"
In chemistry we have the same theologic tendency to magic, and,
as a result, a muddle of science and theology, which from one
point of view seems blasphemous and from another idiotic, but
which none the less sterilized physical investigation for ages.
That debased Platonism which had been such an important factor
in the evolution of Christian theology from the earliest days of
the Church continued its work. As everything in inorganic nature
was supposed to have spiritual significance, the doctrines of
the Trinity and Incarnation were turned into an argument in
behalf of the philosopher's stone; arguments for the scheme of
redemption and for transubstantiation suggested others of
similar construction to prove the transmutation of metals; the
doctrine of the resurrection of the human body was by similar
mystic jugglery connected with the processes of distillation and
sublimation. Even after the Middle Ages were past, strong men
seemed unable to break away from such reasoning as this--among
them such leaders as Basil Valentine in the fifteenth century,
Agricola in the sixteenth, and Van Helmont in the seventeenth.
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