XXV. Others have imagined, that all the fables were meant to convey some moral or political lessons, and that the authors designed nothing more when they invented them, than to inculcate under a species of allegory, rational maxims, which might be useful in human life; and there are really some of them, that seem to have been written with no other view. The fable of Phaeton for example, appears to have been calculated, to represent the dangers to which people expose themselves, by attempting things greatly superior to their power or abilities; and that of Narcissus, to represent the extravagance and folly of self-love or admiration. But saying that all the fables were written with this design, would be a manifest chimera. XXVI. Finally, the infatuated alchymists, or at least some of them, have dreamed, that the fables of which we have been speaking, contain enigmatically, the doctrine of the philosophers stone; that is, that they teach in a mysterious way, all the operations which are necessary to be gone thro’, for attaining the happy secret of transmuting all other metals into gold. Perhaps what occasioned this silly apprehension, was their finding in the idiom of their art, the names of the seven principal deities of the Pagans, which are the same as those of the seven planets, applied to the seven metals they make use of; but the application of those names to the metals, was posterior many ages, to their being given to the deities and the planets. The first alchymists who called the metals by those names, were excited to do it by the same motive, which has ever induced them to give to all the materials, operations, and effects of their art, strange and sounding names, which they do, either to conceal their pretended secrets, or by the mysterious magnificence of their stile, to attract the respect and admiration of the vulgar; and the resemblance of the splendor of the sun’s rays to the colour of gold, and the light of the moon, to that of silver, was favourable to their intention, and assisted them in making the application. XXVII. This system, is not only in its complex or whole substance, but in each, and every one of its parts, destitute of all foundation, and is therefore not worthy to be controverted, but should be treated with that contempt, which both this, and all the other imaginary productions of the alchymists deserve. XXVIII. If this letter shall afford you neither entertainment nor instruction, it will at least serve as an apology for my conduct, and incline you to retract the censure, which you have fulminated against me, and my discourse of the _Divorce of History from Fable_; and I hope that at all events, your resentment will be calmed, and your apprehensions quieted by the following reflection; that although in that discourse I have weakened the bond of matrimony between the two parties, I have in this letter, on one of the sides, established a degree of affinity between them.