another kind: these were called magisteries". When gold and quicksilver are combined, the king and the queen are married, to produce children of their own kind. It will easily be conceived, that when chemical operations were described in phraseology of this sort, the enthusiasm of the fancy would be added to that of the hopes, and observation would not be permitted to correct the delusion, or to suggest sounder and more rational views.

The exaggeration of the vague notion of perfection and power in the object of the alchemist's search, was carried further still. The same preparation which possessed the faculty of turning baser metals into gold, was imagined to be also a universal medicine, to have the gift of curing or preventing diseases, prolonging life, producing bodily strength and beauty: the philosophers' stone was finally invested with every desirable efficacy which the fancy of the "philosophers" could devise.

It has been usual to say that alchemy was the mother of chemistry; and that men would never have made the experiments on which the real science is founded, if they had not been animated by the hopes and the energy which the delusive art inspired. To judge whether this is truly said, we must be able to estimate the degree of interest which men feel in purely speculative truth, and in the real and substantial improvement of art to

22

Boyle. Thomson's Hist. Ch. i. 25. Carolus Musitanus.

VOL. I.

X

which it leads. Since the fall of alchemy, and the progress of real chemistry, these motives have been powerful enough to engage in the study of the science, a body far larger than the alchemists ever were, and no less zealous. There is no apparent reason why the result should not have been the same, if the progress of true science had begun sooner. Astronomy was long cultivated without the bribe of astrology. But, perhaps, we may justly say this;-that, in the stationary period, men's minds were so far enfeebled and degraded, that pure speculative truth had not its full effect upon them; and the mystical pursuits in which some dim and disfigured images of truth were sought with avidity, were among the provisions by which the human soul, even when sunk below its best condition, is perpetually directed to something above the mere objects of sense and appetite;-a contrivance of compensation, as it were, in the intellectual and spiritual constitution of man.

5. Magic.-Magical arts, so far as they were believed in by those who professed to practise them, and so far as they have a bearing in science, stand on the same footing as astrology; and, indeed, a close alliance has generally been maintained between the two pursuits. Incapacity and indisposition to perceive natural and philosophical causation, an enthusiastic imagination, and such a faith as can devise and maintain supernatural and spiritual connexions, are the elements of this, as of other forms of mysticism. And thus that temper which led men to aim

at the magician's supposed authority over the elements, is an additional exemplification of those habits of thought which prevented the progress of real science, and the acquisition of that command over nature which is founded on science, during the interval now before us.

But there is another aspect under which the opinions connected with this pursuit may serve to illustrate the mental character of the stationary period.

The tendency, during the middle ages, to attribute the character of magician to almost all persons eminent for great speculative or practical knowledge, is a feature of those times, which shows how extensive and complete was the inability to apprehend the nature of real science. In cultivated and enlightened periods, such as those of ancient Greece, or modern Europe, knowledge is wished for and admired, even by those who least possess it: but in dark and degraded periods, superior knowledge is a butt for hatred and fear. In the one case, men's eyes are open; their thoughts are clear; and, however high the philosopher may be raised above the multitude, they can catch glimpses of the intervening path, and see that it is open to all, and that elevation is the reward of energy and labour. In the other case, the crowd are not only ignorant, but spiritless; they have lost the pleasure in knowledge, the appetite for it, and the feeling of dignity which it gives there is no sympathy which connects them

with the learned man: they see him above them, but know not how he is raised or supported: he becomes an object of aversion and envy, of vague suspicion and terror; and these emotions are embodied and confirmed by association with the fancies and dogmas of superstition. To consider superior knowledge as magic, and magic as a detestable and criminal employment, was the form which these feelings of dislike assumed; and at one period in the history of Europe, almost every one who had gained any eminent literary fame, was spoken of as a magician. Naudæus, a learned Frenchman, in the seventeenth century, wrote "An Apology for all the Wise Men who have been unjustly reported Magicians, from the Creation to the present Age." The list of persons whom he thus thinks it necessary to protect, are of various classes and ages. Alkindi, Geber, Artephius, Thebit, Raymund Lully, Arnold de Villa Nova, Peter of Apono, and Paracelsus, had incurred the black suspicion as physicians or alchemists. Thomas Aquinas, Roger Bacon, Michael Scot, Picus of Mirandula, and Trithemius, had not escaped it, though ministers of religion. Even dignitaries, such as Robert Grosteste, bishop of Lincoln, Albertus Magnus, bishop of Ratisbon, Popes Sylvester the Second, and Gregory the Seventh, had been involved in the wide calumny. In the same way in which the vulgar confounded the eminent learning and knowledge which had appeared in recent times, with skill in dark and supernatural arts, they

converted into wizards all the best-known names in the rolls of fame; as Aristotle, Solomon, Joseph, Pythagoras; and, finally, the poet Virgil was a powerful and skilful necromancer, and this fancy was exemplified by many strange stories of his achievements and practices.

The

The various results of the tendency of the human mind to mysticism, which we have here noticed, form prominent features in the intellectual character of the world, for a long course of centuries. theosophy and theurgy of the Neoplatonists, the mystical arithmetic of the Pythagoreans and their successors, the predictions of the astrologers, the pretences of alchemy and magic, represent, not unfairly, the general character and disposition of men's thoughts, with reference to philosophy and science. That there were stronger minds, which threw off in a greater or less degree this train of delusive and unsubstantial ideas, is true; as, on the other hand, mysticism, among the vulgar or the foolish, often went to an extent of extravagance and superstition, of which I have not attempted to convey any conception. The lesson which the preceding survey teaches us is, that during the stationary period, mysticism, in its various forms, was a leading character, both of the common mind, and of the speculations of the most intelligent and profound reasoners; and that this mysticism was the opposite of that habit of thought which we have stated science to require; namely, clear ideas, distinctly employed to