, and bythe beginning of the eighteenth century, as a school, it may be said tohave become defunct. Here and there, however, a solitary student of theart lingered, and in the department of this article "Modern Alchemy" willdemonstrate that the science has to a grate extent revived during moderntimes, although it has never been quite extinct. THE QUESTS OF ALCHEMY: The grand objects of alchemy were (1) thediscovery of a process by which the baser metals might be transmuted intogold or silver; (2) the discovery of an elixir by which life might beprolonged indefinitely; and there may be added (3), the manufacture of andartificial process of human life. (for the latter see Homunculus) THE THEORY AND PHILOSOPHY OF ALCHEMY: The first objects were to beachieved as follows: The transmutation of metals was to be accomplished bya powder, stone or exilir often called the Philosopher`s Stone, theapplication of which would effect the transmutation of the baser metalsinto gold or silver, depending upon the length of time of its application. Basing their conclusions on a profound examination of natural processes andresearch into the secrets of nature, the alchemists arrived at the axiomthat nature was divided philosophically into four principal regions, thedry, the moist, the warm, the cold, whence all that exists must be derived.Nature is also divisible into the male and the female. She is the divinebreath, the central fire, invisible yet ever active, and is typified bysulphur, which is the mercury of the sages, which slowly fructifies underthe genial warmth of nature. The alchemist must be ingenuous, of atruthful disposition, and gifted with patience and prudence, followingnature in every alchemical performance. He must recollect that like drawsto like, and must know how to obtain the seed of metals, which is producedby the four elements through the will of the Supreme Being and theImagination of Nature. We are told the the original matte...
