Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions — Volume 3

From the opening

THE ALCHYMISTS; or, Searchers for the Philosopher's Stone and the Water of Life

PART I.--History of Alchymy from the earliest periods to the Fifteenth Century.--Pretended Antiquity of the Art.--Geber.--Alfarabi.--Avicenna.--Albertus Magnus.--Thomas Aquinas.--Artephius.--Alain de Lisle.--Arnold de Villeneuve.--Pietro d'Apone.--Raymond Lulli.--Roger Bacon.--Pope John XXII.--Jean de Meung.--Nicholas Flamel.--George Ripley.--Basil Valentine.--Bernard of Treves.--Trithemius.--The Marechal de Rays.--Jacques Coeur.--Inferior Adepts.

PART II.--Progress of the Infatuation during the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries.--Augurello.--Cornelius Agrippa.--Paracelsus.--George Agricola.--Denys Zachaire.--Dr. Dee and Edward Kelly.--The Cosmopolite.--Sendivogius.--The Rosicrucians.--Michael Mayer.--Robert Fludd.--Jacob Bohmen.--John Heydn.--Joseph Francis Borri.--Alchymical Writers of the Seventeenth Century.--De Lisle.--Albert Aluys.--Count de St. Germains.--Cagliostro.--Present State of the Science.

Dissatisfaction with his lot seems to be the characteristic of man in all ages and climates. So far, however, from being an evil, as at first might be supposed, it has been the great civiliser of our race; and has tended, more than anything else, to raise us above the condition of the brutes. But the same discontent which has been the source of all improvement, has been the parent of no small progeny of follies and absurdities; to trace these latter is the object of the present volume. Vast as the subject appears, it is easily reducible within such limits as will make it comprehensive without being wearisome, and render its study both instructive and amusing.

Three causes especially have excited our discontent; and, by impelling us to seek for remedies for the irremediable, have bewildered us in a maze of madness and error. These are death, toil, and ignorance of the future--the doom of man upon this sphere, and for which he shows his antipathy by his love of life, his longing for abundance, and his craving curiosity to pierce the secrets of the days to come. The first has led many to imagine that they might find means to avoid death, or, failing in this, that they might, nevertheless, so prolong existence as to reckon it by centuries instead of units.

A short sample. Read the whole book

More to read

• Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions — Volume 1Charles MackayEconomics & Business348 pages
• Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions — Volume 2Charles MackayFinance & Investing363 pages
• The Eureka StockadeRaffaello CarboniFinance & Investing182 pages
• The Science of Getting RichW. D. WattlesFinance & Investing83 pages