Page:The fairy tales of science.djvu/103

Rh gold, these impurities must be removed or remedied, a result only to be attained through the agency of the great medicine, or philosopher's stone.

This view of the nature of metallic bodies was perfectly consistent with known facts. It was known that the colour or hardness of a metal could be modified by the addition of a foreign substance, and it was only natural to suppose that the different qualities of the metals depended on certain impurities.

Gold was the only pure or healthy metal. Brass was diseased gold; mercury was diseased silver; but these metals, and all the others, might be healed, or transmuted into gold, by the wonderful red powder. In the mystical language of the alchemists gold was called Sol, or the sun; silver, being the next metal in purity, was Luna, or the moon; and the other five metals then known received the names of the planets.

The idea that the philosopher's stone possessed the powers of curing diseases, and of prolonging life, was evidently suggested by its supposed effect on ignoble metals. Since it could heal the metallic lepers, and convert them into gold, why should it not ennoble the human body?

The existence of the philosopher's stone was never questioned, though few of the alchemists who have left writings behind them boast of having had it in their possession. In all the wonderful