But when the prince attracted Scottish financier John Law to his court, he promptly dismissed his alchemists because the paper money scheme introduced by Law was a more effective way to redeem his debts. The goal of alchemy, to turn worthless material into gold, remained unchanged. The worthless material of paper just proved more receptive to transmutation than lead had been. That attempt to conquer time is carried out in different ways in the modern world by science, art, and the economy. The play offers a dramatic representation and critique of each of the three paths.
Science seeks to overcome transitoriness by finding natural laws or eternal norms.
It looks for eternal norms of causality, and since cause always precedes effect it is driven in the direction of the past, seeking cause behind cause. Art seeks to overcome transitoriness in focusing on the present moment, disconnected from the past chain of causation, but not yet dominated by the demands and lures of future purposes. The economy seeks to overcome transitoriness by embracing the future and giving the present over to purposeful action demanded by the future. The economy dismisses art, and reduces science to a handmaiden of utilitarian future purposes. But since the economy is geared to money values, the future is lost again because the money value can only be secured through constant additional consumption of the world, for this money must be covered by real goods excavated from the mine of the world.