The supreme and avowed object of every hierophant, as well as of every postulant and pretender, in the _ars magna_ discovered by Hermes Trismegistus, has been commonly supposed to be the chemical manufacture of material gold from commercially inferior substances. On the other hand, Hitchcock, marshalling an impressive series of verbatim citations from writers of all ages and all nationalities, undertakes to demonstrate that the concealed subject of every veritable adept is one only--namely, MAN, the triune, and that “the object also is one, to wit, his improvement, while the method itself is no less one, to wit, nature directed by art in the school of nature, and acting in conformity therewith; for the art is nothing but ‘nature acting through man.’” Again, “the genuine alchemists were not in pursuit of worldly wealth or honours. Their real object was the perfection, or, at least, the improvement of man. According to this theory, such perfection lies in a certain unity, a living sense of the unity of the human with the divine nature, the attainment of which I can liken to nothing so well as to the experience known in religion as the NEW BIRTH. The desired perfection, or unity, is a state of the soul, _a condition of Being_, and not a mere condition of KNOWING. This condition of Being is a development of the nature of man from within, the result of a process by which whatever is evil in our nature is cast out or suppressed, under the name of superfluities, and the good thereby allowed opportunities for free activity. As this result is scarcely accessible to the unassisted natural man, and requires the concurrence of divine power, it is called _Donum Dei_.” When the individual man, by a natural and appropriate process, devoid of haste or violence, is brought into unity with himself by the harmonious action of intelligence and will, he is on the threshold of comprehending that transcendent Unity which is the perfection of the totality of Nature, “for what is called the ‘absolute,’ the ‘absolute perfection,’ and the perfection of Nature, are one and the same.” In the symbolism of the alchemists this writer tells us that _sulphur_ signifies Nature, and _mercury_ the supernatural. The inseparable connection of the two in man is called _Sol_, but “as these three are seen to be indissolubly one, the terms may be used interchangeably.” According to Hitchcock, the mystical and mysterious instrument of preparation in the work of alchemy is the conscience, which is called by a thousand misleading and confessedly incongruous names. By means of this instrument, quickened into vital activity under a sense of the presence of God, the matter of the stone, namely, Man, is, in the first place, purged and purified, to make possible the internal realisation of Truth. “By a metonymy, the conscience itself is said to be purified, though, in fact, the conscience needs no purification, but only the man, to the end that the conscience may operate freely.”[A]