But the subject of alchemy remains evocative and alluring for a broad array of people I have met many who would genuinely like to know more about it. In the wider world the revolution in our knowledge of alchemy might count as one of alchemy’s biggest secrets. Much of this new understanding remains little known outside of a small circle of academic specialists. The work of historians of science continues to reveal the enormous complexity and diversity of alchemy, its important position in human history and culture, and its continuities with what we now call chemistry. Many alchemists expressed (often just implicitly) a strong confidence in the power of human beings to imitate and improve on nature, and their work included the exploration of the relationship of human beings to God and the created universe. Their researches and goals had both commercial and scientific aspects, as well as philosophical and theological ones. But at the same time, they contributed to mining and metallurgy, and pharmacy and medicine, and their achievements and aspirations (as well as failures) inspired artists, playwrights, and poets. Their hope of discovering the secret of preparing the philosophers’ stone-a material supposedly able to transmute base metals into gold-was one powerful incentive for their endeavors. Alchemists developed practical knowledge about matter as well as sophisticated theories about its hidden nature and transformations. Alchemy is now increasingly recognized as a fundamental part of the heritage of chemistry, of continuing human attempts to explore, control, and make use of the natural world. No longer is it dismissed as a waste of time or a fool's quest. Nevertheless, over the past generation scholars have been revealing more and more of its surprising content and importance. He earned his first PhD in chemistry and his second in the history of science. We asked him to give our readers a taste of his book The Secrets of Alchemy. Lawrence Principe is one of the foremost scholars of alchemy in the world.
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