Alchemist, one who practices Alchemy. See Alchemy. Some ancient Greek authors used the word χρυσοποιητὴς which means maker of gold, to say Alchemist , and the word χρυσοποιητικὴ, which means the art of making gold, when describing alchemy. In other Greek books we find, ποιητὴς, fictor, maker, Alchemist , which can also mean Maker of verses, Poet. There is actually some similarity between chemistry and poetry. According to Mr. Diderot, page 8 of Prospectus in this dictionary: Chemistry is nature’s imitator and rival; its object is almost as broad as that of nature herself: this part of Physics is among the others, just as Poetry is among the other genres of literature; either it decomposes beings, or it vivifies them, or it transforms them, etc.

We must distinguish between legitimate, fraudulent and insane Alchemists . Legitimate Alchemists are those who, after having worked with the ordinary Chemistry of Physicists, push their research further, working methodically and by principle with curious and useful combinations, by which the works of nature are imitated, or simplify these works for man’s use: be it by giving them some particular perfection, be it in adding pleasures that, although artificial, have the potential to be more beautiful than those that come from plain nature devoid of art, provided that these artificial pleasures have a natural origin, and imitate nature in its beauty.

By contrast, those who, knowing nothing about ordinary Chemistry, or even lacking superficial knowledge, launch themselves into Alchemy with neither methods nor principles, reading only enigmatic books that they prize all the more insofar as they understand them less, are the fake Alchemists, who lose their time and their fortunes, because working without proper knowledge, they never find what they are looking for, and spend more than if they were knowledgeable, because they employ so many useless techniques and do not know how to save certain materials that can be extracted from failed operations.

Besides, they have as much taste for swindlers as for enigmatic books: they do not care about a good book that speaks clearly, but instead read enigmatic books that flatter their greed but teach us nothing, and to which people obsessed with the fabulous, or at least the mysterious, attribute whatever meaning they wish to find and whatever is more in line with their imagination; thus these fake Alchemists grow bored with the speech of a scientifically educated man, which reveals, and which reduces their operations to their true value: they will listen more willingly to men who are really just as ignorant as they are, but who make a living by exciting their curiosity.

It is always important, especially when dealing with things of this nature, to avoid the extremes: one must be equally wary of superstition and incredulity. To say that Alchemy is nothing but a science of the delusional, and that all Alchemists are either insane or imposters, is to judge unfairly a legitimate science to which sensible and honest people may apply themselves: but one must also protect oneself from of a sort of fanaticism, to which those who practice this science without discernment, guidance or prior knowledge, in a word, unprincipled, are especially susceptible. The principles of science are known facts; one must pass from the known to the unknown: if in Alchemy, as in the other sciences, we pass from the known to the unknown, we can derive as much, or more utility than we can from certain other ordinary sciences.