The alchemists could not be accused of laziness or aversion to work in their laboratories.  Paracelsus (16th century) says of them:  “They are not given to idleness, nor go in a proud habit, or plush and velvet garments, often showing their rings on their fingers, or wearing swords with silver hilts by their sides, or fine and gay gloves on their hands; but diligently follow their labours, sweating whole days and nights by their furnaces.  They do not spend their time abroad for recreation, but take delight in their laboratories.  They put their fingers among coals, into clay and filth, not into gold rings.  They are sooty and black, like smiths and miners, and do not pride themselves upon clean and beautiful faces.”

In these respects the chemist of to-day faithfully follows the practice of the alchemists who were his predecessors.  You can nose a chemist in a crowd by the smell of the laboratory which hangs about him; you can pick him out by the stains on his hands and clothes.  He also “takes delight in his laboratory”; he does not always “pride himself on a clean and beautiful face”; he “sweats whole days and nights by his furnace.”

Why does the chemist toil so eagerly?  Why did the alchemists so untiringly pursue their quest?  I think it is not unfair to say:  the chemist experiments in order that he “may liken his imaginings to the facts which he observes”; the alchemist toiled that he might liken the facts which he observed to his imaginings.  The difference may be put in another way by saying:  the chemist’s object is to discover “how changes happen in combinations of the unchanging”; the alchemist’s endeavour was to prove the truth of his fundamental assertion, “that every substance contains undeveloped resources and potentialities, and can be brought outward and forward into perfection.”

Looking around him, and observing the changes of things, the alchemist was deeply impressed by the growth and modification of plants and animals; he argued that minerals and metals also grow, change, develop.  He said in effect:  “Nature is one, there must be unity in all the diversity I see.  When a grain of corn falls into the earth it dies, but this dying is the first step towards a new life; the dead seed is changed into the living plant.  So it must be with all other things in nature:  the mineral, or the metal, seems dead when it is buried in the earth, but, in reality, it is growing, changing, and becoming more perfect.”  The perfection of the seed is the plant.  What is the perfection of the common metals?  “Evidently,” the alchemist replied, “the perfect metal is gold; the common metals are trying to become gold.”  “Gold is the intention of Nature in regard to all metals,” said an alchemical writer.  Plants are preserved by the preservation of their seed.  “In like manner,” the alchemist’s argument proceeded, “there must be a seed in metals which is their essence; if I can separate the seed and bring it under the proper conditions, I can