In regard to the high ethical aspirations of alchemy, we understand that as a mystic art it preserves those attributes of a royal art which it seems to have had at first merely as gold making and magic. In fact what art may more justly be called royal than that of the perfection of mankind, that art which turns the dependent into the independent, the slave into a master? The freeing of the will in the mystic (and in every ethical) process has already, I believe, been commented on enough to be comprehensible. And the power of rule that has been extolled as a magical effect of the Philosopher’s Stone lies in the harmonizing of the individual will with that of the world or with God’s will. In the new birth—so remarks Jane Leade casually—we acquire a magic power; this occurs “through faith, that is, through the harmony of our will with the divine will. For faith puts the world in our power, inasmuch as the harmony of our will with the divine has the result of making everything ours or obedient to us. The will of the soul, when it accords wholly with the divine, is no longer a naked will lacking its raiment, power, but brings with it an invincible omnipotence.” To-day, too, there is a royal art. Freemasonry bears this name. Not only the name but its ethical ideal connects it with the spirit of the old alchemy. This statement will probably be contradicted and meet the same denial as did once the ideas of Kernning [J. Krebs], although I think I am on different ground from that of this poetic but, in my eyes, all too uncritical author. Keep in mind the historical treatment mentioned in Part I, Section 4, and furthermore do not forget the psychological basis of our present modes of viewing things. [If I wished to compare the ethical aims of both in general terms, I should run the risk of unduly expatiating on what is easily understood. Robert Fischer describes freemasonry as a society of men who have set themselves the severe task of a wise life and labor as the most difficult task, of self-knowledge, self-mastery and self-improvement,—tasks that are not finished in this life but only through death prepare us for the stage where the true consummation begins. These beautiful and straightforward words could just as well stand in an alchemistic discussion on the terrestrial and celestial. But this will suffice.] And now permit me to present the following portrayals by Jane Leade [English mystic of the 17th century. She belonged to the philadelphian society founded by Pordage.] which I reproduce here with a few words of comment, and take them as an illustration of the beautiful spiritual union of the serious hermetic with the new royal art. The reader can draw his own conclusions. The passages are taken from Leade’s “Garten-Brunn” (L. G. B.). References to Wirth are to the “Symbolisme Hermétique” (W. S. H.) of this modern author.