CHAPTER V.
THE ALCHEMICAL ESSENCE.
In the last chapter I tried to describe the alchemical view of the interdependence of different substances.

Taking for granted the tripartite nature of man, the co-existence in him of body, soul, and spirit (no one of which was defined), the alchemists concluded that all things are formed as man is formed; that in everything there is a specific bodily form, some portion of soul, and a dash of spirit.

I considered the term _soul_ to be the alchemical name for the properties common to a class of substances, and the term _spirit_ to mean the property which was thought by the alchemists to be common to all things.
The alchemists considered it possible to arrange all substances in four general classes, the marks whereof were expressed by the terms hot, cold, moist, and dry; they thought of these properties as typified by what they called the four Elements--fire, air, water, and earth.

Everything, they taught, was produced from the four Elements, not immediately, but through the mediation of the three Principles--mercury, sulphur, and salt.

These Principles were regarded as the tools put into the hands of him who desired to effect the transmutation of one substance into another.