Alchemy, the early analysis of substances which has in modern times developed into chemistry, and which aimed chiefly at the discovery of the philosopher's stone, of a universal solvent, and of the elixir of life; it has been defined to be “an art without art, which has its beginning in falsehood, its middle in toil, and its end in poverty.”
Definition taken from The Nuttall Encyclopædia, edited by the Reverend James Wood (1907)
Alces`tis * Alcibi`ades