Book XIV, chapters 6–8: The folly of alchemy: opinions and conclusion

CHAP. VI. The Opinion of divers learned men touching the folly of Alchimistry.

ALbert in his book of Minerals reporteth, that Avicenna treating of Alchymistry, saith; Let the dealers in Alchymistry understand, that the very nature and kinde of things cannot be changed, but rather made by art to resemble the same in shew and likeness; so that they are not the very things indeed, but seem so to be in appearance; as castles and towers do seem to be built in the clouds, whereas the representations there shewed, are nothing else but the resemblance of certain objects below, caused in some bright and clear cloud, when the air is void of thickness and grosseness. A sufficient proof hereof may be the looking-glass. And we see (saith he) that yellow or orrenge colour laid upon red, seemeth to be gold. Francis Petrarch treating of the same matter in form of a dialogue, introduceth a disciple of his, who fansied the foresaid fond profession and practice, saying; I hope for prosperous success in Alchymistry. Petrach answereth him; It is a wonder from whence that hope should spring, sith the fruit thereof did never yet fall to thy lot, nor yet at any time chance to any other; as the report commonly goeth, that many rich men, by this vanity and madness have been brought to beggery, whiles they have wearied themselves therewith, weakned their bodies, and wasted their wealth in trying the means to make gold ingender gold. I hope for […]old according to the workmans promise, saith the disciple. He that hath promised thee gold, will run away with thy gold, and thou never the wiser, saith Petrarch. He promiseth me great good, saith the disciple. He will first serve his own turn, and relieve his private poverty, saith Petrarch; for Alchymisters are a beggerly kinde of people, who though they confess themselves bare and needy, yet will they make others rich and wealthy; as though others poverty did more molest and pity them then their own. These be the words of Petrarch, a man of great learning and no less experience; who as in his time he saw the fraudulent fetches of this compassing craft; so hath there been no age, since the same hath been broached, wherein some few wise men have not smelt out the evil meaning of these shifting merchants, and bewrayed them to the world.

An ancient writer of a religious Order, who lived above a thousand years since, discovering the diversities of thefts, after a long enumeration, in Alchymisters, whom he calleth Falsificantes metallorum & mineralium, witches and counterfeiters of metals and minerals; and setteth them as deep in the degree of theeves, as any of the rest, whose injurious dealings are brought to open arraignment. Ii is demanded (saith he) why the Art of Alchymistry doth never prove that in effect, which it pretendeth in precept and promise. The answer is ready; that if by art gold might be made, then were it behoovefull to know the manner and proceeding of nature in generation; sith art is said to imitate and counterfeit nature. Again, it is because of the lameness and unperfectness of philosophy, specially concerning minerals: no such manner of proceeding being set down by consent and agreement of Philosophers in writing, touching the true and undoubted effect of the same. Whereupon one supposeth that gold is made of one kind of stuff this way, others of another kind of stuff that way. And therefore it is a chance if any attain to the artificial applying of the actives and passives of gold and silver. Moreover, it is certain, that quicksilver and sulphur are the materials (as they term them) of metals, and the agent is hear, which directeth; howbeit it is very hard to know the due proportion of the mixture of the materials; which proportion the generation of gold doth require. And admit that by chance they attain to such proportion; yet can they not readily resume or do it again in another work, because of the hidden diversities of materials, and the uncertainty of applying the actives and passives.

The same ancient author concluding against this vain art, saith, that of all Christian Law-makers it is forbidden, and in no case tolerable in any Commonwealth; first because it presumeth to forge Idols for covetousness, which are gold and silver: whereupon, saith the Apostle, Covetousness is Idol-worship; secondly, for that (as Aristotle saith) Coin should be scant and rare, that it might be dear; but the same would wax vile, and of small estimation, if by the art of Alchimistry gold and Silver might be multiplied; thirdly, because (as experience proveth) wise men are thereby bewitched, cousenors increased, princes abused, the rich impoverished, the poor beggered, the multitude made fools, and yet the craft and craftmasters (oh madness!) credited. Thus far he. Whereby in few words he discountenanceth that profession, not by the imaginations of his own brain, but by manifold circumstances of manifest proof. Touching the which practice I think enough hath been spoken, and more a great deal than needed; sith so plain and demonstrable a matter requireth the less travel in confutation.

CHAP. VII. That vain and deceitfull hope is a great cause why men are seduced by this alluring art, and that their labours therein are bootless, &c.

HItherto somewhat at large I have detected the knavery of the art Alchymisticall, partly by reasons, and partly by examples: so that the thing it self may no less appear to the judicial eye of the considerers, than the bones and sinewes of a body anatomized, to the corporal eye of the beholders. Now it shall not be amiss nor impertinent, to treat somewhat of the nature of that vain and fruitless hope, which induceth and draweth men forward as it were with cords, not only to the admiration, but also to the approbation of the same: in such sort, that some are compelled ruefully to sing (as one in old time did, whether in token of good or ill luck, I do not now well remember) Spes & fortuna valete; Hope and good hap adieu.

No marvell then though Alchymistry allure men so sweetly, and intangle them in snares of folly; sith the baits which it useth is the hope of gold, the hunger whereof is by the poet termed Sacra, which some do English, Holy; not understanding that it is rather to be interpreted, Cursed or detestable, by the figure Acyron, when a word of an unproper signification is cast in a clause as it were a cloud: or by the figure Antiphrasis, when a word importeth a contrary meaning to that which it commonly hath. For what reason can there be, that the hunger of gold should be counted holy, the same having (as depending upon it) so many millions of mischiefs and miseries: as treasons, thefts, adulteries, manslaughters, truce-breakings, perjuries, cousenages, and a great troop of other enormities, which were here too long to rehearse. And if the nature of every action be determinable by the end thereof, then cannot this hunger be holy, but rather accursed, which pulleth after it as it were with iron chains such a band of outrages and enormities, as of all their labour, charge, care, and cost, &c. they have nothing else left them in lieu of lucre, but only some few burned bricks of a ruinous furnace, a peck or two of ashes, and such light stuffe, which they are forced peradventure in fine to sell when beggery hath arrested and laid his mace on their shoulders. As for all their gold, it is resolved In primam materiam, or rather In levem quendam fumulum, into a light smoke or fumigation of vapors, than the which nothing is more light, nothing less substantial, spirits only excepted, out of whose nature and number these are not to be exempted.

CHAP. VIII. A continuation of the former matter, with a conclusion of the same.

THat which I have declared before, by reasons, examples, and authorities, I will now prosecute and conclude by one other example; to the end that we, as others in former ages, may judge of vain hope accordingly, and be no less circumspect to avoid the inconveniences thereof, than Ulysses was wary to escape the incantations of Circes that old transforming witch. Which example of mine is drawn from Lewis the French King, the eleventh of that name, who being on a time at Burgundy, fell acquainted by occasion of hunting with one Conon, a clownish but yet an honest and hearty good fellow. For Princes and great men delight much in such plain clubhutchens. The King oftentimes, by means of his game, used the Countrymans house for his refreshing; and as noble men sometimes take pleasure in homely and course things, so the King did not refuse to eat turneps and rape roots in Conons cottage. Shortly after King Lewes being at his palace, void of troubles and disquietness, Conons wife will'd him to repair to the Court, to shew himself to the King, to put him in minde of the old entertainment which he had at his house, and to present him with some of the fairest and choisest rape roots that she had in store. Conon seemed loth, alledging that he should but lose his labour: for princes (saith he) have other matters in hand, than to intend to think of such trifling courtesies. But Conons wife overcame him, and perswaded him in the end, choosing a certain number of the best and goodlyest Rape-roots that she had: which when she had given her husband to carry to the Court, he set forward on his journey a good trudging pace. But Conon being tempted by the way, partly with the desire of eating, and partly with the toothsomness of the meat which he bare, that by little and little he devoured up all the roots saving one, which was a very fair and a goodly great one indeed. Now when Conon was come to the Court, it was his luck to stand in such a place, as the King passing by, and spying the man, did well remember him, and commanded that he should be brought in. Conon very cheerily followed his guide hard at the heels, and no sooner saw the King, but bluntly coming to him, reached out his hand, and presented the gift to his Majesty. The King received it with more cheerfulness than it was offered, and bad one of those that stood next him, to take it, and lay it up among those things which he esteemed most, and had in greatest accompt. Then he bad Conon to dine with him, and after dinner gave the Country-man great thanks for his Rape-root; who made no bones of the matter, but boldly made challenge and claim to the Kings promised courtesie. Whereupon the King commanded, that a thousand Crowns should be given him in recompence for his Root.

The report of this bountifulness was spread in short space over all the Kings houshold: insomuch as one of his Courtiers, in hope of the like or a larger reward, gave the King a very proper Gennet. Whose drift the King perceiving, and judging that his former liberality to the Clown, provoked the Courtier to this covetous attempt, took the Gennet very thankfully: and calling some of his Noble men about him, began to consult with them, what mends he might make his servant for his Horse. Whiles this was a doing, the Courtier conceived passing good hope of some Princely Largess, calculating and casting his Cards in this manner: If his Majesty rewarded a silly Clown so bountifully for a simple Rape-root, what will he do to a jolly Courtier for a gallant Gennet? Whiles the King was debating the matter, and one said this, another that, and the Courtier travelled all the while in vain hope, at last saith the King, even upon the sudden; I have now bethought me what to bestow upon him: and calling one of his Nobles to him, whispered him in the ear, and willed him to fetch a thing, which he should finde in his Chamber wrapped up in silk. The Root is brought wrapped in silk, which the King with his own hands gave to the Courtier, using these words therewithall, that he sped well, insomuch as it was his good hap to have for his Horse a Jewel that cost him a thousand Crowns. The Courtier was a glad man, and at his departing longed to be looking what it was, and his heart danced for joy. In due time therefore he unwrapped the silk (a sort of his fellow-Courtiers flocking about him to testifie his good luck) and having unfolded it, he found therein a dry and withered Rape-root. Which spectacle though it set the standers about in a loud laughter, yet it quailed the Courtiers courage, and cast him into a shrewd fit of pensiveness. Thus was the confidence of this Courtier turned to vanity, who upon hope of good speed was willing to part from his Horse for had I wist.

This story doth teach us, into what folly and madness vain hope may drive undiscreet and unexpert men. And therefore no marvell though Alchymisters dream and dote after double advantage, faring like Aesops dog, who greedily coveting to catch and snatch at the shadow of the flesh which he carried in his mouth over the water, lost both the one and the other: as they do their increase and their principal. But to break off abruptly from this matter, and to leave these hypocrites (for why may they not be so named, who as Homer, speaking in detestation of such rakehells, saith very divinely and truely;

Odi etenim seu claustra Erebi, quicunque loquuntur
Ore aliud, tacitoque aliud sub pectore claudunt:

Englished by Abraham Fleming;

I hate even as the gates of Hell,
Those that one thing with tongue do tell,
And notwithstanding closely keep
Another thing in heart full deep.)

To leave these hypocrites (I say) in the dregs of their dishonesty, I will conclude against them peremptorily, that they, with the rabble above rehearsed, and the rout hereafter to be mentioned, are rank Couseners, and consuming Cankers to the Common-wealth, and therefore to be rejected and excommunicated from the fellowship of all honest men. For now their art, which turneth all kind of metals that they can come by into mist and smoak, is no less apparent to the world, than the clear sunny rayes at noonsted; insomuch that I may say with the Poet;

Hos populus ridet, multumque torosa juventus
Ingeminat tremulos naso crispante cachinnos:

Englished by Abraham Fleming;

All people laugh them now to scorn,
each strong and lusty blood
Redoubleth quavering laughters loud
with wrinkled nose a good.

So that, if any be so addicted unto the vanity of the art Alchymisticall (as every fool will have his fancy) and that (beside so many experimented examples of divers, whose wealth hath vanished like a vapour, whiles they have been over rash in the practice hereof) this discourse will not move to desist from such extream dotage, I say to him or them, and that aptly,

—dicitque facitque quod ipse
Non sani esse hominis non sanus juret Orestes:

Englished by Abraham Fleming;

He saith and doth that every thing,
which mad Orestes might
With Oath averre became a man
bereft of reason right.