Spending time on alchemy is, to me, symptomatic of a curious mind that was open to experimentation where his peers might reject things altogether on presupposit

Spending time on alchemy is, to me, symptomatic of a curious mind that was open to experimentation where his peers might reject things altogether on presuppositions. If he had no been that easily distracted by weird things I expect he would have pushed the envelope of knowledge significantly less.