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THE CASE OF JOHANN VALENTIN ANDREAS. 22$
ously the necessity of secret societies," 1
and Louis Figuier,
whose work, entitled "Alchemy and the Alchemists,"
though it does not betray much original research, repre-
sents in a French vestment the opinions and arguments of
some high German authorities, calls Andreas " a fanatical
partisan " of the doctrines of Paracelsus, 2 declares him to
have been fired with the ambition to fulfil certain predictions
of his master which have been before referred to, and
that he took upon himself to decide that the "Elias
Artista," the robust child, to whom the magician refers,
must be understood not of an individual but of a collective
body or association.
It seems clear from these authorities, and from the facts
of the case, that the mature, long-planned purpose of An-
dreas was the foundation of a society for the reformation
of the age, and we find him cherishing this hope and apparently
elaborating his designs at the very period when
the first rumours of the Eosicrucian Fraternity began to be
heard in Europe. It is, therefore, obviously and incontest-
ably clear that if he had any hand in the foundation of
this society, or in the authorship of the documents con-
nected with it, that* both were undertaken in all earnest-
ness, and that the " Fama " and " Confessio Fraternitatis "
are not pieces of frolicsome imposture, and satires on the
credulity of the period. Such a supposition is wholly in-
compatible with Andreas' zeal and enthusiasm.
This point being definitely settled, I proceed to lay before
1 ' '
Dictionnaire cles Sciences Occultes "
in the Abbe" Migne's
"
Troisieme t. Encyclopedic The"ologique," i., p. 90.
2 With the characteristic carelessness of a French reasoner,
Figuier stultifies himself on this point by stating a few pages subse-
quently that Andreas was devoid of any doctrinal fanaticism.
"
L'Alchimie et les AlchimUtes," pp. 293-29".
P