The point of connection between these speculations of Eastern philosophy and the practice of the primitive chemistry may with probability be sought in the fire which of necessity played so large a part in the operations of the metal-worker. Fire bore a highly sacred character in the philosophy and religion of the East. This element, it soon came to be thought by those whom Eastern speculation influenced, might be trusted not only to melt, to calcine and to sublime in the vulgar way, but to form the long-sought link of sympathy between the stars of heaven, themselves compact of fire, and the elements of earth, as these were subjected to its piercing and transforming power. In its due employment the suspected connection between the higher and lower worlds would become an accomplished fact. Thus, under the power of the planets, in some favourable hour and fortunate conjunction, the mighty work would be done: the philosopher’s stone discovered, the metals transmuted, and the elixir of life produced. It is highly curious to find this idea presented in a novel and perhaps an exaggerated form by a writer of the sixteenth century. This was Fra Evangelista Quattrami of Gubbio, _semplicista_, or master of the still-room, to the Cardinal d’Este. He wrote a book entitled, _The true declaration of all the metaphors, similitudes, and riddles of the ancient Alchemical Philosophers, as well among the Chaldeans and Arabians as the Greeks and Latins_.[111] According to this work, the potable gold; the elixir of life; the quintessence, and the philosopher’s stone were nothing but fantastic names for the fire itself which was used in distillation and other chemical operations. In this the Frate may possibly have touched the true sense of Al Kindi at least, who, in his commentary on the _Meteora_,[112] speaks of fire as if it were the all in all of the alchemist.