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as much in the dark as he was, we shall give you Van Helmont's declaration, a
philosopher of much greater note than this pseudo-chemist Kircher. Van Helmont says--
"I have divers times handled that stone with my hands, and have seen a real transmutation
of saleable quicksilver with mine eyes, which, in proportion, did exceed the powder
which made the gold in some thousand degrees.
"It was of the colour that is in saffron, being weighty in its powder, and shining like
bruised glass, when it should be the less exactly beaten. But there was once given unto
me the fourth part of one grain, (I call, also, a grain the six hundredth part of an ounce).
This powder I involved in wax, scraped off a certain letter, lest, in casting it into the
crucible, it should be dispersed, through the smoak of the coals; which pellet of wax I
afterwards cast into the three-cornered vessel of a crucible upon a pound of quicksilver,
hot and newly bought; and presently the whole quicksilver, with some little noise, stood
still from flowing, and resided like a lump; but the heat of that argent vive was as much
as might forbid melted lead from recoagulating. The fire being straightway after
increased under the bellows, the metal was melted; the which, the vessel of fusion being
broken, I found to weigh eight ounces of the most pure gold.
.
"Therefore, a computation being made, a grain of that powder doth convert nineteen
thousand two hundred grains of impure and volatile metal, which is obliterable by the
fire, into true gold.
"For that powder, by uniting the aforesaid quicksilver unto itself, preserved the same, at
one instant, from an eternal rust, putrefaction, death, and torture of the fire, howsoever
most violent it was, and made it as an immortal thing, against any vigour or industry of
art and fire, and transchanged it into the virgin purity of gold; at leastwise one only fire of
coals is required herein."
By which we see that so learned and profound a philosopher as Van Helmont could not
so easily have been made to believe that there existed a possibility of transmutation of
base metals into pure gold, without he had actually proved the same by experiment.
Again, let the standing monuments of Flammel's liberal bounty to the poor, through this
mean, to be seen at Paris every day, stand as a testimony to the truth of the existing
possibility of transmutation. Likewise, Helmont mentions a stone that he saw, and had in
his possession, which cured all disorders, the plague not excepted. I shall relate the
circumstance in his own words, which are as follow:--
"There was a certain Irishman, whose name was Butler, being some time great with
James, King of England, he being detained in the prison of the Castle of Vilvord; and
taking pity on one Baillius, a certain Franciscan Monk, a most famous preacher of Gallo-
Britain, who was also imprisoned, having an erisipelas in his arm; on a certain evening,
when the Monk did almost despair, he swiftly tinged a certain little stone in a spoonful of
almond-milk, and presently withdrew it thence. So he says to the keeper--'Reach this
supping to that Monk; and how much soever he shall take thereupon, he shall be whole,
at least within a short hour's space.'--Which thing even so came to pass, to the great
admiration of the keeper and the sick man, not knowing from whence so sudden health
shone upon him, seeing that he was ignorant that he had taken any thing: for his left arm,
being before hugely swollen, fell down as that it could scarcely be discerned from the
other. On the morning following, I, being entreated by some great men, came to Vilvord,
as a witness of his deeds; therefore I contracted a friendship with Butler.
"Soon afterwards, I saw a poor old woman, a laundress, who, from the age of sixteen
years, had laboured with an intolerable megrim, cured in my presence. Indeed he, by the
way, lightly dipped the same little stone in a spoonful of oil of olives, and presently
cleansed the same stone by licking it with his tongue, and laid it up into his snuff-box; but
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that spoonful of oil he poured into a small bottle of oil, whereof one only drop he
commanded to be anointed on the head of the aforesaid old woman, who was thereby
straightway cured, and remained whole; which I attest I was amazed, as if he was become
another Midas; but he, smiling, said--
'My most dear friend, unless thou come hitherto, so as to be able, by one only remedy, to
cure every disease, thou shalt remain in thy young beginnings, however old thou shalt
become.'--I easily assented to this, because I had learned that from the secrets of
Paracelsus; and being now more confirmed by sight and hope. But I willingly confess,
that that new mode of curing was unaccustomed and unknown to me: I therefore said,
that a young Prince of our Court, Viscount of Gaunt, brother to the Prince of Episuoy, of
a very great House, was so wholly prostrated by the gout, that he thenceforth lay only on
one side, being wretched, and deformed with many knots: he, therefore, taking hold of
my right hand, said--'Wilt thou that I cure the young man? I will cure him for thy sake.'--
'But,' I replied, 'he is of that obstinacy, that he had rather die, than drink one only
medicinal potion.' 'Be it so,' said Butler; 'for neither do I require any other thing, than that
he do, every morning, touch this little stone, thou seest, with the top of his tongue; for
after three weeks from thence, let him wash the painful and unpainful knots with his own
urine, and thou shalt soon afterwards see him cured, and soundly walking. Go thy ways,
and tell him, with joy, what I have said.'
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