[37] J. F. HELVETIUS: _The Golden Calf_, ch. iv. (see _The Hermetic Museum_, vol. ii. p. 298).
Representing the Coction of Gold Amalgam in a Closed Vessel.
Representing the Transmutation of the Metals.
§ =26.= The alchemists believed that a most minute proportion of the Stone projected upon considerable quantities of heated mercury, molten lead, or other “base” metal, would transmute practically the whole into silver or gold. This claim of the alchemists, that a most minute quantity of the Stone was sufficient to transmute considerable quantities of “base” metal, has been the object of much ridicule. Certainly, some of the claims of the alchemists (understood literally) are out of all reason; but on the other hand, the disproportion between the quantities of Stone and transmuted metal cannot be advanced as an _à priori_ objection to the alchemists’ claims, inasmuch that a class of chemical reactions (called “catalytic”) is known, in which the presence of a small quantity of some appropriate form of matter--the catalyst--brings about a chemical change in an indefinite quantity of some other form or forms; thus, for example, cane-sugar in aqueous solution is converted into two other sugars by the action of small quantities of acid; and sulphur-dioxide and oxygen, which will not combine under ordinary conditions, do so readily in the presence of a small quantity of platinized asbestos, which is obtained unaltered after the reaction is completed and may be used over and over again (this process is actually employed in the manufacture of sulphuric acid or oil of vitriol). However, whether any such catalytic transmutation of the chemical “elements” is possible is merely conjecture.
§ =27.= The Elixir of Life, which was generally described as a solution of the Stone in spirits of wine, or identified with the Stone itself, could be applied, so it was thought, under certain conditions to the alchemist himself, with an entirely analogous result, _i.e._, it would restore him to the flower of youth. The idea, not infrequently attributed to the alchemists, that the Elixir would endow one with a life of endless duration on the material plane is not in strict accord with alchemistic analogy. From this point of view, the effect of the Elixir is physiological perfection, which, although ensuring long life, is not equivalent to endless life on the material plane. “The Philosophers’ Stone,” says Paracelsus, “purges the whole body of man, and cleanses it from all impurities by the introduction of new and more youthful forces which it joins to the nature of man.”[38] And in another work expressive of the opinions of the same alchemist, we read: “. . . there is nothing which might deliver the mortal body from death; but there is One Thing which may postpone decay, renew youth, and prolong short human life . . .”[39] In the theory that a solution of the Philosopher’s Stone (which, it must be remembered, was thought to be of a species with gold) constituted the _Elixir Vitæ_, can be traced, perhaps, the idea that gold in a potable form was a veritable cure-all: in the latter days of Alchemy any yellow-coloured liquid was foisted upon a credulous public as a medicinal preparation of gold.