democritus, or, rather, a preamble thereto,
exalts that mythical personage, but offers no mystical interpretation
of the writings it pretends to explain. On the other hand, it must be
frankly admitted the treatise of Olympiodorus contains material which
would be as valuable to the transcendental hypothesis as anything that
has been cited from mediaeval writers- for example, that the ancient
philosophers applied philosophy to art <I>by the way of science</I>-
that Zosinius, the crown of philosophers, preaches union with the
Divine, and the contemptuous rejection of matter- that what is stated
concerning minera is an allegory, for the philosophers are concerned
not with minera but with substance. Yet passages like these must be
read with their context, and the context is against the hypothesis.
The secret of the Sacred Art, of the Royal Art, is literally explained
to be the King's secret, the command of material wealth, and it was
secret because it was unbecoming that any except monarchs and priests
should be acquainted with it. The philosopher Zosinius, who is exalted
by Olympiodorus, clothes much of his instructions in symbolic visions,
and the extensive fragments which remain of him are specially rich in
that bizarre terminology which characterized the later adepts, while
he discusses the same questions which most exercised them, as, for
example, the time of the work. He is neither less nor more
transcendental than are these others. He speaks often in language
mysterious and exalted upon things which are capable of being
understood spiritually, but he speaks also of innumerable material
substances, and of the methods of chemically operating thereon. In one
place he explicitly distinguishes that there are two sciences and two
wisdoms, of which one is concerned with the purification of the soul,
and the other with the purification of copper into gold. The fragments
on furnaces and other appliances seem final as regards the material
object of the art in its practical application. The writers who follow
Zosinius in the collection, give much the same result. Pelagus uses no
expressions capable of transcendental interpretation. Ostanes gives
the quantities and names the materials which are supposed to enter
into the composition of the all-important Divine Water. Agathodaimon
has also technical recipes, and so of the rest, including the
processes of the so-called Iamblichus, and the chemical treatise
which, by a still more extraordinary attribution, is referred to
Moses. The extended fragments on purely practical matters, such as the
metallurgy of gold, the tincture of Persian copper, the colouring of
precious stones, do not need investigation for the purposes of a
spiritual hypothesis, their fraudulent nature being sufficiently
transparent, despite their invoking the intervention of the grace of
God.
    There is one other matter upon which it is needful to insist here.
The priceless manuscripts upon which M. Berthelot's collection is
based contain illustrations of the chemical vessels employed in the
processes which are detailed in the text, and these vessels are the
early and rude form of some which are still in use. This is a point to
be marked, as it seems to point to the conclusion that the
investigation of even merely material substances inevitably had a
mystic aspect to the minds which pursued them in the infancy of
physical science.

***
Scanned from the periodical "The Unknown World", No. 4, Vol. 1; Nov.
15, 1894. Formatted and corrected by hand.