To such a policy of transmutation he was urged by two things.
Later, however, as in the Commentary on this work written by Synesius to Dioscorus, priest of Serapis at Alexandria, which probably dates from the end of the 4th century, a changed attitude becomes apparent; the more practical parts of the receipts are obscured or omitted, and the processes for preparing alloys and colouring metals, described in the older treatise, are by a mystical interpretation represented as resulting in real transmutation.
At one time this was regarded as a transmutation of iron into copper.
He arranges a selection from his observations on the nebulae in such a way as to give great plausibility to his view of the gradual transmutation of nebulae into stars Herschel begins by showing us that there are regions in the heavens where a faint diffused nebulosity is all that can be detected by the telescope.
Increasing attention was paid to the investigation of the properties of substances and of their effects on the human body, and chemistry profited by the fact that it passed into the hands of men who possessed the highest scientific culture of the time, Still, belief in the possibility of transmutation long remained orthodox, even among the most distinguished men of science.
