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The Story of Alchemy and the Beginnings of Chemistry is very interesting in itself.. For thousands of years before men had anyaccurate and exact knowledge of thechanges of material thing

M Pattison Muir

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Title: The Story of Alchemy and theBeginnings of Chemistry

Author: M M Pattison Muir

Release Date: November 30, 2004[eBook #14218]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1

GUTENBERG EBOOK THE STORY OF

ALCHEMY AND THE BEGINNINGS

AN ALCHEMICAL LABORATORY

THE STORY OF

ALCHEMY AND

THE BEGINNINGS OF

CHEMISTRY

BY

M M PATTISON MUIR, M.A.

FELLOW AND FORMERLY PRÆLECTOR IN CHEMISTRY OF GONVILLE AND CAIUS COLLEGE,

"It is neither religious nor wise to judge that

of which you know nothing."

A Brief Guide to the Celestial Ruby, by PHILALETHES (17th century)

Hodder and Stoughton London, New York, Toronto

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The Story of Alchemy and the Beginnings

of Chemistry is very interesting in itself It

is also a pregnant example of the contrastbetween the scientific and the emotionalmethods of regarding nature; and itadmirably illustrates the differencesbetween well-grounded, suggestive,hypotheses, and baseless speculations

I have tried to tell the story so that it may

be intelligible to the ordinary reader

M.M PATTISONMUIR

CAMBRIDGE, November 1902.

NOTE TO NEW EDITION.

A few small changes have been made Thelast chapter has been re-written andconsiderably enlarged

M.M.P.M

FARNHAM, September 1913.

CHAP.

I

THE EXPLANATION OFMATERIAL CHANGES

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

AND THE BEGINNINGS OF

CHEMISTRY.

CHAPTER I

THE EXPLANATION OF MATERIAL CHANGES GIVEN BY THE GREEK

THINKERS.

For thousands of years before men had anyaccurate and exact knowledge of thechanges of material things, they hadthought about these changes, regardedthem as revelations of spiritual truths,built on them theories of things in heavenand earth (and a good many things inneither), and used them in manufactures,

arts, and handicrafts, especially in onevery curious manufacture wherein not thethousandth fragment of a grain of thefinished article was ever produced.

The accurate and systematic study of thechanges which material things undergo iscalled chemistry; we may, perhaps,describe alchemy as the superficial, andwhat may be called subjective,examination of these changes, and thespeculative systems, and imaginary artsand manufactures, founded on thatexamination

We are assured by many old writers thatAdam was the first alchemist, and we aretold by one of the initiated that Adam wascreated on the sixth day, being the 15th ofMarch, of the first year of the world;

certainly alchemy had a long life, forchemistry did not begin until about themiddle of the 18th century.

No branch of science has had so long aperiod of incubation as chemistry Theremust be some extraordinary difficulty inthe way of disentangling the steps of thosechanges wherein substances of one kindare produced from substances totallyunlike them To inquire how those of acuteintellects and much learning regarded suchoccurrences in the times when man'soutlook on the world was very differentfrom what it is now, ought to beinteresting, and the results of that inquirymust surely be instructive

If the reader turns to a modern book on

chemistry (for instance, The Story of the

Chemical Elements, in this series), he

will find, at first, superficial descriptions

of special instances of those occurrenceswhich are the subject of the chemist'sstudy; he will learn that only certain parts

of such events are dealt with in chemistry;more accurate descriptions will then begiven of changes which occur in nature, orcan be produced by altering the ordinaryconditions, and the reader will be taught

to see certain points of likeness betweenthese changes; he will be shown how todisentangle chemical occurrences, to findtheir similarities and differences; and,gradually, he will feel his way to generalstatements, which are more or lessrigorous and accurate expressions of whatholds good in a large number of chemicalprocesses; finally, he will discover that

some generalisations have been madewhich are exact and completely accuratedescriptions applicable to every case ofchemical change.

But if we turn to the writings of thealchemists, we are in a different world.There is nothing even remotely resemblingwhat one finds in a modern book onchemistry

Here are a few quotations fromalchemical writings1:

"It is necessary to deprive matter of itsqualities in order to draw out its soul Copper is like a man; it has a soul and abody the soul is the most subtile part that is to say, the tinctorial spirit Thebody is the ponderable, material,

terrestrial thing, endowed with ashadow After a series of suitabletreatments copper becomes withoutshadow and better than gold Theelements grow and are transmuted,because it is their qualities, not theirsubstances which are contrary."(Stephanus of Alexandria, about 620A.D.)

"If we would elicit our Medecine from theprecious metals, we must destroy theparticular metalic form, without impairingits specific properties The specificproperties of the metal have their abode inits spiritual part, which resides inhomogeneous water Thus we mustdestroy the particular form of gold, andchange it into its generic homogeneous

water, in which the spirit of gold ispreserved; this spirit afterwards restoresthe consistency of its water, and bringsforth a new form (after the necessaryputrefaction) a thousand times moreperfect than the form of gold which it lost

by being reincrudated." (Philalethes, 17thcentury.)

"The bodily nature of things is aconcealing outward vesture." (MichaelSendivogius, 17th century.)

"Nothing of true value is located in thebody of a substance, but in the virtue theless there is of body, the more inproportion is the virtue." (Paracelsus, 16thcentury.)

"There are four elements, and each has at

its centre another element which makes itwhat it is These are the four pillars of theworld It is their contrary action whichkeeps up the harmony and equilibrium ofthe mundane machinery." (MichaelSendivogius.)

"Nature cannot work till it has beensupplied with a material: the first matter isfurnished by God, the second matter by thesage." (Michael Sendivogius.)

"When corruptible elements are united in

a certain substance, their strife mustsooner or later bring about itsdecomposition, which is, of course,followed by putrefaction; in putrefaction,the impure is separated from the pure; and

if the pure elements are then once morejoined together by the action of natural

heat, a much nobler and higher form of life

is produced If the hidden central fire,which during life was in a state ofpassivity, obtain the mastery, it attracts toitself all the pure elements, which are thusseparated from the impure, and form thenucleus of a far purer form of life."(Michael Sendivogius.)

"Cause that which is above to be below;that which is visible to be invisible; thatwhich is palpable to become impalpable.Again let that which is below become thatwhich is above; let the invisible becomevisible, and the impalpable becomepalpable Here you see the perfection ofour Art, without any defect or diminution."(Basil Valentine, 15th century.)

"Think most diligently about this; often

bear in mind, observe and comprehend,that all minerals and metals together, inthe same time, and after the same fashion,and of one and the same principal matter,are produced and generated That matter is

no other than a mere vapour, which isextracted from the elementary earth by thesuperior stars, or by a sidereal distillation

of the macrocosm; which sidereal hotinfusion, with an airy sulphurous property,descending upon inferiors, so acts andoperates as that there is implanted,spiritually and invisibly, a certain powerand virtue in those metals and minerals;which fume, moreover, resolves in theearth into a certain water, wherefrom allmetals are thenceforth generated andripened to their perfection, and thenceproceeds this or that metal or mineral,

according as one of the three principlesacquires dominion, and they have much orlittle of sulphur and salt, or an unequalmixture of these; whence some metals arefixed—that is, constant or stable; andsome are volatile and easily changeable,

as is seen in gold, silver, copper, iron, tin,and lead." (Basil Valentine.)

"To grasp the invisible elements, to attractthem by their material correspondences, tocontrol, purify, and transform them by theliving power of the Spirit—this is trueAlchemy." (Paracelsus.)

"Destruction perfects that which is good;for the good cannot appear on account ofthat which conceals it Each one of thevisible metals is a concealment of theother six metals." (Paracelsus.)

These sayings read like sentences in aforgotten tongue.

Humboldt tells of a parrot which hadlived with a tribe of American Indians,and learnt scraps of their language; thetribe totally disappeared; the parrot aloneremained, and babbled words in thelanguage which no living human beingcould understand

Are the words I have quotedunintelligible, like the parrot's prating?Perhaps the language may bereconstructed; perhaps it may be found toembody something worth a hearing.Success is most likely to come byconsidering the growth of alchemy; bytrying to find the ideas which wereexpressed in the strange tongue; by

endeavouring to look at our surroundings

as the alchemists looked at theirs

Do what we will, we always, more orless, construct our own universe Thehistory of science may be described as thehistory of the attempts, and the failures, ofmen "to see things as they are." "Nothing

is harder," said the Latin poet Lucretius,

"than to separate manifest facts fromdoubtful, what straightway the mind adds

on of itself."

Observations of the changes which areconstantly happening in the sky, and on theearth, must have prompted men long ago toask whether there are any limits to thechanges of things around them And thisquestion must have become more urgent asworking in metals, making colours and

dyes, preparing new kinds of food anddrink, producing substances with smellsand tastes unlike those of familiar objects,and other pursuits like these, made menacquainted with transformations whichseemed to penetrate to the veryfoundations of things.

Can one thing be changed into any otherthing; or, are there classes of things withineach of which change is possible, whilethe passage from one class to another isnot possible? Are all the variedsubstances seen, tasted, handled, smelt,composed of a limited number ofessentially different things; or, is eachfundamentally different from every othersubstance? Such questions as these musthave pressed for answers long ago

Some of the Greek philosophers wholived four or five hundred years beforeChrist formed a theory of thetransformations of matter, which isessentially the theory held by naturaliststo-day.

These philosophers taught that tounderstand nature we must get beneath thesuperficial qualities of things "According

to convention," said Democritus (born 460B.C.), "there are a sweet and a bitter, ahot and a cold, and according toconvention there is colour In truth thereare atoms and a void." Those investigatorsattempted to connect all the differenceswhich are observed between the qualities

of things with differences of size, shape,position, and movement of atoms They

said that all things are formed by thecoalescence of certain unchangeable,indestructible, and impenetrable particleswhich they named atoms; the total number

of atoms is constant; not one of them can

be destroyed, nor can one be created;when a substance ceases to exist andanother is formed, the process is not adestruction of matter, it is a re-arrangement of atoms

Only fragments of the writings of thefounders of the atomic theory have come

to us The views of these philosophers arepreserved, and doubtless amplified and

modified, in a Latin poem, Concerning

the Nature of Things, written by

Lucretius, who was born a century beforethe beginning of our era Let us consider

the picture given in that poem of thematerial universe, and the methodwhereby the picture was produced.2

All knowledge, said Lucretius, is based

on "the aspect and the law of nature." Trueknowledge can be obtained only by theuse of the senses; there is no other method

"From the senses first has proceeded theknowledge of the true, and the sensescannot be refuted Shall reason, founded

on false sense, be able to contradict [thesenses], wholly founded as it is on thesenses? And if they are not true, then allreason as well is rendered false." Thefirst principle in nature is asserted byLucretius to be that "Nothing is ever gottenout of nothing." "A thing never returns tonothing, but all things after disruption go

back to the first bodies of matter." If therewere not imperishable seeds of things,atoms, "first-beginnings of solidsingleness," then, Lucretius urges, "infinitetime gone by and lapse of days must haveeaten up all things that are of mortalbody."

The first-beginnings, or atoms, of thingswere thought of by Lucretius as alwaysmoving; "there is no lowest point in thesum of the universe" where they can rest;they meet, clash, rebound, or sometimesjoin together into groups of atoms whichmove about as wholes Change, growth,decay, formation, disruption—these arethe marks of all things "The war of first-beginnings waged from eternity is carried

on with dubious issue: now here, now