that in Germany men of this stamp continued for two or three centuries longer to cherish a belief in the reality of alchemistic processes. Even Martin Luther (1483-1546), the great reformer, did not hesitate to express his approval of "the black art," as is shown by the following quotation from one of his writings:—
The art of alchemy is commendable and belongs in truth to the
philosophy of the ancient wise men, a fact which pleases me greatly,
not merely because of the intrinsic merits and usefulness of the
art in the matter of distillations of vegetables and oily fluids and
sublimation of metals, but also because it serves as such a noble
and beautiful symbol of the resurrection of the dead at the last
day of judgment. (Berendes.)
Another celebrated character who dabbled in the black
art was Johannes Faust, who was born in 1485, obtained
his degree of Bachelor of Arts at the University of Heidelberg,
and died in 1540 in Staufen in Breisgau. Professor
Scherer of Berlin says that "he was a great braggart,
never failed to create a sensation wherever he went, and
had the conceit and effrontery to pass himself off as a
scientist among the learned men of his day. He called
himself the philosopher of philosophers, a second Magus.
He maintained that he was both a physician and an
astrologer, and claimed that he could restore the dead to
life, and could predict future events from a mere inspection
of fire, air and water."
But although the persistent and wonderfully energetic activities of the alchemists failed to find the philosophers' stone, or to transmute the baser metals into silver and gold, they placed in the hands of man the key to a knowledge of chemistry, that branch of science which was destined in later years to play such an important part in pharmacy, in agriculture and in other industries. Thus we owe to alchemists the discovery of many processes and the invention of many apparatus which serve as the groundwork of modern chemistry. Some of the more important of these are the following: The use of the spirit lamp; the invention of tubular retorts; the production of potash and
