Alchemy: ancient and modern : being a brief account of the alchemistic doctrines, and their relations, to mysticism on the one hand, and to recent discoveries in physical science on the other hand ; together with some particulars regarding the lives and teachings of the most noted alchemists / by H. Stanley Redgrove.

  • Herbert Stanley Redgrove
Date:
1911
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Alchemy: ancient and modern : being a brief account of the alchemistic doctrines, and their relations, to mysticism on the one hand, and to recent discoveries in physical science on the other hand ; together with some particulars regarding the lives and teachings of the most noted alchemists / by H. Stanley Redgrove. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    difference between two different elements—such are different because equal weights of them contain or are equivalent to different quantities of energy. The so-called “allotropic modifications of an element,” therefore, are just as much different elements as any other different elements, and the change from one “ modification ” to another is a true transmuta¬ tion of the elements; the only distinction being that what are called “allotropic modifications of the same element ” differ only slightly in respect of the energy they contain, and hence are comparatively easy to convert one into the other, whereas different elements (so called) differ very greatly from one another in this respect, whence it is to be concluded that the trans¬ mutation of one such element into another will only be attained by the utilisation of energy in a very highly concentrated form, such as is evolved simul¬ taneously with the spontaneous decomposition of the radium emanation. That this highly concentrated form of energy does result in effecting the same appears to be indicated by Sir William Ramsay’s experiments. § 103. We have shown that modern science indi¬ cates the essential truth of alchemistic doctrine, and our task is ended. We can conclude Conclusion. . , , , in no better way than by quoting these words of the greatest “ modern alchemist ” : “If these hypotheses [concerning the possibility of causing the atoms of ordinary elements to absorb energy] are just,” said Sir William Ramsay in 1904, “then the transmutations of the ele¬ ments no longer appears an idle dream. The philosopher’s stone will have been discovered, and