it is preposterous to maintain that the writings of the alchemists are without meaning, even though their views are altogether false.
And the more false their views are believed to be, the more necessary does it become to explain why they should have gained such universal credit.
Here we have problems into which scientific inquiry is not only legitimate, but, I think, very desirable,--apart altogether from the question of the truth or falsity of alchemy as a science, or its utility as an art.
What exactly was the system of beliefs grouped under the term "alchemy," and what was its aim? Why were the beliefs held?
What was their precise influence upon human thought and culture?
It was in order to elucidate problems of this sort, as well as to determine what elements of truth, if any, there are in the theories of the alchemists, that The Alchemical Society was founded in 1912, mainly through my own efforts and those of my confreres, and for the first time something like justice was being done to the memory of the alchemists when the Society's activities were stayed by that greatest calamity of history, the European War.
Some students of the writings of the alchemists have advanced a very curious and interesting theory as to the aims of the alchemists, which may be termed "the transcendental theory". According to this theory, the alchemists were concerned only with the mystical processes affecting the soul of man, and their chemical references are only to be understood symbolically.
In my opinion, however, this view of the subject is rendered untenable by the lives of the alchemists themselves; for, as Mr WAITE has very fully pointed out in his _Lives of Alchemystical Philosophers_(1888), the lives of the alchemists show them to have been mainly concerned with chemical and physical processes; and, indeed, to their labours we owe many valuable discoveries of a chemical nature.
But the fact that such a theory should ever have been formulated, and should not be altogether lacking in consistency, may serve to direct our attention to the close connection between alchemy and mysticism.
If we wish to understand the origin and aims of alchemy we must endeavour to recreate the atmosphere of the Middle Ages, and to look at the subject from the point of view of the alchemists themselves.
Now, this atmosphere was, as I have indicated in a previous essay, surcharged with mystical theology and mystical philosophy.
Alchemy, so to speak, was generated and throve in a dim religious light.
We cannot open a book by any one of the better sort of alchemists without noticing how closely their theology and their chemistry are interwoven, and what a remarkably religious view they take of their subject.
Thus one alchemist writes: "In the first place, let every devout and God-fearing chemist and student of this Art consider that this arcanum should be regarded, not only as a truly great, but as a most holy Art (seeing that it typifies and shadows out the highest heavenly good).
Therefore, if any man desire to reach this great and unspeakable Mystery, he must remember that it is obtained not by the might of man, but by the grace of God, and that not our will or desire, but only the mercy of the Most High, can bestow it upon us. For this reason you must first of all cleanse your heart, lift it up to Him alone, and ask of Him this gift in true, earnest and undoubting prayer.
He alone can give and bestow it."[1] Whilst another alchemist declares:
"I am firmly persuaded that any unbeliever who got truly to know this Art, would straightway confess the truth of our Blessed Religion, and believe in the Trinity and in our Lord JESUS CHRIST.[2]
[1] _The Sophic Hydrolith; or, Water Stone of the Wise_.
(See _The Hermetic Museum_, vol. i. pp. 74 and 75.)[2] PETER BONUS: _The New Pearl of Great Price_ (trans. by A. E. WAITE, 1894), p. 275.
Now, what I suggest is that the alchemists constructed their chemical theories for the main part by means of _a priori_ reasoning, and that the premises from which they started were (i.) the truth of mystical theology, especially the doctrine of the soul's regeneration, and (ii.) the truth of mystical philosophy, which asserts that the objects of Nature are symbols of spiritual verities.
There is, I think, abundant evidence to show that alchemy was a more or less deliberate attempt to apply, according to the principles of analogy, the doctrines of religious mysticism to chemical and physical phenomena.
Some of this evidence I shall attempt to put forward in this essay.
In the first place, however, I propose to say a few words more in description of the theological and philosophical doctrines which so greatly influenced the alchemists, and which, I believe, they borrowed for their attempted explanations of chemical and physical phenomena. This system of doctrine Ihave termed "mysticism"--a word which is unfortunately equivocal, and has been used to denote various systems of religious and philosophical thought, from the noblest to the most degraded.
I have, therefore, further to define my usage of the term.
By mystical theology I mean that system of religious thought which emphasises the unity between Creator and creature, though not necessarily to the extent of becoming pantheistic.
Man, mystical theology asserts, has sprung from God, but has fallen away from Him through self-love. Within man, however, is the seed of divine grace, whereby, if he will follow the narrow road of self-renunciation, he may be regenerated, born anew, becoming transformed into the likeness of God and ultimately indissolubly united to God in love.
God is at once the Creator and the Restorer of man's soul, He is the Origin as well as the End of all existence;and He is also the Way to that End. In Christian mysticism, CHRIST is the Pattern, towards which the mystic strives;CHRIST also is the means towards the attainment of this end.
