dominant in alchemy that it was
actually spoken of as the gold maker's art. It meant the ability to make
gold out of baser material, particularly out of other metals. The belief
in it and in the transmutability of matter was by no means absurd, but
rather it must be counted as a phase in the development of human thought.
As yet unacquainted with the modern doctrine of unchangeable elements they
could draw no other conclusion from the changes in matter which they daily
witnessed. If they prepared gold from ores or alloys, they thought they
had "made" it. By analogy with color changes (which they produced in
fabrics, glass, etc.) they could suppose that they had colored (tinctured)
the baser metals into gold.

Under philosophical influences the doctrine arose that metals, like human
beings, had body and soul, the soul being regarded as a finer form of
corporeality. They said that the soul or primitive stuff (prima materia)
was common to all metals, and in order to transmute one metal into another
they had to produce a tincture of its soul. In Egypt lead, under the name
Osiris, was thought to be the primitive base of metals; later when the
still more plastic quicksilver (mercury) was discovered, they regarded
this as the soul of metals. They thought they had to fix this volatile
soul by some medium in order to get a precious metal, silver, gold.

That problematic medium, which was to serve to tincture or transmute the
baser metal or its mercury to silver or gold, was called the Philosopher's
stone. It had the power to make the sick (base) metal well (precious).
Here came in the idea of a universal medicine. Alchemy desired indeed to
produce in the Philosopher's Stone a panacea that should free mankind of
all sufferings and make men young.

It will not be superfluous to mention here, that the so-called materials,
substances, concepts, are found employed in the treatises of the
alchemists in a more comprehensive sense, we can even say with more lofty
implications, the more the author in question leans to philosophical
speculation. The authors who indulged the loftiest flights were indeed
most treasured by the alchemists and prized as the greatest masters. With
them the concept mercury, as element concept, is actually separated from
that of common quicksilver. On this level of speculation, quicksilver
(Hg.) is no longer considered as a primal element, but as a suprasensible
principle to which only the name of quicksilver, m