They conceived that gold was the metallic element, in a state of perfect purity, and that all the other metals differed from it in proportion only to the extent of their individual contamination, and hence the origin of the epithet _base_, as applied to such metals; this hypothesis explains the origin of alchemy; but, in every history, we are informed that the earlier alchemists expected, by the same means that they hoped to convert the _baser_ metals into gold, to produce a universal remedy, calculated to prolong indefinitely the span of human existence. It is difficult to imagine what connection could exist in their ideas between the “_Philosopher’s Stone_,” which was to transmute metals, and a remedy which could arrest the progress of bodily infirmity: upon searching into the writings of these times, it clearly appears that this conceit originated with the alchemists from the application of false analogies, and that the error was subsequently diffused and exaggerated by a misconstruction of alchemical metaphors.[101] An example of reasoning by false analogy is presented to us by Paracelsus, in his work _de vita longa_, wherein, speaking of anatomy, he exclaims: “_Sicut antimonium finit aurum, sic, eadem ratione et forma, corpus humanum purum reddit._” The processes of alchemy were always veiled in the most enigmatic and obscure language; the earliest alchemist whose name has reached posterity, is Geber, an Arabian prince of the seventh century, whose language was so proverbially obscure, that Dr. Johnson supposes the word gibberish or _geberish_ to have been derived from this circumstance; sometimes the processes of alchemy were expressed by a figurative and metaphorical style of description; thus Geber exclaims, “_Bring me the six lepers that I may cleanse them_;” by which he implied the conversion of the six metals,[102] the only ones then known, into gold. From the works of later alchemists it also appears that they constantly represented _gold_ as a sound, healthy, and durable man, the imperfect metals as diseased men, and the means or processes by which the latter were to be transmuted into the former, they designated by the name of _medicines_; and hence, those who were anxious to dive into the secrets of these magicians, or =Adepts=, as they termed themselves, without possessing a key to their language, supposed that these descriptions were to be understood in a literal sense, and that the imperfect metals might be changed into gold, and the bodies of sick persons into healthy ones, by one and the same chemical preparation.