UbH0RMMD

1THE USEFUL KNOWLEDGE SERIES
2
3Cloth, One Shilling net each
4
5List of the first thirty-four volumes issued in the new style with
6Pictorial Wrappers:--
7
8  WIRELESS TELEGRAPHY. By ALFRED T. STORY.
9
10  A PIECE OF COAL. By K.A. MARTIN, F.G.S.
11
12  ARCHITECTURE. By P.L. WATERHOUSE.
13
14  THE COTTON PLANT. By F. WILKINSON, F.G.S.
15
16  PLANT LIFE. By GRANT ALLEN.
17
18  WILD FLOWERS. By REV. PROF. G. HENSLOW, F.L.S., F.G.S.
19
20  THE SOLAR SYSTEM. By G.F. CHAMBERS, F.R.A.S.
21
22  ECLIPSES. By G.F. CHAMBERS, F.R.A.S.
23
24  THE STARS. By G.F.CHAMBERS, F.R.A.S.
25
26  THE WEATHER. By G.F. CHAMBERS, F.R.A.S.
27
28  ANIMAL LIFE. By B. LINDSAY.
29
30  GEOGRAPHICAL DISCOVERY. By JOSEPH JACOBS.
31
32  THE ATMOSPHERE. By DOUGLAS ARCHIBALD, M.A.
33
34  ALPINE CLIMBING. By FRANCIS GRIBBLE
35
36  FOREST AND STREAM. By JAMES RODWAY, F.L.S.
37
38  FISH LIFE. By W.P. PYCRAFT, F.Z.S.
39
40  BIRD LIFE. By W.P. PYCRAFT, F.Z.S.
41
42  PRIMITIVE MAN. By EDWARD CLODD.
43
44  ANCIENT EGYPT. By ROBINSON SOUTTAR, M.A., D.C.L.
45
46  STORY OF LOCOMOTION. By BECKLES WILLSON.
47
48  THE EARTH IN PAST AGES. By H.G. SEELEY, F.R.S.
49
50  THE EMPIRE. By E. SALMON.
51
52  KING ALFRED. By SIR WALTER BESANT.
53
54  LOST ENGLAND. By BECKLES WILLSON.
55
56  ALCHEMY, OR THE BEGINNINGS OF CHEMISTRY. By M.M. PATTISON MUIR, M.A.
57
58  THE CHEMICAL ELEMENTS. By M.M. PATTISON MUIR, M.A.
59
60  THE WANDERINGS OF ATOMS. By M.M. PATTISON MUIR, M.A.
61
62  GERM LIFE: BACTERIA. By H.W. CONN.
63
64  LIFE IN THE SEAS. By SIDNEY J. HICKSON F.R.S.
65
66  LIFE'S MECHANISM. By H.W. CONN.
67
68  REPTILE LIFE. By W.P. PYCRAFT, F.Z.S.
69
70  THE GRAIN OF WHEAT. By WILLIAM C. EDGAR.
71
72  THE POTTER. By C.F. BINNS.
73
74       *       *       *       *       *
75
76
77
78
79
80PREFACE.
81
82
83The Story of Alchemy and the Beginnings of Chemistry is very
84interesting in itself. It is also a pregnant example of the contrast
85between the scientific and the emotional methods of regarding nature;
86and it admirably illustrates the differences between well-grounded,
87suggestive, hypotheses, and baseless speculations.
88
89I have tried to tell the story so that it may be intelligible to the
90ordinary reader.
91
92
93                                            M.M. PATTISON MUIR.
94CAMBRIDGE, November 1902.
95
96
97       *       *       *       *       *
98
99
100NOTE TO NEW EDITION.
101
102A few small changes have been made. The last chapter has been
103re-written and considerably enlarged.
104
105                                            M.M.P.M.
106FARNHAM, September 1913.
107
108       *       *       *       *       *
109
110
111
112
113CONTENTS.
114
115CHAPTER
116
117   I. THE EXPLANATION OF MATERIAL CHANGES GIVEN BY GREEK THINKERS
118
119  II. A SKETCH OF ALCHEMICAL THEORY
120
121 III. THE ALCHEMICAL NOTION OF THE UNITY AND SIMPLICITY OF NATURE
122
123  IV. THE ALCHEMICAL ELEMENTS AND PRINCIPLES
124
125   V. THE ALCHEMICAL ESSENCE
126
127  VI. ALCHEMY AS AN EXPERIMENTAL ART
128
129 VII. THE LANGUAGE OF ALCHEMY
130
131VIII. THE DEGENERACY OF ALCHEMY
132
133  IX. PARACELSUS, AND SOME OTHER ALCHEMISTS
134
135   X. SUMMARY OF THE ALCHEMICAL DOCTRINE--THE REPLACEMENT OF THE THREE
136      PRINCIPLES OF THE ALCHEMISTS BY THE SINGLE PRINCIPLE OF PHLOGISTON
137
138  XI. THE EXAMINATION OF THE PHENOMENA OF COMBUSTION
139
140 XII. THE RECOGNITION OF CHEMICAL CHANGES AS THE INTERACTIONS OF
141      DEFINITE SUBSTANCES
142
143XIII. THE CHEMICAL ELEMENTS CONTRASTED WITH THE ALCHEMICAL PRINCIPLES
144
145 XIV. THE MODERN FORM OF THE ALCHEMICAL QUEST OF THE ONE THING
146
147
148INDEX
149
150
151
152
153
154
155LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
156
157
158FIG.
159
160    AN ALCHEMICAL LABORATORY (Frontispiece)
161
162 1. THE MORTIFICATION OF METALS PRESENTED BY THE IMAGE OF A KING
163    DEVOURING HIS SON
164
165 2 and 3. THE MORTIFICATION OF METALS PRESENTED BY IMAGES OF DEATH
166   AND BURIAL
167
168 4 and 5. TWO MUST BE CONJOINED TO PRODUCE ONE
169
170 6. HERMETICALLY SEALING THE NECK OF A GLASS VESSEL
171
172 7. SEALING BY MEANS OF A MERCURY TRAP
173
174 8. AN ALCHEMICAL COMMON COLD STILL
175
176 9. A _BALNEUM MARIÆ_
177
17810. ALCHEMICAL DISTILLING APPARATUS
179
18011. A PELICAN
181
18212. AN ALCHEMIST WITH A RETORT
183
18413. AN ALCHEMIST PREPARING OIL OF VITRIOL
185
18614. ALCHEMICAL APPARATUS FOR RECTIFYING SPIRITS
187
18815. PURIFYING GOLD PRESENTED BY THE IMAGE OF A SALAMANDER IN THE FIRE
189
19016. PRIESTLEY'S APPARATUS FOR WORKING WITH GASES
191
19217. APPARATUS USED BY LAVOISIER IN HIS EXPERIMENTS ON BURNING MERCURY
193    IN AIR
194
195
196
197
198
199CHAPTER I
200
201THE EXPLANATION OF MATERIAL CHANGES GIVEN BY THE GREEK THINKERS.
202
203
204For thousands of years before men had any accurate and exact knowledge
205of the changes of material things, they had thought about these
206changes, regarded them as revelations of spiritual truths, built on
207them theories of things in heaven and earth (and a good many things in
208neither), and used them in manufactures, arts, and handicrafts,
209especially in one very curious manufacture wherein not the thousandth
210fragment of a grain of the finished article was ever produced.
211
212The accurate and systematic study of the changes which material things
213undergo is called chemistry; we may, perhaps, describe alchemy as the
214superficial, and what may be called subjective, examination of these
215changes, and the speculative systems, and imaginary arts and
216manufactures, founded on that examination.
217
218We are assured by many old writers that Adam was the first alchemist,
219and we are told by one of the initiated that Adam was created on the
220sixth day, being the 15th of March, of the first year of the world;
221certainly alchemy had a long life, for chemistry did not begin until
222about the middle of the 18th century.
223
224No branch of science has had so long a period of incubation as
225chemistry. There must be some extraordinary difficulty in the way of
226disentangling the steps of those changes wherein substances of one
227kind are produced from substances totally unlike them. To inquire how
228those of acute intellects and much learning regarded such occurrences
229in the times when man's outlook on the world was very different from
230what it is now, ought to be interesting, and the results of that
231inquiry must surely be instructive.
232
233If the reader turns to a modern book on chemistry (for instance, _The
234Story of the Chemical Elements_, in this series), he will find, at
235first, superficial descriptions of special instances of those
236occurrences which are the subject of the chemist's study; he will
237learn that only certain parts of such events are dealt with in
238chemistry; more accurate descriptions will then be given of changes
239which occur in nature, or can be produced by altering the ordinary
240conditions, and the reader will be taught to see certain points of
241likeness between these changes; he will be shown how to disentangle
242chemical occurrences, to find their similarities and differences; and,
243gradually, he will feel his way to general statements, which are more
244or less rigorous and accurate expressions of what holds good in a
245large number of chemical processes; finally, he will discover that
246some generalisations have been made which are exact and completely
247accurate descriptions applicable to every case of chemical change.
248
249But if we turn to the writings of the alchemists, we are in a
250different world. There is nothing even remotely resembling what one
251finds in a modern book on chemistry.
252
253Here are a few quotations from alchemical writings [1]:
254
255   [1] Most of the quotations from alchemical writings, in this
256   book, are taken from a series of translations, published in
257   1893-94, under the supervision of Mr A.E. Waite.
258
259
260  "It is necessary to deprive matter of its qualities in order to
261  draw out its soul.... Copper is like a man; it has a soul and a
262  body ... the soul is the most subtile part ... that is to say, the
263  tinctorial spirit. The body is the ponderable, material,
264  terrestrial thing, endowed with a shadow.... After a series of
265  suitable treatments copper becomes without shadow and better than
266  gold.... The elements grow and are transmuted, because it is their
267  qualities, not their substances which are contrary." (Stephanus of
268  Alexandria, about 620 A.D.)
269
270  "If we would elicit our Medecine from the precious metals, we must
271  destroy the particular metalic form, without impairing its
272  specific properties. The specific properties of the metal have
273  their abode in its spiritual part, which resides in homogeneous
274  water. Thus we must destroy the particular form of gold, and
275  change it into its generic homogeneous water, in which the spirit
276  of gold is preserved; this spirit afterwards restores the
277  consistency of its water, and brings forth a new form (after the
278  necessary putrefaction) a thousand times more perfect than the
279  form of gold which it lost by being reincrudated." (Philalethes,
280  17th century.)
281
282  "The bodily nature of things is a concealing outward vesture."
283  (Michael Sendivogius, 17th century.)
284
285  "Nothing of true value is located in the body of a substance, but
286  in the virtue ... the less there is of body, the more in
287  proportion is the virtue." (Paracelsus, 16th century.)
288
289  "There are four elements, and each has at its centre another
290  element which makes it what it is. These are the four pillars of
291  the world.... It is their contrary action which keeps up the
292  harmony and equilibrium of the mundane machinery." (Michael
293  Sendivogius.)
294
295  "Nature cannot work till it has been supplied with a material: the
296  first matter is furnished by God, the second matter by the sage."
297  (Michael Sendivogius.)
298
299  "When corruptible elements are united in a certain substance,
300  their strife must sooner or later bring about its decomposition,
301  which is, of course, followed by putrefaction; in putrefaction,
302  the impure is separated from the pure; and if the pure elements
303  are then once more joined together by the action of natural heat,
304  a much nobler and higher form of life is produced.... If the
305  hidden central fire, which during life was in a state of
306  passivity, obtain the mastery, it attracts to itself all the pure
307  elements, which are thus separated from the impure, and form the
308  nucleus of a far purer form of life." (Michael Sendivogius.)
309
310  "Cause that which is above to be below; that which is visible to
311  be invisible; that which is palpable to become impalpable. Again
312  let that which is below become that which is above; let the
313  invisible become visible, and the impalpable become palpable. Here
314  you see the perfection of our Art, without any defect or
315  diminution." (Basil Valentine, 15th century.)
316
317  "Think most diligently about this; often bear in mind, observe and
318  comprehend, that all minerals and metals together, in the same
319  time, and after the same fashion, and of one and the same
320  principal matter, are produced and generated. That matter is no
321  other than a mere vapour, which is extracted from the elementary
322  earth by the superior stars, or by a sidereal distillation of the
323  macrocosm; which sidereal hot infusion, with an airy sulphurous
324  property, descending upon inferiors, so acts and operates as that
325  there is implanted, spiritually and invisibly, a certain power and
326  virtue in those metals and minerals; which fume, moreover,
327  resolves in the earth into a certain water, wherefrom all metals
328  are thenceforth generated and ripened to their perfection, and
329  thence proceeds this or that metal or mineral, according as one of
330  the three principles acquires dominion, and they have much or
331  little of sulphur and salt, or an unequal mixture of these; whence
332  some metals are fixed--that is, constant or stable; and some are
333  volatile and easily changeable, as is seen in gold, silver,
334  copper, iron, tin, and lead." (Basil Valentine.)
335
336  "To grasp the invisible elements, to attract them by their
337  material correspondences, to control, purify, and transform them
338  by the living power of the Spirit--this is true Alchemy."
339  (Paracelsus.)
340
341  "Destruction perfects that which is good; for the good cannot
342  appear on account of that which conceals it.... Each one of the
343  visible metals is a concealment of the other six metals."
344  (Paracelsus.)
345
346These sayings read like sentences in a forgotten tongue.
347
348Humboldt tells of a parrot which had lived with a tribe of American
349Indians, and learnt scraps of their language; the tribe totally
350disappeared; the parrot alone remained, and babbled words in the
351language which no living human being could understand.
352
353Are the words I have quoted unintelligible, like the parrot's prating?
354Perhaps the language may be reconstructed; perhaps it may be found to
355embody something worth a hearing. Success is most likely to come by
356considering the growth of alchemy; by trying to find the ideas which
357were expressed in the strange tongue; by endeavouring to look at our
358surroundings as the alchemists looked at theirs.
359
360Do what we will, we always, more or less, construct our own universe.
361The history of science may be described as the history of the
362attempts, and the failures, of men "to see things as they are."
363"Nothing is harder," said the Latin poet Lucretius, "than to separate
364manifest facts from doubtful, what straightway the mind adds on of
365itself."
366
367Observations of the changes which are constantly happening in the sky,
368and on the earth, must have prompted men long ago to ask whether there
369are any limits to the changes of things around them. And this question
370must have become more urgent as working in metals, making colours and
371dyes, preparing new kinds of food and drink, producing substances with
372smells and tastes unlike those of familiar objects, and other pursuits
373like these, made men acquainted with transformations which seemed to
374penetrate to the very foundations of things.
375
376Can one thing be changed into any other thing; or, are there classes
377of things within each of which change is possible, while the passage
378from one class to another is not possible? Are all the varied
379substances seen, tasted, handled, smelt, composed of a limited number
380of essentially different things; or, is each fundamentally different
381from every other substance? Such questions as these must have pressed
382for answers long ago.
383
384Some of the Greek philosophers who lived four or five hundred years
385before Christ formed a theory of the transformations of matter, which
386is essentially the theory held by naturalists to-day.
387
388These philosophers taught that to understand nature we must get
389beneath the superficial qualities of things. "According to
390convention," said Democritus (born 460 B.C.), "there are a sweet and a
391bitter, a hot and a cold, and according to convention there is
392colour. In truth there are atoms and a void." Those investigators
393attempted to connect all the differences which are observed between
394the qualities of things with differences of size, shape, position, and
395movement of atoms. They said that all things are formed by the
396coalescence of certain unchangeable, indestructible, and impenetrable
397particles which they named atoms; the total number of atoms is
398constant; not one of them can be destroyed, nor can one be created;
399when a substance ceases to exist and another is formed, the process is
400not a destruction of matter, it is a re-arrangement of atoms.
401
402Only fragments of the writings of the founders of the atomic theory
403have come to us. The views of these philosophers are preserved, and
404doubtless amplified and modified, in a Latin poem, _Concerning the
405Nature of Things_, written by Lucretius, who was born a century before
406the beginning of our era. Let us consider the picture given in that
407poem of the material universe, and the method whereby the picture was
408produced.[2]
409
410   [2] The quotations from Lucretius are taken from Munro's
411   translation (4th Edition, 1886).
412
413All knowledge, said Lucretius, is based on "the aspect and the law of
414nature." True knowledge can be obtained only by the use of the senses;
415there is no other method. "From the senses first has proceeded the
416knowledge of the true, and the senses cannot be refuted. Shall reason,
417founded on false sense, be able to contradict [the senses], wholly
418founded as it is on the senses? And if they are not true, then all
419reason as well is rendered false." The first principle in nature is
420asserted by Lucretius to be that "Nothing is ever gotten out of
421nothing." "A thing never returns to nothing, but all things after
422disruption go back to the first bodies of matter." If there were not
423imperishable seeds of things, atoms, "first-beginnings of solid
424singleness," then, Lucretius urges, "infinite time gone by and lapse
425of days must have eaten up all things that are of mortal body."
426
427The first-beginnings, or atoms, of things were thought of by Lucretius
428as always moving; "there is no lowest point in the sum of the
429universe" where they can rest; they meet, clash, rebound, or sometimes
430join together into groups of atoms which move about as wholes. Change,
431growth, decay, formation, disruption--these are the marks of all
432things. "The war of first-beginnings waged from eternity is carried on
433with dubious issue: now here, now there, the life-bringing elements of
434things get the mastery, and are o'ermastered in turn; with the funeral
435wail blends the cry which babies raise when they enter the borders of
436light; and no night ever followed day, nor morning night, that heard
437not, mingling with the sickly infant's cries, the attendants' wailings
438on death and black funeral."
439
440Lucretius pictured the atoms of things as like the things perceived by
441the senses; he said that atoms of different kinds have different
442shapes, but the number of shapes is finite, because there is a limit
443to the number of different things we see, smell, taste, and handle; he
444implies, although I do not think he definitely asserts, that all atoms
445of one kind are identical in every respect.
446
447We now know that many compounds exist which are formed by the union of
448the same quantities by weight of the same elements, and, nevertheless,
449differ in properties; modern chemistry explains this fact by saying
450that the properties of a substance depend, not only on the kind of
451atoms which compose the minute particles of a compound, and the number
452of atoms of each kind, but also on the mode of arrangement of the
453atoms.[3] The same doctrine was taught by Lucretius, two thousand
454years ago. "It often makes a great difference," he said, "with what
455things, and in what positions the same first-beginnings are held in
456union, and what motions they mutually impart and receive." For
457instance, certain atoms may be so arranged at one time as to produce
458fire, and, at another time, the arrangement of the same atoms may be
459such that the result is a fir-tree. The differences between the
460colours of things are said by Lucretius to be due to differences in
461the arrangements and motions of atoms. As the colour of the sea when
462wind lashes it into foam is different from the colour when the waters
463are at rest, so do the colours of things change when the atoms whereof
464the things are composed change from one arrangement to another, or
465from sluggish movements to rapid and tumultuous motions.
466
467   [3] See the chapter _Molecular Architecture_ in the _Story of
468   the Chemical Elements_.
469
470Lucretius pictured a solid substance as a vast number of atoms
471squeezed closely together, a liquid as composed of not so many atoms
472less tightly packed, and a gas as a comparatively small number of
473atoms with considerable freedom of motion. Essentially the same
474picture is presented by the molecular theory of to-day.
475
476To meet the objection that atoms are invisible, and therefore cannot
477exist, Lucretius enumerates many things we cannot see although we know
478they exist. No one doubts the existence of winds, heat, cold and
479smells; yet no one has seen the wind, or heat, or cold, or a smell.
480Clothes become moist when hung near the sea, and dry when spread in
481the sunshine; but no one has seen the moisture entering or leaving the
482clothes. A pavement trodden by many feet is worn away; but the minute
483particles are removed without our eyes being able to see them.
484
485Another objector urges--"You say the atoms are always moving, yet the
486things we look at, which you assert to be vast numbers of moving
487atoms, are often motionless." Him Lucretius answers by an analogy.
488"And herein you need not wonder at this, that though the
489first-beginnings of things are all in motion, yet the sum is seen to
490rest in supreme repose, unless when a thing exhibits motions with its
491individual body. For all the nature of first things lies far away from
492our senses, beneath their ken; and, therefore, since they are
493themselves beyond what you can see, they must withdraw from sight
494their motion as well; and the more so, that the things which we can
495see do yet often conceal their motions when a great distance off.
496Thus, often, the woolly flocks as they crop the glad pastures on a
497hill, creep on whither the grass, jewelled with fresh dew, summons or
498invites each, and the lambs, fed to the full, gambol and playfully
499butt; all which objects appear to us from a distance to be blended
500together, and to rest like a white spot on a green hill. Again, when
501mighty legions fill with their movements all parts of the plains,
502waging the mimicry of war, the glitter lifts itself up to the sky, and
503the whole earth round gleams with brass, and beneath a noise is raised
504by the mighty tramplings of men, and the mountains, stricken by the
505shouting, echo the voices to the stars of heaven, and horsemen fly
506about, and suddenly wheeling, scour across the middle of the plains,
507shaking them with the vehemence of their charge. And yet there is some
508spot on the high hills, seen from which they appear to stand still and
509to rest on the plains as a bright spot."
510
511The atomic theory of the Greek thinkers was constructed by reasoning
512on natural phenomena. Lucretius constantly appeals to observed facts
513for confirmation of his theoretical teachings, or refutation of
514opinions he thought erroneous. Besides giving a general mental
515presentation of the material universe, the theory was applied to many
516specific transmutations; but minute descriptions of what are now
517called chemical changes could not be given in terms of the theory,
518because no searching examination of so much as one such change had
519been made, nor, I think, one may say, could be made under the
520conditions of Greek life. More than two thousand years passed before
521investigators began to make accurate measurements of the quantities of
522the substances which take part in those changes wherein certain
523things seem to be destroyed and other totally different things to be
524produced; until accurate knowledge had been obtained of the quantities
525of the definite substances which interact in the transformations of
526matter, the atomic theory could not do more than draw the outlines of
527a picture of material changes.
528
529A scientific theory has been described as "the likening of our
530imaginings to what we actually observe." So long as we observe only in
531the rough, only in a broad and general way, our imaginings must also
532be rough, broad, and general. It was the great glory of the Greek
533thinkers about natural events that their observations were accurate,
534on the whole, and as far as they went, and the theory they formed was
535based on no trivial or accidental features of the facts, but on what
536has proved to be the very essence of the phenomena they sought to
537bring into one point of view; for all the advances made in our own
538times in clear knowledge of the transformations of matter have been
539made by using, as a guide to experimental inquiries, the conception
540that the differences between the qualities of substances are connected
541with differences in the weights and movements of minute particles; and
542this was the central idea of the atomic theory of the Greek
543philosophers.
544
545The atomic theory was used by the great physicists of the later
546Renaissance, by Galileo, Gassendi, Newton and others. Our own
547countryman, John Dalton, while trying (in the early years of the 19th
548century) to form a mental presentation of the atmosphere in terms of
549the theory of atoms, rediscovered the possibility of differences
550between the sizes of atoms, applied this idea to the facts concerning
551the quantitative compositions of compounds which had been established
552by others, developed a method for determining the relative weights of
553atoms of different kinds, and started chemistry on the course which it
554has followed so successfully.
555
556Instead of blaming the Greek philosophers for lack of quantitatively
557accurate experimental inquiry, we should rather be full of admiring
558wonder at the extraordinary acuteness of their mental vision, and the
559soundness of their scientific spirit.
560
561The ancient atomists distinguished the essential properties of things
562from their accidental features. The former cannot be removed,
563Lucretius said, without "utter destruction accompanying the
564severance"; the latter may be altered "while the nature of the thing
565remains unharmed." As examples of essential properties, Lucretius
566mentions "the weight of a stone, the heat of fire, the fluidity of
567water." Such things as liberty, war, slavery, riches, poverty, and the
568like, were accounted accidents. Time also was said to be an accident:
569it "exists not by itself; but simply from the things which happen, the
570sense apprehends what has been done in time past, as well as what is
571present, and what is to follow after."
572
573As our story proceeds, we shall see that the chemists of the middle
574ages, the alchemists, founded their theory of material changes on the
575difference between a supposed essential substratum of things, and
576their qualities which could be taken off, they said, and put on, as
577clothes are removed and replaced.
578
579How different from the clear, harmonious, orderly, Greek scheme, is
580any picture we can form, from such quotations as I have given from
581their writings, of the alchemists' conception of the world. The Greeks
582likened their imaginings of nature to the natural facts they observed;
583the alchemists created an imaginary world after their own likeness.
584
585While Christianity was superseding the old religions, and the
586theological system of the Christian Church was replacing the
587cosmogonies of the heathen, the contrast between the power of evil and
588the power of good was more fully realised than in the days of the
589Greeks; a sharper division was drawn between this world and another
590world, and that other world was divided into two irreconcilable and
591absolutely opposite parts. Man came to be regarded as the centre of a
592tremendous and never-ceasing battle, urged between the powers of good
593and the powers of evil. The sights and sounds of nature were regarded
594as the vestments, or the voices, of the unseen combatants. Life was at
595once very real and the mere shadow of a dream. The conditions were
596favourable to the growth of magic; for man was regarded as the measure
597of the universe, the central figure in an awful tragedy.
598
599Magic is an attempt, by thinking and speculating about what we
600consider must be the order of nature, to discover some means of
601penetrating into the secret life of natural things, of realising the
602hidden powers and virtues of things, grasping the concealed thread of
603unity which is supposed to run through all phenomena however seemingly
604diverse, entering into sympathy with the supposed inner oneness of
605life, death, the present, past, and future. Magic grows, and gathers
606strength, when men are sure their theory of the universe must be the
607one true theory, and they see only through the glasses which their
608theory supplies. "He who knows himself thoroughly knows God and all
609the mysteries of His nature," says a modern writer on magic. That
610saying expresses the fundamental hypothesis, and the method, of all
611systems of magic and mysticism. Of such systems, alchemy was one.
612
613
614
615
616CHAPTER II.
617
618A SKETCH OF ALCHEMICAL THEORY.
619
620
621The system which began to be called _alchemy_ in the 6th and 7th
622centuries of our era had no special name before that time, but was
623known as _the sacred art, the divine science, the occult science, the
624art of Hermes_.
625
626A commentator on Aristotle, writing in the 4th century A.D., calls
627certain instruments used for fusion and calcination "_chuika organa_,"
628that is, instruments for melting and pouring. Hence, probably, came
629the adjective _chyic_ or _chymic_, and, at a somewhat later time, the
630word _chemia_ as the name of that art which deals with calcinations,
631fusions, meltings, and the like. The writer of a treatise on
632astrology, in the 5th century, speaking of the influences of the stars
633on the dispositions of man, says: "If a man is born under Mercury he
634will give himself to astronomy; if Mars, he will follow the profession
635of arms; if Saturn, he will devote himself to the science of alchemy
636(_Scientia alchemiae_)." The word _alchemia_ which appears in this
637treatise, was formed by prefixing the Arabic _al_ (meaning _the_) to
638_chemia_, a word, as we have seen, of Greek origin.
639
640It is the growth, development, and transformation into chemistry, of
641this _alchemia_ which we have to consider.
642
643Alchemy, that is, _the_ art of melting, pouring, and transforming,
644must necessarily pay much attention to working with crucibles,
645furnaces, alembics, and other vessels wherein things are fused,
646distilled, calcined, and dissolved. The old drawings of alchemical
647operations show us men busy calcining, cohobating, distilling,
648dissolving, digesting, and performing other processes of like
649character to these.
650
651The alchemists could not be accused of laziness or aversion to work in
652their laboratories. Paracelsus (16th century) says of them: "They are
653not given to idleness, nor go in a proud habit, or plush and velvet
654garments, often showing their rings on their fingers, or wearing
655swords with silver hilts by their sides, or fine and gay gloves on
656their hands; but diligently follow their labours, sweating whole days
657and nights by their furnaces. They do not spend their time abroad for
658recreation, but take delight in their laboratories. They put their
659fingers among coals, into clay and filth, not into gold rings. They
660are sooty and black, like smiths and miners, and do not pride
661themselves upon clean and beautiful faces."
662
663In these respects the chemist of to-day faithfully follows the
664practice of the alchemists who were his predecessors. You can nose a
665chemist in a crowd by the smell of the laboratory which hangs about
666him; you can pick him out by the stains on his hands and clothes. He
667also "takes delight in his laboratory"; he does not always "pride
668himself on a clean and beautiful face"; he "sweats whole days and
669nights by his furnace."
670
671Why does the chemist toil so eagerly? Why did the alchemists so
672untiringly pursue their quest? I think it is not unfair to say: the
673chemist experiments in order that he "may liken his imaginings to the
674facts which he observes"; the alchemist toiled that he might liken the
675facts which he observed to his imaginings. The difference may be put
676in another way by saying: the chemist's object is to discover "how
677changes happen in combinations of the unchanging"; the alchemist's
678endeavour was to prove the truth of his fundamental assertion, "that
679every substance contains undeveloped resources and potentialities, and
680can be brought outward and forward into perfection."
681
682Looking around him, and observing the changes of things, the alchemist
683was deeply impressed by the growth and modification of plants and
684animals; he argued that minerals and metals also grow, change,
685develop. He said in effect: "Nature is one, there must be unity in all
686the diversity I see. When a grain of corn falls into the earth it
687dies, but this dying is the first step towards a new life; the dead
688seed is changed into the living plant. So it must be with all other
689things in nature: the mineral, or the metal, seems dead when it is
690buried in the earth, but, in reality, it is growing, changing, and
691becoming more perfect." The perfection of the seed is the plant. What
692is the perfection of the common metals? "Evidently," the alchemist
693replied, "the perfect metal is gold; the common metals are trying to
694become gold." "Gold is the intention of Nature in regard to all
695metals," said an alchemical writer. Plants are preserved by the
696preservation of their seed. "In like manner," the alchemist's argument
697proceeded, "there must be a seed in metals which is their essence; if
698I can separate the seed and bring it under the proper conditions, I
699can cause it to grow into the perfect metal." "Animal life, and human
700life also," we may suppose the alchemist saying, "are continued by the
701same method as that whereby the life of plants is continued; all life
702springs from seed; the seed is fructified by the union of the male and
703the female; in metals also there must be the two characters; the union
704of these is needed for the production of new metals; the conjoining of
705metals must go before the birth of the perfect metal."
706
707"Now," we may suppose the argument to proceed, "now, the passage from
708the imperfect to the more perfect is not easy. It is harder to
709practise virtue than to acquiesce in vice; virtue comes not naturally
710to man; that he may gain the higher life, he must be helped by grace.
711Therefore, the task of exalting the purer metals into the perfect
712gold, of developing the lower order into the higher, is not easy. If
713Nature does this, she does it slowly and painfully; if the exaltation
714of the common metals to a higher plane is to be effected rapidly, it
715can be done only by the help of man."
716
717So far as I can judge from their writings, the argument of the
718alchemists may be rendered by some such form as the foregoing. A
719careful examination of the alchemical argument shows that it rests on
720a (supposed) intimate knowledge of nature's plan of working, and the
721certainty that simplicity is the essential mark of that plan.
722
723That the alchemists were satisfied of the great simplicity of nature,
724and their own knowledge of the ways of nature's work, is apparent from
725their writings.
726
727The author of _The New Chemical Light_ (17th century) says:
728"Simplicity is the seal of truth.... Nature is wonderfully simple, and
729the characteristic mark of a childlike simplicity is stamped upon all
730that is true and noble in Nature." In another place the same author
731says: "Nature is one, true, simple, self-contained, created of God,
732and informed with a certain universal spirit." The same author,
733Michael Sendivogius, remarks: "It may be asked how I come to have this
734knowledge about heavenly things which are far removed beyond human
735ken. My answer is that the sages have been taught by God that this
736natural world is only an image and material copy of a heavenly and
737spiritual pattern; that the very existence of this world is based upon
738the reality of its heavenly archetype.... Thus the sage sees heaven
739reflected in Nature as in a mirror, and he pursues this Art, not for
740the sake of gold or silver, but for the love of the knowledge which it
741reveals."
742
743The _Only True Way_ advises all who wish to become true alchemists to
744leave the circuitous paths of pretended philosophers, and to follow
745nature, which is simple; the complicated processes described in books
746are said to be the traps laid by the "cunning sophists" to catch the
747unwary.
748
749In _A Catechism of Alchemy_, Paracelsus asks: "What road should the
750philosopher follow?" He answers, "That exactly which was followed by
751the Great Architect of the Universe in the creation of the world."
752
753One might suppose it would be easier, and perhaps more profitable, to
754examine, observe, and experiment, than to turn one's eyes inwards with
755the hope of discovering exactly "the road followed by the Great
756Architect of the Universe in the creation of the world." But the
757alchemical method found it easier to begin by introspection. The
758alchemist spun his universe from his own ideas of order, symmetry, and
759simplicity, as the spider spins her web from her own substance.
760
761A favourite saying of the alchemists was, "What is above is as what is
762below." In one of its aspects this saying meant, "processes happen
763within the earth like those which occur on the earth; minerals and
764metals live, as animals and plants live; all pass through corruption
765towards perfection." In another aspect the saying meant "the human
766being is the world in miniature; as is the microcosm, so is the
767macrocosm; to know oneself is to know all the world."
768
769Every man knows he ought to try to rise to better things, and many men
770endeavour to do what they know they ought to do; therefore, he who
771feels sure that all nature is fashioned after the image of man,
772projects his own ideas of progress, development, virtue, matter and
773spirit, on to nature outside himself; and, as a matter of course, this
774kind of naturalist uses the same language when he is speaking of the
775changes of material things as he employs to express the changes of his
776mental states, his hopes, fears, aspirations, and struggles.
777
778The language of the alchemists was, therefore, rich in such
779expressions as these; "the elements are to be so conjoined that the
780nobler and fuller life may be produced"; "our arcanum is gold exalted
781to the highest degree of perfection to which the combined action of
782nature and art can develop it."
783
784Such commingling of ethical and physical ideas, such application of
785moral conceptions to material phenomena, was characteristic of the
786alchemical method of regarding nature. The necessary results were;
787great confusion of thought, much mystification of ideas, and a
788superabundance of _views_ about natural events.
789
790When the author of _The Metamorphosis of Metals_ was seeking for an
791argument in favour of his view, that water is the source and primal
792element of all things, he found what he sought in the Biblical text:
793"In the beginning the spirit of God moved upon the face of the
794waters." Similarly, the author of _The Sodic Hydrolith_ clenches his
795argument in favour of the existence of the Philosopher's Stone, by the
796quotation: "Therefore, thus saith the Lord; behold I lay in Zion for a
797foundation a Stone, a tried Stone, a precious corner Stone, a sure
798foundation. He that has it shall not be confounded." This author works
799out in detail an analogy between the functions and virtues of the
800_Stone_, and the story of man's fall and redemption, as set forth in
801the Old and New Testaments. The same author speaks of "Satan, that
802grim pseudo-alchemist."
803
804That the attribution, by the alchemists, of moral virtues and vices to
805natural things was in keeping with some deep-seated tendency of human
806nature, is shown by the persistence of some of their methods of
807stating the properties of substances: we still speak of "perfect and
808imperfect gases," "noble and base metals," "good and bad conductors of
809electricity," and "laws governing natural phenomena."
810
811Convinced of the simplicity of nature, certain that all natural events
812follow one course, sure that this course was known to them and was
813represented by the growth of plants and animals, the alchemists set
814themselves the task, firstly, of proving by observations and
815experiments that their view of natural occurrences was correct; and,
816secondly, of discovering and gaining possession of the instrument
817whereby nature effects her transmutations and perfects her operations.
818The mastery of this instrument would give them power to change any
819metal into gold, the cure of all diseases, and the happiness which
820must come from the practical knowledge of the supreme secret of
821nature.
822
823The central quest of alchemy was the quest of an undefined and
824undefinable something wherein was supposed to be contained all the
825powers and potencies of life, and whatever makes life worth living.
826
827The names given to this mystical something were as many as the
828properties which were assigned to it. It was called _the one thing,
829the essence, the philosopher's stone, the stone of wisdom, the
830heavenly balm, the divine water, the virgin water, the carbuncle of
831the sun, the old dragon, the lion, the basilisk, the phoenix_; and
832many other names were given to it.
833
834We may come near to expressing the alchemist's view of the essential
835character of the object of their search by naming it _the soul of all
836things_. "Alchemy," a modern writer says, "is the science of the soul
837of all things."
838
839The essence was supposed to have a material form, an ethereal or
840middle nature, and an immaterial or spiritual life.
841
842No one might hope to make this essence from any one substance,
843because, as one of the alchemists says, "It is the attribute of God
844alone to make one out of one; you must produce one thing out of two
845by natural generation." The alchemists did not pretend to create gold,
846but only to produce it from other things.
847
848The author of _A Brief Guide to the Celestial Ruby_ says: "We do not,
849as is sometimes said, profess to create gold and silver, but only to
850find an agent which ... is capable of entering into an intimate and
851maturing union with the Mercury of the base metals." And again: "Our
852Art ... only arrogates to itself the power of developing, through the
853removal of all defects and superfluities, the golden nature which the
854baser metals possess." Bonus, in his tract on _The New Pearl of Great
855Price_ (16th century), says: "The Art of Alchemy ... does not create
856metals, or even develop them out of the metallic first-substance; it
857only takes up the unfinished handicraft of Nature and completes it....
858Nature has only left a comparatively small thing for the artist to
859do--the completion of that which she has already begun."
860
861If the essence were ever attained, it would be by following the course
862which nature follows in producing the perfect plant from the imperfect
863seed, by discovering and separating the seed of metals, and bringing
864that seed under the conditions which alone are suitable for its
865growth. Metals must have seed, the alchemists said, for it would be
866absurd to suppose they have none. "What prerogative have vegetables
867above metals," exclaims one of them, "that God should give seed to the
868one and withhold it from the other? Are not metals as much in His
869sight as trees?"
870
871As metals, then, possess seed, it is evident how this seed is to be
872made active; the seed of a plant is quickened by descending into the
873earth, therefore the seed of metals must be destroyed before it
874becomes life-producing. "The processes of our art must begin with
875dissolution of gold; they must terminate in a restoration of the
876essential quality of gold." "Gold does not easily give up its nature,
877and will fight for its life; but our agent is strong enough to
878overcome and kill it, and then it also has power to restore it to
879life, and to change the lifeless remains into a new and pure body."
880
881The application of the doctrine of the existence of seed in metals led
882to the performance of many experiments, and, hence, to the
883accumulation of a considerable body of facts established by
884experimental inquiries. The belief of the alchemists that all natural
885events are connected by a hidden thread, that everything has an
886influence on other things, that "what is above is as what is below,"
887constrained them to place stress on the supposed connexion between the
888planets and the metals, and to further their metallic transformations
889by performing them at times when certain planets were in conjunction.
890The seven principal planets and the seven principal metals were called
891by the same names: _Sol_ (gold), _Luna_ (silver), _Saturn_ (lead),
892_Jupiter_ (tin), _Mars_ (iron), _Venus_ (copper), and _Mercury_
893(mercury). The author of _The New Chemical Light_ taught that one
894metal could be propagated from another only in the order of
895superiority of the planets. He placed the seven planets in the
896following descending order: Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sol, Venus,
897Mercury, Luna. "The virtues of the planets descend," he said, "but do
898not ascend"; it is easy to change Mars (iron) into Venus (copper), for
899instance, but Venus cannot be transformed into Mars.
900
901Although the alchemists regarded everything as influencing, and
902influenced by, other things, they were persuaded that the greatest
903effects are produced on a substance by substances of like nature with
904itself. Hence, most of them taught that the seed of metals will be
905obtained by operations with metals, not by the action on metals of
906things of animal or vegetable origin. Each class of substances, they
907said, has a life, or spirit (an essential character, we might say) of
908its own. "The life of sulphur," Paracelsus said, "is a combustible,
909ill-smelling, fatness.... The life of gems and corals is mere
910colour.... The life of water is its flowing.... The life of fire is
911air." Grant an attraction of like to like, and the reason becomes
912apparent for such directions as these: "Nothing heterogeneous must be
913introduced into our magistery"; "Everything should be made to act on
914that which is like it, and then Nature will perform her duty."
915
916Although each class of substances was said by the alchemists to have
917its own particular character, or life, nevertheless they taught that
918there is a deep-seated likeness between all things, inasmuch as the
919power of _the essence_, or _the one thing_, is so great that under its
920influence different things are produced from the same origin, and
921different things are caused to pass into and become the same thing.
922In _The New Chemical Light_ it is said: "While the seed of all things
923is one, it is made to generate a great variety of things."
924
925It is not easy now--it could not have been easy at any time--to give
926clear and exact meanings to the doctrines of the alchemists, or the
927directions they gave for performing the operations necessary for the
928production of the object of their search. And the difficulty is much
929increased when we are told that "The Sage jealously conceals [his
930knowledge] from the sinner and the scornful, lest the mysteries of
931heaven should be laid bare to the vulgar gaze." We almost despair when
932an alchemical writer assures us that the Sages "Set pen to paper for
933the express purpose of concealing their meaning. The sense of a whole
934passage is often hopelessly obscured by the addition or omission of
935one little word, for instance the addition of the word _not_ in the
936wrong place." Another writer says: "The Sages are in the habit of
937using words which may convey either a true or a false impression; the
938former to their own disciples and children, the latter to the
939ignorant, the foolish, and the unworthy." Sometimes, after
940descriptions of processes couched in strange and mystical language,
941the writer will add, "If you cannot perceive what you ought to
942understand herein, you should not devote yourself to the study of
943philosophy." Philalethes, in his _Brief Guide to the Celestial Ruby_,
944seems to feel some pity for his readers; after describing what he
945calls "the generic homogeneous water of gold," he says: "If you wish
946for a more particular description of our water, I am impelled by
947motives of charity to tell you that it is living, flexible, clear,
948nitid, white as snow, hot, humid, airy, vaporous, and digestive."
949
950Alchemy began by asserting that nature must be simple; it assumed that
951a knowledge of the plan and method of natural occurrences is to be
952obtained by thinking; and it used analogy as the guide in applying
953this knowledge of nature's design to particular events, especially the
954analogy, assumed by alchemy to exist, between material phenomena and
955human emotions.
956
957
958
959
960CHAPTER III.
961
962THE ALCHEMICAL CONCEPTION OF THE UNITY AND SIMPLICITY OF NATURE.
963
964
965In the preceding chapter I have referred to the frequent use made by
966the alchemists of their supposition that nature follows the same plan,
967or at any rate a very similar plan, in all her processes. If this
968supposition is accepted, the primary business of an investigator of
969nature is to trace likenesses and analogies between what seem on the
970surface to be dissimilar and unconnected events. As this idea, and
971this practice, were the foundations whereon the superstructure of
972alchemy was raised, I think it is important to amplify them more fully
973than I have done already.
974
975Mention is made in many alchemical writings of a mythical personage
976named _Hermes Trismegistus_, who is said to have lived a little later
977than the time of Moses. Representations of Hermes Trismegistus are
978found on ancient Egyptian monuments. We are told that Alexander the
979Great found his tomb near Hebron; and that the tomb contained a slab
980of emerald whereon thirteen sentences were written. The eighth
981sentence is rendered in many alchemical books as follows:
982
983"Ascend with the greatest sagacity from the earth to heaven, and then
984again descend to the earth, and unite together the powers of things
985superior and things inferior. Thus you will obtain the glory of the
986whole world, and obscurity will fly away from you."
987
988This sentence evidently teaches the unity of things in heaven and
989things on earth, and asserts the possibility of gaining, not merely a
990theoretical, but also a practical, knowledge of the essential
991characters of all things. Moreover, the sentence implies that this
992fruitful knowledge is to be obtained by examining nature, using as
993guide the fundamental similarity supposed to exist between things
994above and things beneath.
995
996The alchemical writers constantly harp on this theme: follow nature;
997provided you never lose the clue, which is simplicity and similarity.
998
999The author of _The Only Way_ (1677) beseeches his readers "to enlist
1000under the standard of that method which proceeds in strict obedience
1001to the teaching of nature ... in short, the method which nature
1002herself pursues in the bowels of the earth."
1003
1004The alchemists tell us not to expect much help from books and written
1005directions. When one of them has said all he can say, he adds--"The
1006question is whether even this book will convey any information to one
1007before whom the writings of the Sages and the open book of Nature are
1008exhibited in vain." Another tells his readers the only thing for them
1009is "to beseech God to give you the real philosophical temper, and to
1010open your eyes to the facts of nature; thus alone will you reach the
1011coveted goal."
1012
1013"Follow nature" is sound advice. But, nature was to be followed with
1014eyes closed save to one vision, and the vision was to be seen before
1015the following began.
1016
1017The alchemists' general conception of nature led them to assign to
1018every substance a condition or state natural to it, and wherein alone
1019it could be said to be as it was designed to be. Each substance, they
1020taught, could be caused to leave its natural state only by violent, or
1021non-natural, means, and any substance which had been driven from its
1022natural condition by violence was ready, and even eager, to return to
1023the condition consonant with its nature.
1024
1025Thus Norton, in his _Ordinal of Alchemy_, says: "Metals are generated
1026in the earth, for above ground they are subject to rust; hence above
1027ground is the place of corruption of metals, and of their gradual
1028destruction. The cause which we assign to this fact is that above
1029ground they are not in their proper element, and an unnatural position
1030is destructive to natural objects, as we see, for instance, that
1031fishes die when they are taken out of the water; and as it is natural
1032for men, beasts, and birds to live in the air, so stones and metals
1033are naturally generated under the earth."
1034
1035In his _New Pearl of Great Price_ (16th century), Bonus says:--"The
1036object of Nature in all things is to introduce into each substance the
1037form which properly belongs to it; and this is also the design of our
1038Art."
1039
1040This view assumed the knowledge of the natural conditions of the
1041substances wherewith experiments were performed. It supposed that man
1042could act as a guide, to bring back to its natural condition a
1043substance which had been removed from that condition, either by
1044violent processes of nature, or by man's device. The alchemist
1045regarded himself as an arbiter in questions concerning the natural
1046condition of each substance he dealt with. He thought he could say,
1047"this substance ought to be thus, or thus," "that substance is
1048constrained, thwarted, hindered from becoming what nature meant it to
1049be."
1050
1051In Ben Jonson's play called _The Alchemist_, Subtle (who is the
1052alchemist of the play) says, " ... metals would be gold if they had
1053time."
1054
1055The alchemist not only attributed ethical qualities to material
1056things, he also became the guardian and guide of the moral practices
1057of these things. He thought himself able to recall the erring metal to
1058the path of metalline virtue, to lead the extravagant mineral back to
1059the moral home-life from which it had been seduced, to show the
1060doubting and vacillating salt what it was ignorantly seeking, and to
1061help it to find the unrealised object of its search. The alchemist
1062acted as a sort of conscience to the metals, minerals, salts, and
1063other substances he submitted to the processes of his laboratory. He
1064treated them as a wise physician might treat an ignorant and somewhat
1065refractory patient. "I know what you want better than you do," he
1066seems often to be saying to the metals he is calcining, separating,
1067joining and subliming.
1068
1069But the ignorant alchemist was not always thanked for his treatment.
1070Sometimes the patient rebelled. For instance, Michael Sendivogius, in
1071his tract, _The New Chemical Light drawn from the Fountain of Nature
1072and of Manual Experience_ (17th century), recounts _a dialogue between
1073Mercury, the Alchemist, and Nature_.
1074
1075"On a certain bright morning a number of Alchemists met together in a
1076meadow, and consulted as to the best way of preparing the
1077Philosopher's Stone.... Most of them agreed that Mercury was the first
1078substance. Others said, no, it was sulphur, or something else.... Just
1079as the dispute began to run high, there arose a violent wind, which
1080dispersed the Alchemists into all the different countries of the
1081world; and as they had arrived at no conclusion, each one went on
1082seeking the Philosopher's Stone in his own old way, this one expecting
1083to find it in one substance, and that in another, so that the search
1084has continued without intermission even unto this day. One of them,
1085however, had at least got the idea into his head that Mercury was the
1086substance of the Stone, and determined to concentrate all his efforts
1087on the chemical preparation of Mercury.... He took common Mercury and
1088began to work with it. He placed it in a glass vessel over the fire,
1089when it, of course, evaporated. So in his ignorance he struck his
1090wife, and said: 'No one but you has entered my laboratory; you must
1091have taken my Mercury out of the vessel.' The woman, with tears,
1092protested her innocence. The Alchemist put some more Mercury into the
1093vessel.... The Mercury rose to the top of the vessel in vaporous
1094steam. Then the Alchemist was full of joy, because he remembered that
1095the first substance of the Stone is described by the Sages as
1096volatile; and he thought that now at last he _must_ be on the right
1097track. He now began to subject the Mercury to all sorts of chemical
1098processes, to sublime it, and to calcine it with all manner of things,
1099with salts, sulphur, metals, minerals, blood, hair, aqua fortis,
1100herbs, urine, and vinegar.... Everything he could think of was tried;
1101but without producing the desired effect." The Alchemist then
1102despaired; after a dream, wherein an old man came and talked with him
1103about the "Mercury of the Sages," the Alchemist thought he would charm
1104the Mercury, and so he used a form of incantation. The Mercury
1105suddenly began to speak, and asked the Alchemist why he had troubled
1106him so much, and so on. The Alchemist replied, and questioned the
1107Mercury. The Mercury makes fun of the philosopher. Then the Alchemist
1108again torments the Mercury by heating him with all manner of horrible
1109things. At last Mercury calls in the aid of Nature, who soundly rates
1110the philosopher, tells him he is grossly ignorant, and ends by saying:
1111"The best thing you can do is to give yourself up to the king's
1112officers, who will quickly put an end to you and your philosophy."
1113
1114As long as men were fully persuaded that they knew the plan whereon
1115the world was framed, that it was possible for them to follow exactly
1116"the road which was followed by the Great Architect of the Universe in
1117the creation of the world," a real knowledge of natural events was
1118impossible; for every attempt to penetrate nature's secrets
1119presupposed a knowledge of the essential characteristics of that which
1120was to be investigated. But genuine knowledge begins when the
1121investigator admits that he must learn of nature, not nature of him.
1122It might be truly said of one who held the alchemical conception of
1123nature that "his foible was omniscience"; and omniscience negatives
1124the attainment of knowledge.
1125
1126The alchemical notion of a natural state as proper to each substance
1127was vigorously combated by the Honourable Robert Boyle (born 1626,
1128died 1691), a man of singularly clear and penetrative intellect. In _A
1129Paradox of the Natural and Supernatural States of Bodies, Especially
1130of the Air_, Boyle says:--"I know that not only in living, but even in
1131inanimate, bodies, of which alone I here discourse, men have
1132universally admitted the famous distinction between the natural and
1133preternatural, or violent state of bodies, and do daily, without the
1134least scruple, found upon it hypotheses and ratiocinations, as if it
1135were most certain that what they call nature had purposely formed
1136bodies in such a determinate state, and were always watchful that they
1137should not by any external violence be put out of it. But
1138notwithstanding so general a consent of men in this point, I confess,
1139I cannot yet be satisfied about it in the sense wherein it is wont to
1140be taken. It is not, that I believe, that there is no sense in which,
1141or in the account upon which, a body may he said to be in its natural
1142state; but that I think the common distinction of a natural and
1143violent state of bodies has not been clearly explained and
1144considerately settled, and both is not well grounded, and is
1145oftentimes ill applied. For when I consider that whatever state a body
1146be put into, or kept in, it obtains or retains that state, assenting
1147to the catholic laws of nature, I cannot think it fit to deny that in
1148this sense the body proposed is in a natural state; but then, upon the
1149same ground, it will he hard to deny but that those bodies which are
1150said to be in a violent state may also be in a natural one, since the
1151violence they are presumed to suffer from outward agents is likewise
1152exercised no otherwise than according to the established laws of
1153universal nature."
1154
1155There must be something very fascinating and comforting in the
1156alchemical view of nature, as a harmony constructed on one simple
1157plan, which can be grasped as a whole, and also in its details, by the
1158introspective processes of the human intellect; for that conception
1159prevails to-day among those who have not investigated natural
1160occurrences for themselves. The alchemical view of nature still forms
1161the foundation of systems of ethics, of philosophy, of art. It appeals
1162to the innate desire of man to make himself the measure of all
1163things. It is so easy, so authoritative, apparently so satisfactory.
1164No amount of thinking and reasoning will ever demonstrate its falsity.
1165It can be conquered only by a patient, unbiassed, searching
1166examination of some limited portion of natural events.
1167
1168
1169
1170
1171CHAPTER IV.
1172
1173THE ALCHEMICAL ELEMENTS AND PRINCIPLES.
1174
1175
1176The alchemists were sure that the intention of nature regarding metals
1177was that they should become gold, for gold was considered to be the
1178most perfect metal, and nature, they said, evidently strains after
1179perfection. The alchemist found that metals were worn away, eaten
1180through, broken, and finally caused to disappear, by many acid and
1181acrid liquids which he prepared from mineral substances. But gold
1182resisted the attacks of these liquids; it was not changed by heat, nor
1183was it affected by sulphur, a substance which changed limpid, running
1184mercury into an inert, black solid. Hence, gold was more perfect in
1185the alchemical scale than any other metal.
1186
1187Since gold was considered to be the most perfect metal, it was
1188self-evident to the alchemical mind that nature must form gold slowly
1189in the earth, must transmute gradually the inferior metals into gold.
1190
1191"The only thing that distinguishes one metal from another," writes an
1192alchemist who went under the name of Philalethes, "is its degree of
1193maturity, which is, of course, greatest in the most precious metals;
1194the difference between gold and lead is not one of substance, but of
1195digestion; in the baser metal the coction has not been such as to
1196purge out its metallic impurities. If by any means this superfluous
1197impure matter could be organically removed from the baser metals, they
1198would become gold and silver. So miners tell us that lead has in many
1199cases developed into silver in the bowels of the earth, and we contend
1200that the same effect is produced in a much shorter time by means of
1201our Art."
1202
1203Stories were told about the finding of gold in deserted mines which
1204had been worked out long before; these stories were supposed to prove
1205that gold was bred in the earth. The facts that pieces of silver were
1206found in tin and lead mines, and gold was found in silver mines, were
1207adduced as proofs that, as the author of _The New Pearl of Great
1208Price_ says, "Nature is continually at work changing other metals into
1209gold, because, though in a certain sense they are complete in
1210themselves, they have not yet reached the highest perfection of which
1211they are capable, and to which nature has destined them." What nature
1212did in the earth man could accomplish in the workshop. For is not man
1213the crown of the world, the masterpiece of nature, the flower of the
1214universe; was he not given dominion over all things when the world was
1215created?
1216
1217In asserting that the baser metals could be transmuted into gold, and
1218in attempting to effect this transmutation, the alchemist was not
1219acting on a vague; haphazard surmise; he was pursuing a policy
1220dictated by his conception of the order of nature; he was following
1221the method which he conceived to be that used by nature herself. The
1222transmutation of metals was part and parcel of a system of natural
1223philosophy. If this transmutation were impossible, the alchemical
1224scheme of things would be destroyed, the believer in the transmutation
1225would be left without a sense of order in the material universe. And,
1226moreover, the alchemist's conception of an orderly material universe
1227was so intimately connected with his ideas of morality and religion,
1228that to disprove the possibility of the great transmutation would be
1229to remove not only the basis of his system of material things, but the
1230foundations of his system of ethics also. To take away his belief in
1231the possibility of changing other metals into gold would be to convert
1232the alchemist into an atheist.
1233
1234How, then, was the transmutation to be accomplished? Evidently by the
1235method whereby nature brings to perfection other living things; for
1236the alchemist's belief in the simplicity and unity of nature compelled
1237him to regard metals as living things.
1238
1239Plants are improved by appropriate culture, by digging and enriching
1240the soil, by judicious selection of seed; animals are improved by
1241careful breeding. By similar processes metals will be encouraged and
1242helped towards perfection. The perfect state of gold will not be
1243reached at a bound; it will be gained gradually. Many partial
1244purifications will be needed. As _Subtle_ says in _The Alchemist_--
1245
1246                                    'twere absurd
1247      To think that nature in the earth bred gold
1248      Perfect in the instant; something went before,
1249      There must be remote matter....
1250      Nature doth first beget the imperfect, then
1251      Proceeds she to the perfect.
1252
1253At this stage the alchemical argument becomes very ultra-physical. It
1254may, perhaps, be rendered somewhat as follows:--
1255
1256Man is the most perfect of animals; in man there is a union of three
1257parts, these are body, soul, and spirit. Metals also may be said to
1258have a body, a soul, and a spirit; there is a specific bodily, or
1259material, form belonging to each metal; there is a metalline soul
1260characteristic of this or that class of metals; there is a spirit, or
1261inner immaterial potency, which is the very essence of all metals.
1262
1263The soul and spirit of man are clogged by his body. If the spiritual
1264nature is to become the dominating partner, the body must be
1265mortified: the alchemists, of course, used this kind of imagery, and
1266it was very real to them. In like manner the spirit of metals will be
1267laid bare and enabled to exercise its transforming influences, only
1268when the material form of the individual metal has been destroyed. The
1269first thing to do, then, is to strip off and cast aside those
1270properties of metals which appeal to the senses.
1271
1272"It is necessary to deprive matter of its qualities in order to draw
1273out its soul," said Stephanus of Alexandria in the 7th century; and in
1274the 17th century Paracelsus said, "Nothing of true value is located in
1275the body of a substance, but in the virtue ... the less there is of
1276body the more in proportion is the virtue."
1277
1278But the possession of the soul of metals is not the final stage:
1279mastery of the soul may mean the power of transmuting a metal into
1280another like itself; it will not suffice for the great transmutation,
1281for in that process a metal becomes gold, the one and only perfect
1282metal. Hence the soul also must be removed, in order that the spirit,
1283the essence, the kernel, may be obtained.
1284
1285And as it is with metals, so, the alchemists argued, it is with all
1286things. There are a few _Principles_ which may be thought of as
1287conditioning the specific bodily and material forms of things; beneath
1288these, there are certain _Elements_ which are common to many things
1289whose principles are not the same; and, hidden by the wrappings of
1290elements and principles, there is the one _Essence_, the spirit, the
1291mystic uniting bond, the final goal of the philosopher.
1292
1293I propose in this chapter to try to analyse the alchemical conceptions
1294of Elements and Principles, and in the next chapter to attempt some
1295kind of description of the Essence.
1296
1297In his _Tract Concerning the Great Stone of the Ancient Sages_, Basil
1298Valentine speaks of the "three Principles," salt, sulphur, and
1299mercury, the source of which is the Elements.
1300
1301"There are four Elements, and each has at its centre another element
1302which makes it what it is. These are the four pillars of the earth."
1303
1304Of the element _Earth_, he says:--"In this element the other three,
1305especially fire, are latent.... It is gross and porous, specifically
1306heavy, but naturally light.... It receives all that the other three
1307project into it, conscientiously conceals what it should hide, and
1308brings to light that which it should manifest.... Outwardly it is
1309visible and fixed, inwardly it is invisible and volatile."
1310
1311Of the element _Water_, Basil Valentine says:--"Outwardly it is
1312volatile, inwardly it is fixed, cold, and humid.... It is the solvent
1313of the world, and exists in three degrees of excellence: the pure, the
1314purer, and the purest. Of its purest substance the heavens were
1315created; of that which is less pure the atmospheric air was formed;
1316that which is simply pure remains in its proper sphere where ... it is
1317guardian of all subtle substances here below."
1318
1319Concerning the element _Air_, he writes:--"The most noble Element of
1320Air ... is volatile, but may be fixed, and when fixed renders all
1321bodies penetrable.... It is nobler than Earth or Water.... It
1322nourishes, impregnates, conserves the other elements."
1323
1324Finally, of the element _Fire_:--"Fire is the purest and noblest of
1325all Elements, full of adhesive unctuous corrosiveness, penetrant,
1326digestive, inwardly fixed, hot and dry, outwardly visible, and
1327tempered by the earth.... This Element is the most passive of all, and
1328resembles a chariot; when it is drawn, it moves; when it is not drawn,
1329it stands still."
1330
1331Basil Valentine then tells his readers that Adam was compounded of the
1332four pure Elements, but after his expulsion from Paradise he became
1333subject to the various impurities of the animal creation. "The pure
1334Elements of his creation were gradually mingled and infected with the
1335corruptible elements of the outer world, and thus his body became more
1336and more gross, and liable, through its grossness, to natural decay
1337and death." The process of degeneration was slow at first, but "as
1338time went on, the seed out of which men were generated became more and
1339more infected with perishable elements. The continued use of
1340corruptible food rendered their bodies more and more gross; and human
1341life was soon reduced to a very brief span."
1342
1343Basil Valentine then deals with the formation of the three
1344_Principles_ of things, by the mutual action of the four Elements.
1345Fire acting on Air produced _Sulphur_; Air acting on Water produced
1346_Mercury_; Water acting on Earth produced _Salt_. Earth having nothing
1347to act on produced nothing, but became the nurse of the three
1348Principles. "The three Principles," he says, "are necessary because
1349they are the immediate substance of metals. The remoter substance of
1350metals is the four elements, but no one can produce anything out of
1351them but God; and even God makes nothing of them but these three
1352Principles."
1353
1354To endeavour to obtain the four pure Elements is a hopeless task. But
1355the Sage has the three Principles at hand. "The artist should
1356determine which of the three Principles he is seeking, and should
1357assist it so that it may overcome its contrary." "The art consists in
1358an even mingling of the virtues of the Elements; in the natural
1359equilibrium of the hot, the dry, the cold, and the moist."
1360
1361The account of the Elements given by Philalethes differs from that of
1362Basil Valentine.
1363
1364Philalethes enumerates three Elements only: Air, Water, and Earth.
1365Things are not formed by the mixture of these Elements, for
1366"dissimilar things can never really unite." By analysing the
1367properties of the three Elements, Philalethes reduced them finally to
1368one, namely, Water. "Water," he says, "is the first principle of all
1369things." "Earth is the fundamental Element in which all bodies grow
1370and are preserved. Air is the medium into which they grow, and by
1371means of which the celestial virtues are communicated to them."
1372
1373According to Philalethes, _Mercury_ is the most important of the three
1374Principles. Although gold is formed by the aid of Mercury, it is only
1375when Mercury has been matured, developed, and perfected, that it is
1376able to transmute inferior metals into gold. The essential thing to do
1377is, therefore, to find an agent which will bring about the maturing
1378and perfecting of Mercury. This agent, Philalethes calls "Our divine
1379Arcanum."
1380
1381Although it appears to me impossible to translate the sayings of the
1382alchemists concerning Elements and Principles into expressions which
1383shall have definite and exact meanings for us to-day, still we may,
1384perhaps, get an inkling of the meaning of such sentences as those I
1385have quoted from Basil Valentine and Philalethes.
1386
1387Take the terms _Fire_ and _Water_. In former times all liquid
1388substances were supposed to be liquid because they possessed something
1389in common; this hypothetical something was called the _Element,
1390Water_. Similarly, the view prevailed until comparatively recent
1391times, that burning substances burn because of the presence in them of
1392a hypothetical imponderable fluid, called "_Caloric_"; the alchemists
1393preferred to call this indefinable something an Element, and to name
1394it _Fire_.
1395
1396We are accustomed to-day to use the words _fire_ and _water_ with
1397different meanings, according to the ideas we wish to express. When we
1398say "do not touch the fire," or "put your hand into the water," we are
1399regarding fire and water as material things; when we say "the house is
1400on fire," or speak of "a diamond of the first water," we are thinking
1401of the condition or state of a burning body, or of a substance as
1402transparent as water. When we say "put out the fire," or "his heart
1403became as water," we are referring to the act of burning, or are using
1404an image which likens the thing spoken of to a substance in the act of
1405liquefying.
1406
1407As we do to-day, so the alchemists did before us; they used the words
1408_fire_ and _water_ to express different ideas.
1409
1410Such terms as hardness, softness, coldness, toughness, and the like,
1411are employed for the purpose of bringing together into one point of
1412view different things which are alike in, at least, one respect. Hard
1413things may differ in size, weight, shape, colour, texture, &c. A soft
1414thing may weigh the same as a hard thing; both may have the same
1415colour or the same size, or be at the same temperature, and so on. By
1416classing together various things as hard or soft, or smooth or rough,
1417we eliminate (for the time) all the properties wherein the things
1418differ, and regard them only as having one property in common. The
1419words hardness, softness, &c., are useful class-marks.
1420
1421Similarly the alchemical Elements and Principles were useful
1422class-marks.
1423
1424We must not suppose that when the alchemists spoke of certain things
1425as formed from, or by the union of, the same Elements or the same
1426Principles, they meant that these things contained a common substance.
1427Their Elements and Principles were not thought of as substances, at
1428least not in the modern meaning of the expression, _a substance_; they
1429were qualities only.
1430
1431If we think of the alchemical elements earth, air, fire, and water, as
1432general expressions of what seemed to the alchemists the most
1433important properties of all substances, we may be able to attach some
1434kind of meaning to the sayings of Basil Valentine, which I have
1435quoted. For instance, when that alchemist tells us, "Fire is the most
1436passive of all elements, and resembles a chariot; when it is drawn, it
1437moves; when it is not drawn, it stands still"--we may suppose he meant
1438to express the fact that a vast number of substances can be burnt, and
1439that combustion does not begin of itself, but requires an external
1440agency to start it.
1441
1442Unfortunately, most of the terms which the alchemists used to
1443designate their Elements and Principles are terms which are now
1444employed to designate specific substances. The word _fire_ is still
1445employed rather as a quality of many things under special conditions,
1446than as a specific substance; but _earth_, _water_, _air_, _salt_,
1447_sulphur_, and _mercury_, are to-day the names applied to certain
1448groups of properties, each of which is different from all other groups
1449of properties, and is, therefore, called, in ordinary speech, a
1450definite kind of matter.
1451
1452As knowledge became more accurate and more concentrated, the words
1453_sulphur_, _salt_, _mercury_, &c., began to be applied to distinct
1454substances, and as these terms were still employed in their alchemical
1455sense as compendious expressions for certain qualities common to great
1456classes of substances, much confusion arose. Kunckel, the discoverer
1457of phosphorus, who lived between 1630 and 1702, complained of the
1458alchemists' habit of giving different names to the same substance, and
1459the same name to different substances. "The sulphur of one," he says,
1460"is not the sulphur of another, to the great injury of science. To
1461that one replies that everyone is perfectly free to baptise his infant
1462as he pleases. Granted. You may if you like call an ass an ox, but you
1463will never make anyone believe that your ox is an ass." Boyle is very
1464severe on the vague and loose use of words practised by so many
1465writers of his time. In _The Sceptical Chymist_ (published 1678-9) he
1466says: "If judicious men, skilled in chymical affairs, shall once agree
1467to write clearly and plainly of them, and thereby keep men from being
1468stunned, as it were, or imposed upon by dark and empty words; it is to
1469be hoped that these [other] men finding, that they can no longer write
1470impertinently and absurdly, without being laughed at for doing so,
1471will be reduced either to write nothing, or books that may teach us
1472something, and not rob men, as formerly, of invaluable time; and so
1473ceasing to trouble the world with riddles or impertinences, we shall
1474either by their books receive an advantage, or by their silence escape
1475an inconvenience."
1476
1477Most of the alchemists taught that the elements produced what they
1478called _seed_, by their mutual reactions, and the principles matured
1479this seed and brought it to perfection. They supposed that each class,
1480or kind, of things had its own seed, and that to obtain the seed was
1481to have the power of producing the things which sprung from that seed.
1482
1483Some of them, however, asserted that all things come from a common
1484seed, and that the nature of the products of this seed is conditioned
1485by the circumstances under which it is caused to develop.
1486
1487Thus Michael Sendivogius writes as follows in _The New Chemical Light,
1488drawn from the fountain of Nature and of Manual Experience_ (17th
1489century):--
1490
1491  "Wherever there is seed, Nature will work through it, whether it
1492  be good or bad." "The four Elements, by their continued action,
1493  project a constant supply of seed to the centre of the earth,
1494  where it is digested, and whence it proceeds again in generative
1495  motions. Now the centre of the earth is a certain void place where
1496  nothing is at rest, and upon the margin or circumference of this
1497  centre the four Elements project their qualities.... The magnetic
1498  force of our earth-centre attracts to itself as much as is needed
1499  of the cognate seminal substance, while that which cannot be used
1500  for vital generation is thrust forth in the shape of stones and
1501  other rubbish. This is the fountain-head of all things
1502  terrestrial. Let us illustrate the matter by supposing a glass of
1503  water to be set in the middle of a table, round the margin of
1504  which are placed little heaps of salt, and of powders of different
1505  colours. If the water be poured out, it will run all over the
1506  table in divergent rivulets, and will become salt where it touches
1507  the salt, red where it touches the red powder, and so on. The
1508  water does not change the '_places_,' but the several '_places_'
1509  differentiate the water.[4] In the same way, the seed which is the
1510  product of the four Elements is projected in all directions from
1511  the earth-centre, and produces different things, according to the
1512  quality of the different places. Thus, while the seed of all
1513  things is one, it is made to generate a great variety of
1514  things.... So long as Nature's seed remains in the centre it can
1515  indifferently produce a tree or a metal, a herb or a stone, and in
1516  like manner, according to the purity of the place, it will produce
1517  what is less or more pure."
1518
1519   [4] The author I am quoting had said--"Nature is divided into
1520   four '_places_' in which she brings forth all things that
1521   appear and that are in the shade; and according to the good or
1522   bad quality of the '_place_,' she brings forth good or bad
1523   things.... It is most important for us to know her '_places_'
1524   ... in order that we may join things together according to
1525   Nature."
1526
1527
1528
1529
1530CHAPTER V.
1531
1532THE ALCHEMICAL ESSENCE.
1533
1534
1535In the last chapter I tried to describe the alchemical view of the
1536interdependence of different substances. Taking for granted the
1537tripartite nature of man, the co-existence in him of body, soul, and
1538spirit (no one of which was defined), the alchemists concluded that
1539all things are formed as man is formed; that in everything there is a
1540specific bodily form, some portion of soul, and a dash of spirit. I
1541considered the term _soul_ to be the alchemical name for the
1542properties common to a class of substances, and the term _spirit_ to
1543mean the property which was thought by the alchemists to be common to
1544all things.
1545
1546The alchemists considered it possible to arrange all substances in
1547four general classes, the marks whereof were expressed by the terms
1548hot, cold, moist, and dry; they thought of these properties as
1549typified by what they called the four Elements--fire, air, water, and
1550earth. Everything, they taught, was produced from the four Elements,
1551not immediately, but through the mediation of the three
1552Principles--mercury, sulphur, and salt. These Principles were regarded
1553as the tools put into the hands of him who desired to effect the
1554transmutation of one substance into another. The Principles were not
1555thought of as definite substances, nor as properties of this or that
1556specified substance; they were considered to be the characteristic
1557properties of large classes of substances.
1558
1559The chemist of to-day places many compounds in the same class because
1560all are acids, because all react similarly under similar conditions.
1561It used to be said that every acid possesses more or less of _the
1562principle of acidity_. Lavoisier changed the language whereby certain
1563facts concerning acids were expressed. He thought that experiments
1564proved all acids to be compounds of the element oxygen; and for many
1565years after Lavoisier, the alchemical expression _the principle of
1566acidity_ was superseded by the word _oxygen_. Although Lavoisier
1567recognised that not every compound of oxygen is an acid, he taught
1568that every acid is a compound of oxygen. We know now that many acids
1569are not compounds of oxygen, but we have not yet sufficient knowledge
1570to frame a complete definition of the term _acid_. Nevertheless it is
1571convenient, indeed it is necessary, to place together many compounds
1572which react similarly under certain defined conditions, and to give a
1573common name to them all. The alchemists also classified substances,
1574but their classification was necessarily more vague than ours; and
1575they necessarily expressed their reasons for putting different
1576substances in the same class in a language which arose out of the
1577general conceptions of natural phenomena which prevailed in their
1578time.
1579
1580The primary classification of substances made by the alchemists was
1581expressed by saying; these substances are rich in the principle
1582_sulphur_, those contain much of the principle _mercury_, and this
1583class is marked by the preponderance of the principle _salt_. The
1584secondary classification of the alchemists was expressed by saying;
1585this class is characterised by dryness, that by moisture, another by
1586coldness, and a fourth by hotness; the dry substances contain much of
1587the element _Earth_, the moist substances are rich in the element
1588_Water_, in the cold substances the element _Air_ preponderates, and
1589the hot substances contain more of the element _Fire_ than of the
1590other elements.
1591
1592The alchemists went a step further in their classification of things.
1593They asserted that there is One Thing present in all things; that
1594everything is a vehicle for the more or less perfect exhibition of the
1595properties of the One Thing; that there is a Primal Element common to
1596all substances. The final aim of alchemy was to obtain the One Thing,
1597the Primal Element, the Soul of all Things, so purified, not only from
1598all specific substances, but also from all admixture of the four
1599Elements and the three Principles, as to make possible the
1600accomplishment of any transmutation by the use of it.
1601
1602If a person ignorant of its powers were to obtain the Essence, he
1603might work vast havoc and cause enormous confusion; it was necessary,
1604therefore, to know the conditions under which the potencies of the
1605Essence became active. Hence there was need of prolonged study of the
1606mutual actions of the most seemingly diverse substances, and of minute
1607and patient examination of the conditions under which nature performs
1608her marvellous transmutations. The quest of the One Thing was fraught
1609with peril, and was to be attempted only by those who had served a
1610long and laborious apprenticeship.
1611
1612In _The Chemical Treatise of Thomas Norton, the Englishman, called
1613Believe-me, or the Ordinal of Alchemy_ (15th century), the adept is
1614warned not to disclose his secrets to ordinary people.
1615
1616"You should carefully test and examine the life, character, and mental
1617aptitudes of any person who would be initiated in this Art, and then
1618you should bind him, by a sacred oath, not to let our Magistery be
1619commonly or vulgarly known. Only when he begins to grow old and
1620feeble, he may reveal it to one person, but not to more, and that one
1621man must be virtuous.... If any wicked man should learn to practise
1622the Art, the event would be fraught with great danger to Christendom.
1623For such a man would overstep all bounds of moderation, and would
1624remove from their hereditary thrones those legitimate princes who rule
1625over the peoples of Christendom."
1626
1627The results of the experimental examination of the compositions and
1628properties of substances, made since the time of the alchemists, have
1629led to the modern conception of the chemical element, and the
1630isolation of about seventy or eighty different elements. No substance
1631now called an element has been produced in the laboratory by uniting
1632two, or more, distinct substances, nor has any been separated into
1633two, or more, unlike portions. The only decided change which a
1634chemical element has been caused to undergo is the combination of it
1635with some other element or elements, or with a compound or compounds.
1636
1637But it is possible that all the chemical elements may be combinations
1638of different quantities of one primal element. Certain facts make this
1639supposition tenable; and some chemists expect that the supposition
1640will be proved to be correct. If the hypothetical primal element
1641should be isolated, we should have fulfilled the aim of alchemy, and
1642gained the One Thing; but the fulfilment would not be that whereof the
1643alchemists dreamed.
1644
1645Inasmuch as the alchemical Essence was thought of as the Universal
1646Spirit to whose presence is due whatever degree of perfection any
1647specific substance exhibits, it followed that the more perfect a
1648substance the greater is the quantity of the Essence in it. But even
1649in the most perfect substance found in nature--which substance, the
1650alchemists said, is gold--the Essence is hidden by wrappings of
1651specific properties which prevent the ordinary man from recognising
1652it. Remove these wrappings from some special substance, and you have
1653the perfect form of that thing; you have some portion of the Universal
1654Spirit joined to the one general property of the class of things
1655whereof the particular substance is a member. Then remove the
1656class-property, often spoken of by the alchemists as _the life_, of
1657the substance, and you have the Essence itself.
1658
1659The alchemists thought that to every thing, or at any rate to every
1660class of things, there corresponds a more perfect form than that which
1661we see and handle; they spoke of gold, and the _gold of the Sages_;
1662mercury, and the _mercury of the Philosophers_; sulphur, and the
1663_heavenly sulphur of him whose eyes are opened_.
1664
1665To remove the outer wrappings of ordinary properties which present
1666themselves to the untrained senses, was regarded by the alchemists to
1667be a difficult task; to tear away the soul (the class-property) of a
1668substance, and yet retain the Essence which made that substance its
1669dwelling place, was possible only after vast labour, and by the use of
1670the proper agent working under the proper conditions. An exceedingly
1671powerful, delicate, and refined agent was needed; and the mastery of
1672the agent was to be acquired by bitter experience, and, probably,
1673after many disappointments.
1674
1675"Gold," an alchemist tells us, "does not easily give up its nature,
1676and will fight for its life; but our agent is strong enough to
1677overcome and kill it, and then it also has the power to restore it to
1678life, and to change the lifeless remains into a new and pure body."
1679
1680Thomas Norton, the author of _The Ordinal of Alchemy_, writing in the
168115th century, says the worker in transmutations is often tempted to be
1682in a hurry, or to despair, and he is often deceived. His servants will
1683be either stupid and faithful, or quick-witted and false. He may be
1684robbed of everything when his work is almost finished. The only
1685remedies are infinite patience, a sense of virtue, and sound reason.
1686"In the pursuit of our Art," he says, "you should take care, from time
1687to time, to unbend your mind from its sterner employments with some
1688convenient recreation."
1689
1690The choice of workmen to aid in the mechanical parts of the quest was
1691a great trouble to the alchemists. On this subject Norton says--"If
1692you would be free from all fear over the gross work, follow my
1693counsel, and never engage married men; for they soon give in and
1694pretend they are tired out.... Hire your workmen for certain
1695stipulated wages, and not for longer periods than twenty-four hours at
1696a time. Give them higher wages than they would receive elsewhere, and
1697be prompt and ready in your payments."
1698
1699Many accounts are given by alchemical writers of the agent, and many
1700names are bestowed on it. The author of _A Brief Guide to the
1701Celestial Ruby_ speaks thus of the agent--"It is our doorkeeper, our
1702balm, our honey, oil, urine, maydew, mother, egg, secret furnace,
1703oven, true fire, venomous dragon, Theriac, ardent wine, Green Lion,
1704Bird of Hermes, Goose of Hermogenes, two-edged sword in the hand of
1705the Cherub that guards the Tree of Life.... It is our true secret
1706vessel, and the Garden of the Sages in which our sun rises and sets.
1707It is our Royal Mineral, our triumphant vegetable Saturnia, and the
1708magic rod of Hermes, by means of which he assumes any shape he likes."
1709
1710Sometimes we are told that the agent is mercury, sometimes that it is
1711gold, but not common mercury or common gold. "Supplement your common
1712mercury with the inward fire which it needs, and you will soon get rid
1713of all superfluous dross." "The agent is gold, as highly matured as
1714natural and artificial digestion can make it, and a thousand times
1715more perfect than the common metal of that name. Gold, thus exalted,
1716radically penetrates, tinges, and fixes metals."
1717
1718The alchemists generally likened the work to be performed by their
1719agent to the killing of a living thing. They constantly use the
1720allegory of death, followed by resurrection, in describing the steps
1721whereby the Essence was to be obtained, and the processes whereby the
1722baser metals were to be partially purified. They speak of the
1723mortification of metals, the dissolution and putrefaction of
1724substances, as preliminaries to the appearance of the true life of the
1725things whose outward properties have been destroyed. For instance,
1726Paracelsus says: "Destruction perfects that which is good; for the
1727good cannot appear on account of that which conceals it." The same
1728alchemist speaks of rusting as the mortification of metals; he says:
1729"The mortification of metals is the removal of their bodily
1730structure.... The mortification of woods is their being turned into
1731charcoal or ashes."
1732
1733Paracelsus distinguishes natural from artificial mortification,
1734"Whatever nature consumes," he says, "man cannot restore. But whatever
1735man destroys man can restore, and break again when restored." Things
1736which had been mortified by man's device were considered by Paracelsus
1737not to be really dead. He gives this extraordinary illustration of his
1738meaning: "You see this is the case with lions, which are all born
1739dead, and are first vitalised by the horrible noise of their parents,
1740just as a sleeping person is awakened by a shout."
1741
1742The mortification of metals is represented in alchemical books by
1743various images and allegories. Fig. I. is reduced from a cut in a 16th
1744century work, _The Book of Lambspring, a noble ancient Philosopher,
1745concerning the Philosophical Stone_.
1746
1747[Illustration: Here the father devours the son;
1748               The soul and spirit flow forth from the body.
1749               FIG. I.]
1750
1751The image used to set forth the mortification of metals is a king
1752swallowing his son. Figs. II. and III. are reduced from Basil
1753Valentine's _Twelve Keys_. Both of these figures represent the process
1754of mortification by images connected with death and burial.
1755
1756[Illustration: FIG. II.]
1757
1758In his explanation (?) of these figures, Basil Valentine says:--
1759
1760  "Neither human nor animal bodies can be multiplied or propagated
1761  without decomposition; the grain and all vegetable seed, when cast
1762  into the ground, must decay before it can spring up again;
1763  moreover, putrefaction imparts life to many worms and other
1764  animalculæ.... If bread is placed in honey, and suffered to decay,
1765  ants are generated ... maggots are also developed by the decay of
1766  nuts, apples, and pears. The same thing may be observed in regard
1767  to vegetable life. Nettles and other weeds spring up where no such
1768  seed has ever been sown. This occurs only by putrefaction. The
1769  reason is that the soil in such places is so disposed, and, as it
1770  were, impregnated, that it produces these fruits; which is a
1771  result of the properties of sidereal influences; consequently the
1772  seed is spiritually produced in the earth, and putrefies in the
1773  earth, and by the operation of the elements generates corporeal
1774  matter according to the species of nature. Thus the stars and the
1775  elements may generate new spiritual, and ultimately, new vegetable
1776  seed, by means of putrefaction.... Know that, in like manner, no
1777  metallic seed can develop, or multiply, unless the said seed, by
1778  itself alone, and without the introduction of any foreign
1779  substance, be reduced to a perfect putrefaction."
1780
1781[Illustration: FIG. III.]
1782
1783The action of the mineral agent in perfecting substances is often
1784likened by the alchemists to the conjoining of the male and the
1785female, followed by the production of offspring. They insist on the
1786need of a union of two things, in order to produce something more
1787perfect than either. The agent, they say, must work upon something;
1788alone it is nothing.
1789
1790The methods whereby the agent is itself perfected, and the processes
1791wherein the agent effects the perfecting of the less perfect things,
1792were divided into stages by the alchemists. They generally spoke of
1793these stages as _Gates_, and enumerated ten or sometimes twelve of
1794them. As examples of the alchemical description of these gates, I give
1795some extracts from _A Brief Guide to the Celestial Ruby_.
1796
1797The first gate is _Calcination_, which is "the drying up of the
1798humours"; by this process the substance "is concocted into a black
1799powder which is yet unctuous, and retains its radical humour." When
1800gold passes through this gate, "We observe in it two natures, the
1801fixed and the volatile, which we liken to two serpents." The fixed
1802nature is likened to a serpent without wings; the volatile, to a
1803serpent with wings: calcination unites these two into one. The second
1804gate, _Dissolution_, is likened to death and burial; but the true
1805Essence will appear glorious and beautiful when this gate is passed.
1806The worker is told not to be discouraged by this apparent death. _The
1807mercury of the sages_ is spoken of by this author as the queen, and
1808gold as the king. The king dies for love of the queen, but he is
1809revived by his spouse, who is made fruitful by him and brings forth "a
1810most royal son."
1811
1812Figs. IV. and V. are reduced from _The Book of Lambspring_; they
1813express the need of the conjunction of two to produce one.
1814
1815
1816[Illustration: Here you behold a great marvel--
1817               Two Lions are joined into one.
1818
1819               The spirit and soul must be united in their body.
1820               FIG. IV.]
1821
1822After dissolution came _Conjunction_, wherein the separated elements
1823were combined. Then followed _Putrefaction_, necessary for the
1824germination of the seed which had been produced by calcination,
1825dissolution, and conjunction. Putrefaction was followed by
1826_Congelation_ and _Citation_. The passage through the next gate,
1827called _Sublimation_, caused the body to become spiritual, and the
1828spiritual to be made corporal. _Fermentation_ followed, whereby the
1829substance became soft and flowed like wax. Finally, by _Exaltation_,
1830the Stone was perfected.
1831
1832[Illustration: Here are two birds, great and strong--the body and
1833               spirit; one devours the other.
1834
1835               Let the body be placed in horse-dung, or a warm bath,
1836               the spirit having been extracted from it. The body has
1837               become white by the process, the spirit red by our art.
1838               All that exists tends towards perfection, and thus is
1839               the Philosopher's Stone prepared.
1840
1841               FIG. V.]
1842
1843The author of _The Open Entrance_ speaks of the various stages in the
1844perfecting of the agent as _regimens_. The beginning of the heating
1845of gold with mercury is likened to the king stripping off his golden
1846garments and descending into the fountain; this is the _regimen of
1847Mercury_. As the heating is continued, all becomes black; this is the
1848_regimen of Saturn_. Then is noticed a play of many colours; this is
1849the _regimen of Jupiter_: if the heat is not regulated properly, "the
1850young ones of the crow will go back to the nest." About the end of the
1851fourth month you will see "the sign of the waxing moon," and all
1852becomes white; this is the _regimen of the Moon_. The white colour
1853gives place to purple and green; you are now in the _regimen of
1854Venus_. After that, appear all the colours of the rainbow, or of a
1855peacock's tail; this is the _regimen of Mars_. Finally the colour
1856becomes orange and golden; this is the _regimen of the Sun_.
1857
1858The reader may wish to have some description of the Essence. The
1859alchemists could describe it only in contraries. It had a bodily form,
1860but its method of working was spiritual. In _The Sodic Hydrolith, or
1861Water Stone of the Wise_ we are told:--
1862
1863  "The stone is conceived below the earth, born in the earth,
1864  quickened in heaven, dies in time, and obtains eternal glory....
1865  It is bluish-grey and green.... It flows like water, yet it makes
1866  no wet; it is of great weight, and is small."
1867
1868Philalethes says, in _A Brief Guide to the Celestial Ruby_: "The
1869Philosopher's Stone is a certain heavenly, spiritual, penetrative, and
1870fixed substance, which brings all metals to the perfection of gold or
1871silver (according to the quality of the Medicine), and that by natural
1872methods, which yet in their effects transcend Nature.... Know then
1873that it is called a stone, not because it is like a stone, but only
1874because, by virtue of its fixed nature, it resists the action of fire
1875as successfully as any stone. In species it is gold, more pure than
1876the purest; it is fixed and incombustible like a stone, but its
1877appearance is that of very fine powder, impalpable to the touch, sweet
1878to the taste, fragrant to the smell, in potency a most penetrative
1879spirit, apparently dry and yet unctuous, and easily capable of tinging
1880a plate of metal.... If we say that its nature is spiritual, it would
1881be no more than the truth; if we described it as corporeal, the
1882expression would be equally correct."
1883
1884The same author says: "There is a substance of a metalline species
1885which looks so cloudy that the universe will have nothing to do with
1886it. Its visible form is vile; it defiles metalline bodies, and no one
1887can readily imagine that the pearly drink of bright Phoebus should
1888spring from thence. Its components are a most pure and tender mercury,
1889a dry incarcerate sulphur, which binds it and restrains fluxation....
1890Know this subject, it is the sure basis of all our secrets.... To deal
1891plainly, it is the child of Saturn, of mean price and great venom....
1892It is not malleable, though metalline. Its colour is sable, with
1893intermixed argent which mark the sable fields with veins of glittering
1894argent."
1895
1896In trying to attach definite meanings to the alchemical accounts of
1897Principles, Elements, and the One Thing, and the directions which the
1898alchemists give for changing one substance into others, we are very
1899apt to be misled by the use of such an expression as _the
1900transmutation of the elements_. To a chemist that phrase means the
1901change of an element into another element, an element being a definite
1902substance, which no one has been able to produce by the combination of
1903two or more substances unlike itself, or to separate into two or more
1904substances unlike itself. But whatever may have been the alchemical
1905meaning of the word _element_, it was certainly not that given to the
1906same word to-day. Nor did the word _transmutation_ mean to the
1907alchemist what it means to the chemist.
1908
1909The facts which are known at present concerning the elements make
1910unthinkable such a change as that of lead into silver; but new facts
1911_may_ be discovered which will make possible the separation of lead
1912into things unlike itself, and the production of silver by the
1913combination of some of these constituents of lead. The alchemist
1914supposed he knew such facts as enabled him not only to form a mental
1915picture of the change of lead into silver, or tin into gold, but also
1916to assert that such changes must necessarily happen, and to accomplish
1917them. Although we are quite sure that the alchemist's facts were only
1918imaginings, we ought not to blame him for his reasoning on what he
1919took to be facts.
1920
1921Every metal is now said to be an element, in the modern meaning of
1922that word: the alchemist regarded the metals as composite substances;
1923but he also thought of them as more simple than many other things.
1924Hence, if he was able to transmute one metal into another, he would
1925have strong evidence in support of his general conception of the
1926unity of all things. And, as transmutation meant, to the alchemist,
1927the bringing of a substance to the condition of greatest perfection
1928possible for that substance, his view of the unity of nature might be
1929said to be proved if he succeeded in changing one of the metals, one
1930of these comparatively simple substances, into the most perfect of all
1931metals, that is, into gold.
1932
1933The transmutation of the baser metals into gold thus came to be the
1934practical test of the justness of the alchemical scheme of things.
1935
1936Some alchemists assert they had themselves performed the great
1937transmutation; others tell of people who had accomplished the work.
1938The following story is an example of the accounts given of the making
1939of gold. It is taken from _John Frederick Helvetius' Golden Calf,
1940which the world worships and adores_ (17th century):--
1941
1942  "On the 27th December 1666, in the forenoon, there came to my
1943  house a certain man, who was a complete stranger to me, but of an
1944  honest grave countenance, and an authoritative mien, clothed in a
1945  simple garb.... He was of middle height, his face was long and
1946  slightly pock-marked, his hair was black and straight, his chin
1947  close-shaven, his age about forty-three or forty-four, and his
1948  native province, as far as I could make out, North Holland. After
1949  we had exchanged salutations, he asked me whether he might have
1950  some conversation with me. He wished to say something to me about
1951  the Pyrotechnic Art, as he had read one of my tracts (directed
1952  against the Sympathetic Powder of Dr Digby), in which I hinted a
1953  suspicion whether the Grand Arcanum of the Sages was not after all
1954  a gigantic hoax. He, therefore, took that opportunity of asking me
1955  whether I could not believe that such a grand mystery might exist
1956  in the nature of things, by means of which a physician could
1957  restore any patient whose vitals were not irreparably destroyed. I
1958  answered, 'Such a medicine would be a most desirable acquisition
1959  for any physician; nor can any man tell how many secrets there may
1960  be hidden in Nature; yet, though I have read much about the truth
1961  of this art, it has never been my good fortune to meet with a real
1962  master of the alchemical science.' ... After some further
1963  conversation, the Artist Elias (for it was he) thus addressed me:
1964  'Since you have read so much in the works of the alchemists about
1965  this stone, its substance, its colour and its wonderful effects,
1966  may I be allowed the question, whether you have not prepared it
1967  yourself?' On my answering his question in the negative, he took
1968  out of his bag a cunningly-worked ivory box, in which were three
1969  large pieces of substance resembling glass, or pale sulphur, and
1970  informed me that here was enough of the tincture for the
1971  production of twenty tons of gold. When I had held the precious
1972  treasure in my hand for a quarter of an hour (during which time I
1973  listened to a recital of its wonderful curative properties), I was
1974  compelled to restore it to its owner, which I could not help doing
1975  with a certain degree of reluctance.... My request that he would
1976  give me a piece of his stone (though it were no larger than a
1977  coriander seed), he somewhat brusquely refused, adding, in a
1978  milder tone, that he could not give it me for all the wealth I
1979  possessed, and that not on account of its great preciousness, but
1980  for some other reason which it was not lawful for him to
1981  divulge.... Then he inquired whether I could not show him into a
1982  room at the back of the house, where we should be less liable to
1983  the observation of passers-by. On my conducting him into the state
1984  parlour (which he entered without wiping his dirty boots), he
1985  demanded of me a gold coin, and while I was looking for it, he
1986  produced from his breast pocket a green silk handkerchief, in
1987  which were folded up five medals, the gold of which was infinitely
1988  superior to that of my gold piece." Here follows the inscriptions
1989  on the medals. "I was filled with admiration, and asked my visitor
1990  whence he had obtained that wonderful knowledge of the whole
1991  world. He replied that it was a gift freely bestowed on him by a
1992  friend who had stayed a few days at his house." Here follows the
1993  stranger's account of this friend's experiments. "When my strange
1994  visitor had concluded his narrative, I besought him to give me a
1995  proof of his assertion, by performing the transmutatory operation
1996  on some metals in my presence. He answered evasively, that he
1997  could not do so then, but that he would return in three weeks, and
1998  that, if he was then at liberty to do so, he would show me
1999  something that would make me open my eyes. He appeared punctually
2000  to the promised day, and invited me to take a walk with him, in
2001  the course of which we discoursed profoundly on the secrets of
2002  Nature in fire, though I noticed that my companion was very chary
2003  in imparting information about the Grand Arcanum.... At last I
2004  asked him point blank to show me the transmutation of metals. I
2005  besought him to come and dine with me, and to spend the night at
2006  my house; I entreated; I expostulated; but in vain. He remained
2007  firm. I reminded him of his promise. He retorted that his promise
2008  had been conditional upon his being permitted to reveal the secret
2009  to me. At last, however, I prevailed upon him to give me a piece
2010  of his precious stone--a piece no larger than a grain of rape
2011  seed.... He bid me take half an ounce of lead ... and melt it in
2012  the crucible; for the Medicine would certainly not tinge more of
2013  the base metal than it was sufficient for.... He promised to
2014  return at nine o'clock the next morning.... But at the stated hour
2015  on the following day he did not make his appearance; in his stead,
2016  however, there came, a few hours later, a stranger, who told me
2017  that his friend the artist was unavoidably detained, but that he
2018  would call at three o'clock in the afternoon. The afternoon came;
2019  I waited for him till half-past seven o'clock. He did not appear.
2020  Thereupon my wife came and tempted me to try the transmutation
2021  myself. I determined however to wait till the morrow. On the
2022  morrow ... I asked my wife to put the tincture in wax, and I
2023  myself ... prepared six drachms of lead; I then cast the tincture,
2024  enveloped as it was in wax, on the lead; as soon as it was melted,
2025  there was a hissing sound and a slight effervescence, and after a
2026  quarter of an hour I found that the whole mass of lead had been
2027  turned into the finest gold.... We immediately took it to the
2028  goldsmith, who at once declared it the finest gold he had ever
2029  seen, and offered to pay fifty florins an ounce for it." He then
2030  describes various tests which were made to prove the purity of the
2031  gold. "Thus I have unfolded to you the whole story from beginning
2032  to end. The gold I still retain in my possession, but I cannot
2033  tell you what has become of the Artist Elias."
2034
2035
2036
2037
2038CHAPTER VI.
2039
2040ALCHEMY AS AN EXPERIMENTAL ART.
2041
2042
2043A modern writer, Mr A.E. Waite, in his _Lives of the Alchemystical
2044Philosophers_, says: "The physical theory of transmutation is based on
2045the composite character of the metals, on their generation in the
2046bowels of the earth, and on the existence in nature of a pure and
2047penetrating matter which applied to any substance exalts and perfects
2048it after its own kind." It must he admitted that the alchemists could
2049cite many instances of transmutations which seemed to lead to the
2050conclusion, that there is no difference of kind between the metals and
2051other substances such as water, acids, oils, resins, and wood. We are
2052able to-day to effect a vast number of transformations wherein one
2053substance is exchanged for another, or made to take the place of
2054another. We can give fairly satisfactory descriptions of these
2055changes; and, by comparing them one with another, we are able to
2056express their essential features in general terms which can be applied
2057to each particular instance. The alchemists had no searching knowledge
2058of what may be called the mechanism of such changes; they gave an
2059explanation of them which we must call incorrect, in the present state
2060of our knowledge. But, as Hoefer says in his _Histoire de la Chimie_,
2061"to jeer at [the alchemical] theory is to commit at once an
2062anachronism and an injustice.... Unless the world should finish
2063to-morrow, no one can have the pretension to suppose that our
2064contemporaries have said the last word of science, and nothing will
2065remain for our descendants to discover, no errors for them to correct,
2066no theories for them to set straight."
2067
2068[Illustration: FIG. VI. _See p. 90._]
2069
2070[Illustration: FIG. VII. _See p. 90._]
2071
2072[Illustration: FIG. VIII. _See p. 91._]
2073
2074What kind of experimental evidence could an alchemist furnish in
2075support of his theory of transmutation? In answering this question, I
2076cannot do better than give a condensed rendering of certain pages in
2077Hoefer's _Histoire de la Chimie_.
2078
2079The reader is supposed to be present at experiments conducted in the
2080laboratory of a Grand Master of the Sacred Art in the 5th or 6th
2081century.
2082
2083_Experiment_.--Ordinary water is boiled in an open vessel; the water
2084is changed to a vapour which disappears, and a white powdery earth
2085remains in the vessel.
2086
2087_Conclusion_.--Water is changed into air and earth.
2088
2089Did we not know that ordinary water holds certain substances in
2090solution, and that boiling water acts on the vessel wherein it is
2091boiled, we should have no objection to urge against this conclusion.
2092
2093It only remained to transmute fire that the transmutation of the four
2094elements might be completed.
2095
2096_Experiment._--A piece of red-hot iron is placed in a bell-jar, filled
2097with water, held over a basin containing water; the volume of the
2098water decreases, and the air in the bell-jar takes fire when a lighted
2099taper is brought into it.
2100
2101_Conclusion._--Water is changed into fire.
2102
2103That interpretation was perfectly reasonable at a time when the fact
2104was unknown that water is composed of two gaseous substances; that one
2105of these (oxygen) is absorbed by the iron, and the other (hydrogen)
2106collects in the bell-jar, and ignites when brought into contact with a
2107flame.
2108
2109_Experiment_.--Lead, or any other metal except gold or silver, is
2110calcined in the air; the metal loses its characteristic properties,
2111and is changed into a powdery substance, a kind of cinder or calx.
2112When this cinder, which was said to be the result of the _death of the
2113metal_, is heated in a crucible with some grains of wheat, one sees
2114the metal revive, and resume its original form and properties.
2115
2116_Conclusion._--The metal which had been destroyed is revivified by the
2117grains of wheat and the action of fire.
2118
2119Is this not to perform the miracle of the resurrection?
2120
2121No objection can he raised to this interpretation, as long as we are
2122ignorant of the phenomena of oxidation, and the reduction of oxides by
2123means of carbon, or organic substances rich in carbon, such as sugar,
2124flour, seeds, etc. Grains of wheat were the symbol of life, and, by
2125extension, of the resurrection and eternal life.
2126
2127[Illustration: FIG. IX. _See p. 91._]
2128
2129_Experiment_.--Ordinary lead is calcined in a cupel made of cinders or
2130powdered bones; the lead is changed to a cinder which disappears into
2131the cupel, and a button of silver remains.
2132
2133_Conclusion_.--The lead has vanished; what more natural than the
2134conclusion that it has been transformed into silver? It was not known
2135then that all specimens of lead contain more or less silver.
2136
2137[Illustration: FIG. X. _See p. 92._]
2138
2139_Experiment._-The vapour of arsenic bleaches copper. This fact gave
2140rise to many allegories and enigmas concerning the means of
2141transforming copper into silver.
2142
2143Sulphur, which acts on metals and changes many of them into black
2144substances, was looked on as a very mysterious thing. It was with
2145sulphur that the coagulation (solidification) of mercury was effected.
2146
2147_Experiment_.--Mercury is allowed to fall, in a fine rain, on to
2148melted sulphur; a black substance is produced; this black substance is
2149heated in a closed vessel, it is volatilised and transformed into a
2150beautiful red solid.
2151
2152One could scarcely suppose that the black and the red substances are
2153identical, if one did not know that they are composed of the same
2154quantities of the same elements, sulphur and mercury.
2155
2156How greatly must this phenomenon have affected the imagination of the
2157chemists of ancient times, always so ready to be affected by
2158everything that seemed supernatural!
2159
2160Black and red were the symbols of darkness and light, of the evil and
2161the good principle; and the union of these two principles represented
2162the moral order. At a later time the idea helped to establish the
2163alchemical doctrine that sulphur and mercury are the Principles of all
2164things.
2165
2166_Experiment._--Various organic substances are analysed by heating in a
2167distillation-apparatus; the products are, in each case, a solid
2168residue, liquids which distil off, and certain spirits which are
2169disengaged.
2170
2171The results supported the ancient theory which asserted that _earth_,
2172_water_, _air_, and _fire_ are the four Elements of the world. The
2173solid residue represented _earth_; the liquid products of the
2174distillation, _water_; and the spirituous substances, _air_. _Fire_
2175was regarded sometimes as the means of purification, sometimes as the
2176soul, or invisible part, of all substances.
2177
2178_Experiment_.-A strong acid is poured on to copper. The metal is
2179attacked, and at last disappears, giving place to a green liquid, as
2180transparent as water. A thin sheet of iron is plunged into the liquid;
2181the copper re-appears, and the iron vanishes.
2182
2183What more simple than to conclude that the iron has been transformed
2184into copper?
2185
2186Had lead, silver, or gold been used in place of copper, one would have
2187said that the iron was transformed into lead, silver, or gold.
2188
2189In their search for "the pure and penetrating matter which applied to
2190any substance exalts and perfects it after its own kind," the
2191alchemists necessarily made many inventions, laid the foundation of
2192many arts and manufactures, and discovered many facts of importance in
2193the science of chemistry.
2194
2195The practitioners of the _Sacred Art_ of Egypt must have been
2196acquainted with many operations which we now class as belonging to
2197applied chemistry; witness, their jewellery, pottery, dyes and
2198pigments, bleaching, glass-making, working in metals and alloys, and
2199their use of spices, essential oils, and soda in embalming, and for
2200other purposes.
2201
2202During the centuries when alchemy flourished, gunpowder was invented,
2203the art of printing was established, the compass was brought into use,
2204the art of painting and staining glass was begun and carried to
2205perfection, paper was made from rags, practical metallurgy advanced by
2206leaps and bounds, many new alloys of metals came into use, glass
2207mirrors were manufactured, and considerable advances were made in
2208practical medicine and sanitation.
2209
2210[Illustration: FIG. XI. _See p. 92._]
2211
2212Basil Valentine, who was one of the greatest alchemists of the 16th
2213century, discovered many of the properties of the metal antimony, and
2214prepared and examined many compounds of that metal; he made green
2215vitriol from pyrites, brandy from fermented grape-juice, fulminating
2216gold, sulphide of potash, and spirits of salt; he made and used baths
2217of artificial mineral waters, and he prepared various metals by what
2218are now called _wet methods_, for instance, copper, by immersing
2219plates of iron in solutions of bluestone. He examined the air of
2220mines, and suggested practical methods for determining whether the
2221air in a mine was respirable. Hoefer draws attention to a remarkable
2222observation recorded by this alchemist. Speaking of the "spirit of
2223mercury," Basil Valentine says it is "the origin of all the metals;
2224that spirit is nothing else than an air flying here and there without
2225wings; it is a moving wind, which, after it has been chased from its
2226home of Vulcan (that is, fire), returns to the chaos; then it expands
2227and passes into the region of the air from whence it had come." As
2228Hoefer remarks, this is perhaps one of the earliest accounts of the
2229gas discovered by Priestley and studied by Lavoisier, the gas we now
2230call oxygen, and recognise as of paramount importance in chemical
2231reactions.
2232
2233[Illustration: FIG. XII. _See p. 92._]
2234
2235Besides discovering and recording many facts which have become part
2236and parcel of the science of chemistry, the alchemists invented and
2237used various pieces of apparatus, and conducted many operations, which
2238are still employed in chemical laboratories. I shall reproduce
2239illustrations of some of these processes and pieces of apparatus, and
2240quote a few of the directions, given in a book, published in 1664,
2241called _The Art of Distillation_, by John French, Dr. in Physick.
2242
2243The method recommended by French for hermetically sealing the neck of
2244a glass vessel is shown in Fig. VI. p. 80. The neck of the vessel is
2245surrounded by a tray containing burning coals; when the glass melts it
2246is cut off by shears, and then closed by tongs, which are made hot
2247before use.
2248
2249Fig. VII. p. 81, represents a method for covering an open vessel,
2250air-tight, with a receptacle into which a substance may be sublimed
2251from the lower vessel. The lettering explains the method of using the
2252apparatus.
2253
2254French gives very practical directions and much sound advice for
2255conducting distillations of various kinds. The following are specimens
2256of his directions and advice:--
2257
2258  "When you put water into a seething Balneum wherein there are
2259  glasses let it be hot, or else thou wilt endanger the breaking of
2260  the glasses.
2261
2262  "When thou takest any earthen, or glass vessel from the fire,
2263  expose it not to the cold aire too suddenly for fear it should
2264  break.
2265
2266  "In all your operations diligently observe the processes which you
2267  read, and vary not a little from them, for sometimes a small
2268  mistake or neglect spoils the whole operation, and frustrates your
2269  expectations.
2270
2271  "Try not at first experiments of great cost, or great difficulty;
2272  for it will be a great discouragement to thee, and thou wilt be
2273  very apt to mistake.
2274
2275  "If any one would enter upon the practices of Chymistry, let him
2276  apply himself to some expert artist for to be instructed in the
2277  manual operation of things; for by this means he will learn more
2278  in two months, than he can by his practice and study in seven
2279  years, as also avoid much pains and cost, and redeem much time
2280  which else of necessity he will lose."
2281
2282Fig. VIII. p. 82, represents a common cold still, and Fig. IX. p. 84,
2283is a sketch of an apparatus for distilling by the aid of boiling
2284water. The bath wherein the vessels are placed in Fig. IX. was called
2285by the alchemists _balneum Mariae_, from Mary the Jewess, who is
2286mentioned in the older alchemical writings, and is supposed to have
2287invented an apparatus of this character. Nothing definite is known of
2288Mary the Jewess. A writer of the 7th century says she was initiated in
2289the sacred art in the temple of Memphis; a legend prevailed among some
2290of the alchemists that she was the sister of Moses.
2291
2292Fig. X. p. 85, represents methods of distilling with an apparatus for
2293cooling the volatile products; the lower vessel is an _alembic_, with
2294a long neck, the upper part of which passes through a vessel
2295containing cold water.
2296
2297[Illustration: Fig XIII. _See p. 94._]
2298
2299Fig. XI. p. 88, shows a _pelican_, that is a vessel wherein a liquid
2300might be heated for a long time, and the volatile products be
2301constantly returned to the original vessel.
2302
2303Fig. XII. p. 89, represents a retort with a receiver.
2304
2305Some of the pieces of apparatus for distilling, which are described
2306by French, are shown in the following figures. Besides describing
2307apparatus for distilling, subliming, and other processes in the
2308laboratory, French gives directions for making tinctures, essences,
2309essential oils, spirits of salt, and pure saltpetre, oil of vitriol,
2310butter of antimony, calces (or as we now say, oxides) of metals, and
2311many other substances. He describes processes for making fresh water
2312from salt, artificial mineral water, medicated hot baths for invalids
2313(one of the figures represents an apparatus very like those advertised
2314to-day as "Turkish baths at home"), and artificial precious stones; he
2315tells how to test minerals, and make alloys, and describes the
2316preparation of many substances made from gold and silver. He also
2317gives many curious receipts; for instance, "To make Firre-trees appear
2318in Turpentine," "To make a Plant grow in two or three hours," "To make
2319the representation of the whole world in a Glass," "To extract a white
2320Milkie substance from the raies of the Moon."
2321
2322[Illustration: FIG. XIV. _See p. 94._]
2323
2324The process of making oil of vitriol, by burning sulphur under a hood
2325fitted with a side tube for the outflow of the oil of vitriol, is
2326represented in Fig. XIII. p. 92.
2327
2328Fig. XIV. p. 93, is interesting; it is an apparatus for rectifying
2329spirits, by distilling, and liquefying only the most volatile portions
2330of the distillate. The spirituous liquor was heated, and the vapours
2331caused to traverse a long zigzag tube, wherein the less volatile
2332portions condensed to liquid, which flowed back into the vessel; the
2333vapour then passed into another vessel, and then through a second
2334zigzag tube, and was finally cooled by water, and the condensed liquid
2335collected. This apparatus was the forerunner of that used to-day, for
2336effecting the separation of liquids which boil at different
2337temperatures, by the process called _fractional distillation_.
2338
2339We should never forget that the alchemists were patient and laborious
2340workers, their theories were vitally connected with their practice,
2341and there was a constant action and reaction between their general
2342scheme of things and many branches of what we now call chemical
2343manufactures. We may laugh at many of their theories, and regret that
2344much useless material was accumulated by them; we may agree with Boyle
2345(end of 17th century) when he likens the "hermetick philosophers," in
2346their search for truth, to "the navigators of Solomon's Tarshish
2347fleet, who brought home from their long and tedious voyages, not only
2348gold, and silver, and ivory, but apes and peacocks too; for so the
2349writings of several of your hermetick philosophers present us,
2350together with divers substantial and noble experiments, theories,
2351which either like peacocks' feathers make a great show but are neither
2352solid nor useful; or else like apes, if they have some appearance of
2353being rational, are blemished with some absurdity or other, that, when
2354they are attentively considered make them appear ridiculous." But
2355however we may condemn their method, because it rested on their own
2356conception of what the order of nature must be, we cannot but praise
2357their assiduity in conducting experiments and gathering facts.
2358
2359As Bacon says, in _De Augmentis Scientiarum_:
2360
2361  "Alchemy may be compared to the man who told his sons that he had
2362  left them gold buried somewhere in his vineyard; where they by
2363  digging found no gold, but by turning up the mould about the roots
2364  of the vines, procured a plentiful vintage. So the search and
2365  endeavours to make gold have brought many useful inventions and
2366  instructive experiments to light."
2367
2368
2369
2370
2371CHAPTER VII.
2372
2373THE LANGUAGE OF ALCHEMY
2374
2375
2376The vagueness of the general conceptions of alchemy, and the
2377attribution of ethical qualities to material things by the alchemists,
2378necessarily led to the employment of a language which is inexact,
2379undescriptive, and unsuggestive to modern ears. The same name was
2380given to different things, and the same thing went under many names.
2381In Chapter IV. I endeavoured to analyse two terms which were
2382constantly used by the alchemists to convey ideas of great importance,
2383the terms _Element_ and _Principle_. That attempt sufficed, at any
2384rate, to show the vagueness of the ideas which these terms were
2385intended to express, and to make evident the inconsistencies between
2386the meanings given to the words by different alchemical writers. The
2387story quoted in Chapter III., from Michael Sendivogius, illustrates
2388the difficulty which the alchemists themselves had in understanding
2389what they meant by the term _Mercury_; yet there is perhaps no word
2390more often used by them than that. Some of them evidently took it to
2391mean the substance then, and now, called mercury; the results of this
2392literal interpretation were disastrous; others thought of mercury as a
2393substance which could be obtained, or, at any rate, might be obtained,
2394by repeatedly distilling ordinary mercury, both alone and when mixed
2395with other substances; others used the word to mean a hypothetical
2396something which was liquid but did not wet things, limpid yet capable
2397of becoming solid, volatile yet able to prevent the volatilisation of
2398other things, and white, yet ready to cause other white things to
2399change their colour; they thought of this something, this soul of
2400mercury, as having properties without itself being tangible, as at
2401once a substance and not a substance, at once a bodily spirit and a
2402spiritual body.
2403
2404It was impossible to express the alchemical ideas in any language save
2405that of far-fetched allegory. The alchemical writings abound in such
2406allegories. Here are two of them.
2407
2408The first allegory is taken from _The Twelve Keys_, of Basilius
2409Valentinus, the Benedictine:--
2410
2411  "The eleventh key to the knowledge of the augmentation of our
2412  Stone I will put before you in the form of a parable.
2413
2414  "There lived in the East a gilded knight, named Orpheus, who was
2415  possessed of immense wealth, and had everything that heart can
2416  wish. He had taken to wife his own sister, Euridice, who did not,
2417  however, bear him any children. This he regarded as the punishment
2418  of his sin in having wedded his own sister, and was instant in
2419  prayer to God both by day and by night, that the curse might be
2420  taken from him. One night when he was buried in a deep sleep,
2421  there came to him a certain winged messenger, named Phoebus, who
2422  touched his feet, which were very hot, and said: 'Thou noble
2423  knight, since thou hast wandered through many cities and kingdoms
2424  and suffered many things at sea, in battle, and in the lists, the
2425  heavenly Father has bidden me make known to thee the following
2426  means of obtaining thy prayer: Take blood from thy right side, and
2427  from the left side of thy spouse. For this blood is the heart's
2428  blood of your parents, and though it may seem to be of two kinds,
2429  yet, in reality, it is only one. Mix the two kinds of blood, and
2430  keep the mixture tightly enclosed in the globe of the seven wise
2431  Masters. Then that which is generated will be nourished with its
2432  own flesh and blood, and will complete its course of development
2433  when the Moon has changed for the eighth time. If thou repeat this
2434  process again and again, thou shalt see children's children, and
2435  the offspring of thy body shall fill the world.' When Phoebus
2436  had thus spoken, he winged his flight heavenward. In the morning
2437  the knight arose and did the bidding of the celestial messenger,
2438  and God gave to him and to his wife many children, who inherited
2439  their father's glory, wealth, and knightly honours from generation
2440  to generation."
2441
2442In the "Dedicatory Epistle" to his _Triumphal Chariot of Antimony_,
2443Basil Valentine addresses his brother alchemists as follows:--
2444
2445  "Mercury appeared to me in a dream, and brought me back from my
2446  devious courses to the one way. 'Behold me clad not in the garb of
2447  the vulgar, but in the philosopher's mantle.' So he said, and
2448  straightway began to leap along the road in headlong bounds. Then,
2449  when he was tired, he sat down, and, turning to me, who had
2450  followed him in the spirit, bade me mark that he no longer
2451  possessed that youthful vigour with which he would at the first
2452  have overcome every obstacle, if he had not been allowed a free
2453  course. Encouraged by his friendly salutation, I addressed him in
2454  the following terms: 'Mercury, eloquent scion of Atlas, and father
2455  of all Alchemists, since thou hast guided me hitherto, shew me, I
2456  pray thee, the way to those Blessed Isles, which thou hast
2457  promised to reveal to all thine elect children. 'Dost thou
2458  remember,' he replied, that when I quitted thy laboratory, I left
2459  behind me a garment so thoroughly saturated with my own blood,
2460  that neither the wind could efface it, nor all-devouring time
2461  destroy its indelible essence? Fetch it hither to me, that I may
2462  not catch a chill from the state of perspiration in which I now
2463  am; but let me clothe myself warmly in it, and be closely incited
2464  thereto, so that I may safely reach my bride, who is sick with
2465  love. She has meekly borne many wrongs, being driven through water
2466  and fire, and compelled to ascend and descend times without
2467  number--yet has she been carried through it all by the hope of
2468  entering with me the bridal chamber, wherein we expect to beget a
2469  son adorned from his birth with the royal crown which he may not
2470  share with others. Yet may he bring his friends to the palace,
2471  where sits enthroned the King of Kings, who communicates his
2472  dignity readily and liberally to all that approach him.'
2473
2474  "I brought him the garment, and it fitted him so closely, that it
2475  looked like an iron skin securing him against all the assaults of
2476  Vulcan. 'Let us proceed,' he then said, and straightway sped
2477  across the open field, while I boldly strove to keep up with my
2478  guide.
2479
2480  "Thus we reached his bride, whose virtue and constancy were equal
2481  to his own. There I beheld their marvellous conjugal union and
2482  nuptial consummation, whence was born the son crowned with the
2483  royal diadem. When I was about to salute him as King of Kings and
2484  Lord of Lords, my Genius stood by me and warned me not to be
2485  deceived, since this was only the King's forerunner, but not the
2486  King himself whom I sought.
2487
2488  "When I heard the admonition, I did not know whether to be sad or
2489  joyful. 'Depart,' then said Mercury, 'with this bridal gift, and
2490  when you come to those disciples who have seen the Lord himself,
2491  show them this sign.' And therewith he gave me a gold ring from
2492  his son's finger. 'They know the golden branch which must be
2493  consecrated to Proserpina before you can enter the palace of
2494  Pluto. When he sees this ring, perhaps one will open to you with a
2495  word the door of that chamber, where sits enthroned in his
2496  magnificence the Desire of all Nations, who is known only to the
2497  Sages.'
2498
2499  "When he had thus spoken, the vision vanished, but the bridal gift
2500  which I still held in my hand shewed me that it had not been a
2501  mere dream. It was of gold, but to me more precious than the most
2502  prized of all metals. Unto you I will shew it when I am permitted
2503  to see your faces, and to converse with you freely. Till that
2504  earnestly wished-for time, I bid you farewell."
2505
2506One result of the alchemical modes of expression was, that he who
2507tried to follow the directions given in alchemical books got into
2508dire confusion. He did not know what substances to use in his
2509operations; for when he was told to employ "the homogeneous water of
2510gold," for example, the expression might mean anything, and in despair
2511he distilled, and calcined, and cohobated, and tried to decompose
2512everything he could lay hands on. Those who pretended to know abused
2513and vilified those who differed from them.
2514
2515In _A Demonstration of Nature_, by John A. Mehung (17th century),
2516Nature addresses the alchemical worker in the following words:--
2517
2518  "You break vials, and consume coals, only to soften your brains
2519  still more with the vapours. You also digest alum, salt, orpiment,
2520  and altrament; you melt metals, build small and large furnaces,
2521  and use many vessels; nevertheless I am sick of your folly, and
2522  you suffocate me with your sulphurous smoke.... You would do
2523  better to mind your own business, than to dissolve and distil so
2524  many absurd substances, and then to pass them through alembics,
2525  cucurbits, stills, and pelicans."
2526
2527Henry Madathanas, writing in 1622, says:--
2528
2529  "Then I understood that their purgations, sublimations,
2530  cementations, distillations, rectifications, circulations,
2531  putrefactions, conjunctions, calcinations, incinerations,
2532  mortifications, revivifications, as also their tripods, athanors,
2533  reverberatory alembics, excrements of horses, ashes, sand, stills,
2534  pelican-viols, retorts, fixations, etc., are mere plausible
2535  impostures and frauds."
2536
2537The author of _The Only Way_ (1677) says:
2538
2539  "Surely every true Artist must look on this elaborate tissue of
2540  baseless operations as the merest folly, and can only wonder that
2541  the eyes of those silly dupes are not at last opened, that they
2542  may see something besides such absurd sophisms, and read something
2543  besides those stupid and deceitful books.... I can speak from
2544  bitter experience, for I, too, toiled for many years ... and
2545  endeavoured to reach the coveted goal by sublimation,
2546  distillation, calcination, circulation, and so forth, and to
2547  fashion the Stone out of substances such as urine, salt, atrament,
2548  alum, etc. I have tried hard to evolve it out of hairs, wine,
2549  eggs, bones, and all manner of herbs; out of arsenic, mercury, and
2550  sulphur, and all the minerals and metals.... I have spent nights
2551  and days in dissolving, coagulating, amalgamating, and
2552  precipitating. Yet from all these things I derived neither profit
2553  nor joy."
2554
2555Another writer speaks of many would-be alchemists as "floundering
2556about in a sea of specious book-learning."
2557
2558If alchemists could speak of their own processes and materials as
2559those authors spoke whom I have quoted, we must expect that the
2560alchemical language would appear mere jargon to the uninitiated. In
2561Ben Jonson's play _The Alchemist_, _Surley_, who is the sceptic of the
2562piece, says to Subtle, who is the alchemist--
2563
2564      ... Alchemy is a pretty kind of game,
2565      Somewhat like tricks o' the cards, to cheat a man
2566      With charming ...
2567      What else are all your terms,
2568      Whereon no one of your writers 'grees with other?
2569      Of your elixir, your _lac virginis_,
2570      Your stone, your med'cine, and your chrysosperme,
2571      Your sal, your sulphur, and your mercury,
2572      Your oil of height, your tree of life, your blood,
2573      Your marchesite, your tutie, your magnesia,
2574      Your toad, your crow, your dragon, and your panther;
2575      Your sun, your moon, your firmament, your adrop,
2576      Your lato, azoch, zernich, chibrit, heutarit,
2577      And then your red man, and your white woman,
2578      With all your broths, your menstrues, and materials,
2579      Of lye and egg-shells, women's terms, man's blood,
2580      Hair o' the head, burnt clout, chalk, merds, and clay,
2581      Powder of bones, scalings of iron, glass,
2582      And moulds of other strange ingredients,
2583      Would burst a man to name?
2584
2585To which _Subtle_ answers,
2586
2587                And all these named
2588      Intending but one thing; which art our writers
2589      Used to obscure their art.
2590      Was not all the knowledge
2591      Of the Egyptians writ in mystic symbols?
2592      Speak not the Scriptures oft in parables?
2593      Are not the choicest fables of the poets,
2594      That were the fountains and first springs of wisdom,
2595      Wrapp'd in perplexed allegories?
2596
2597The alchemists were very fond of using the names of animals as symbols
2598of certain mineral substances, and of representing operations in the
2599laboratory by what may be called animal allegories. The _yellow lion_
2600was the alchemical symbol of yellow sulphides, the _red lion_ was
2601synonymous with cinnabar, and the _green lion_ meant salts of iron and
2602of copper. Black sulphides were called _eagles_, and sometimes
2603_crows_. When black sulphide of mercury is strongly heated, a red
2604sublimate is obtained, which has the same composition as the black
2605compound; if the temperature is not kept very high, but little of the
2606red sulphide is produced; the alchemists directed to urge the fire,
2607"else the black crows will go back to the nest."
2608
2609[Illustration: A salamander lives in the fire, which imparts to it a
2610               most glorious hue.
2611
2612               This is the reiteration, gradation, and amelioration
2613               of the Tincture, or Philosopher's Stone; and the whole
2614               is called its Augmentation.
2615
2616               FIG. XV.]
2617
2618The salamander was called the king of animals, because it was supposed
2619that he lived and delighted in fire; keeping a strong fire alight
2620under a salamander was sometimes compared to the purification of gold
2621by heating it.
2622
2623Fig. XV., reduced from _The Book of Lambspring_ represents this
2624process.
2625
2626The alchemists employed many signs, or shorthand expressions, in place
2627of writing the names of substances. The following are a few of the
2628signs which were used frequently.
2629
2630[Symbol: Saturn] Saturn, also lead; [Symbol: Jupiter] Jupiter, also
2631tin; [Symbol: Mars-1] and [Symbol: Mars-2] Mars, also iron; [Symbol:
2632Sun] Sol, also gold; [Symbol: Venus] Venus, also copper; [Symbol:
2633Mercury-1], [Symbol: Mercury-2] and [Symbol: Mercury-3] Mercury;
2634[Symbol: Moon] Luna, also silver; [Symbol: Sulphur] Sulphur; [Symbol:
2635Vitriol] Vitriol; [Symbol: Fire] fire; [Symbol: Air] air; [Symbol:
2636Water] and [Symbol: Aquarius] water; [Symbol: Earth] earth; [Symbol:
2637Aqua Fortis] aqua fortis; [Symbol: Aqua Regis] aqua regis; [Symbol:
2638Aqua Vitæ] aqua vitæ; [Symbol: Day] day; [Symbol: Night] night;
2639[Symbol: Amalgam] Amalgam; [Symbol: Alembic] Alembic.
2640
2641
2642
2643
2644CHAPTER VIII.
2645
2646THE DEGENERACY OF ALCHEMY.
2647
2648
2649I have tried to show that alchemy aimed at giving experimental proof
2650of a certain theory of the whole system of nature, including humanity.
2651The practical culmination of the alchemical quest presented a
2652threefold aspect; the alchemists sought the stone of wisdom, for by
2653gaining that they gained the control of wealth; they sought the
2654universal panacea, for that would give them the power of enjoying
2655wealth and life; they sought the soul of the world, for thereby they
2656could hold communion with spiritual existences, and enjoy the fruition
2657of spiritual life.
2658
2659The object of their search was to satisfy their material needs, their
2660intellectual capacities, and their spiritual yearnings. The alchemists
2661of the nobler sort always made the first of these objects subsidiary
2662to the other two; they gave as their reason for desiring to make gold,
2663the hope that gold might become so common that it would cease to be
2664sought after by mankind. The author of _An Open Substance_ says:
2665"Would to God ... all men might become adepts in our art, for then
2666gold, the common idol of mankind, would lose its value, and we should
2667prize it only for its scientific teaching."
2668
2669But the desire to make gold must always have been a very powerful
2670incentive in determining men to attempt the laborious discipline of
2671alchemy; and with them, as with all men, the love of money was the
2672root of much evil. When a man became a student of alchemy merely for
2673the purpose of making gold, and failed to make it--as he always
2674did--it was very easy for him to pretend he had succeeded in order
2675that he might really make gold by cheating other people. Such a man
2676rapidly degenerated into a charlatan; he used the language of alchemy
2677to cover his frauds, and with the hope of deluding his dupes by
2678high-sounding phrases. And, it must be admitted, alchemy lent itself
2679admirably to imposture. It promised unlimited wealth; it encouraged
2680the wildest dreams of the seeker after pleasure; and over these dreams
2681it cast the glamour of great ideas, the idea of the unity of nature,
2682and the idea of communion with other spheres of life, of calling in
2683the help of 'inheritors of unfulfilled renown,' and so it seemed to
2684touch to fine issues the sordidness of unblushing avarice.
2685
2686Moreover, the working with strange ingredients and odd-fashioned
2687instruments, and the employment of mouth-filling phrases, and scraps
2688of occult learning which seemed to imply unutterable things, gave just
2689that pleasing dash of would-be wickedness to the process of consulting
2690the alchemist which acts as a fascination to many people. The earnest
2691person felt that by using the skill and knowledge of the alchemists,
2692for what he deemed a good purpose, he was compelling the powers of
2693evil to work for him and his objects.
2694
2695It was impossible that such a system as alchemy should appear to the
2696plain man of the middle ages, when the whole scheme of life and the
2697universe rested on a magical basis, to be more than a kind of magic
2698which hovered between the black magic of the Sorcerer and the white
2699magic of the Church. Nor is it to be wondered at that a system which
2700lends itself to imposture so easily as alchemy did, should be thought
2701of by the plain man of modern times as having been nothing but a
2702machinery of fraud.
2703
2704It is evident from the _Canon's Yeoman's Tale_ in Chaucer, that many
2705of those who professed to turn the base metals into gold were held in
2706bad repute as early as the 14th century. The "false chanoun" persuaded
2707the priest, who was his dupe, to send his servant for quicksilver,
2708which he promised to make into "as good silver and as fyn, As ther is
2709any in youre purse or myn"; he then gave the priest a "crosselet," and
2710bid him put it on the fire, and blow the coals. While the priest was
2711busy with the fire,
2712
2713      This false chanoun--the foulè feend hym fecche!--
2714      Out of his bosom took a bechen cole,
2715      In which ful subtilly was maad an hole,
2716      And therinne put was of silver lemaille
2717      An ounce, and stoppéd was withouten faille
2718      The hole with wex, to kepe the lemaille in.
2719
2720The "false chanoun" pretended to be sorry for the priest, who was so
2721busily blowing the fire:--
2722
2723      Ye been right hoot, I se wel how ye swete;
2724      Have heer a clooth, and wipe awey the we't.
2725      And whylès that the preest wipèd his face,
2726      This chanoun took his cole with hardè grace,
2727      And leyde it above, upon the middèward
2728      Of the crosselet, and blew wel afterward.
2729      Til that the colès gonnè fastè brenne.
2730
2731As the coal burned the silver fell into the "crosselet." Then the
2732canon said they would both go together and fetch chalk, and a pail of
2733water, for he would pour out the silver he had made in the form of an
2734ingot. They locked the door, and took the key with them. On returning,
2735the canon formed the chalk into a mould, and poured the contents of
2736the crucible into it. Then he bade the priest,
2737
2738      Look what ther is, put in thin hand and grope,
2739      Thow fyndè shalt ther silver, as I hope.
2740      What, devel of hellè! Sholde it ellis be?
2741      Shavyng of silver silver is, _parde!_
2742      He putte his hand in, and took up a teyne
2743      Of silver fyn, and glad in every veyne
2744      Was this preest, when he saugh that it was so.
2745
2746The conclusion of the _Canon's Yeoman's Tale_ shows that, in the 14th
2747century, there was a general belief in the possibility of finding the
2748philosopher's stone, and effecting the transmutation, although the
2749common practitioners of the art were regarded as deceivers. A disciple
2750of Plato is supposed to ask his master to tell him the "namè of the
2751privee stoon." Plato gives him certain directions, and tells him he
2752must use _magnasia_; the disciple asks--
2753
2754      'What is Magnasia, good sire, I yow preye?'
2755      'It is a water that is maad, I seye,
2756      Of elementés fourè,' quod Plato.
2757      'Telle me the rootè, good sire,' quod he tho,
2758      Of that water, if it be yourè wille.'
2759      'Nay, nay,' quod Plato, 'certein that I nylle;
2760      The philosophres sworn were everychoon
2761      That they sholden discovers it unto noon,
2762      Ne in no book it write in no manere,
2763      For unto Crist it is so lief and deere,
2764      That he wol nat that it discovered bee,
2765      But where it liketh to his deitee
2766      Man for tenspire, and eek for to deffende
2767      Whom that hym liketh; lo, this is the ende.'
2768
2769The belief in the possibility of alchemy seems to have been general
2770sometime before Chaucer wrote; but that belief was accompanied by the
2771conviction that alchemy was an impious pursuit, because the
2772transmutation of baser metals into gold was regarded as trenching on
2773the prerogative of the Creator, to whom alone this power rightfully
2774belonged. In his _Inferno_ (which was probably written about the year
27751300), Dante places the alchemists in the eighth circle of hell, not
2776apparently because they were fraudulent impostors, but because, as one
2777of them says, "I aped creative nature by my subtle art."
2778
2779In later times, some of those who pretended to have the secret and to
2780perform great wonders by the use of it, became rich and celebrated,
2781and were much sought after. The most distinguished of these
2782pseudo-alchemists was he who passed under the name of Cagliostro. His
2783life bears witness to the eagerness of human beings to be deceived.
2784
2785Joseph Balsamo was born in 1743 at Palermo, where his parents were
2786tradespeople in a good way of business.[5] In the memoir of himself,
2787which he wrote in prison, Balsamo seeks to surround his birth and
2788parentage with mystery; he says, "I am ignorant, not only of my
2789birthplace, but even of the parents who bore me.... My earliest
2790infancy was passed in the town of Medina, in Arabia, where I was
2791brought up under the name of Acharat."
2792
2793   [5] The account of the life of Cagliostro is much condensed
2794   from Mr A.E. Waite's _Lives of the Alchemystical Philosophers_.
2795
2796When he was thirteen years of age, Balsamo's parents determined he
2797should be trained for the priesthood, but he ran away from his school.
2798He was then confined in a Benedictine monastery. He showed a
2799remarkable taste for natural history, and acquired considerable
2800knowledge of the use of drugs; but he soon tired of the discipline and
2801escaped. For some years he wandered about in different parts of Italy,
2802living by his wits and by cheating. A goldsmith consulted him about a
2803hidden treasure; he pretended to invoke the aid of spirits, frightened
2804the goldsmith, got sixty ounces of gold from him to carry on his
2805incantations, left him in the lurch, and fled to Messina. In that
2806town he discovered an aged aunt who was sick; the aunt died, and left
2807her money to the Church. Balsamo assumed her family name, added a
2808title of nobility, and was known henceforward as the Count Alessandro
2809Cagliostro.
2810
2811In Messina he met a mysterious person whom he calls Altotas, and from
2812whom, he says in his Memoir, he learnt much. The following account of
2813the meeting of Balsamo and the stranger is taken from Waite's book:
2814"As he was promenading one day near the jetty at the extremity of the
2815port he encountered an individual singularly habited and possessed of
2816a most remarkable countenance. This person, aged apparently about
2817fifty years, seemed to be an Armenian, though, according to other
2818accounts, he was a Spaniard or Greek. He wore a species of caftan, a
2819silk bonnet, and the extremities of his breeches were concealed in a
2820pair of wide boots. In his left hand he held a parasol, and in his
2821right the end of a cord, to which was attached a graceful Albanian
2822greyhound.... Cagliostro saluted this grotesque being, who bowed
2823slightly, but with satisfied dignity. 'You do not reside in Messina,
2824signor?' he said in Sicilian, but with a marked foreign accent.
2825Cagliostro replied that he was tarrying for a few days, and they began
2826to converse on the beauty of the town and on its advantageous
2827situation, a kind of Oriental imagery individualising the eloquence of
2828the stranger, whose remarks were, moreover, adroitly adorned with a
2829few appropriate compliments."
2830
2831Although the stranger said he received no one at his house he allowed
2832Cagliostro to visit him. After various mysterious doings the two went
2833off to Egypt, and afterwards to Malta, where they performed many
2834wonderful deeds before the Grand Master, who was much impressed. At
2835Malta Altotas died, or, at anyrate, vanished. Cagliostro then
2836travelled for some time, and was well received by noblemen,
2837ambassadors, and others in high position. At Rome he fell in love with
2838a young and beautiful lady, Lorenza Feliciani, and married her.
2839
2840Cagliostro used his young wife as a decoy to attract rich and foolish
2841men. He and his wife thrived for a time, and accumulated money and
2842jewels; but a confederate betrayed them, and they fled to Venice, and
2843then wandered for several years in Italy, France, and England. They
2844seem to have made a living by the sale of lotions for the skin, and by
2845practising skilful deceptions.
2846
2847About the year 1770 Cagliostro began to pose as an alchemist. After
2848another period of wandering he paid a second visit to London and
2849founded a secret society, based on (supposed) Egyptian rites, mingled
2850with those of freemasonry. The suggestion of this society is said to
2851have come from a curious book he picked up on a second-hand stall in
2852London. The society attracted people by the strangeness of its
2853initiatory rites, and the promises of happiness and wellbeing made by
2854its founder to those who joined it. Lodges were established in many
2855countries, many disciples were obtained, great riches were amassed,
2856and Cagliostro flourished exceedingly.
2857
2858In his _Histoire du Merveilleux dans les Temps modernes_, Figuier,
2859speaking of Cagliostro about this period of his career, says:
2860
2861"He proclaimed himself the bearer of the mysteries of Isis and Anubis
2862from the far East.... He obtained numerous and distinguished
2863followers, who on one occasion assembled in great force to hear Joseph
2864Balsamo expound to them the doctrines of Egyptian freemasonry. At this
2865solemn convention he is said to have spoken with overpowering
2866eloquence;... his audience departed in amazement and completely
2867converted to the regenerated and purified masonry. None doubted that
2868he was an initiate of the arcana of nature, as preserved in the temple
2869of Apis at the era when Cambyses belaboured that capricious divinity.
2870From this moment the initiations into the new masonry were numerous,
2871albeit they were limited to the aristocracy of society. There are
2872reasons to believe that the grandees who were deemed worthy of
2873admission paid exceedingly extravagantly for the honour."
2874
2875Cagliostro posed as a physician, and claimed the power of curing
2876diseases simply by the laying on of hands. He went so far as to assert
2877he had restored to life the dead child of a nobleman in Paris; the
2878discovery that the miracle was effected by substituting a living child
2879for the dead one caused him to flee, laden with spoil, to Warsaw, and
2880then to Strassburg.
2881
2882Cagliostro entered Strassburg in state, amid an admiring crowd, who
2883regarded him as more than human. Rumour said he had amassed vast
2884riches by the transmutation of base metals into gold. Some people in
2885the crowd said he was the wandering Jew, others that he had been
2886present at the marriage feast of Cana, some asserted he was born
2887before the deluge, and one supposed he might be the devil. The
2888goldsmith whom he had cheated of sixty ounces of gold many years
2889before was in the crowd, and, recognising him, tried to stop the
2890carriage, shouting: "Joseph Balsamo! It is Joseph! Rogue, where are my
2891sixty ounces of gold?" "Cagliostro scarcely deigned to glance at the
2892furious goldsmith; but in the middle of the profound silence which the
2893incident occasioned among the crowd, a voice, apparently in the
2894clouds, uttered with great distinctness the following words: 'Remove
2895this lunatic, who is possessed by infernal spirits.' Some of the
2896spectators fell on their knees, others seized the unfortunate
2897goldsmith, and the brilliant cortege passed on" (Waite).
2898
2899From Strassburg Cagliostro* went to Paris, where he lived in great
2900splendour, curing diseases, making gold and diamonds, mystifying and
2901duping people of all ranks by the splendid ritual and gorgeous
2902feasting of his secret society, and amassing riches. He got entangled
2903in the affair of the Diamond Necklace, and left Paris. Trying to
2904advance his society in Italy he was arrested by the agents of the
2905Inquisition, and imprisoned, then tried, and condemned to death. The
2906sentence was commuted to perpetual imprisonment. After two years in
2907the prison of San Angelo he died at the age of fifty.
2908
2909   *Transcriber's Note: Original "Cagliosto".
2910
2911
2912
2913
2914CHAPTER IX.
2915
2916PARACELSUS AND SOME OTHER ALCHEMISTS.
2917
2918
2919The accounts which have come to us of the men who followed the pursuit
2920of the _One Thing_ are vague, scrappy, and confusing.
2921
2922Alchemical books abound in quotations from the writings of _Geber_.
2923Five hundred treatises were attributed to this man during the middle
2924ages, yet we have no certain knowledge of his name, or of the time or
2925place of his birth. Hoefer says he probably lived in the middle of the
29268th century, was a native of Mesopotamia, and was named _Djabar
2927Al-Konfi_. Waite calls him _Abou Moussah Djafar al-Sofi_. Some of the
2928mediæval adepts spoke of him as the King of India, others called him a
2929Prince of Persia. Most of the Arabian writers on alchemy and medicine,
2930after the 9th century, refer to Geber as their master.
2931
2932All the MSS. of writings attributed to Geber which have been examined
2933are in Latin, but the library of Leyden is said to possess some works
2934by him written in Arabic. These MSS. contain directions for preparing
2935many metals, salts, acids, oils, etc., and for performing such
2936operations as distillation, cupellation, dissolution, calcination, and
2937the like.
2938
2939Of the other Arabian alchemists, the most celebrated in the middle
2940ages were _Rhasis_, _Alfarabi_, and _Avicenna_, who are supposed to
2941have lived in the 9th and 10th centuries.
2942
2943The following story of Alfarabi's powers is taken from Waite's _Lives
2944of the Alchemystical Philosophers_:--
2945
2946  "Alfarabi was returning from a pilgrimage to Mecca, when, passing
2947  through Syria, he stopped at the Court of the Sultan, and entered
2948  his presence, while he was surrounded by numerous sage persons,
2949  who were discoursing with the monarch on the sciences. Alfarabi
2950  ... presented himself in his travelling attire, and when the
2951  Sultan desired he should be seated, with astonishing philosophical
2952  freedom he planted himself at the end of the royal sofa. The
2953  Prince, aghast at his boldness, called one of his officers, and in
2954  a tongue generally unknown commanded him to eject the intruder.
2955  The philosopher, however, promptly made answer in the same tongue:
2956  'Oh, Lord, he who acts hastily is liable to hasty repentance.' The
2957  Prince was equally astounded to find himself understood by the
2958  stranger as by the manner in which the reply was given. Anxious to
2959  know more of his guest he began to question him, and soon
2960  discovered that he was acquainted with seventy languages. Problems
2961  for discussion were then propounded to the philosophers, who had
2962  witnessed the discourteous intrusion with considerable indignation
2963  and disgust, but Alfarabi disputed with so much eloquence and
2964  vivacity that he reduced all the doctors to silence, and they
2965  began writing down his discourse. The Sultan then ordered his
2966  musicians to perform for the diversion of the company. When they
2967  struck up, the philosopher accompanied them on a lute with such
2968  infinite grace and tenderness that he elicited the unmeasured
2969  admiration of the whole distinguished assembly. At the request of
2970  the Sultan he produced a piece of his own composing, sang it, and
2971  accompanied it with great force and spirit to the delight of all
2972  his hearers. The air was so sprightly that even the gravest
2973  philosopher could not resist dancing, but by another tune he as
2974  easily melted them to tears, and then by a soft unobtrusive melody
2975  he lulled the whole company to sleep."
2976
2977The most remarkable of the alchemists was he who is generally known as
2978_Paracelsus_. He was born about 1493, and died about 1540. It is
2979probable that the place of his birth was Einsiedeln, near Zurich. He
2980claimed relationship with the noble family of Bombast von Hohenheim;
2981but some of his biographers doubt whether he really was connected with
2982that family. His name, or at any rate the name by which he was known,
2983was Aureolus Philippus Theophrastus Bombast von Hohenheim. His father
2984in alchemy, Trimethius, Abbot of Spannheim and then of Wurzburg, who
2985was a theologian, a poet, an astronomer, and a necromancer, named him
2986_Paracelsus_; this name is taken by some to be a kind of Græco-Latin
2987paraphrase of von Hohenheim (of high lineage), and to mean "belonging
2988to a lofty place"; others say it signifies "greater than Celsus," who
2989was a celebrated Latin writer on medicine of the 1st century.
2990Paracelsus studied at the University of Basle; but, getting into
2991trouble with the authorities, he left the university, and for some
2992years wandered over Europe, supporting himself, according to one
2993account, by "psalm-singing, astrological productions, chiromantic
2994soothsaying, and, it has been said, by necromantic practices." He may
2995have got as far as Constantinople; as a rumour floated about that he
2996received the Stone of Wisdom from an adept in that city. He returned
2997to Basle, and in 1527 delivered lectures with the sanction of the
2998Rector of the university. He made enemies of the physicians by abusing
2999their custom of seeking knowledge only from ancient writers and not
3000from nature; he annoyed the apothecaries by calling their tinctures,
3001decoctions, and extracts, mere _soup-messes_; and he roused the ire of
3002all learned people by delivering his lectures in German. He was
3003attacked publicly and also anonymously. Of the pamphlets published
3004against him he said, "These vile ribaldries would raise the ire of a
3005turtle-dove." And Paracelsus was no turtle-dove. The following extract
3006from (a translation of) the preface to _The Book concerning the
3007Tinctures of the Philosophers written against those Sophists born
3008since the Deluge_, shews that his style of writing was abusive, and
3009his opinion of himself, to say the least, not very humble:--
3010
3011  "From the middle of this age the Monarchy of all the Arts has been
3012  at length derived and conferred on me, Theophrastus Paracelsus,
3013  Prince of Philosophy and Medicine. For this purpose I have been
3014  chosen by God to extinguish and blot out all the phantasies of
3015  elaborate and false works, of delusive and presumptuous words, be
3016  they the words of Aristotle, Galen, Avicenna, Mesva, or the
3017  dogmas of any among their followers. My theory, proceeding as it
3018  does from the light of Nature, can never, through its consistency,
3019  pass away or be changed; but in the fifty-eighth year after its
3020  millennium and a half it will then begin to flourish. The practice
3021  at the same time following upon the theory will be proved by
3022  wonderful and incredible signs, so as to be open to mechanics and
3023  common people, and they will thoroughly understand how firm and
3024  immovable is that Paracelsic Art against the triflings of the
3025  Sophists; though meanwhile that sophistical science has to have
3026  its ineptitude propped up and fortified by papal and imperial
3027  privileges.... So then, you wormy and lousy Sophist, since you
3028  deem the monarch of Arcana a mere ignorant, fatuous, and prodigal
3029  quack, now, in this mid age, I determine in my present treatise to
3030  disclose the honourable course of procedure in these matters, the
3031  virtues and preparation of the celebrated Tincture of the
3032  Philosophers for the use and honour of all who love the truth, and
3033  in order that all who despise the true arts may be reduced to
3034  poverty."
3035
3036The turbulent and restless spirit of Paracelsus brought him into open
3037conflict with the authorities of Basle. He fled from that town in
30381528, and after many wanderings, he found rest at Salzburg, under the
3039protection of the archbishop. He died at Salzburg in 1541, in his
3040forty-eighth year.
3041
3042The character and abilities of Paracelsus have been vastly praised by
3043some, and inordinately abused by others. One author says of him: "He
3044lived like a pig, looked like a drover, found his greatest enjoyment
3045in the company of the most dissolute and lowest rabble, and throughout
3046his glorious life he was generally drunk." Another author says:
3047"Probably no physician has grasped his life's task with a purer
3048enthusiasm, or devoted himself more faithfully to it, or more fully
3049maintained the moral worthiness of his calling than did the reformer
3050of Einsiedeln." He certainly seems to have been loved and respected by
3051his pupils and followers, for he is referred to by them as "the noble
3052and beloved monarch," "the German Hemes," and "our dear Preceptor and
3053King of Arts."
3054
3055There seems no doubt that Paracelsus discovered many facts which
3056became of great importance in chemistry: he prepared the inflammable
3057gas we now call hydrogen, by the reaction between iron filings and oil
3058of vitriol; he distinguished metals from substances which had been
3059classed with metals but lacked the essential metalline character of
3060ductility; he made medicinal preparations of mercury, lead and iron,
3061and introduced many new and powerful drugs, notably laudanum.
3062Paracelsus insisted that medicine is a branch of chemistry, and that
3063the restoration of the body of a patient to a condition of chemical
3064equilibrium is the restoration to health.
3065
3066Paracelsus trusted in his method; he was endeavouring to substitute
3067direct appeal to nature for appeal to the authority of writers about
3068nature. "After me," he cries, "you Avicenna, Galen, Rhasis, Montagnana
3069and the others. You after me, not I after you. You of Paris, you of
3070Montpellier, you of Swabia, of Meissen and Vienna; you who come from
3071the countries along the Danube and the Rhine; and you, too, from the
3072Islands of the Ocean. Follow me. It is not for me to follow you, for
3073mine is the monarchy." But the work was too arduous, the struggle too
3074unequal. "With few appliances, with no accurate knowledge, with no
3075help from the work of others, without polished and sharpened weapons,
3076and without the skill that comes from long handling of instruments of
3077precision, what could Paracelsus effect in his struggle to wrest her
3078secrets from nature? Of necessity, he grew weary of the task, and
3079tried to construct a universe which should be simpler than that most
3080complex order which refused to yield to his analysis." And so he came
3081back to the universe which man constructs for himself, and exclaimed--
3082
3083  "Each man has ... all the wisdom and power of the world in
3084  himself; he possesses one kind of knowledge as much as another,
3085  and he who does not find that which is in him cannot truly say
3086  that he does not possess it, but only that he was not capable of
3087  successfully seeking for it."
3088
3089We leave a great genius, with his own words in our ears: "Have no care
3090of my misery, reader; let me bear my burden myself. I have two
3091failings: my poverty and my piety. My poverty was thrown in my face by
3092a Burgomaster who had perhaps only seen doctors attired in silken
3093robes, never basking in tattered rags in the sunshine. So it was
3094decreed I was not a doctor. For my piety I am arraigned by the
3095parsons, for ... I do not at all love those who teach what they do not
3096themselves practise."
3097
3098
3099
3100
3101CHAPTER X.
3102
3103SUMMARY OF THE ALCHEMICAL DOCTRINE.--THE REPLACEMENT OF THE THREE
3104PRINCIPLES OF THE ALCHEMISTS BY THE SINGLE PRINCIPLE OF PHLOGISTON.
3105
3106
3107The _Sacred Art_, which had its origin and home in Egypt, was very
3108definitely associated with the religious rites, and the theological
3109teaching, recognised by the state. The Egyptian priests were initiated
3110into the mysteries of the divine art: and as the initiated claimed to
3111imitate the work of the deity, the priest was regarded by the ordinary
3112people as something more than a representative, as a mirror, of the
3113divinity. The sacred art of Egypt was transmuted into alchemy by
3114contact with European thought and handicrafts, and the tenets and
3115mysticism of the Catholic Church; and the conception of nature, which
3116was the result of this blending, prevailed from about the 9th until
3117towards the end of the 18th century.
3118
3119Like its predecessor, alchemy postulated an orderly universe; but
3120alchemy was richer in fantastic details, more picturesquely
3121embroidered, more prodigal of strange fancies, than the sacred art of
3122Egypt.
3123
3124The alchemist constructed his ordered scheme of nature on the basis of
3125the supposed universality of life. For him, everything lived, and the
3126life of things was threefold. The alchemist thought he recognised the
3127manifestation of life in the form, or body, of a thing, in its soul,
3128and in its spirit. Things might differ much in appearance, in size,
3129taste, smell, and other outward properties, and yet be intimately
3130related, because, according to the alchemist, they were produced from
3131the same principles, they were animated by the same soul. Things might
3132resemble one another closely in their outward properties and yet
3133differ widely in essential features, because, according to the
3134alchemist, they were formed from different elements, in their
3135spiritual properties they were unlike. The alchemists taught that the
3136true transformation, in alchemical language the transmutation, of one
3137thing into another could be effected only by spiritual means acting on
3138the spirit of the thing, because the transmutation consisted
3139essentially in raising the substance to the highest perfection whereof
3140it was capable; the result of this spiritual action might become
3141apparent in the material form of the substance. In attempting to apply
3142such vague conceptions as these, alchemy was obliged to use the
3143language which had been developed for the expression of human emotions
3144and desires, not only for the explanation of the facts it observed,
3145but also for the bare recital of these facts.
3146
3147The outlook of alchemy on the world outside human beings was
3148essentially anthropomorphic. In the image of man, the alchemist
3149created his universe.
3150
3151In the times when alchemy was dominant, the divine scheme of creation,
3152and the place given to man in that scheme, were supposed to be
3153thoroughly understood. Everything had its place, designed for it from
3154the beginning, and in that place it remained unless it were forced
3155from it by violent means. A great part of the business of experimental
3156alchemy was to discover the natural position, or condition, of each
3157substance; and the discovery was to be made by interpreting the facts
3158brought to light by observation and experiment by the aid of
3159hypotheses deduced from the general scheme of things which had been
3160formed independently of observation or experiment. Alchemy was a part
3161of magic; for magic interprets and corrects the knowledge gained by
3162the senses by the touchstone of generalisations which have been
3163supplied, partly by the emotions, and partly by extra-human authority,
3164and accepted as necessarily true.
3165
3166The conception of natural order which regulates the life of the savage
3167is closely related to that which guided the alchemists. The essential
3168features of both are the notion that everything is alive, and the
3169persuasion that things can be radically acted on only by using life as
3170a factor. There is also an intimate connexion between alchemy and
3171witchcraft. Witches were people who were supposed to make an unlawful
3172use of the powers of life; alchemists were often thought to pass
3173beyond what is permitted to the creature, and to encroach on the
3174prerogative of the Creator.
3175
3176The long duration of alchemy shows that it appealed to some
3177deep-seated want of human beings. Was not that want the necessity for
3178the realisation of order in the universe? Men were unwilling to wait
3179until patient examination of the facts of their own nature, and the
3180facts of nature outside themselves, might lead them to the realisation
3181of the interdependence of all things. They found it easier to evolve a
3182scheme of things from a superficial glance at themselves and their
3183surroundings; naturally they adopted the easier plan. Alchemy was a
3184part of the plan of nature produced by this method. The extraordinary
3185dominancy of such a scheme is testified to by the continued belief in
3186alchemy, although the one experiment, which seems to us to be the
3187crucial experiment of the system, was never accomplished. But it is
3188also to be remembered that the alchemists were acquainted with, and
3189practised, many processes which we should now describe as operations
3190of manufacturing and technical chemistry; and the practical usefulness
3191of these processes bore testimony, of the kind which convinces the
3192plain man, to the justness of their theories.
3193
3194I have always regarded two facts as most interesting and instructive:
3195that the doctrine of the essential unity of all things, and the
3196simplicity of natural order, was accepted for centuries by many, I
3197think one may say, by most men, as undoubtedly a true presentation of
3198the divine scheme of things; and, secondly, that in more recent times
3199people were quite as certain of the necessary truth of the doctrine,
3200the exact opposite of the alchemical, that the Creator had divided his
3201creation into portions each of which was independent of all the
3202others. Both of these schemes were formed by the same method, by
3203introspection preceding observation; both were overthrown by the same
3204method, by observation and experiment proceeding hand in hand with
3205reasoning. In each case, the humility of science vanquished the
3206conceit of ignorance.
3207
3208The change from alchemy to chemistry is an admirable example of the
3209change from a theory formed by looking inwards, and then projected on
3210to external facts, to a theory formed by studying facts, and then
3211thinking about them. This change proceeded slowly; it is not possible
3212to name a time when it may be said, here alchemy finishes and
3213chemistry begins. To adapt a saying of one of the alchemists, quoted
3214in a former chapter; alchemy would not easily give up its nature, and
3215fought for its life; but an agent was found strong enough to overcome
3216and kill it, and then that agent also had the power to change the
3217lifeless remains into a new and pure body. The agent was the accurate
3218and imaginative investigation of facts.
3219
3220The first great step taken in the path which led from alchemy to
3221chemistry was the substitution of one Principle, the Principle of
3222Phlogiston, for the three Principles of salt, sulphur, and mercury.
3223This step was taken by concentrating attention and investigation, by
3224replacing the superficial examination of many diverse phenomena by the
3225more searching study of one class of occurrences. That the field of
3226study should be widened, it was necessary that it should first be
3227narrowed.
3228
3229Lead, tin, iron, or copper is calcined. The prominent and striking
3230feature of these events is the disappearance of the metal, and the
3231formation of something very unlike it. But the original metal is
3232restored by a second process, which is like the first because it also
3233is a calcination, but seems to differ from the first operation in that
3234the burnt metal is calcined with another substance, with grains of
3235wheat or powdered charcoal. Led thereto by their theory that
3236destruction must precede re-vivification, death must come before
3237resurrection, the alchemists confined their attention to one feature
3238common to all calcinations of metals, and gave a superficial
3239description of these occurrences by classing them together as
3240processes of mortification. Sulphur, wood, wax, oil, and many other
3241things are easily burned: the alchemists said, these things also
3242undergo mortification, they too are killed; but, as "man can restore
3243that which man has destroyed," it must be possible to restore to life
3244the thing which has been mortified. The burnt sulphur, wood, wax, or
3245oil, is not really dead, the alchemists argued; to use the allegory of
3246Paracelsus, they are like young lions which are born dead, and are
3247brought to life by the roaring of their parents: if we make a
3248sufficiently loud noise, if we use the proper means, we shall bring
3249life into what seems to be dead material. As it is the roaring of the
3250parents of the young lions which alone can cause the still-born cubs
3251to live, so it is only by the spiritual agency of life, proceeded the
3252alchemical argument, that life can be brought into the mortified
3253sulphur, wood, wax, and oil.
3254
3255The alchemical explanation was superficial, theoretical, in the wrong
3256meaning of that word, and unworkable. It was superficial because it
3257overlooked the fact that the primary calcination, the mortification,
3258of the metals, and the other substances, was effected in the air, that
3259is to say, in contact with something different from the thing which
3260was calcined; the explanation was of the kind which people call
3261theoretical, when they wish to condemn an explanation and put it out
3262of court, because it was merely a re-statement of the facts in the
3263language of a theory which had not been deduced from the facts
3264themselves, or from facts like those to be explained, but from what
3265were supposed to be facts without proper investigation, and, if facts,
3266were of a totally different kind from those to which the explanation
3267applied; and lastly, the explanation was unworkable, because it
3268suggested no method whereby its accuracy could be tested, no definite
3269line of investigation which might be pursued.
3270
3271That great naturalist, the Honourable Robert Boyle (born in 1626, died
3272in 1691), very perseveringly besought those who examined processes of
3273calcination to pay heed to the action of everything which might take
3274part in the processes. He was especially desirous they should consider
3275what part the air might play in calcinations; he spoke of the air as a
3276"menstruum or additament," and said that, in such operations as
3277calcination, "We may well take the freedom to examine ... whether
3278there intervene not a coalition of the parts of the body wrought upon
3279with those of the menstruum, whereby the produced concrete may be
3280judged to result from the union of both."
3281
3282It was by examining the part played by the air in processes of
3283calcination and burning that men at last became able to give
3284approximately complete descriptions of these processes.
3285
3286Boyle recognised that the air is not a simple or elementary substance;
3287he spoke of it as "a confused aggregate of effluviums from such
3288differing bodies, that, though they all agree in constituting by their
3289minuteness and various motions one great mass of fluid matter, yet
3290perhaps there is scarce a more heterogeneous body in the world."
3291Clement of Alexandria who lived in the end of the 2nd, and the early
3292part of the 3rd, century A.D., seems to have regarded the air as
3293playing a very important part in combustions; he said--"Airs are
3294divided into two categories; an air for the divine flame, which is the
3295soul; and a material air which is the nourisher of sensible fire, and
3296the basis of combustible matter." Sentences like that I have just
3297quoted are found here and there in the writings of the earlier and
3298later alchemists; now and again we also find statements which may be
3299interpreted, in the light of the fuller knowledge we now have, as
3300indicating at least suspicions that the atmosphere is a mixture of
3301different kinds of air, and that only some of these take part in
3302calcining and burning operations. Those suspicions were confirmed by
3303experiments on the calcination of metals and other substances,
3304conducted in the 17th century by Jean Rey a French physician, and by
3305John Mayow of Oxford. But these observations and the conclusions
3306founded on them, did not bear much fruit until the time of Lavoisier,
3307that is, towards the close of the 18th century. They were overshadowed
3308and put aside by the work of Stahl (1660-1724). Some of the alchemists
3309of the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries taught that combustion and
3310calcination are processes wherein _the igneous principle_ is
3311destroyed, using the word "destroyed" in its alchemical meaning. This
3312description of processes of burning was much more in keeping with the
3313ideas of the time than that given by Boyle, Rey and Mayow. It was
3314adopted by Stahl, and made the basis of a general theory of those
3315changes wherein one substance disappears and another, or others, very
3316unlike it, are produced.
3317
3318That he might bring into one point of view, and compare the various
3319changes effected by the agency of fire, Stahl invented a new
3320Principle, which he named _Phlogiston_, and constructed an hypothesis
3321which is generally known as the phlogistic theory. He explained, and
3322applied, this hypothesis in various books, especially in one published
3323at Halle in 1717.
3324
3325Stahl observed that many substances which differed much from one
3326another in various respects were alike in one respect; they were all
3327combustible. All the combustible substances, he argued, must contain a
3328common principle; he named this supposed principle, _phlogiston_ (from
3329the Greek word _phlogistos_ = burnt, or set on fire). Stahl said that
3330the phlogiston of a combustible thing escapes as the substance burns,
3331and, becoming apparent to the senses, is named fire or flame. The
3332phlogiston in a combustible substance was supposed to be so
3333intimately associated with something else that our senses cannot
3334perceive it; nevertheless, the theory said, it is there; we can see
3335only the escaping phlogiston, we can perceive only the phlogiston
3336which is set free from its combination with other things. The theory
3337thought of phlogiston as imprisoned in the thing which can be burnt,
3338and as itself forming part of the prison; that the prisoner should be
3339set free, the walls of the prison had to be removed; the freeing of
3340the prisoner destroyed the prison. As escaping, or free, phlogiston
3341was called fire, or flame, so the phlogiston in a combustible
3342substance was sometimes called combined fire, or flame in the state of
3343combination. A peculiarity of the strange thing called phlogiston was
3344that it preferred to be concealed in something, hidden, imprisoned,
3345combined; free phlogiston* was supposed to be always ready to become
3346combined phlogiston.
3347
3348   *Transcriber's Note: Original "phlogstion".
3349
3350The phlogistic theory said that what remains when a substance has been
3351burnt is the original substance deprived of phlogiston; and,
3352therefore, to restore the phlogiston to the product of burning is to
3353re-form the combustible substance. But how is such a restoration of
3354phlogiston to be accomplished? Evidently by heating the burnt thing
3355with something which is very ready to burn. Because, according to the
3356theory, everything which can be burnt contains phlogiston, the more
3357ready a substance is to burn the richer it is in phlogiston; burning
3358is the outrush of phlogiston, phlogiston prefers to be combined with
3359something; therefore, if you mix what remains after burning, with
3360something which is very combustible, and heat the mixture, you are
3361bringing the burnt matter under conditions which are very favourable
3362for the reception of phlogiston by it, for you are bringing it into
3363intimate contact with something from which freedom-hating phlogiston
3364is being forced to escape.
3365
3366Charcoal, sulphur, phosphorus, oils and fats are easily burnt; these
3367substances were, therefore, chosen for the purpose of changing things
3368which had been burnt into things which could again be burnt; these,
3369and a few other substances like these, were classed together, and
3370called _phlogisticating agents_.
3371
3372Very many of the substances which were dealt with by the experimenters
3373of the last quarter of the 17th, and the first half of the 18th,
3374century, were either substances which could be burned, or those which
3375had been produced by burning; hence the phlogistic theory brought into
3376one point of view, compared, and emphasised the similarities between,
3377a great many things which had not been thought of as connected before
3378that theory was promulgated. Moreover, the theory asserted that all
3379combustible, or incinerable, things are composed of phlogiston, and
3380another principle, or, as was often said, another element, which is
3381different in different kinds of combustible substances. The metals,
3382for instance, were said to be composed of phlogiston and an earthy
3383principle or element, which was somewhat different in different
3384metals. The phlogisteans taught that the earthy principle of a metal
3385remains in the form of ash, cinders, or calx, when the metal is
3386calcined, or, as they expressed it, when the metal is deprived of its
3387phlogiston.
3388
3389The phlogistic theory savoured of alchemy; it postulated an undefined,
3390undefinable, intangible Principle; it said that all combustible
3391substances are formed by the union of this Principle with another,
3392which is sometimes of an earthy character, sometimes of a fatty
3393nature, sometimes highly volatile in habit. Nevertheless, the theory
3394of Stahl was a step away from purely alchemical conceptions towards
3395the accurate description of a very important class of changes. The
3396principle of phlogiston could be recognised by the senses as it was in
3397the act of escaping from a substance; and the other principle of
3398combustible things was scarcely a Principle in the alchemical sense,
3399for, in the case of metals at any rate, it remained when the things
3400which had contained it were burnt, and could be seen, handled, and
3401weighed. To say that metals are composed of phlogiston and an earthy
3402substance, was to express facts in such a language that the expression
3403might be made the basis of experimental inquiry; it was very different
3404from the assertion that metals are produced by the spiritual actions
3405of the three Principles, salt, mercury and sulphur, the first of which
3406is not salt, the second is not mercury, and the third is not sulphur.
3407The followers of Stahl often spoke of metals as composed of phlogiston
3408and an _element_ of an earthy character; this expression also was an
3409advance, from the hazy notion of _Element_ in purely alchemical
3410writings, towards accuracy and fulness of description. An element was
3411now something which could he seen and experimented with; it was no
3412longer a semi-spiritual existence which could not be grasped by the
3413senses.
3414
3415The phlogistic theory regarded the calcination of a metal as the
3416separation of it into two things, unlike the metal, and unlike each
3417other; one of these things was phlogiston, the other was an earth-like
3418residue. The theory thought of the re-formation of a metal from its
3419calx, that is, the earthy substance which remains after combustion, as
3420the combination of two things to produce one, apparently homogeneous,
3421substance. Metals appeared to the phlogisteans, as they appeared to
3422the alchemists, to be composite substances. Processes of burning were
3423regarded by alchemists and phlogisteans alike, as processes of
3424simplification.
3425
3426The fact had been noticed and recorded, during the middle ages, that
3427the earth-like matter which remains when a metal is calcined is
3428heavier than the metal itself. From this fact, modern investigators of
3429natural phenomena would draw the conclusion, that calcination of a
3430metal is an addition of something to the metal, not a separation of
3431the metal into different things. It seems impossible to us that a
3432substance should be separated into portions, and one of these parts
3433should weigh as much as, or more than, the whole.
3434
3435The exact investigation of material changes called chemistry rests on
3436the statement that _mass_, and mass is practically measured by
3437_weight_, is the one property of what we call matter, the
3438determination whereof enables us to decide whether a change is a
3439combination, or coalescence, of different things, or a separation of
3440one thing into parts. That any part of a material system can be
3441removed without the weight of the portion which remains being less
3442than the original weight of the whole system, is unthinkable, in the
3443present state of our knowledge of material changes.
3444
3445But in the 17th century, and throughout most of the 18th, only a few
3446of those who examined changes in the properties of substances paid
3447heed to changes of weight; they had not realised the importance of the
3448property of mass, as measured by weight. The convinced upholder of the
3449phlogistic theory had two answers to the argument, that, because the
3450earth-like product of the calcination of a metal weighs more than the
3451metal itself, therefore the metal cannot have lost something in the
3452process; for, if one portion of what is taken away weighs more than
3453the metal from which it has been separated, it is evident that the
3454weight of the two portions into which the metal is said to have been
3455divided must be considerably greater than the weight of the undivided
3456metal. The upholders of the theory sometimes met the argument by
3457saying, "Of course the calx weighs more than the metal, because
3458phlogiston tends to lighten a body which contains it; and therefore
3459the body weighs more after it has lost phlogiston than it did when the
3460phlogiston formed part of it;" sometimes, and more often, their answer
3461was--"loss or gain of weight is an accident, the essential thing is
3462change of qualities."
3463
3464If the argument against the separation of a metal into two
3465constituents, by calcination, were answered to-day as it was answered
3466by the upholders of the phlogistic theory, in the middle of the 18th
3467century, the answers would justly be considered inconsequent and
3468ridiculous. But it does not follow that the statements were either
3469far-fetched or absurd at the time they were made. They were expressed
3470in the phraseology of the time; a phraseology, it is true, sadly
3471lacking in consistency, clearness, and appropriateness, but the only
3472language then available for the description of such changes as those
3473which happen when metals are calcined. One might suppose that it must
3474always have sounded ridiculous to say that the weight of a thing can
3475be decreased by adding something to it, that part of a thing weighs
3476more than the whole of it. But the absurdity disappears if it can be
3477admitted that mass, which is measured by weight, may be a property
3478like colour, or taste, or smell; for the colour, taste, or smell of a
3479thing may certainly be made less by adding something else, and the
3480colour, taste, or smell of a thing may also be increased by adding
3481something else. If we did not know that what we call _quantity of
3482substance_ is measured by the property named _mass_, we might very
3483well accept the proposition that the entrance of phlogiston into a
3484substance decreases the quantity, hence the mass, and, therefore, the
3485weight, of the substance.
3486
3487Although Stahl and his followers were emerging from the trammels of
3488alchemy, they were still bound by many of the conceptions of that
3489scheme of nature. We have learned, in previous chapters, that the
3490central idea of alchemy was expressed in the saying: "Matter must be
3491deprived of its properties in order to draw out its soul." The
3492properties of substances are everything to the modern chemist--indeed,
3493such words as iron, copper, water, and gold are to him merely
3494convenient expressions for certain definable groups of properties--but
3495the phlogisteans regarded the properties of things, including mass, as
3496of secondary importance; they were still trying to get beneath the
3497properties of a thing, to its hypothetical essence, or substance.
3498
3499Looking back, we cannot think of phlogiston as a substance, or as a
3500thing, in the modern meanings of these terms as they are used in
3501natural science. Nowadays we think, we are obliged to think, of the
3502sum of the quantities of all the things in the universe as unchanging,
3503and unchangeable by any agency whereof we have definite knowledge. The
3504meaning we give to the word _thing_ rests upon the acceptance of this
3505hypothesis. But the terms _substance_, _thing_, _properties_ were used
3506very vaguely a couple of centuries ago; and it would be truly absurd
3507to carry back to that time the meanings which we give to these terms
3508to-day, and then to brand as ridiculous the attempts of the men who
3509studied, then, the same problems which we study now, to express the
3510results of their study in generalisations which employed the terms in
3511question, in what seems to us a loose, vague, and inexact manner.
3512
3513By asserting, and to some extent experimentally proving, the existence
3514of one principle in many apparently very different substances (or, as
3515would be said to-day, one property common to many substances), the
3516phlogistic theory acted as a very useful means for collecting, and
3517placing in a favourable position for closer inspection, many
3518substances which would probably have remained scattered and detached
3519from one another had this theory not been constructed. A single
3520assumption was made, that all combustible substances are alike in one
3521respect, namely, in containing combined fire, or phlogiston; by the
3522help of this assumption, the theory of phlogiston emphasised the
3523fundamental similarity between all processes of combustion. The theory
3524of phlogiston was extraordinarily simple, compared with the alchemical
3525vagaries which preceded it. Hoefer says, in his _Histoire de la
3526Chimie_, "If it is true that simplicity is the distinctive character
3527of verity, never was a theory so true as that of Stahl."
3528
3529The phlogistic theory did more than serve as a means for bringing
3530together many apparently disconnected facts. By concentrating the
3531attention of the students of material changes on one class of events,
3532and giving descriptions of these events without using either of the
3533four alchemical Elements, or the three Principles, Stahl, and those
3534who followed him, did an immense service to the advancement of clear
3535thinking about natural occurrences. The principle of phlogiston was
3536more tangible, and more readily used, than the Salt, Sulphur, and
3537Mercury of the alchemists; and to accustom people to speak of the
3538material substance which remained when a metal, or other combustible
3539substance, was calcined or burnt, as one of the _elements_ of the
3540thing which had been changed, prepared the way for the chemical
3541conception of an element as a definite substance with certain definite
3542properties.
3543
3544In addition to these advantages, the phlogistic theory was based on
3545experiments, and led to experiments, the results of which proved that
3546the capacity to undergo combustion might be conveyed to an
3547incombustible substance, by causing it to react with some other
3548substance, itself combustible, under definite conditions. The theory
3549thus prepared the way for the representation of a chemical change as
3550an interaction between definite kinds of substances, marked by precise
3551alterations both of properties and composition.
3552
3553The great fault of the theory of phlogiston, considered as a general
3554conception which brings many facts into one point of view, and leads
3555the way to new and exact knowledge, was its looseness, its
3556flexibility. It was very easy to make use of the theory in a broad and
3557general way; by stretching it here, and modifying it there, it seemed
3558to cover all the facts concerning combustion and calcination which
3559were discovered during two generations after the publication of
3560Stahl's books. But many of the subsidiary hypotheses which were
3561required to make the theory cover the new facts were contradictory, or
3562at any rate seemed to be contradictory, of the primary assumptions of
3563the theory. The addition of this ancillary machinery burdened the
3564mechanism of the theory, threw it out of order, and finally made it
3565unworkable. The phlogistic theory was destroyed by its own
3566cumbersomeness.
3567
3568A scientific theory never lasts long if its fundamental assumptions
3569are stated so loosely that they may be easily modified, expanded,
3570contracted, and adjusted to meet the requirements of newly discovered
3571facts. It is true that the theories which have been of the greatest
3572service in science, as summaries of the relations between established
3573facts, and suggestions of lines of investigation, have been stated in
3574terms whose full meaning has gradually unfolded itself. But the
3575foundations of these theories have been at once so rigidly defined and
3576clearly stated as to be incapable of essential modification, and so
3577full of meaning and widely applicable as to cover large classes of
3578facts which were unknown when the theories were constructed. Of the
3579founders of the lasting and expansible theories of natural science, it
3580may be said, that "thoughts beyond their thoughts to those high bards
3581were given."
3582
3583
3584
3585
3586CHAPTER XI.
3587
3588THE EXAMINATION OF THE PHENOMENA OF COMBUSTION.
3589
3590
3591The alchemists thought that the most effectual method of separating a
3592complex substance into more simple substances was to subject it to the
3593action of heat. They were constantly distilling, incinerating,
3594subliming, heating, in order that the spirit, or inner kernel of
3595things, might be obtained. They took for granted that the action of
3596fire was to simplify, and that simplification proceeded whatever might
3597be the nature of the substance which was subjected to this action.
3598Boyle insisted that the effect of heating one substance may be, and
3599often is, essentially different from the effect of heating another
3600substance; and that the behaviour of the same substance when heated,
3601sometimes varies when the conditions are changed. He takes the example
3602of heating sulphur or brimstone: "Exposed to a moderate fire in
3603subliming pots, it rises all into dry, and almost tasteless, flowers;
3604whereas being exposed to a naked fire, it affords store of a saline
3605and fretting liquor." Boyle thought that the action of fire was not
3606necessarily to separate a thing into its principles or elements, but,
3607in most cases, was either to rearrange the parts of the thing, so that
3608new, and it might be, more complex things, were produced, or to form
3609less simple things by the union of the substance with what he called,
3610"the matter of fire." When the product of heating a substance, for
3611example, tin or lead, weighed more than the substance itself, Boyle
3612supposed that the gain in weight was often caused by the "matter of
3613fire" adding itself to the substance which was heated. He commended to
3614the investigation of philosophers this "subtil fluid," which is "able
3615to pierce into the compact and solid bodies of metals, and add
3616something to them that has no despicable weight upon the balance, and
3617is able for a considerable time to continue fixed in the fire." Boyle
3618also drew attention to the possibility of action taking place between
3619a substance which is heated and some other substance, wherewith the
3620original thing may have been mixed. In a word, Boyle showed that the
3621alchemical assumption--fire simplifies--was too simple; and he taught,
3622by precept and example, that the only way of discovering what the
3623action of fire is, on this substance or on that, is to make accurate
3624experiments. "I consider," he says, "that, generally speaking, to
3625render a reason of an effect or phenomenon, is to deduce it from
3626something else in nature more known than itself; and that consequently
3627there may be divers kinds of degrees of explication of the same
3628thing."
3629
3630Boyle published his experiments and opinions concerning the action of
3631fire on different substances in the seventies of the 17th century;
3632Stahl's books, which laid the foundation of the phlogistic theory, and
3633confirmed the alchemical opinion that the action of fire is
3634essentially a simplifying action, were published about forty years
3635later. But fifty years before Boyle, a French physician, named Jean
3636Rey, had noticed that the calcination of a metal is the production of
3637a more complex, from a less complex substance; and had assigned the
3638increase in weight which accompanies that operation to the attachment
3639of particles of the air to the metal. A few years before the
3640publication of Boyle's work, from which I have quoted, John Mayow,
3641student of Oxford, recounted experiments which led to the conclusion
3642that the air contains two substances, one of which supports combustion
3643and the breathing of animals, while the other extinguishes fire. Mayow
3644called the active component of the atmosphere _fiery air_; but he was
3645unable to say definitely what becomes of this fiery air when a
3646substance is burnt, although he thought that, in some cases, it
3647probably attaches itself to the burning substances, by which,
3648therefore, it may be said to be fixed. Mayow proved that the air
3649wherein a substance is burnt, or an animal breathes, diminishes in
3650volume during the burning, or the breathing. He tried, without much
3651success, to restore to air that part of it which disappears when
3652combustion, or respiration, proceeds in it.
3653
3654What happens when a substance is burnt in the air? The alchemists
3655answered this question by asserting that the substance is separated or
3656analysed into things simpler than itself. Boyle said: the process is
3657not necessarily a simplification; it may be, and certainly sometimes
3658is, the formation of something more complicated than the original
3659substance, and when this happens, the process often consists in the
3660fixation of "the matter of fire" by the burning substance. Rey said:
3661calcination, of a metal at anyrate, probably consists in the fixation
3662of particles of air by the substance which is calcined. Mayow answered
3663the question by asserting, on the ground of the results of his
3664experiments, that the substance which is being calcined lays hold of a
3665particular constituent of the air, not the air as a whole.
3666
3667Now, it is evident that if Mayow's answer was a true description of
3668the process of calcination, or combustion, it should be possible to
3669separate the calcined substance into two different things, one of
3670which would be the thing which was calcined, and the other would be
3671that constituent of the air which had united with the burning, or
3672calcining, substance. It seems clear to us that the one method of
3673proving the accuracy of Mayow's supposition must be, to weigh a
3674definite, combustible, substance--say, a metal; to calcine this in a
3675measured quantity of air; to weigh the product, and to measure the
3676quantity of air which remains; to separate the product of calcination
3677into the original metal, and a kind of air or gas; to prove that the
3678metal thus obtained is the same, and has the same weight, as the metal
3679which was calcined; and to prove that the air or gas obtained from the
3680calcined metal is the same, both in quality and quantity, as the air
3681which disappeared in the process of calcination.
3682
3683This proof was not forthcoming until about a century after the
3684publication of Mayow's work. The experiments which furnished the proof
3685were rendered possible by a notable discovery made on the 1st of
3686August 1774, by the celebrated Joseph Priestley.
3687
3688Priestley prepared many "airs" of different kinds: by the actions of
3689acids on metals, by allowing vegetables to decay, by heating beef,
3690mutton, and other animal substances, and by other methods. He says:
3691"Having procured a lens of twelve inches diameter and twenty inches
3692focal distance, I proceeded with great alacrity to examine, by the
3693help of it, what kind of air a great variety of substances, natural
3694and factitious, would yield.... With this apparatus, after a variety
3695of other experiments.... on the 1st of August, 1774, I endeavoured to
3696extract air from _mercurius calcinatus per se_; and I presently found
3697that, by means of this lens, air was expelled from it very readily.
3698Having got about three or four times as much as the bulk of my
3699materials, I admitted water to it, and found that it was not imbibed
3700by it. But what surprised me more than I can well express was, that a
3701candle burned in this air with a remarkably vigorous flame.... I was
3702utterly at a loss how to account for it."
3703
3704[Illustration: FIG. XVI.]
3705
3706The apparatus used by Priestley, in his experiments on different kinds
3707of air, is represented in Fig. XVI., which is reduced from an
3708illustration in Priestley's book on _Airs_.
3709
3710Priestley had made a discovery which was destined to change Alchemy
3711into Chemistry. But he did not know what his discovery meant. It was
3712reserved for the greatest of all chemists, Antoine Lavoisier, to use
3713the fact stumbled on by Priestley.
3714
3715After some months Priestley began to think it possible that the new
3716"air" he had obtained from calcined mercury might be fit for
3717respiration. To his surprise he found that a mouse lived in this air
3718much longer than in common air; the new air was evidently better, or
3719purer, than ordinary air. Priestley measured what he called the
3720"goodness" of the new air, by a process of his own devising, and
3721concluded that it was "between four and five times as good as common
3722air."
3723
3724Priestley was a thorough-going phlogistean. He seems to have been able
3725to describe the results of his experiments only in the language of the
3726phlogistic theory; just as the results of most of the experiments made
3727to-day on the changes of compounds of the element carbon cannot be
3728described by chemists except by making use of the conceptions and the
3729language of the atomic and molecular theory.[6]
3730
3731   [6] I have given numerous illustrations of the truth of this
3732   statement in the book, in this series, entitled _The Story of
3733   the Wanderings of Atoms_.
3734
3735The upholder of the phlogistic theory could not think of burning as
3736possible unless there was a suitable receptacle for the phlogiston of
3737the burning substance: when burning occurred in the air, the part
3738played by the air, according to the phlogistic chemist, was to receive
3739the expelled phlogiston; in this sense the air acted as the _pabulum_,
3740or nourishment, of the burning substance. Inasmuch as substances
3741burned more vigorously and brilliantly in the new air than in common
3742air, Priestley argued that the new air was more ready, more eager,
3743than ordinary air, to receive phlogiston; and, therefore, that the new
3744air contained less phlogiston than ordinary air, or, perhaps, no
3745phlogiston. Arguing thus, Priestley, of course, named the new aeriform
3746substance _dephlogisticated air_, and thought of it as ordinary air
3747deprived of some, or it might be all, of its phlogiston.
3748
3749The breathing of animals and the burning of substances were supposed
3750to load the atmosphere with phlogiston. Priestley spoke of the
3751atmosphere as being constantly "vitiated," "rendered noxious,"
3752"depraved," or "corrupted" by processes of respiration and combustion;
3753he called those processes whereby the atmosphere is restored to its
3754original condition (or "depurated," as he said), "dephlogisticating
3755processes." As he had obtained his _dephlogisticated air_ by heating
3756the calx of mercury, that is the powder produced by calcining mercury
3757in the air, Priestley was forced to suppose that the calcination of
3758mercury in the air must be a more complex occurrence than merely the
3759expulsion of phlogiston from the mercury: for, if the process
3760consisted only in the expulsion of phlogiston, how could heating what
3761remained produce exceedingly pure ordinary air? It seemed necessary
3762to suppose that not only was phlogiston expelled from mercury during
3763calcination, but that the mercury also imbibed some portion, and that
3764the purest portion, of the surrounding air. Priestley did not,
3765however, go so far as this; he was content to suppose that in some
3766way, which he did not explain, the process of calcination resulted in
3767the loss of phlogiston by the mercury, and the gain, by the
3768dephlogisticated mercury, of the property of yielding exceedingly pure
3769or dephlogisticated air when it was heated very strongly.
3770
3771Priestley thought of properties in much the same way as the alchemists
3772thought of them, as wrappings, or coverings of an essential something,
3773from which they can be removed and around which they can again be
3774placed. The protean principle of phlogiston was always at hand, and,
3775by skilful management, was ready to adapt itself to any facts. Before
3776the phenomena of combustion could be described accurately, it was
3777necessary to do two things; to ignore the theory of phlogiston, and to
3778weigh and measure all the substances which take part in some selected
3779processes of burning.
3780
3781Looking back at the attempts made in the past to describe natural
3782events, we are often inclined to exclaim, "Why did investigators bind
3783themselves with the cords of absurd theories; why did they always wear
3784blinkers; why did they look at nature through the distorting mists
3785rising from their own imaginations?" We are too ready to forget the
3786tremendous difficulties which beset the path of him who is seeking
3787accurate knowledge.
3788
3789  "To climb steep hills requires slow pace at first."
3790
3791Forgetting that the statements wherein the men of science of our own
3792time describe the relations between natural events are, and must be,
3793expressed in terms of some general conception, some theory, of these
3794relations; forgetting that the simplest natural occurrence is so
3795complicated that our powers of description are incapable of expressing
3796it completely and accurately; forgetting the uselessness of
3797disconnected facts; we are inclined to overestimate the importance of
3798our own views of nature's ways, and to underestimate the usefulness of
3799the views of our predecessors. Moreover, as naturalists have not been
3800obliged, in recent times, to make a complete renunciation of any
3801comprehensive theory wherein they had lived and moved for many years,
3802we forget the difficulties of breaking loose from a way of looking at
3803natural events which has become almost as real as the events
3804themselves, of abandoning a language which has expressed the most
3805vividly realised conceptions of generations of investigators, of
3806forming a completely new mental picture of natural occurrences, and
3807developing a completely new language for the expression of those
3808conceptions and these occurrences.
3809
3810The younger students of natural science of to-day are beginning to
3811forget what their fathers told them of the fierce battle which had to
3812be fought, before the upholders of the Darwinian theory of the origin
3813of species were able to convince those for whom the older view, that
3814species are, and always have been, absolutely distinct, had become a
3815matter of supreme scientific, and even ethical, importance.
3816
3817A theory which has prevailed for generations in natural science, and
3818has been accepted and used by everyone, can be replaced by a more
3819accurate description of the relations between natural facts, only by
3820the determination, labour, and genius of a man of supreme power. Such
3821a service to science, and humanity, was rendered by Darwin; a like
3822service was done, more than three-quarters of a century before Darwin,
3823by Lavoisier.
3824
3825Antoine Laurent Lavoisier was born in Paris in 1743. His father, who
3826was a merchant in a good position, gave his son the best education
3827which was then possible, in physical, astronomical, botanical, and
3828chemical science. At the age of twenty-one, Lavoisier gained the prize
3829offered by the Government for devising an effective and economical
3830method of lighting the public streets. From that time until, on the
38318th of May 1794, the Government of the Revolution declared, "The
3832Republic has no need of men of science," and the guillotine ended his
3833life, Lavoisier continued his researches in chemistry, geology,
3834physics, and other branches of natural science, and his investigations
3835into the most suitable methods of using the knowledge gained by
3836naturalists for advancing the welfare of the community.
3837
3838In Chapter VI., I said that when an alchemist boiled water in an open
3839vessel, and obtained a white earthy solid, in place of the water which
3840disappeared, he was producing some sort of experimental proof of the
3841justness of his assertion that water can be changed into earth.
3842Lavoisier began his work on the transformations of matter by
3843demonstrating that this alleged transmutation does not happen; and he
3844did this by weighing the water, the vessel, and the earthy solid.
3845
3846Lavoisier had constructed for him a pelican of white glass (see Fig.
3847XI., p. 88), with a stopper of glass. He cleaned, dried, and weighed
3848this vessel; then he put into it rain-water which he had distilled
3849eight times; he heated the vessel, removing the stopper from time to
3850time to allow the expanding air to escape, then put in the stopper,
3851allowed the vessel to cool, and weighed very carefully. The difference
3852between the second and the first weighing was the weight of water in
3853the vessel. He then fastened the stopper securely with cement, and
3854kept the apparatus at a temperature about 30° or 40° below that of
3855boiling water, for a hundred and one days. At the end of that time a
3856fine white solid had collected on the bottom of the vessel. Lavoisier
3857removed the cement from the stopper, and weighed the apparatus; the
3858weight was the same as it had been before the heating began. He
3859removed the stopper; air rushed in, with a hissing noise. Lavoisier
3860concluded that air had not penetrated through the apparatus during the
3861process of heating. He then poured out the water, and the solid which
3862had formed in the vessel, set them aside, dried, and weighed the
3863pelican; it had lost 17-4/10 grains. Lavoisier concluded that the
3864solid which had formed in the water was produced by the solvent action
3865of the water on the glass vessel. He argued that if this conclusion
3866was correct, the weight of the solid must be equal to the loss of
3867weight suffered by the vessel; he therefore separated the solid from
3868the water in which it was suspended, dried, and weighed it. The solid
3869weighed 4-9/10 grains. Lavoisier's conclusion seemed to be incorrect;
3870the weight of the solid, which was supposed to be produced by the
3871action of the water on the vessel, was 12-1/2 grains less than the weight
3872of the material removed from the vessel. But some of the material
3873which was removed from the vessel might have remained dissolved in the
3874water: Lavoisier distilled the water, which he had separated from the
3875solid, in a glass vessel, until only a very little remained in the
3876distilling apparatus; he poured this small quantity into a glass
3877basin, and boiled until the whole of the water had disappeared as
3878steam. There remained a white, earthy solid, the weight of which was
387915-1/2 grains. Lavoisier had obtained 4-9/10 + 15-1/2 = 20-2/5 grains
3880of solid; the pelican had lost 17-2/5 grains. The difference between
3881these weights, namely, 3 grains, was accounted for by Lavoisier as due
3882to the solvent action of the water on the glass apparatus wherein it
3883had been distilled, and on the glass basin wherein it had been
3884evaporated to dryness.
3885
3886Lavoisier's experiments proved that when distilled water is heated in
3887a glass vessel, it dissolves some of the material of the vessel, and
3888the white, earthy solid which is obtained by boiling down the water is
3889merely the material which has been removed from the glass vessel. His
3890experiments also proved that the water does not undergo any change
3891during the process; that at the end of the operation it is what it was
3892at the beginning--water, and nothing but water.
3893
3894By this investigation Lavoisier destroyed part of the experimental
3895basis of alchemy, and established the one and only method by which
3896chemical changes can be investigated; the method wherein constant use
3897is made of the balance.
3898
3899Lavoisier now turned his attention to the calcination of metals, and
3900particularly the calcination of tin. Boyle supposed that the increase
3901in weight which accompanies the calcination of a metal is due to the
3902fixation of "matter of fire" by the calcining metal; Rey regarded the
3903increase in weight as the result of the combination of the air with
3904the metal; Mayow thought that the atmosphere contains two different
3905kinds of "airs," and one of these unites with the heated metal.
3906Lavoisier proposed to test these suppositions by calcining a weighed
3907quantity of tin in a closed glass vessel, which had been weighed
3908before, and should be weighed after, the calcination. If Boyle's view
3909was correct, the weight of the vessel and the tin would be greater at
3910the end than it was at the beginning of the operation; for "matter of
3911fire" would pass through the vessel and unite with the metal. If there
3912was no change in the total weight of the apparatus and its contents,
3913and if air rushed in when the vessel was opened after the calcination,
3914and the total weight was then greater than at the beginning of the
3915process, it would be necessary to adopt either the supposition of Rey
3916or that of Mayow.
3917
3918Lavoisier made a series of experiments. The results were these: there
3919was no change in the total weight of the apparatus and its contents;
3920when the vessel was opened after the calcination was finished, air
3921rushed in, and the whole apparatus now weighed more than it did before
3922the vessel was opened; the weight of the air which rushed in was
3923exactly equal to the increase in the weight of the tin produced by the
3924calcination, in other words, the weight of the inrushing air was
3925exactly equal to the difference between the weights of the tin and the
3926calx formed by calcining the tin. Lavoisier concluded that to calcine
3927tin is to cause it to combine with a portion of the air wherein it is
3928calcined. The weighings he made showed that about one-fifth of the
3929whole weight of air in the closed flask wherein he calcined tin had
3930disappeared during the operation.
3931
3932Other experiments led Lavoisier to suspect that the portion of the air
3933which had united with the tin was different from the portion which had
3934not combined with that metal. He, therefore, set himself to discover
3935whether there are different kinds of "airs" in the atmosphere, and, if
3936there is more than one kind of "air," what is the nature of that "air"
3937which combines with a metal in the process of calcination. He proposed
3938to cause a metallic calx (that is, the substance formed by calcining
3939a metal in the air) to give up the "air" which had been absorbed in
3940its formation, and to compare this "air" with atmospheric air.
3941
3942About this time Priestley visited Paris, saw Lavoisier, and told him
3943of the new "air" he had obtained by heating calcined mercury.
3944Lavoisier saw the great importance of Priestley's discovery; he
3945repeated Priestley's experiment, and concluded that the air, or gas,
3946which he refers to in his Laboratory Journal as "l'air dephlogistique
3947de M. Priestley" was nothing else than the purest portion of the air
3948we breathe. He prepared this "air" and burned various substances in
3949it. Finding that very many of the products of these combustions had
3950the properties of acids, he gave to the new "air" the name _oxygen_,
3951which means _the acid-producer_.
3952
3953At a later time, Lavoisier devised and conducted an experiment which
3954laid bare the change of composition that happens when mercury is
3955calcined in the air. He calcined a weighed quantity of mercury for
3956many days in a measured volume of air, in an apparatus arranged so
3957that he was able to determine how much of the air disappeared during
3958the process; he collected and weighed the red solid which formed on
3959the surface of the heated mercury; finally he heated this red solid to
3960a high temperature, collected and measured the gas which was given
3961off, and weighed the mercury which was produced. The sum of the
3962weights of the mercury and the gas which were produced by heating the
3963calcined mercury was equal to the weight of the calcined mercury; and
3964the weight of the gas produced by heating the calcined mercury was
3965equal to the weight of the portion of the air which had disappeared
3966during the formation of the calcined mercury. This experiment proved
3967that the calcination of mercury in the air consists in the combination
3968of a constituent of the air with the mercury. Fig. XVII. (reduced from
3969an illustration in Lavoisier's Memoir) represents the apparatus used
3970by Lavoisier. Mayow's supposition was confirmed.
3971
3972[Illustration: FIG. XVII.]
3973
3974Lavoisier made many more experiments on combustion, and proved that in
3975every case the component of the atmosphere which he had named oxygen
3976combined with the substance, or with some part of the substance, which
3977was burned. By these experiments the theory of Phlogiston was
3978destroyed; and with its destruction, the whole alchemical apparatus of
3979Principles and Elements, Essences and Qualities, Souls and Spirits,
3980disappeared.
3981
3982
3983
3984
3985CHAPTER XII.
3986
3987THE RECOGNITION OF CHEMICAL CHANGES AS THE INTERACTIONS OF DEFINITE
3988SUBSTANCES.
3989
3990
3991The experimental study of combustion made by Lavoisier proved the
3992correctness of that part of Stahl's phlogistic theory which asserted
3993that all processes of combustion are very similar, but also proved
3994that this likeness consists in the combination of a distinct gaseous
3995substance with the material undergoing combustion, and not in the
3996escape therefrom of the _Principle of fire_, as asserted by the theory
3997of Stahl. After about the year 1790, it was necessary to think of
3998combustions in the air as combinations of a particular gas, or _air_,
3999with the burning substances, or some portions of them.
4000
4001This description of processes of burning necessarily led to a
4002comparison of the gaseous constituent of the atmosphere which played
4003so important a part in these processes, with the substances which were
4004burned; it led to the examination of the compositions of many
4005substances, and made it necessary to devise a language whereby these
4006compositions could be stated clearly and consistently.
4007
4008We have seen, in former chapters, the extreme haziness of the
4009alchemical views of composition, and the connexions between
4010composition and properties. Although Boyle[7] had stated very lucidly
4011what he meant by the composition of a definite substance, about a
4012century before Lavoisier's work on combustion, nevertheless the views
4013of chemists concerning composition remained very vague and incapable
4014of definite expression, until the experimental investigations of
4015Lavoisier enabled him to form a clear mental picture of chemical
4016changes as interactions between definite quantities of distinct
4017substances.
4018
4019   [7] Boyle said, in 1689, "I mean by elements ... certain
4020   primitive and simple, or perfectly unmixed bodies; which not
4021   being made of any other bodies, or of one another, are the
4022   ingredients of which all those called perfectly mixt bodies are
4023   immediately compounded, and into which they are ultimately
4024   resolved."
4025
4026Let us consider some of the work of Lavoisier in this direction. I
4027select his experimental examination of the interactions of metals and
4028acids.
4029
4030Many experimenters had noticed that gases (or airs, as they were
4031called up till near the end of the 18th century) are generally
4032produced when metals are dissolving in acids. Most of those who
4033noticed this said that the gases came from the dissolving metals;
4034Lavoisier said they were produced by the decomposition of the acids.
4035In order to study the interaction of nitric acid and mercury,
4036Lavoisier caused a weighed quantity of the metal to react with a
4037weighed quantity of the acid, and collected the gas which was
4038produced; when all the metal had dissolved, he evaporated the liquid
4039until a white solid was obtained; he heated this solid until it was
4040changed to the red substance called, at that time, _red precipitate_,
4041and collected the gas produced. Finally, Lavoisier strongly heated the
4042red precipitate; it changed to a gas, which he collected, and mercury,
4043which he weighed.
4044
4045The weight of the mercury obtained by Lavoisier at the end of this
4046series of changes was the same, less a few grains, as the weight of
4047the mercury which he had caused to react with the nitric acid. The gas
4048obtained during the solution of the metal in the acid, and during the
4049decomposition of the white solid by heat, was the same as a gas which
4050had been prepared by Priestley and called by him _nitrous air_; and
4051the gas obtained by heating the red precipitate was found to be
4052oxygen. Lavoisier then mixed measured volumes of oxygen and "nitrous
4053air," standing over water; a red gas was formed, and dissolved in the
4054water, and Lavoisier proved that the water now contained nitric acid.
4055
4056The conclusions regarding the composition of nitric acid drawn by
4057Lavoisier from these experiments was, that "nitric acid is nothing
4058else than _nitrous air_, combined with almost its own volume of the
4059purest part of atmospheric air, and a considerable quantity of water."
4060
4061Lavoisier supposed that the stages in the complete reaction between
4062mercury and nitric acid were these: the withdrawal of oxygen from the
4063acid by the mercury, and the union of the compound of mercury and
4064oxygen thus formed with the constituents of the acid which remained
4065when part of its oxygen was taken away. The removal of oxygen from
4066nitric acid by the mercury produced _nitrous air_; when the product of
4067the union of the oxide of mercury and the nitric acid deprived of part
4068of its oxygen was heated, more nitrous air was given off, and oxide of
4069mercury remained, and was decomposed, at a higher temperature, into
4070mercury and oxygen.
4071
4072Lavoisier thought of these reactions as the tearing asunder, by
4073mercury, of nitric acid into definite quantities of its three
4074components, themselves distinct substances, nitrous air, water, and
4075oxygen; and the combination of the mercury with a certain measurable
4076quantity of one of these components, namely, oxygen, followed by the
4077union of this compound of mercury and oxygen with what remained of the
4078components of nitric acid.
4079
4080Lavoisier had formed a clear, consistent, and suggestive mental
4081picture of chemical changes. He thought of a chemical reaction as
4082always the same under the same conditions, as an action between a
4083fixed and measurable quantity of one substance, having definite and
4084definable properties, with fixed and measurable quantities of other
4085substances, the properties of each of which were definite and
4086definable.
4087
4088Lavoisier also recognised that certain definite substances could be
4089divided into things simpler than themselves, but that other substances
4090refused to undergo simplification by division into two or more unlike
4091portions. He spoke of the object of chemistry as follows:--[8] "In
4092submitting to experiments the different substances found in nature,
4093chemistry seeks to decompose these substances, and to get them into
4094such conditions that their various components may be examined
4095separately. Chemistry advances to its end by dividing, sub-dividing,
4096and again sub-dividing, and we do not know what will be the limits of
4097such operations. We cannot be certain that what we regard as simple
4098to-day is indeed simple; all we can say is, that such a substance is
4099the actual term whereat chemical analysis has arrived, and that with
4100our present knowledge we cannot sub-divide it."
4101
4102   [8] I have given a free rendering of Lavoisier's words.
4103
4104In these words Lavoisier defines the chemical conception of
4105_elements_; since his time an element is "the actual term whereat
4106chemical analysis has arrived," it is that which "with our present
4107knowledge we cannot sub-divide"; and, as a working hypothesis, the
4108notion of _element_ has no wider meaning than this. I have already
4109quoted Boyle's statement that by _elements_ he meant "certain
4110primitive and simple bodies ... not made of any other bodies, or of
4111one another." Boyle was still slightly restrained by the alchemical
4112atmosphere around him; he was still inclined to say, "this _must_ be
4113the way nature works, she _must_ begin with certain substances which
4114are absolutely simple." Lavoisier had thrown off all the trammels
4115which hindered the alchemists from making rigorous experimental
4116investigations. If one may judge from his writings, he had not
4117struggled to free himself from these trammels, he had not slowly
4118emerged from the quagmires of alchemy, and painfully gained firmer
4119ground; the extraordinary clearness and directness of his mental
4120vision had led him straight to the very heart of the problems of
4121chemistry, and enabled him not only calmly to ignore all the machinery
4122of Elements, Principles, Essences, and the like, which the alchemists
4123had constructed so laboriously, but also to construct, in place of
4124that mechanism which hindered inquiry, genuine scientific hypotheses
4125which directed inquiry, and were themselves altered by the results of
4126the experiments they had suggested.
4127
4128Lavoisier made these great advances by applying himself to the minute
4129and exhaustive examination of a few cases of chemical change, and
4130endeavouring to account for everything which took part in the
4131processes he studied, by weighing or measuring each distinct substance
4132which was present when the change began, and each which was present
4133when the change was finished. He did not make haphazard experiments;
4134he had a method, a system; he used hypotheses, and he used them
4135rightly. "Systems in physics," Lavoisier writes, "are but the proper
4136instruments for helping the feebleness of our senses. Properly
4137speaking, they are methods of approximation which put us on the track
4138of solving problems; they are the hypotheses which, successively
4139modified, corrected, and changed, by experience, ought to conduct us,
4140some day, by the method of exclusions and eliminations, to the
4141knowledge of the true laws of nature."
4142
4143In a memoir wherein he is considering the production of carbonic acid
4144and alcohol by the fermentation of fruit-juice, Lavoisier says, "It is
4145evident that we must know the nature and composition of the
4146substances which can be fermented and the products of fermentation;
4147for nothing is created, either in the operations of art or in those of
4148nature; and it may be laid down that the quantity of material present
4149at the beginning of every operation is the same as the quantity
4150present at the end, that the quality and quantity of the principles[9]
4151are the same, and that nothing happens save certain changes, certain
4152modifications. On this principle is based the whole art of
4153experimenting in chemistry; in all chemical experiments we must
4154suppose that there is a true equality between the principles[10] of
4155the substances which are examined and those which are obtained from
4156them by analysis."
4157
4158   [9, 10] Lavoisier uses the word _principle_, here and
4159   elsewhere, to mean a definite homogeneous substance; he uses it
4160   as synonymous with the more modern terms element and compound.
4161
4162If Lavoisier's memoirs are examined closely, it is seen that at the
4163very beginning of his chemical inquiries he assumed the accuracy, and
4164the universal application, of the generalisation "nothing is created,
4165either in the operations of art or in those of nature." Naturalists
4166had been feeling their way for centuries towards such a generalisation
4167as this; it had been in the air for many generations; sometimes it was
4168almost realised by this or that investigator, then it escaped for long
4169periods. Lavoisier seems to have realised, by what we call intuition,
4170that however great and astonishing may be the changes in the
4171properties of the substances which mutually react, there is no change
4172in the total quantity of material.
4173
4174Not only did Lavoisier realise and act on this principle, he also
4175measured quantities of substances by the one practical method, namely,
4176by weighing; and by doing this he showed chemists the only road along
4177which they could advance towards a genuine knowledge of material
4178changes.
4179
4180The generalisation expressed by Lavoisier in the words I have quoted
4181is now known as the _law of the conservation of mass_; it is generally
4182stated in some such form as this:--the sum of the masses of all the
4183homogeneous substances which take part in a chemical (or physical)
4184change does not itself change. The science of chemistry rests on this
4185law; every quantitative analysis assumes the accuracy, and is a proof
4186of the validity, of it.[11]
4187
4188 [11] I have considered the law of the conservation of mass in some
4189 detail in Chapter IV. of _The Story of the Chemical Elements_.
4190
4191By accepting the accuracy of this generalisation, and using it in
4192every experiment, Lavoisier was able to form a clear mental picture of
4193a chemical change as the separation and combination of homogeneous
4194substances; for, by using the balance, he was able to follow each
4195substance through the maze of changes, to determine when it united
4196with other substances, and when it separated into substances simpler
4197than itself.
4198
4199
4200
4201
4202CHAPTER XIII.
4203
4204THE CHEMICAL ELEMENTS CONTRASTED WITH THE ALCHEMICAL PRINCIPLES.
4205
4206
4207It was known to many observers in the later years of the 17th century
4208that the product of the calcination of a metal weighs more than the
4209metal; but it was still possible, at that time, to assert that this
4210fact is of no importance to one who is seeking to give an accurate
4211description of the process of calcination. Weight, which measures mass
4212or quantity of substance, was thought of, in these days, as a property
4213like colour, taste, or smell, a property which was sometimes
4214decreased, and sometimes increased, by adding one substance to
4215another. Students of natural occurrences were, however, feeling their
4216way towards the recognition of some property of substances which did
4217not change in the haphazard way wherein most properties seemed to
4218alter. Lavoisier reached this property at one bound. By his
4219experimental investigations, he taught that, however greatly the
4220properties of one substance may be masked, or altered, by adding
4221another substance to it, yet the property we call mass, and measure by
4222weight, is not affected by these changes; for Lavoisier showed, that
4223the mass of the product of the union of two substances is always
4224exactly the sum of the masses of these two substances, and the sum of
4225the masses of the substances whereinto one substance is divided is
4226always exactly equal to that mass of the substance which is divided.
4227
4228For the undefined, ever-changing, protean essence, or soul, of a thing
4229which the alchemists thought of as hidden by wrappings of properties,
4230the exact investigations of Lavoisier, and those of others who worked
4231on the same lines as he, substituted this definite, fixed,
4232unmodifiable property of mass. Lavoisier, and those who followed in
4233his footsteps, also did away with the alchemical notion of the
4234existence of an essential substratum, independent of changes in those
4235properties of a substance which can be observed by the senses. For the
4236experimental researches of these men obliged naturalists to recognise,
4237that a change in the properties of a definite, homogeneous substance,
4238such as pure water, pure chalk, or pure sulphur, is accompanied (or,
4239as we generally say, is caused) by the formation of a new substance or
4240substances; and this formation, this apparent creation, of new
4241material, is effected, either by the addition of something to the
4242original substance, or by the separation of it into portions which are
4243unlike it, and unlike one another. If the change is a combination, or
4244coalescence, of two things into one, then the mass, and hence the
4245weight, of the product is equal to the sum of those masses, and hence
4246those weights, of the things which have united to form it; if the
4247change is a separation of one distinct substance into several
4248substances, then the sum of the masses, and hence the weights, of the
4249products is equal to that mass, and hence that weight, of the
4250substance which has been separated.
4251
4252Consider the word _water_, and the substance represented by this word.
4253In Chapter IV., I gave illustrations of the different meanings which
4254have been given to this word; it is sometimes used to represent a
4255material substance, sometimes a quality more or less characteristic of
4256that substance, and sometimes a process to which that substance, and
4257many others like it, may be subjected. But when the word _water_ is
4258used with a definite and exact meaning, it is a succinct expression
4259for a certain group, or collocation, of measurable properties which
4260are always found together, and is, therefore, thought of as a distinct
4261substance. This substance can be separated into two other substances
4262very unlike it, and can be formed by causing these to unite. One
4263hundred parts, by weight, of pure water are always formed by the union
4264of 11.11 parts of hydrogen, and 88.89 parts of oxygen, and can be
4265separated into these quantities of those substances. When water is
4266formed by the union of hydrogen and oxygen, in the ratio of 11.11
4267parts by weight of the former to 88.89 of the latter, the properties
4268of the two substances which coalesce to form it disappear, except
4269their masses. It is customary to say that water _contains_ hydrogen
4270and oxygen; but this expression is scarcely an accurate description of
4271the facts. What we call _substances_ are known to us only by their
4272properties, that is, the ways wherein they act on our senses. Hydrogen
4273has certain definite properties, oxygen has other definite properties,
4274and the properties of water are perfectly distinct from those of
4275either of the substances which it is said to contain. It is,
4276therefore, somewhat misleading to say that water _contains_
4277substances the properties whereof, except their masses, disappeared at
4278the moment when they united and water was produced. Nevertheless we
4279are forced to think of water as, in a sense, containing hydrogen and
4280oxygen. For, one of the properties of hydrogen is its power to
4281coalesce, or combine, with oxygen to form water, and one of the
4282properties of oxygen is its ability to unite with hydrogen to form
4283water; and these properties of those substances cannot be recognised,
4284or even suspected, unless certain definite quantities of the two
4285substances are brought together under certain definite conditions. The
4286properties which characterise hydrogen, and those which characterise
4287oxygen, when these things are separated from all other substances, can
4288be determined and measured in terms of the similar properties of some
4289other substance taken as a standard. These two distinct substances
4290disappear when they are brought into contact, under the proper
4291conditions, and something (water) is obtained whose properties are
4292very unlike those of hydrogen or oxygen; this new thing can be caused
4293to disappear, and hydrogen and oxygen are again produced. This cycle
4294of changes can be repeated as often as we please; the quantities of
4295hydrogen and oxygen which are obtained when we choose to stop the
4296process are exactly the same as the quantities of those substances
4297which disappeared in the first operation whereby water was produced.
4298Hence, water is an intimate union of hydrogen and oxygen; and, in this
4299sense, water may be said to contain hydrogen and oxygen.
4300
4301The alchemist would have said, the properties of hydrogen and oxygen
4302are destroyed when these things unite to form water, but the essence,
4303or substratum, of each remains. The chemist says, you cannot discover
4304all the properties of hydrogen and oxygen by examining these
4305substances apart from one another, for one of the most important
4306properties of either is manifested only when the two mutually react:
4307the formation of water is not the destruction of the properties of
4308hydrogen and oxygen and the revelation of their essential substrata,
4309it is rather the manifestation of a property of each which cannot be
4310discovered except by causing the union of both.
4311
4312There was, then, a certain degree of accuracy in the alchemical
4313description of the processes we now call chemical changes, as being
4314the removal of the outer properties of the things which react, and the
4315manifestation of their essential substance. But there is a vast
4316difference between this description and the chemical presentment of
4317these processes as reactions between definite and measurable
4318quantities of elements, or compounds, or both, resulting in the
4319re-distribution, of the elements, or the separation of the compounds
4320into their elements, and the formation of new compounds by the
4321re-combination of these elements.
4322
4323Let us contrast the two descriptions somewhat more fully.
4324
4325The alchemist wished to effect the transmutation of one substance into
4326another; he despaired of the possibility of separating the Elements
4327whereof the substance might be formed, but he thought he could
4328manipulate what he called the _virtues_ of the Elements by a judicious
4329use of some or all of the three Principles, which he named Sulphur,
4330Salt, and Mercury. He could not state in definite language what he
4331meant by these Principles; they were states, conditions, or qualities,
4332of classes of substances, which could not be defined. The directions
4333the alchemist was able to give to those who sought to effect the
4334change of one thing into another were these. Firstly, to remove those
4335properties which characterised the thing to be changed, and leave only
4336the properties which it shared with other things like it; secondly, to
4337destroy the properties which the thing to be changed possessed in
4338common with certain other things; thirdly, to commingle the Essence of
4339the thing with the Essence of something else, in due proportion and
4340under proper conditions; and, finally, to hope for the best, keep a
4341clear head, and maintain a sense of virtue.
4342
4343If he who was about to attempt the transmutation inquired how he was
4344to destroy the specific properties, and the class properties, of the
4345thing he proposed to change, and by what methods he was to obtain its
4346Essence, and cause that Essence to produce the new thing, he would be
4347told to travel along "the road which was followed by the Great
4348Architect of the Universe in the creation of the world." And if he
4349demanded more detailed directions, he would be informed that the
4350substance wherewith his experiments began must first be mortified,
4351then dissolved, then conjoined, then putrefied, then congealed, then
4352cibated, then sublimed, and fermented, and, finally, exalted. He
4353would, moreover, be warned that in all these operations he must use,
4354not things which he could touch, handle, and weigh, but the _virtues_,
4355the _lives_, the _souls_, of such things.
4356
4357When the student of chemistry desires to effect the transformation of
4358one definite substance into another, he is told to determine, by
4359quantitative experiments, what are the elements, and what the
4360quantities of these elements, which compose the compound which he
4361proposes to change, and the compound into which he proposes to change
4362it; and he is given working definitions of the words _element_ and
4363_compound_. If the compound he desires to produce is found to be
4364composed of elements different from those which form the compound
4365wherewith his operations begin, he is directed to bring about a
4366reaction, or a series of reactions, between the compound which is to
4367be changed, and some other collocation of elements the composition of
4368which is known to be such that it can supply the new elements which
4369are needed for the production of the new compound.
4370
4371Since Lavoisier realised, for himself, and those who were to come
4372after him, the meaning of the terms _element_ and _compound_, we may
4373say that chemists have been able to form a mental picture of the
4374change from one definite substance to another, which is clear,
4375suggestive, and consistent, because it is an approximately accurate
4376description of the facts discovered by careful and penetrative
4377investigations. This presentment of the change has been substituted
4378for the alchemical conception, which was an attempt to express what
4379introspection and reasoning on the results of superficial
4380investigations, guided by specious analogies, suggested ought to be
4381the facts.
4382
4383Lavoisier was the man who made possible the more accurate, and more
4384far-reaching, description of the changes which result in the
4385production of substances very unlike those which are changed; and he
4386did this by experimentally analysing the conceptions of the element
4387and the compound, giving definite and workable meanings to these
4388conceptions, and establishing, on an experimental foundation, the
4389generalisation that the sum of the quantities of the substances which
4390take part in any change is itself unchanged.
4391
4392A chemical element was thought of by Lavoisier as "the actual term
4393whereat analysis has arrived," a definite substance "which we cannot
4394subdivide with our present knowledge," but not necessarily a substance
4395which will never be divided. A compound was thought of by him as a
4396definite substance which is always produced by the union of the same
4397quantities of the same elements, and can be separated into the same
4398quantities of the same elements.
4399
4400These conceptions were amplified and made more full of meaning by the
4401work of many who came after Lavoisier, notably by John Dalton, who was
4402born in 1766 and died in 1844.
4403
4404In Chapter I., I gave a sketch of the atomic theory of the Greek
4405thinkers. The founder of that theory, who flourished about 500 B.C.,
4406said that every substance is a collocation of a vast number of minute
4407particles, which are unchangeable, indestructible, and impenetrable,
4408and are therefore properly called _atoms_; that the differences which
4409are observed between the qualities of things are due to differences in
4410the numbers, sizes, shapes, positions, and movements of atoms, and
4411that the process which occurs when one substance is apparently
4412destroyed and another is produced in its place, is nothing more than a
4413rearrangement of atoms.
4414
4415The supposition that changes in the properties of substances are
4416connected with changes in the numbers, movements, and arrangements of
4417different kinds of minute particles, was used in a general way by many
4418naturalists of the 17th and 18th centuries; but Dalton was the first
4419to show that the data obtained by the analyses of compounds make it
4420possible to determine the relative weights of the atoms of the
4421elements.
4422
4423Dalton used the word _atom_ to denote the smallest particle of an
4424element, or a compound, which exhibits the properties characteristic
4425of that element or compound. He supposed that the atoms of an element
4426are never divided in any of the reactions of that element, but the
4427atoms of a compound are often separated into the atoms of the elements
4428whereof the compound is composed. Apparently without knowing that the
4429supposition had been made more than two thousand years before his
4430time, Dalton was led by his study of the composition and properties of
4431the atmosphere to assume that the atoms of different substances,
4432whether elements or compounds, are of different sizes and have
4433different weights. He assumed that when two elements unite to form
4434only one compound, the atom of that compound has the simplest
4435possible composition, is formed by the union of a single atom of each
4436element. Dalton knew only one compound of hydrogen and nitrogen,
4437namely, ammonia. Analyses of this compound show that it is composed of
4438one part by weight of hydrogen and 4.66 parts by weight of nitrogen.
4439Dalton said one atom of hydrogen combines with one atom of nitrogen to
4440form an atom of ammonia; hence an atom of nitrogen is 4.66 times
4441heavier than an atom of hydrogen; in other words, if the _atomic
4442weight_ of hydrogen is taken as unity, the _atomic weight_ of nitrogen
4443is expressed by the number 4.66. Dalton referred the atomic weights of
4444the elements to the atomic weight of hydrogen as unity, because
4445hydrogen is lighter than any other substance; hence the numbers which
4446tell how much heavier the atoms of the elements are than an atom of
4447hydrogen are always greater than one, are always positive numbers.
4448
4449When two elements unite in different proportions, by weight, to form
4450more than one compound, Dalton supposed that (in most cases at any
4451rate) one of the compounds is formed by the union of a single atom of
4452each element; the next compound is formed by the union of one atom of
4453the element which is present in smaller quantity with two, three, or
4454more, atoms of the other element, and the next compound is formed by
4455the union of one atom of the first element with a larger number
4456(always, necessarily, a whole number) of atoms of the other element
4457than is contained in the second compound; and so on. From this
4458assumption, and the Daltonian conception of the atom, it follows that
4459the quantities by weight of one element which are found to unite with
4460one and the same weight of another element must always be expressible
4461as whole multiples of one number. For if two elements, A and B, form a
4462compound, that compound is formed, by supposition, of one atom of A
4463and one atom of B; if more of B is added, at least one atom of B must
4464be added; however much of B is added the quantity must be a whole
4465number of atoms; and as every atom of B is the same in all respects as
4466every other atom of B, the weights of B added to a constant weight of
4467A must be whole multiples of the atomic weight of B.
4468
4469The facts which were available in Dalton's time confirmed this
4470deduction from the atomic theory within the limits of experimental
4471errors; and the facts which have been established since Dalton's time
4472are completely in keeping with the deduction. Take, for instance,
4473three compounds of the elements nitrogen and oxygen. That one of the
4474three which contains least oxygen is composed of 63.64 _per cent._ of
4475nitrogen, and 36.36 _per cent._ of oxygen; if the atomic weight of
4476nitrogen is taken to be 4.66, which is the weight of nitrogen that
4477combines with one part by weight of hydrogen, then the weight of
4478oxygen combined with 4.66 of nitrogen is 2.66 (63.64:36.36 =
44794.66:2.66). The weights of oxygen which combine with 4.66 parts by
4480weight of nitrogen to form the second and third compounds,
4481respectively, must be whole multiples of 2.66; these weights are 5.32
4482and 10.64. Now 5.32 = 2.66 x 2, and 10.64 = 2.66 x 4. Hence, the
4483quantities by weight of oxygen which combine with one and the same
4484weight of nitrogen are such that two of these quantities are whole
4485multiples of the third quantity.
4486
4487Dalton's application of the Greek atomic theory to the facts
4488established by the analyses of compounds enabled him to attach to each
4489element a number which he called the atomic weight of the element, and
4490to summarise all the facts concerning the compositions of compounds in
4491the statement, that the elements combine in the ratios of their atomic
4492weights, or in the ratios of whole multiples of their atomic weights.
4493All the investigations which have been made into the compositions of
4494compounds, since Dalton's time, have confirmed the generalisation
4495which followed from Dalton's application of the atomic theory.
4496
4497Even if the theory of atoms were abandoned, the generalisation would
4498remain, as an accurate and exact statement of facts which hold good in
4499every chemical change, that a number can be attached to each element,
4500and the weights of the elements which combine are in the ratios of
4501these numbers, or whole multiples of these numbers.
4502
4503Since chemists realised the meaning of Dalton's book, published in
45041808, and entitled, _A New System of Chemical Philosophy_, elements
4505have been regarded as distinct and definite substances, which have not
4506been divided into parts different from themselves, and unite with each
4507other in definite quantities by weight which can be accurately
4508expressed as whole multiples of certain fixed quantities; and
4509compounds have been regarded as distinct and definite substances
4510which are formed by the union of, and can be separated into,
4511quantities of various elements which are expressible by certain fixed
4512numbers or whole multiples thereof. These descriptions of elements and
4513compounds are expressions of actual facts. They enable chemists to
4514state the compositions of all the compounds which are, or can be,
4515formed by the union of any elements. For example, let A, B, C, and D
4516represent four elements, and also certain definite weights of these
4517elements, then the compositions of all the compounds which can be
4518formed by the union of these elements are expressed by the scheme
4519A_{_n_} B_{_m_} C_{_p_} D_{_q_}, where _m_ _n_ _p_ and _q_ are whole
4520numbers.
4521
4522These descriptions of elements and compounds also enable chemists to
4523form a clear picture to themselves of any chemical change. They think
4524of a chemical change as being; (1) a union of those weights of two, or
4525more, elements which are expressed by the numbers attached to these
4526elements, or by whole multiples of these numbers; or (2) a union of
4527such weights of two, or more, compounds as can be expressed by certain
4528numbers or by whole multiples of these numbers; or (3) a reaction
4529between elements and compounds, or between compounds and compounds,
4530resulting in the redistribution of the elements concerned, in such a
4531way that the complete change of composition can be expressed by using
4532the numbers, or whole multiples of the numbers, attached to the
4533elements.
4534
4535How different is this conception of a change wherein substances are
4536formed, entirely unlike those things which react to form them, from
4537the alchemical presentment of such a process! The alchemist spoke of
4538stripping off the outer properties of the thing to be changed, and, by
4539operating spiritually on the soul which was thus laid bare, inducing
4540the essential virtue of the substance to exhibit its powers of
4541transmutation. But he was unable to give definite meanings to the
4542expressions which he used, he was unable to think clearly about the
4543transformations which he tried to accomplish. The chemist discards the
4544machinery of virtues, souls, and powers. It is true that he
4545substitutes a machinery of minute particles; but this machinery is
4546merely a means of thinking clearly and consistently about the changes
4547which he studies. The alchemist thought, vaguely, of substance as
4548something underlying, and independent of, properties; the chemist uses
4549the expression, this or that substance, as a convenient way of
4550presenting and reasoning about certain groups of properties. It seems
4551to me that if we think of _matter_ as something more than properties
4552recognised by the senses, we are going back on the road which leads to
4553the confusion of the alchemical times.
4554
4555The alchemists expressed their conceptions in what seems to us a
4556crude, inconsistent, and very undescriptive language. Chemists use a
4557language which is certainly symbolical, but also intelligible, and on
4558the whole fairly descriptive of the facts.
4559
4560A name is given to each elementary substance, that is, each substance
4561which has not been decomposed; the name generally expresses some
4562characteristic property of the substance, or tells something about
4563its origin or the place of its discovery. The names of compounds are
4564formed by putting together the names of the elements which combine to
4565produce them; and the relative quantities of these elements are
4566indicated either by the use of Latin or Greek prefixes, or by
4567variations in the terminal syllables of the names of the elements.
4568
4569
4570
4571
4572CHAPTER XIV.
4573
4574THE MODERN FORM OF THE ALCHEMICAL QUEST OF THE ONE THING.
4575
4576
4577The study of the properties of the elements shows that these
4578substances fall into groups, the members of each of which are like one
4579another, and form compounds which are similar. The examination of the
4580properties and compositions of compounds has shown that similarity of
4581properties is always accompanied by similarity of composition. Hence,
4582the fact that certain elements are very closely allied in their
4583properties suggests that these elements may also be allied in their
4584composition. Now, to speak of the composition of an element is to
4585think of the element as formed by the union of at least two different
4586substances; it implies the supposition that some elements at any rate
4587are really compounds.
4588
4589The fact that there is a very definite connexion between the values of
4590the atomic weights, and the properties, of the elements, lends some
4591support to the hypothesis that the substances we call, and are obliged
4592at present to call, elements, may have been formed from one, or a few,
4593distinct substances, by some process of progressive change. If the
4594elements are considered in the order of increasing atomic weights,
4595from hydrogen, whose atomic weight is taken as unity because it is the
4596lightest substance known, to uranium, an atom of which is 240 times
4597heavier than an atom of hydrogen, it is found that the elements fall
4598into periods, and the properties of those in one period vary from
4599element to element, in a way which is, broadly and on the whole, like
4600the variation of the properties of those in other periods. This fact
4601suggests the supposition--it might be more accurate to say the
4602speculation--that the elements mark the stable points in a process of
4603change, which has not proceeded continuously from a very simple
4604substance to a very complex one, but has repeated itself, with certain
4605variations, again and again. If such a process has occurred, we might
4606reasonably expect to find substances exhibiting only minute
4607differences in their properties, differences so slight as to make it
4608impossible to assign the substances, definitely and certainly, either
4609to the class of elements or to that of compounds. We find exactly such
4610substances among what are called the _rare earths_. There are
4611earth-like substances which exhibit no differences of chemical
4612properties, and yet show minute differences in the characters of the
4613light which they emit when they are raised to a very high
4614temperature.
4615
4616The results of analysis by the spectroscope of the light emitted by
4617certain elements at different temperatures may be reasonably
4618interpreted by supposing that these elements are separated into
4619simpler substances by the action on them of very large quantities of
4620thermal energy. The spectrum of the light emitted by glowing iron
4621heated by a Bunsen flame (say, at 1200° C. = about 2200° F.) shows a
4622few lines and flutings; when iron is heated in an electric arc (say,
4623to 3500° C. = about 6300° F.) the spectrum shows some two thousand
4624lines; at the higher temperature produced by the electric
4625spark-discharge, the spectrum shows only a few lines. As a guide to
4626further investigation, we may provisionally infer from these facts
4627that iron is changed at very high temperatures into substances simpler
4628than itself.
4629
4630Sir Norman Lockyer's study of the spectra of the light from stars has
4631shown that the light from those stars which are presumably the
4632hottest, judging by the general character of their spectra, reveals
4633the presence of a very small number of chemical elements; and that the
4634number of spectral lines, and, therefore, the number of elements,
4635increases as we pass from the hottest to cooler stars. At each stage
4636of the change from the hottest to cooler stars certain substances
4637disappear and certain other substances take their places. It may be
4638supposed, as a suggestive hypothesis, that the lowering of stellar
4639temperature is accompanied by the formation, from simpler forms of
4640matter, of such elements as iron, calcium, manganese, and other
4641metals.
4642
4643In the year 1896, the French chemist Becquerel discovered the fact
4644that salts of the metal uranium, the atomic weight of which is 240,
4645and is greater than that of any other element, emit rays which cause
4646electrified bodies to lose their electric charges, and act on
4647photographic plates that are wrapped in sheets of black paper, or in
4648thin sheets of other substances which stop rays of light. The
4649_radio-activity_ of salts of uranium was proved not to be increased or
4650diminished when these salts had been shielded for five years from the
4651action of light by keeping them in leaden boxes. Shortly after
4652Becquerel's discovery, experiments proved that salts of the rare metal
4653thorium are radio-active. This discovery was followed by Madame
4654Curie's demonstration of the fact that certain specimens of
4655_pitchblende_, a mineral which contains compounds of uranium and of
4656many other metals, are extremely radio-active, and by the separation
4657from pitchblende, by Monsieur and Madame Curie, of new substances much
4658more radio-active than compounds of uranium or of thorium. The new
4659substances were proved to be compounds chemically very similar to
4660salts of barium. Their compositions were determined on the supposition
4661that they were salts of an unknown metal closely allied to barium.
4662Because of the great radio-activity of the compounds, the hypothetical
4663metal of them was named _Radium_. At a later time, radium was isolated
4664by Madame Curie. It is described by her as a white, hard, metal-like
4665solid, which reacts with water at the ordinary temperature, as barium
4666does.
4667
4668Since the discovery of radium compounds, many radio-active substances
4669have been isolated. Only exceedingly minute quantities of any of them
4670have been obtained. The quantities of substances used in experiments
4671on radio-activity are so small that they escape the ordinary methods
4672of measurement, and are scarcely amenable to the ordinary processes of
4673the chemical laboratory. Fortunately, radio-activity can be detected
4674and measured by electrical methods of extraordinary fineness, methods
4675the delicacy of which very much more exceeds that of spectroscopic
4676methods than the sensitiveness of these surpasses that of ordinary
4677chemical analysis.
4678
4679At the time of the discovery of radio-activity, about seventy-five
4680substances were called elements; in other words, about seventy-five
4681different substances were known to chemists, none of which had been
4682separated into unlike parts, none of which had been made by the
4683coalescence of unlike substances. Compounds of only two of these
4684substances, uranium and thorium, are radio-active. Radio-activity is a
4685very remarkable phenomenon. So far as we know at present,
4686radio-activity is not a property of the substances which form almost
4687the whole of the rocks, the waters, and the atmosphere of the earth;
4688it is not a property of the materials which constitute living
4689organisms. It is a property of some thirty substances--of course, the
4690number may be increased--a few of which are found widely distributed
4691in rocks and waters, but none of which is found anywhere except in
4692extraordinarily minute quantity. Radium is the most abundant of these
4693substances; but only a very few grains of radium chloride can be
4694obtained from a couple of tons of pitchblende.
4695
4696In Chapter X. of _The Story of the Chemical Elements_ I have given a
4697short account of the outstanding phenomena of radio-activity; for the
4698present purpose it will suffice to state a few facts of fundamental
4699importance.
4700
4701Radio-active substances are stores of energy, some of which is
4702constantly escaping from them; they are constantly changing without
4703external compulsion, and are constantly radiating energy: all
4704explosives are storehouses of energy which, or part of which, can be
4705obtained from them; but the liberation of their energy must be started
4706by some kind of external shock. When an explosive substance has
4707exploded, its existence as an explosive is finished; the products of
4708the explosion are substances from which energy cannot be obtained:
4709when a radio-active substance has exploded, it explodes again, and
4710again, and again; a time comes, sooner or later, when it has changed
4711into substances that are useless as sources of energy. The
4712disintegration of an explosive, started by an external force, is
4713generally completed in a fraction of a second; change of condition
4714changes the rate of explosion: the "half-life period" of each
4715radio-active substance is a constant characteristic of it; if a gram
4716of radium were kept for about 1800 years, half of it would have
4717changed into radio-inactive substances. Conditions may be arranged so
4718that an explosive remains unchanged--wet gun-cotton is not exploded by
4719a shock which would start the explosion of dry gun-cotton--in other
4720words, the explosion of an explosive can be regulated: the explosive
4721changes of a radio-active substance, which are accompanied by the
4722radiation of energy, cannot be regulated; they proceed spontaneously
4723in a regular and definable manner which is not influenced by any
4724external conditions--such as great change of temperature, presence or
4725absence of other substances--so far as these conditions have been made
4726the subject of experiment: the amount of activity of a radio-active
4727substance has not been increased or diminished by any process to which
4728the substance has been subjected. Explosives are manufactured
4729articles; explosiveness is a property of certain arrangements of
4730certain quantities of certain elements: so far as experiments have
4731gone, it has not been found possible to add the property of
4732radio-activity to an inactive substance, or to remove the property of
4733radio-activity from an active substance; the cessation of the
4734radio-activity of an active substance is accompanied by the
4735disappearance of the substance, and the production of inactive bodies
4736altogether unlike the original active body.
4737
4738Radio-active substances are constantly giving off energy in the form
4739of heat, sending forth _rays_ which have definite and remarkable
4740properties, and producing gaseous _emanations_ which are very
4741unstable, and change, some very rapidly, some less rapidly, into other
4742substances, and emit _rays_ which are generally the same as the rays
4743emitted by the parent substance. In briefly considering these three
4744phenomena, I shall choose radium compounds as representative of the
4745class of radio-active substances.
4746
4747Radium compounds spontaneously give off energy in the form of heat. A
4748quantity of radium chloride which contains 1 gram of radium
4749continuously gives out, per hour, a quantity of heat sufficient to
4750raise the temperature of 1 gram of water through 100° C., or 100 grams
4751of water through 1° C. The heat given out by 1 gram of radium during
4752twenty-four hours would raise the temperature of 2400 grams of water
4753through 1° C.; in one year the temperature of 876,000 grams of water
4754would be raised through 1° C.; and in 1800 years, which is
4755approximately the half-life period of radium, the temperature of
47561,576,800 _kilograms_ of water would be raised through 1° C. These
4757results may be expressed by saying that if 1 gram (about 15 grains) of
4758radium were kept until half of it had changed into inactive
4759substances, and if the heat spontaneously produced during the changes
4760which occurred were caused to act on water, that quantity of heat
4761would raise the temperature of about 15½ tons of water from its
4762freezing- to its boiling-point.
4763
4764Radium compounds send forth three kinds of rays, distinguished as
4765_alpha_, _beta_, and _gamma_ rays. Experiments have made it extremely
4766probable that the [alpha]-rays are streams of very minute particles,
4767somewhat heavier than atoms of hydrogen, moving at the rate of about
476818,000 miles per second; and that the [beta]-rays are streams of much
4769more minute particles, the mass of each of which is about one
4770one-thousandth of the mass of an atom of hydrogen, moving about ten
4771times more rapidly than the [alpha]-particles, that is, moving at the
4772rate of about 180,000 miles per second. The [gamma]-rays are probably
4773pulsations of the ether, the medium supposed to fill space. The
4774emission of [alpha]-rays by radium is accompanied by the production of
4775the inert elementary gas, helium; therefore, the [alpha]-rays are, or
4776quickly change into, rapidly moving particles of helium. The particles
4777which constitute the [beta]-rays carry electric charges; these
4778electrified particles, each approximately a thousand times lighter
4779than an atom of hydrogen, moving nearly as rapidly as the pulsations
4780of the ether which we call light, are named _electrons_. The rays from
4781radium compounds discharge electrified bodies, ionise gases, that is,
4782cause them to conduct electricity, act on photographic plates, and
4783produce profound changes in living organisms.
4784
4785The radium emanation is a gas about 111 times heavier than hydrogen;
4786to this gas Sir William Ramsay has given the name _niton_. The gas has
4787been condensed to a colourless liquid, and frozen to an opaque solid
4788which glows like a minute arc-light. Radium emanation gives off
4789[alpha]-particles, that is, very rapidly moving atoms of helium, and
4790deposits exceedingly minute quantities of a solid, radio-active
4791substance known as radium A. The change of the emanation into helium
4792and radium A proceeds fairly rapidly: the half-life period of the
4793emanation is a little less than four days. This change is attended by
4794the liberation of much energy.
4795
4796The only satisfactory mental picture which the facts allow us to form,
4797at present, of the emission of [beta]-rays from radium compounds is
4798that which represents these rays as streams of electrons, that is,
4799particles, each about a thousand times lighter than an atom of
4800hydrogen, each carrying an electric charge, and moving at the rate of
4801about 180,000 miles per second, that is, nearly as rapidly as light.
4802When an electric discharge is passed from a plate of metal, arranged
4803as the kathode, to a metallic wire arranged as the anode, both sealed
4804through the walls of a glass tube or bulb from which almost the whole
4805of the air has been extracted, rays proceed from the kathode, in a
4806direction at right angles thereto, and, striking the glass in the
4807neighbourhood of the anode, produce a green phosphorescence. Facts
4808have been gradually accumulated which force us to think of these
4809_kathode rays_ as streams of very rapidly moving electrons, that is,
4810as streams of extraordinarily minute electrically charged particles
4811identical with the particles which form the [beta]-rays emitted by
4812compounds of radium.
4813
4814The phenomena of radio-activity, and also the phenomena of the kathode
4815rays, have obliged us to refine our machinery of minute particles by
4816including therein particles at least a thousand times lighter than
4817atoms of hydrogen. The term _electron_ was suggested, a good many
4818years ago, by Dr Johnstone Stoney, for the unit charge of electricity
4819which is carried by an atom of hydrogen when hydrogen atoms move in a
4820liquid or gas under the directing influence of the electric current.
4821Some chemists speak of the electrons, which are the [beta]-rays from
4822radium, and the kathode rays produced in almost vacuous tubes, as
4823non-material particles of electricity. Non-material means devoid of
4824mass. The method by which approximate determinations have been made of
4825the charges on electrons consists in measuring the ratio between the
4826charges and the masses of these particles. If the results of the
4827determinations are accepted, electrons are not devoid of mass.
4828Electrons must be thought of as material particles differing from
4829other minute material particles in the extraordinary smallness of
4830their masses, in the identity of their properties, including their
4831mass, in their always carrying electric charges, and in the vast
4832velocity of their motion. We must think of an electron either as a
4833unit charge of electricity one property of which is its minute mass,
4834or as a material particle having an extremely small mass and carrying
4835a unit charge of electricity: the two mental pictures are almost, if
4836not quite, identical.
4837
4838Electrons are produced by sending an electric discharge through a
4839glass bulb containing a minute quantity of air or other gas, using
4840metallic plates or wires as kathode and anode. Experiments have shown
4841that the electrons are identical in all their properties, whatever
4842metal is used to form the kathode and anode, and of whatever gas there
4843is a minute quantity in the bulb. The conclusion must be drawn that
4844identical electrons are constituents of, or are produced from, very
4845different kinds of chemical elements. As the facts about kathode rays,
4846and the facts of radio-activity are (at present) inexplicable except
4847on the supposition that these phenomena are exhibited by particles of
4848extraordinary minuteness, and as the smallest particles with which
4849chemists are concerned in their everyday work are the atoms of the
4850elements, we seem obliged to think of many kinds of atoms as
4851structures, not as homogeneous bodies. We seem obliged to think of
4852atoms as very minute material particles, which either normally are, or
4853under definite conditions may be, associated with electrically charged
4854particles very much lighter than themselves, all of which are
4855identical, whatever be the atoms with which they are associated or
4856from which they are produced.
4857
4858In their study of different kinds of matter, chemists have found it
4859very helpful to place in one class those substances which they have
4860not been able to separate into unlike parts. They have distinguished
4861this class of substances from other substances, and have named them
4862_elements_. The expression _chemical elements_ is merely a summary of
4863certain observed facts. For many centuries chemists have worked with a
4864conceptual machinery based on the notion that matter has a grained
4865structure. For more than a hundred years they have been accustomed to
4866think of atoms as the ultimate particles with which they have had to
4867deal. Working with this order-producing instrument, they have regarded
4868the properties of elements as properties of the atoms, or of groups of
4869a few of the atoms, of these substances. That they might think clearly
4870and suggestively about the properties of elements, and connect these
4871with other chemical facts, they have translated the language of
4872sense-perceptions into the language of thought, and, for _properties
4873of those substances which have not been decomposed_, have used the
4874more fertile expression _atomic properties_. When a chemist thinks of
4875an atom, he thinks of the minutest particle of one of the substances
4876which have the class-mark _have-not-been-decomposed_, and the
4877class-name _element_. The chemist does not call these substances
4878elements because he has been forced to regard the minute particles of
4879them as undivided, much less because he thinks of these particles as
4880indivisible; his mental picture of their structure as an atomic
4881structure formed itself from the fact that they had not been
4882decomposed. The formation of the class _element_ followed necessarily
4883from observed facts, and has been justified by the usefulness of it as
4884an instrument for forwarding accurate knowledge. The conception of the
4885elementary atom as a particle which had not been decomposed followed
4886from many observed facts besides those concerning elements, and has
4887been justified by the usefulness of it as an instrument for forwarding
4888accurate knowledge. Investigations proved radio-activity to be a
4889property of the very minute particles of certain substances, and each
4890radio-active substance to have characteristic properties, among which
4891were certain of those that belong to elements, and to some extent are
4892characteristic of elements. Evidently, the simplest way for a chemist
4893to think about radio-activity was to think of it as an atomic
4894property; hence, as atomic properties had always been regarded, in the
4895last analysis, as properties of elements, it was natural to place the
4896radio-active substances in the class _elements_, provided that one
4897forgot for the time that these substances have not the class-mark
4898_have-not-been-decomposed_.
4899
4900As the facts of radio-activity led to the conclusion that some of the
4901minute particles of radio-active substances are constantly
4902disintegrating, and as these substances had been labelled _elements_,
4903it seemed probable, or at least possible, that the other bodies which
4904chemists have long called elements are not true elements, but are
4905merely more stable collocations of particles than the substances which
4906are classed as compounds. As compounds can be changed into certain
4907other compounds, although not into any other compounds, a way seemed
4908to be opening which might lead to the transformation of some elements
4909into some other elements.
4910
4911The probability that one element might be changed into another was
4912increased by the demonstration of the connexions between uranium and
4913radium. The metal uranium has been classed with the elements since it
4914was isolated in 1840. In 1896, Becquerel found that compounds of
4915uranium, and also the metal itself, are radio-active. In the light of
4916what is now known about radio-activity, it is necessary to suppose
4917that some of the minute particles of uranium emit particles lighter
4918than themselves, and change into some substance, or substances,
4919different from uranium; in other words, it is necessary to suppose
4920that some particles of uranium are spontaneously disintegrating.
4921This supposition is confirmed by the fact, experimentally proved,
4922that uranium emits [alpha]-rays, that is, atoms of helium, and
4923produces a substance known as uranium X. Uranium X is itself
4924radio-active; it emits [beta]-rays, that is, it gives off electrons.
4925Inasmuch as all minerals which contain compounds of uranium contain
4926compounds of radium also, it is probable that radium is one of the
4927disintegration-products of uranium. The rate of decay of radium may be
4928roughly expressed by saying that, if a quantity of radium were kept
4929for ten thousand years, only about one per cent. of the original
4930quantity would then remain unchanged. Even if it were assumed that at
4931a remote time the earth's crust contained considerable quantities of
4932radium compounds, it is certain that they would have completely
4933disappeared long ago, had not compounds of radium been reproduced from
4934other materials. Again, the most likely hypothesis is that compounds
4935of radium are being produced from compounds of uranium.
4936
4937Uranium is a substance which, after being rightly classed with the
4938elements for more than half a century, because it had not been
4939separated into unlike parts, must now be classed with the radium-like
4940substances which disintegrate spontaneously, although it differs from
4941other radio-active substances in that its rate of change is almost
4942infinitively slower than that of any of them, except thorium.[12]
4943Thorium, a very rare metal, is the second of the seventy-five or
4944eighty elements known when radio-activity was discovered, which has
4945been found to undergo spontaneous disintegration with the emission of
4946rays. The rate of change of thorium is considerably slower than that
4947of uranium.[13] None of the other substances placed in the class of
4948elements is radio-active.
4949
4950   [12] The life-period of uranium is probably about eight
4951   thousand million years.
4952
4953   [13] The life-period of thorium is possibly about forty
4954   thousand million years.
4955
4956On p. 192 I said, that when the radio-active substances had been
4957labelled _elements_, the facts of radio-activity led some chemists to
4958the conclusion that the other bodies which had for long been called by
4959this class-name, or at any rate some of these bodies, are perhaps not
4960true elements, but are merely more stable collocations of particles
4961than the substances called compounds. It seems to me that this
4962reasoning rests on an unscientific use of the term _element_; it rests
4963on giving to that class-name the meaning, _substances asserted to be
4964undecomposable_. A line of demarcation is drawn between _elements_,
4965meaning thereby forms of matter said to be undecomposable but probably
4966capable of separation into unlike parts, and _true elements_, meaning
4967thereby groups of identical undecomposable particles. If one names the
4968radio-active substances _elements_, one is placing in this class
4969substances which are specially characterised by a property the direct
4970opposite of that the possession of which by other substances was the
4971reason for the formation of the class. To do this may be ingenious; it
4972is certainly not scientific.
4973
4974Since the time of Lavoisier, since the last decade of the eighteenth
4975century, careful chemists have meant by an element a substance which
4976has not been separated into unlike parts, and they have not meant
4977more than that. The term _element_ has been used by accurate thinkers
4978as a useful class-mark which connotes a property--the property of not
4979having been decomposed--common to all substances placed in the class,
4980and differentiating them from all other substances. Whenever chemists
4981have thought of elements as the ultimate kinds of matter with which
4982the physical world is constructed--and they have occasionally so
4983thought and written--they have fallen into quagmires of confusion.
4984
4985Of course, the elements may, some day, be separated into unlike parts.
4986The facts of radio-activity certainly suggest some kind of inorganic
4987evolution. Whether the elements are decomposed is to be determined by
4988experimental inquiry, remembering always that no number of failures to
4989simplify them will justify the assertion that they cannot be
4990simplified. Chemistry neither asserts or denies the decomposability of
4991the elements. At present, we have to recognise the existence of
4992extremely small quantities, widely distributed in rocks and waters, of
4993some thirty substances, the minute particles of which are constantly
4994emitting streams of more minute, identical particles that carry with
4995them very large quantities of energy, all of which thirty substances
4996are characterised, and are differentiated from all other classes of
4997substances wherewith chemistry is concerned, by their spontaneous
4998mutability, and each is characterised by its special rate of change
4999and by the nature of the products of its mutations. We have now to
5000think of the minute particles of two of the seventy-five or eighty
5001substances which until the other day had not been decomposed, and were
5002therefore justly called elements, as very slowly emitting streams of
5003minuter particles and producing characteristic products of their
5004disintegration. And we have to think of some eighty substances as
5005particular kinds of matter, at present properly called elements,
5006because they are characterised, and differentiated from all other
5007substances, by the fact that none of them has been separated into
5008unlike parts.
5009
5010The study of radio-activity has introduced into chemistry and physics
5011a new order of minute particles. Dalton made the atom a beacon-light
5012which revealed to chemists paths that led them to wider and more
5013accurate knowledge. Avogadro illuminated chemical, and also physical,
5014ways by his conception of the molecule as a stable, although
5015separable, group of atoms with particular properties different from
5016those of the atoms which constituted it. The work of many
5017investigators has made the old paths clearer, and has shown to
5018chemists and physicists ways they had not seen before, by forcing them
5019to think of, and to make use of, a third kind of material particles
5020that are endowed with the extraordinary property of radio-activity.
5021Dalton often said: "Thou knowest thou canst not cut an atom"; but the
5022fact that he applied the term _atom_ to the small particles of
5023compounds proves that he had escaped the danger of logically defining
5024the atom, the danger of thinking of it as a particle which never can
5025be cut. The molecule of Avogadro has always been a decomposable
5026particle. The peculiarity of the new kind of particles, the particles
5027of radio-active bodies, is, not that they can be separated into unlike
5028parts by the action of external forces, but that they are constantly
5029separating of their own accord into unlike parts, and that their
5030spontaneous disintegration is accompanied by the production of energy,
5031the quantity of which is enormous in comparison with the minuteness of
5032the material specks which are the carriers of it.
5033
5034The continued study of the properties of the minute particles of
5035radio-active substances--a new name is needed for those most mutable
5036of material grains--must lead to discoveries of great moment for
5037chemistry and physics. That study has already thrown much light on the
5038phenomena of electric conductivity; it has given us the electron, a
5039particle at least a thousand times lighter than an atom of hydrogen;
5040it has shown us that identical electrons are given off by, or are
5041separated from, different kinds of elementary atoms, under definable
5042conditions; it has revealed unlooked-for sources of energy; it has
5043opened, and begun the elucidation of, a new department of physical
5044science; it has suggested a new way of attacking the old problem of
5045the alchemists, the problem of the transmutation of the elements.
5046
5047The minute particles of two of the substances for many years classed
5048as elements give off electrons; uranium and thorium are radio-active.
5049Electrons are produced by sending an electric discharge through very
5050small traces of different gases, using electrodes of different metals.
5051Electrons are also produced by exposing various metals to the action
5052of ultra-violet light, and by raising the temperature of various
5053metals to incandescence. Electrons are always identical, whatever be
5054their source. Three questions suggest themselves. Can the atoms of all
5055the elements be caused to give off electrons? Are electrons normal
5056constituents of all elementary atoms? Are elementary atoms
5057collocations of electrons? These questions are included in the
5058demand--Is it possible "to imagine a model which has in it the
5059potentiality of explaining" radio-activity and other allied phenomena,
5060as well as all other chemical and physical properties of elements and
5061compounds? These questions are answerable by experimental
5062investigation, and only by experimental investigation. If experimental
5063inquiry leads to affirmative answers to the questions, we shall have
5064to think of atoms as structures of particles much lighter than
5065themselves; we shall have to think of the atoms of all kinds of
5066substances, however much the substances differ chemically and
5067physically, as collocations of identical particles; we shall have to
5068think of the properties of atoms as conditioned, in our final
5069analysis, by the number and the arrangement of their constitutive
5070electrons. Now, if a large probability were established in favour of
5071the view that different atoms are collocations of different numbers of
5072identical particles, or of equal numbers of differently arranged
5073identical particles, we should have a guide which might lead to
5074methods whereby one collocation of particles could be formed from
5075another collocation of the same particles, a guide which might lead
5076to methods whereby one element could be transformed into another
5077element.
5078
5079To attempt "to imagine a model which has in it the potentiality of
5080explaining" radio-activity, the production of kathode rays, and the
5081other chemical and physical properties of elements and compounds,
5082might indeed seem to be a hopeless undertaking. A beginning has been
5083made in the mental construction of such a model by Professor Sir J.J.
5084Thomson. To attempt a description of his reasoning and his results is
5085beyond the scope of this book.[14]
5086
5087   [14] The subject is discussed in Sir J.J. Thomson's
5088   _Electricity and Matter_.
5089
5090The facts that the emanation from radium compounds spontaneously gives
5091off very large quantities of energy, and that the emanation can easily
5092be brought into contact with substances on which it is desired to do
5093work, suggested to Sir William Ramsay that the transformation of
5094compounds of one element into compounds of another element might
5095possibly be effected by enclosing a solution of a compound along with
5096radium emanation in a sealed tube, and leaving the arrangement to
5097itself. Under these conditions, the molecules of the compound would be
5098constantly bombarded by a vast number of electrons shot forth at
5099enormous velocities from the emanation. The notion was that the
5100molecules of the compound would break down under the bombardment, and
5101that the atoms so produced might be knocked into simpler groups of
5102particles--in other words, changed into other atoms--by the terrific,
5103silent shocks of the electrons fired at them incessantly by the
5104disintegrating emanation. Sir William Ramsay regards his experimental
5105results as establishing a large probability in favour of the assertion
5106that compounds of copper were transformed into compounds of lithium
5107and sodium, and compounds of thorium, of cerium, and of certain other
5108rare metals, into compounds of carbon. The experimental evidence in
5109favour of this statement has not been accepted by chemists as
5110conclusive. A way has, however, been opened which may lead to
5111discoveries of great moment.
5112
5113Let us suppose that the transformation of one element into another
5114element or into other elements has been accomplished. Let us suppose
5115that the conception of elementary atoms as very stable arrangements of
5116many identical particles, from about a thousand to about a quarter of
5117a million times lighter than the atoms, has been justified by crucial
5118experiments. Let us suppose that the conception of the minute grains
5119of radio-active substances as particular but constantly changing
5120arrangements of the same identical particles, stable groups of which
5121are the atoms of the elements, has been firmly established. One result
5122of the establishment of the electronic conception of atomic structure
5123would be an increase of our wonder at the complexity of nature's ways,
5124and an increase of our wonder that it should be possible to substitute
5125a simple, almost rigid, mechanical machinery for the ever-changing
5126flow of experience, and, by the use of that mental mechanism, not
5127only to explain very many phenomena of vast complexity, but also to
5128predict occurrences of similar entanglement and to verify these
5129predictions.
5130
5131The results which have been obtained in the examination of
5132radio-activity, of kathode rays, of spectra at different temperatures,
5133and of phenomena allied to these, bring again into prominence the
5134ancient problem of the structure of what we call matter. Is matter
5135fundamentally homogeneous or heterogeneous? Chemistry studies the
5136relations between the changes of composition and the changes of
5137properties which happen simultaneously in material systems. The
5138burning fire of wood, coal, or gas; the preparation of food to excite
5139and to satisfy the appetite; the change of minerals into the iron,
5140steel, copper, brass, lead, tin, lighting burning and lubricating
5141oils, dye-stuffs and drugs of commerce; the change of the skins, wool,
5142and hair of animals, and of the seeds and fibres of plants, into
5143clothing for human beings; the manufacture from rags, grass, or wood
5144of a material fitted to receive and to preserve the symbols of human
5145hopes, fears, aspirations, love and hate, pity and aversion; the
5146strange and most delicate processes which, happening without
5147cessation, in plants and animals and men, maintain that balanced
5148equilibrium which we call life; and, when the silver cord is being
5149loosed and the bowl broken at the cistern, the awful changes which
5150herald the approach of death; not only the growing grass in midsummer
5151meadows, not only the coming of autumn "in dyed garments, travelling
5152in the glory of his apparel," but also the opening buds, the pleasant
5153scents, the tender colours which stir our hearts in "the spring time,
5154the only pretty ring time, when birds do sing, ding-a--dong-ding":
5155these, and a thousand other changes have all their aspects which it is
5156the business of the chemist to investigate. Confronted with so vast a
5157multitude of never-ceasing changes, and bidden to find order there, if
5158he can--bidden, rather compelled by that imperious command which
5159forces the human mind to seek unity in variety, and, if need be, to
5160create a cosmos from a chaos; no wonder that the early chemists jumped
5161at the notion that there must be, that there is, some _One Thing_,
5162some _Universal Essence_, which binds into an orderly whole the
5163perplexing phenomena of nature, some _Water of Paradise_ which is for
5164the healing of all disorder, some "Well at the World's End," a draught
5165whereof shall bring peace and calm security.
5166
5167The alchemists set forth on the quest. Their quest was barren. They
5168made the great mistake of fashioning _The One Thing, The Essence, The
5169Water of Paradise_, from their own imaginings of what nature ought to
5170be. In their own likeness they created their goal, and the road to it.
5171If we are to understand nature, they cried, her ways must be simple;
5172therefore, her ways are simple. Chemists are people of a humbler
5173heart. Their reward has been greater than the alchemists dreamed. By
5174selecting a few instances of material changes, and studying these with
5175painful care, they have gradually elaborated a general conception of
5176all those transformations wherein substances are produced unlike those
5177by the interaction of which they are formed. That general conception
5178is now both widening and becoming more definite. To-day, chemists see
5179a way opening before them which they reasonably hope will lead them to
5180a finer, a more far-reaching, a more suggestive, at once a more
5181complex and a simpler conception of material changes than any of those
5182which have guided them in the past.
5183
5184
5185
5186
5187INDEX
5188
5189
5190Air, ancient views regarding, 129.
5191
5192---- views of Mayow and Rey regarding, 129.
5193
5194Alchemical account of changes contrasted with chemical account, 169.
5195
5196---- agent, the, 64.
5197
5198---- allegories, examples of, 41, 97.
5199
5200---- classification, 59.
5201
5202---- doctrine of body, soul, and spirit of things, 48.
5203
5204---- doctrine of transmutation, 47, 74, 123, 170.
5205
5206---- language, 36, 96, 101, 102.
5207
5208---- quest of the One Thing, modern form of, 179.
5209
5210---- signs, 105.
5211
5212---- theory, general sketch of, 26.
5213
5214Alchemists, character of, according to Paracelsus, 25.
5215
5216---- made many discoveries, 87.
5217
5218---- sketches of lives of some, 115.
5219
5220---- their use of fanciful analogies, 31.
5221
5222Alchemy, beginnings of, 23.
5223
5224---- change of, to chemistry, 126.
5225
5226---- contrasted with chemistry, 202.
5227
5228---- general remarks on, 123.
5229
5230---- lent itself to imposture, 106.
5231
5232---- object of, 9, 26, 32, 105.
5233
5234---- probable origin of word, 25.
5235
5236---- quotations to illustrate aims and methods of, 11-14.
5237
5238Alembic, 92.
5239
5240Apparatus and operations of alchemists, 90.
5241
5242Art, the sacred, 122.
5243
5244Atom, meaning given to word by Dalton, 173.
5245
5246Atomic theory of Greeks, 16.
5247
5248---- additions made to, by Dalton, 21.
5249
5250---- as described by Lucretius, 19.
5251
5252Atomic weight, 174.
5253
5254Atoms and electrons, 190, 198.
5255
5256
5257Bacon's remarks on alchemy, 95.
5258
5259Balsamo, Joseph, 110.
5260
5261Basil Valentine, his description of the three principles, 51.
5262
5263---- his description of the four elements, 49.
5264
5265---- some of his discoveries, 88.
5266
5267Becquerel, his discovery of radiation of uranium, 181.
5268
5269Body, soul, and spirit of things, alchemical doctrine of, 48.
5270
5271Boyle, on calcination, 128.
5272
5273---- on combustion, 141.
5274
5275---- on elements, 161.
5276
5277---- on the "hermetick philosophers," 95.
5278
5279---- on the language of the alchemists, 55.
5280
5281---- on the natural state of bodies, 43.
5282
5283
5284Cagliostro, 110.
5285
5286Calcination, 129, 132, 135, 140, 142, 151, 155.
5287
5288Chaucer's _Canon's Yeoman's Tale_, 107.
5289
5290Chemical conception of material changes, 177.
5291
5292Chemistry, aim of, 9, 26, 160.
5293
5294---- change from alchemy to, 126.
5295
5296---- methods of, 10.
5297
5298---- probable origin of word, 24.
5299
5300Classification, alchemical methods of, 59.
5301
5302Colours, Lucretius' explanation of differences between, 18.
5303
5304Combustion, 141.
5305
5306Compounds, chemical conception of, 171.
5307
5308Conservation of mass, 164.
5309
5310Curie, her discovery of radium, 182.
5311
5312
5313Dalton's additions to the Greek atomic theory, 21, 172.
5314
5315Democritus, his saying about atoms, 15.
5316
5317Dephlogisticated air, 147.
5318
5319Destruction, thought by alchemists to precede restoration, 65, 127.
5320
5321
5322Electrons, 187-189, 197, 198.
5323
5324Elements, alchemical, contrasted with chemical, 165;
5325  radio-active substances contrasted with, 190-192.
5326
5327---- the alchemical, 49, 54, 60.
5328
5329---- the chemical, 61, 62, 161.
5330
5331---- use of word, by phlogisteans, 133.
5332
5333Essence, the alchemical, 32, 35, 49, 58, 72.
5334
5335
5336Fire, different meanings of the word, 53.
5337
5338
5339Gates, the alchemical, 69.
5340
5341Gold, considered by alchemists to be the most perfect metal, 40, 45.
5342
5343Greek thinkers, their atomic theory, 15.
5344
5345
5346Hermes Trismegistus, 37.
5347
5348
5349Kathode rays, 188.
5350
5351
5352Language of alchemy, 96.
5353
5354---- purposely made misleading, 36.
5355
5356Lavoisier on calcination, 153, 155.
5357
5358---- his use of word _element_, 194.
5359
5360---- his use of word _principle_, 163, _note_.
5361
5362---- on object of chemistry, 160.
5363
5364---- on oxygen, 155.
5365
5366---- on systems in science, 163.
5367
5368---- on the principle of acidity, 59, 155.
5369
5370---- on the reactions of metals with acids, 158.
5371
5372---- on the transmutation of water to earth, 152.
5373
5374Lockyer, on spectra of elements, 181.
5375
5376Lucretius, his theory of nature, 16.
5377
5378
5379Magic, characteristics of, 23, 24.
5380
5381Material changes, Greek theory of, 15.
5382
5383Metals, alchemical connexion between, and plants, 34.
5384
5385---- compared by alchemists with vegetables, 33.
5386
5387---- mortification of, 65.
5388
5389---- seed of, 34.
5390
5391---- their desire to become gold, 40.
5392
5393---- transmutation of, 33, 39, 46.
5394
5395
5396Natural state of bodies, 39, 43.
5397
5398
5399Oxygen, 144, 145.
5400
5401
5402Paracelsus, his description of alchemists, 25.
5403
5404---- his distinction between natural and artificial mortification, 65.
5405
5406---- sketch of life of, 117.
5407
5408Pelican, 92.
5409
5410Perfection, alchemical teaching regarding, 27, 40.
5411
5412Phlogistic theory, 133, 139.
5413
5414Phlogiston, 126, 130, 137.
5415
5416Priestley, his discovery of oxygen, 144.
5417
5418Principles, the alchemical, 49, 51, 54, 60, 133.
5419
5420---- Lavoisier's use of the word, 163, _note_.
5421
5422
5423Radio-active substances, are they elements? 191, 194, 195;
5424  properties of, 185-187.
5425
5426Radio-activity, characteristics of, 183, 184;
5427  of radium, 186;
5428  of thorium, 193;
5429  of uranium, 193.
5430
5431Radium, emanation of, 187;
5432  heat from, 186;
5433  rays from, 186.
5434
5435Ramsay, on transmutation of elements, 199.
5436
5437Regimens, the alchemical, 72.
5438
5439
5440Sacred art, the, 122.
5441
5442Scientific theories, general characters of, 21, 150.
5443
5444Seed, alchemical doctrine of, 56.
5445
5446Seeds of metals, 34.
5447
5448Simplicity, asserted by alchemists to be the mark of nature, 28, 38.
5449
5450---- is not necessarily the mark of verity, 138.
5451
5452Solids, liquids, and gases, atomic explanation of, 19.
5453
5454Stahl, his phlogistic theory, 130.
5455
5456Stone, the philosopher's, 32, 35, 49, 58, 72.
5457
5458
5459Thorium, radio-activity of, 183, 193.
5460
5461Transmutation, alchemical doctrine of, 47, 74, 123.
5462
5463---- character of him who would attempt, 63.
5464
5465---- of metals, 33, 39, 46, 74.
5466
5467---- of metals into gold, alchemical account of, 75.
5468
5469---- of water to earth, 151.
5470
5471Transmutations, apparent examples of, 82.
5472
5473
5474Uranium, radio-activity of, 183, 192;
5475  relation of, to radium, 192, 193.
5476
5477
5478Vegetables compared with metals by alchemists, 33.
5479
5480
5481Water contains hydrogen and oxygen, examination of this phrase, 167.
5482
5483Water, different meanings of the word, 53, 167.