Chapter IV

., “On Matter and Spirit.” Undoubtedly Boehme’s visions involved a valuable element of truth, but at the same time much that was purely relative and subjective.

[77] JACOB BOEHME: _Epistles_ (translated by J. E., 1649), Ep. iv. § 111, p. 65.

[78] _The Book of the Prophet Isaiah_, chap, liii., vv. 2 and 3, R.V.

J. B. van Helmont (1577-1644) and F. M. van Helmont (1618-1699.)

§ =57.= =John Baptist van Helmont= (see plate 12) was born in Brussels in 1577. He devoted himself to the study of medicine, at first following Galen, but afterwards accepting in part the teachings of Paracelsus; and he helped to a large extent in the overthrow of the old medical doctrines. His purely chemical researches were also of great value to the science. He was a man of profound knowledge, of a religious temperament, and he possessed a marked liking for the mystical. He was inspired by the writings of Thomas à Kempis to imitate Christ in all things, and he practised medicine, therefore, as a work of benevolence, asking no fee for his services. At the same time, moreover, he was a firm believer in the powers of the Philosopher’s Stone, claiming to have himself successfully performed the transmutation of the metals on more than one occasion, though unacquainted with the composition of the medicine employed (see § 62). Many of his theoretical views are highly fantastical. He lived a life devoted to scientific research, and died in 1644.

[Illustration: PLATE 12.

PORTRAITS OF J. B. AND F. M. VAN HELMONT.

(From the Frontispiece to J. B. van Helmont’s _Oriatrike_).

_To face page 76_]]

Van Helmont regarded water as the primary element out of which all things are produced. He denied that fire was an element or anything material at all, and he did not accept the sulphur-mercury-salt theory. To him is due the word “gas”--before his time various gases were looked upon as mere varieties of air--and he also made a distinction between gases (which could not be condensed)[79] and vapours (which give liquids on cooling). In particular he investigated the gas that is now known as carbon-dioxide (carbonic anhydride), which he termed _gas sylvestre_; but he lacked suitable apparatus for the collection of gases, and hence was led in many cases to erroneous conclusions.

[79] It has since been discovered that all gases can be condensed, given a sufficient degree of cold and pressure.

=Francis Mercurius van Helmont= (see plate 12), the son of John Baptist, born in 1618, gained the reputation of having also achieved the _magnum opus_, since he appeared to live very luxuriously upon a limited income. He was a skilled chemist and physician, but held many queer theories, metempsychosis included.

Johann Rudolf Glauber (1604-1668).

§ =58.= =Johann Rudolf Glauber= was born at Karlstadt in 1604. Of his life little is known. He appears to have travelled about Germany a good deal, afterwards visiting Amsterdam, where he died in 1668. He was of a very patriotic nature, and a most ardent investigator in the realm of Chemistry. He accepted the main iatro-chemical doctrines, but gave most of his attention to applied Chemistry. He enriched the science with many important discoveries; and crystallised sodium sulphate is still called “Glauber’s Salt.” Glauber, himself, attributed remarkable medicinal powers to this compound. He was a firm believer in the claims of Alchemy, and held many fantastic ideas.

Thomas Vaughan (“Eugenius Philalethes”) (1622-1666.)

§ =59.= =Thomas Vaughan=, who wrote under the name of “=Eugenius Philalethes=,” was born at Newton in Brecknockshire in 1622. He was educated at Jesus College, Oxford, graduating as a Bachelor of Arts, and being made a fellow of his college. He appears also to have taken holy orders and to have had the living of St. Bridget’s (Brecknockshire) conferred on him.[80] During the civil wars he bore arms for the king, but his allegiance to the Royalist cause led to his being accused of “drunkenness, swearing, incontinency and bearing arms for the King”; and he appears to have been deprived of his living. He retired to Oxford and gave himself up to study and chemical research. He is to be regarded as an alchemist of the transcendental order. His views as to the nature of the true Philosopher’s Stone may be gathered from the following quotation: “This, reader,” he says, speaking of the mystical illumination, “is the Christian Philosopher’s Stone, a Stone so often inculcated in Scripture. This is the Rock in the wildernesse, because in great obscurity, and few there are that know the right way unto it. This is the Stone of Fire in Ezekiel; this is the Stone with Seven Eyes upon it in Zacharie, and this is the White Stone with the New Name in the Revelation. But in the Gospel, where Christ himself speakes, who was born to discover mysteries and communicate Heaven to Earth, it is more clearly described.”[81] At the same time he appears to have carried out experiments in physical Alchemy, and is said to have met with his death in 1666 through accidentally inhaling the fumes of some mercury with which he was experimenting.

[80] See ANTHONY À WOOD: _Athenæ Oxonienses_, edited by Philip Bliss, vol. iii. (1817), cols. 722-726.

[81] THOMAS VAUGHAN (“Eugenius Philalethes”): _Anima Magica Abscondita_ (see _The Magical Writings of Thomas Vaughan_, edited by A. E. Waite, 1888, p. 71).

Thomas Vaughan was an ardent disciple of Cornelius Agrippa, the sixteenth-century theosophist. He held the peripatetic philosophy in very slight esteem. He was a man devoted to God, though probably guilty of some youthful follies, full of love towards his wife, and with an intense desire for the solution of the great problems of Nature. Amongst his chief works, which are by no means wanting in flashes of mystic wisdom, may be mentioned _Anthroposophia Theomagica_, _Anima Magica Abscondita_ (which were published together), and _Magia Adamica; or, the Antiquitie of Magic_. With regard to his views as expressed in the first two of these books, a controversy ensued between Vaughan and Henry Moore, which was marked by considerable acrimony.

“Eirenæus Philalethes” (1623?-?) and George Starkey (?-1665).

§ =60.= The use of the pseudonym “Philalethes” has not been confined to one alchemist. The cosmopolitan adept who wrote under the name of “=Eirenæus Philalethes=,” has been confused, on the one hand, with Thomas Vaughan, on the other hand with George Starkey (?-1665). He has also been identified with Dr. Robert Child (1613-1654); but his real identity remains shrouded in mystery.[82] =George Starkey= (or Stirk), the son of George Stirk, minister of the Church of England in Bermuda, graduated at Harvard in 1646 and practised medicine in the United States of America from 1647 to 1650. In 1651 he came to England and practised medicine in London. He died of the plague in 1665. In 1654-5 he published _The Marrow of Alchemy_, by “Eirenæus Philoponos Philalethes,” which some think he had stolen from his Hermetic Master. Other works by “Eirenæus Philalethes” appeared after Starkey’s death and became immensely popular. The _Open Entrance to the Closed Palace of the King_ (the most famous of these) and the _Three Treatises_ of the same author will be found in _The Hermetic Museum_. Some of his views have already been noted (see §§ 1 and 22). On certain points he differed from the majority of the alchemists. He denied that fire was an element, and, also, that bodies are formed by mixture of the elements. According to him there is one principle in the metals, namely, mercury, which arises from the aqueous element, and is termed “metalically differentiated water, _i.e._, it is water passed into that stage of development, in which it can no longer produce anything but mineral substances.”[83] Philalethes’s views as to “metallic seed” are also of considerable interest. Of the seed of gold, which he regarded as the seed, also, of all other metals, he says: “The seed of animals and vegetables is something separate, and may be cut out, or otherwise separately exhibited; but metallic seed is diffused throughout the metal, and contained in all its smallest parts; neither can it be discerned from its body: its extraction is therefore a task which may well tax the ingenuity of the most experienced philosopher. . . .”[84] Well might this have been said of the electron of modern scientific theory.

[82] See Mr. A. E. Waite’s _Lives of Alchemystical Philosophers_, art. “Eirenæus Philalethes,” and the Biographical Preface to his _The Works of Thomas Vaughan_ (1919); also the late Professor Ferguson’s “‘The Marrow of Alchemy’,” _The Journal of The Alchemical Society_, vol. iii. (1915), pp. 106 _et seq._, and Professor G. L. Kittredge’s _Doctor Robert Child, The Remonstrant_ (Camb., Mass., 1919). The last mentioned writer strongly urges the identification of “Eirenæus Philalethes” with George Starkey.

[83] “EIRENÆUS PHILALETHES”: _The Metamorphosis of Metals_ (see _The Hermetic Museum_, vol. ii. p. 236). Compare with van Helmont’s views, § 57.

[84] _Ibid._, p. 240.

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