Alchemy
in William Nicholson's British
Encyclopedia; or, Dictionary of arts and sciences. Comprising an accurate
and popular view of the present improved state of human knowledge. 6
vols. (London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme, 1809), I,
unpaginated.
ALCHEMY, that branch of chemistry that had for its principle objects the
transmutation of all the metals into gold; the panacea, or universal
remedy for all diseases; and the alkahest, or universal menstruum. Those
who pursued these delusive projects gradually assumed the form of a sect,
under the name of Alchemists, a term made up of the word chemist, and the
Arabian article al as a prefix. The alchemists laid it down as a
first principle, that all metals are composed of the same ingredients, or
that the substances at least which compose gold exist in all metals, and
are capable of being obtained from them. The great object of their
researches was to convert the baser metals into gold. The substance which
produced this property they called lapis philosophorum, "the
philoospher's stone;" and many of them boasted that they were in
possession of that grand instrument. The alchemists were established in
the west of Europe as early as the ninth century; but between the eleventh
and fifteenth alchemy was in its most flourishing state. The principal
alchemists were Albertus Magnus, Roger Bacon, Arnoldus de Villa Nova,
Raymond Lully, and the two Isaacs of Holland.
