Page:Edward Thorpe — History of Chemistry, Volume I (1909).pdf/47

Rh attempts were deliberately and consciously fraudulent, like those of coiners who knowingly seek to make an alloy of lead and tin simulate silver. The first alchemists sought in good faith to make something which should be of the true nature and essence of gold as they conceived it to be. In fact, the idea of transmutation had a rational foundation in a theory of the intrinsic nature of metals which may be looked upon as a development of the ancient beliefs concerning the essential nature of all forms of matter.

Just as the Aristotelian “elements” were qualities which, according to their degree, determined the nature of substances, so, in like manner, the specific character of a metal depended upon the relative proportion of its “sulphur” and “mercury.” These terms had no certain reference to what we to-day understand by sulphur and mercury. They denoted simply qualities. The essence or “element” of mercury conferred lustre, malleability, ductility, and fusibility, or, speaking generally, the properties which we connote as metallic; while to the essence or “element” of sulphur was to be attributed the combustibility—or, speaking generally, the alterability—of the metal by fire. By modifying the relative proportion of these constituent elements, or by purifying them from extraneous substances by the operations of chemistry, it was conceived that the several