nions which governed the
ages fled. He is but a superficial thinker who would despise and refuse to
hear of them merely because they are absurd. No man is so wise but that he
may learn some wisdom from his past errors, either of thought or action;
and no society has made such advances as to be capable of no improvement
from the retrospect of its past folly and credulity. And not only is such
a study instructive: he who reads for amusement only will find no chapter
in the annals of the human mind more amusing than this. It opens out the
whole realm of fiction--the wild, the fantastic, and the wonderful, and
all the immense variety of things "that are not, and cannot be; but that
have been imagined and believed."

* * * * *

For more than a thousand years the art of alchymy captivated many noble
spirits, and was believed in by millions. Its origin is involved in
obscurity. Some of its devotees have claimed for it an antiquity coeval
with the creation of man himself, others, again, would trace it no further
back than the time of Noah. Vincent de Beauvais argues, indeed, that all
the antediluvians must have possessed a knowledge of alchymy; and
particularly cites Noah as having been acquainted with the _elixir vitae_,
or he could not have lived to so prodigious an age, and have begotten
children when upwards of five hundred. Lenglet du Fresnoy, in his _History
of the Hermetic Philosophy_, says, "Most of them pretended that Shem, or
Chem, the son of Noah, was an adept in the art, and thought it highly
probable that the words _chemistry_ and _alchymy_ are both derived from
his name." Others say, the art was derived from the Egyptians, amongst
whom it was first founded by Hermes Trismegistus. Moses, who is looked
upon as a first-rate alchymist, gained his knowledge in Egypt; but he kept
it all to himself, and would not instruct the children of Israel in its
mysteries. All the writers upon alchymy triumphantly cite the story of the
golden calf, in the 32d chapter of Exodus, to prove that this great
lawgiver was an adept, and could make or unmake gold at his pleasure. It
is recorded, that Moses was so wrath with the Israelites for their
idolatry, "that he took the calf which they had made, and burned it in the
fire, and ground it to powder, and strewed it upon the water, and made the
children of Israel drink of it." This, say the alchymists, he never could
have done had he not been in possession of