CHAPTER X.
SUMMARY OF THE ALCHEMICAL DOCTRINE .-- THE REPLACEMENT OF THE THREE PRINCIPLES OF THE ALCHEMISTS BY THE SINGLE PRINCIPLE OF PHLOGISTON.
The _Sacred Art_, which had its origin and home in Egypt, was very definitely associated with the religious rites, and the theological teaching, recognised by the state.

The Egyptian priests were initiated into the mysteries of the divine art: and as the initiated claimed to imitate the work of the deity, the priest was regarded by the ordinary people as something more than a representative, as a mirror, of the divinity.

The sacred art of Egypt was transmuted into alchemy by contact with European thought and handicrafts, and the tenets and mysticism of the Catholic Church; and the conception of nature, which was the result of this blending, prevailed from about the 9th until towards the end of the 18th century.
Like its predecessor, alchemy postulated an orderly universe; but alchemy was richer in fantastic details, more picturesquely embroidered, more prodigal of strange fancies, than the sacred art of Egypt.
The alchemist constructed his ordered scheme of nature on the basis of the supposed universality of life.

For him, everything lived, and the life of things was threefold.

The alchemist thought he recognised the manifestation of life in the form, or body, of a thing, in its soul, and in its spirit.