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246 A Short History of The World the medieval philosophy of France and Italy and the whole Christian world. The Arab experimental chemists were called alchemists, and they were still sufficiently barbaric in spirit to keep their methods and results secret as far as possible. They realized from the very begin- ning what enormous advantages their possible discoveries might give them, and what far-reaching consequences they might have on human life. They came upon many metallurgical and technical devices of the utmost value ; alloys and dyes, distilling, tinctures and essences, optical glass ; but the two chief ends they sought, they sought in vain. One was " the philosopher's stone " — a means of changing the metallic elements one into another and so getting a control of artificial gold, and the other was the elixir vitce, a stimulant that would revivify age and prolong life indefinitely. The crabbed, patient experimenting of these Arab alchemists spread into the Christian world. The fascination of their enquiries spread. Very gradually the activities of these alchemists became more social and co-operative. They found it profitable to exchange and compare ideas. By in- sensible gradations the last of the alchemists became the first of the experimental philosophers. The old alchemists sought the philosopher's stone which was to transmute base metals to gold, and an elixir of immortahty ; they found the methods of modern experimental science which promise in the end to give man illimitable power over the world and over his own destiny.