ABSTRACT
John frederick helvetius passed from this life in the year 1709, and it is impossible to say whether he had been preceded or not by the great professional alchemist Eirenæus Philalethes. Whether of adepts or witnesses in the forefront of ordinary physical science, no other voice arose sounding an authentic note in respect of metallic transmutation. Sincerus Renatus—id est, Sigmund Richter—was to issue in 1710 his Perfect and True Preparation of the Philosophical Stone; but this was according to the method of the Golden and Rosy Cross, and Rosicrucian Alchemy is not only least of all evidential but has some appearance, as we shall find, of belonging to another category. However this may be, Renatus has not been held to count except as marking a revival of the mysterious Hermetic Society. 1 The canon of Alchemy had of course by no means closed, and we shall come presently to its consideration from a new standpoint; but Eirenæus as a physical alchemist found no successor in literature, and no accountable person appeared after Helvetius to say that any particle of the Stone had come into his hands, but much less that it had been used by him to vindicate the validity of claims concerning it. There was destined, however, to be witnessing of another kind, a portent at least and a rumour which in some respects is stranger than anything that preceded, as if after all the theses and all the written testimonies, the matter of fact itself was to be paraded almost publicly before the face of the world.
