H. Stanley Redgrove 
Alchemy: Ancient and Modern (Illustrated) 

Alchemy is generally understood to have been that art whose end

was the transmutation of the so-called base metals into gold by

means of an ill-defined something called the Philosopher’s Stone; but

even from a purely physical standpoint, this is a somewhat

superficial view. Alchemy was both a philosophy and an

experimental science, and the transmutation of the metals was its

end only in that this would give the final proof of the alchemistic

hypotheses; in other words, Alchemy, considered from the physical

standpoint, was the attempt to demonstrate experimentally on the

material plane the validity of a certain philosophical view of the

Cosmos. We see the genuine scientific spirit in the saying of one of

the alchemists: “Would to God . . . all men might become adepts in

our Art — for then gold, the great idol of mankind, would lose its

value, and we should prize it only for its scientific teaching.”1

Unfortunately, however, not many alchemists came up to this ideal;

and for the majority of them, Alchemy did mean merely the

possibility of making gold cheaply and gaining untold wealth.