Domestic Encyclopædia (1802)/Alchemy

ALCHEMY is the art of transmuting metals into gold, or changing the inferior into more precious ores. It was formerly much cultivated, and held in high estimation by fanatics, as well as by many learned but deluded men: in later times, however, it has been almost generally exploded, and is now pursued only by crafty impostors.

The ruin which frequently attended this popular delusion, became so exclusive, that alchemy has, at various times, been proscribed in several states. The Romans banished such persons as professed it; and Dioclesian and Cæsar ordered all books on this subject to be publicly burned. In England it has, at no period, been much encouraged; for the native good sense of our countrymen generally prevailed, so that this useless art has, by the more enlightened, always been considered in its true colours.