Page:The fairy tales of science.djvu/102

76 if we only take the trouble to dip into the subject of Alchemy, we shall find that the idea of the transmutation of baser metals into gold stood in the most perfect harmony with all the observations and all the knowledge of the age in which it was conceived, and that the alchemists, instead of being crack-brained enthusiasts, were the most learned and acute men of their time.

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries there were many impostors who pretended a knowledge of gold-making; but it is unjust to confound them with the true alchemists, who were equivalent to the chemists of the present day. We cannot really draw a line of demarcation between alchemy and chemistry, as the one science passed by an imperceptible transition into the other. Alchemy is ancient chemistry, and chemistry modern alchemy. Many of the opinions entertained by the chemists of to-day are quite as extravagant as those held by the alchemists. Indeed, as our knowledge increases, the transmutation of metals seems to grow more and more probable.

Before we consider the magical transformations that are effected by the modern alchemist, let us examine some of the doctrines propounded by his ancient representative.

The alchemist maintained that all the metals are compounds; that the baser metals contain the same constituents as gold, contaminated with various impurities. To transmute any metals into