men (called “homunculi”)--a belief of the utmost absurdity, if we are to understand it literally. On the other hand, his writings do contain much true teaching of a mystical nature; his doctrine of the correspondence of man with the universe considered as a whole, for example, certainly being radically true, though fantastically stated and developed by Paracelsus himself. Iatro-Chemistry. § =48.= Between the pupils of Paracelsus and the older school of medicine, as might well be supposed, a battle royal was waged for a considerable time, which ultimately concluded, if not with a full vindication of Paracelsus’s teaching, yet with the acceptance of the fundamental iatro-chemical doctrines. Henceforward it is necessary to distinguish between the chemists and the alchemists--to distinguish those who pursued chemical studies with the object of discovering and preparing useful medicines, and later those who pursued such studies for their own sake, from those whose object was the transmutation of the “base” metals into gold, whether from purely selfish motives, or with the desire to demonstrate on the physical plane the validity of the doctrines of Mysticism. However, during the following century or two we find, very often, the chemist and the alchemist united in one and the same person. Men such as Glauber and Boyle, whose names will ever be remembered by chemists, did not doubt the possibility of performing the _magnum opus_. In the present chapter, however, we shall confine our attention for the most part to those men who may be regarded, for one reason or another, particularly as _alchemists_. And the alchemists of the period we are now considering present a very great diversity. On the one hand, we have men of much chemical knowledge and skill such as Libavius and van Helmont, on the other hand we have those who stand equally as high as exponents of mystic wisdom--men such as Jacob Boehme and, to a less extent, Thomas Vaughan. We have those, who, although they did not enrich the science of Chemistry with any new discoveries, were, nevertheless, regarded as masters of the Hermetic Art; and, finally, we have alchemists of the Edward Kelley and “Cagliostro” type, whose main object was their own enrichment at their neighbours’ expense. Before, however, proceeding to an account of the lives and teachings of these men, there is one curious matter--perhaps the most remarkable of all historical curiosities--that calls for some brief consideration. We refer to the “far-famed” Rosicrucian Society. The Rosicrucian Society.