In the year 1610 another collection of alchymistical tracts was published at Basil, in three volumes, under the title of “Artis Auriferæ quam Chemiam vocant volumina tria.” It contains forty-seven different tracts.
In the year 1702 Mangetus published at Geneva two very large folio volumes, under the name of “Bibliotheca Chemica Curiosa, seu rerum ad Alchymiam pertinentium thesaurus instructissimus, quo non tantum Artis Auriferæ ac scriptorum in ea nobiliorum Historia traditur; lapidis veritas Argumentis et Experimentis innumeris, immo et Juris Consultorum Judiciis evincitur; Termini obscuriores explicantur; Cautiones contra Impostores et Difficultates in Tinctura Universali conficienda occurrentes declarantur: verum etiam Tractatus omnes Virorum Celebriorum, qui in Magno sudarunt Elixyre, quique ab ipso Hermete, ut dicitur, Trismegisto, ad nostra usque tempora de Chrysopoea scripserunt, cum præcipuis suis Commentariis, concinno ordine dispositi exhibentur.” This Bibliotheca contains one hundred and twenty-two alchymistical treatises, many of them of considerable length.
Two additional volumes of the Theatrum Chemicum were afterwards published; but these I have never had an opportunity of seeing.
From these collections, which exhibit a pretty complete view of the writings of the alchymists, a tolerably accurate notion may be formed of their opinions. But before attempting to lay open the theories and notions by which the alchymists were guided, it will be proper to state the opinions which were gradually adopted respecting the origin of Alchymy, and the contrivances by which these opinions were supported.
Zosimus, the Panapolite, in a passage quoted above informs us, that the art of making gold and silver was not a human invention; but was communicated to mankind by angels or demons. These angels, he says, fell in love with women, and were induced by their charms to abandon heaven altogether, and take up their abode upon earth. Among other pieces of information which these spiritual beings communicated to their paramours, was the sublime art of Chemistry, or the fabrication of gold and silver.
It is quite unnecessary to refute this extravagant opinion, obviously founded on a misunderstanding of a passage in the sixth chapter of Genesis. “And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them, that the sons of God saw the daughters of men, that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose.--There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare _children_ to them; the same became mighty men, which were of old, men of renown.”