aps, meant no such thing; for, by
attending to the Arabic style and diction of this author, which abounds
in allegory, it is highly probable that by man he means gold, and by
leprous, or other diseases, the other metals, which, with relation to
gold, are all impure.

The origin and antiquity of alchymy have been much controverted. If any
credit may be placed on legend and tradition, it must be as old as the
flood--nay, Adam himself is represented to have been an alchymist. A
great part, not only of the heathen mythology, but of the Jewish
Scriptures, are supposed to refer to it. Thus, Suidas[73] will have the
fable of the philosopher's stone to be alluded to in the fable of the
Argonauts; and others find it in the book of Moses, as well as in other
remote places. But, if the era of the art be examined by the test of
history, it will lose much of its fancied antiquity. The manner in which
Suidas accounts for the total silence of alchymy among the old writers
is, that Dioclesian procured all the books of the ancient Egyptians to
be burnt; and that it was in these the great mysteries of chemistry were
contained.[74] Kercher asserts, that the theory of the philosopher's
stone is delivered at large in the table of Hermes, and the ancient
Egyptians were not ignorant of the art, but declined to prosecute it.

FOOTNOTES:

[66]

------ nec Babylonios Tentaris numeros.--Lib, 1. ad XI.

That is, consult not the tables of planetary calculations used by
astrologers of Babylonish origin.

[67] This conjectural science is divided into natural and judicial. The
first is confined to the study of exploring natural effects, as change
of weather, winds and storms--hurricanes, thunder, floods, earthquakes,
and the like. In this sense it is admitted to be a part of natural
philosophy. It was under this view that Mr. Good, Mr. Boyle, and Dr.
Mead pleaded for its use. The first endeavours to account for the
diversity of seasons from the situations, habitudes, and motions of the
planets; and to explain an infinity of phenomena by the contemplation of
the stars. The honourable Mr. Boyle admitted, that all physical bodies
are influenced by the heavenly bodies; and the doctor's opinion, in his
treatise concerning the power of the sun and moon, etc. is in favour of
the doctrine. But these predictions and influence are ridiculed, and
entirely exploded by the most esteemed modern philosophers, of which the
reader may have a learned specimen