Some English alchemical books : being an address delivered to The Alchemical Society on Friday, October 10th, 1913 / by Professor John Ferguson.

  • John Ferguson
Date:
1913
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Licence: In copyright

Credit: Some English alchemical books : being an address delivered to The Alchemical Society on Friday, October 10th, 1913 / by Professor John Ferguson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    had a way of juggling with their terms and names which, however ingenious it might be and suggestive to the initiate, is bewildering to the man outside. That, however, is part of the hunt for the Green Lion. About 1732 there was another pamphlet published, called Wisdom Reputed Folly, or the Composition and Reality of the Philosopher’s Stone, This is dedicated to the Royal Society. Like the preceding tracts, it is an analysis of parallel passages from which is deduced the constitution of the Stone, and as in very many others, the conclusion is that it is fruitless to seek for the generative principle of gold outside of gold itself. The diffi- culty lies in getting this princple and using it. 7'he Hermetical Triumph or Victorious Philosopher’s Stone, which was an early production, a commentary on the ‘ Ancient War of the Knights was published in English in 1723, and reprinted in 1740. This is an allegory capable of various interpretations. Thirty years later, in 1770, there was published a pamph- let entitled .4 Guide to Alchemy, or the grand secret laid open. It professes to declare clearly the first matter, and the method of operation, and to explain the figurative terms in which the secret has been concealed for ages. But one can- not say that the illumination in this brief abstract throws any more light into the dark recesses of the subject than other works that have been enumerated already. But the notable thing is that the literature fizzled out—I can use no other term—in the i8th century, that sceptical century of credulity and superstition—and the art itself landed finally in the hands of Cagllostro and such persons. It was pushed to one side by the chemists who were making discovery after discovery, while the alchemists could only reiterate the old formulae and phrases about the genera- tion of metals from an ideal sulphur and mercury, which could never be obtained. So in the nineteenth century there is no new in- vestigation on the old lines, and the only work in English which I remember at the moment that may be called original, is the Suggestive Inquiry into the Hermetic Mystery and Alchemy published in 1850, and which I believe, was with- drawn from circulation.* That too is a work which would occupy a whole discourse, and I am unable to consider It here. A collection printed nearly a hundred years ago, in 1815, was The Lives of the Alchemystical Philosophers, said to be by Barrett, the author of The Magus. Besides the lives, the book contains reprints or original translations of a number of tracts, but the lives are not very well done. It was revised and remodelled by Mr. Waite, but I doubt If it deserved the trouble bestowed on It. * I understand that a new edition, edited with an Introduction by Mme. Isabelle de Steiger, will shortly be issued by Mr. Tait of Belfast.— Editor.
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