he world cannot
comprehend without the interposition of the Holy Ghost, or without the
instruction of those who know it. The same is of a mysterious nature,
wondrous strength, boundless power.... By Avicenna this Spirit is named
the Soul of the World. For, as the Soul moves all the limbs of the Body,
so also does this Spirit move all bodies. And as the Soul is in all
the limbs of the Body, so also is this Spirit in all elementary created
things. It is sought by many and found by few. It is beheld from afar
and found near; for it exists in every thing, in every place, and at all
times. It has the powers of all creatures; its action is found in all
elements, and the qualities of all things are therein, even in the
highest perfection... it heals all dead and living bodies without other
medicine... converts all metallic bodies into gold, and there is nothing
like unto it under Heaven."(1b) It was this Spirit, concentrated in all
its potency in a suitable material form, which the alchemists sought
under the name of "the Philosopher's Stone". Now, mystical theology
teaches that the Spirit of CHRIST, by which alone the soul of man can be
tinctured and transmuted into the likeness of God, is Goodness itself;
consequently, the alchemists argued that the Philosopher's Stone must
be, so to speak, Gold itself, or the very essence of Gold: it was to
them, as CHRIST is of the soul's perfection, at once the pattern and
the means of metallic perfection. "The Philosopher's Stone," declares
"EIRENAEUS PHILALETHES" (_nat. c_. 1623), "is a certain heavenly,
spiritual, penetrative, and fixed substance, which brings all metals
to the perfection of gold or silver (according to the quality of the
Medicine), and that by natural methods, which yet in their effects
transcend Nature.... Know, then, that it is called a stone, not because
it is like a stone, but only because, by virtue of its fixed nature, it
resists the action of fire as successfully as any stone. In species it
is gold, more pure than the purest; it is fixed and incombustible like
a stone (_i.e_. it contains no outward sulphur, but only inward, fixed
sulphur), but its appearance is that of a very fine powder, impalpable
to the touch, sweet to the taste, fragrant to the smell, in potency a
most penetrative spirit, apparently dry and yet unctuous, and easily
capable of tingeing a plate of metal.... If we say that its nature is
spiritual, it would be no more than the truth; if we descri