Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 01.djvu/354

ALCHEMY. astronomy, or legend to history. In the eye of the astrologer, a knowledge of the stars was val- uable as a means of foretelling, or even of influ- encing, future events. In like manner, the gen- uine alchemist toiled with his crucibles and alembics, calcining, subliming, distilling, with two grand objects, as illusory as those of the astrologer — to discover, namely, { 1 ) the secret of transmuting the baser metals into gold and silver, and ( 2 ) the means of indefinitely pro- longing human life.

Tradition points to Egypt as the birthplace of the science. The god Hermes Trisniegistus is represented as the father of it; and tlie most jjrobable etymology of the name is that which con- nects it with the most ancient and native name of Egypt, Cheiiii (the Scripture Cham or Ham). The Greeks and Romans under the empire would seem to have become acquainted with it from the Egj^ptians: there is no reason to believe that in early times either people had the name or the thing. Chcrnia (Gk. xil'-^'"< chemcia) occurs in the lexicon of Suidas. written about the elev- enth century, and is explained by him to be "the conversion of silver and gold." It is to the Arabs, from whom Europe got the name and the art, that the term owes the prefixed article al. As if clicniia had been a generic term embracing all common chemical operations, such as the decocting and compounding of ordinary drugs, the grand operation of transmutation was denominated the chemia (al-chemi/) — the chemistry of chemistries. The Roman Emperor Caligula is said to have instituted experiments for the producing of gold out of orpiment (sulphide of arsenic) ; and in the time of Diocletian, the passion for this pursuit, conjoined with magical arts, had become so prevalent in the Empire, that that Emperor is said to have ordered all Egyi)tian works treating of the chemistry of gold and silver to be burned. For at that time multitudes of books on this art were appearing, written by Alexandrine monks and by hermits, but bearing famous names of antiquity, such as Democritus, Pythagoras, and Hermes.

At a later period, the Arabs took up the art, and it is to them that European alchemy is directly traceable. The school of polypharmacy, as it has been called, flourished in Arabia during the caliphate of the Abbassides. The earliest work of this school now known is the Sunima Perfectionis, or "Summit of Perfection," com- posed by Geber (q.v.) about the eighth century; it is consequently the oldest book on chemistry proper in the world. It contains so much of what sounds very much like jargon in modern ears, that Dr. .Johnson ascribes the origin of the word "gibberish" to the name of the compiler. Yet, when viewed in its true light, it is a wonder- ful performance. It is a kind of text-book, or collection of all that was then known and be- lieved. It appears that these Arabian poly pharmists had long been engaged in firing and boiling, dissolving and precipitating, subliming and coagulating chemical substances. They worked with gold and mercury, arsenic and sul- phur, salts and acids, and had, in short, become familiar with a large range of what are now called chemicals. Geber taught that there are three elemental chemicals — -mercury, sulphur, and arsenic. These substances, especially the first two, seem to have fascinated the thoughts of the alchemists by their potent and penetrating qualities. They saw mercury dissolve gold, the most incorruptible of matters, as water dissolves sugar; and a stick of sulphur presented to hot iron penetrates it like a spirit, and makes it run down in a shower of solid drops, a new and remarkable substance, possessed of properties belonging neither to iron nor to sulphur. The Arabians held that the metals are compound bodies, made up of mercury and sulphur in different proportions. With these very excusable errors in theory, they were genuine practical chemists. They toiled away at the art of making "many medicines" (polypharmacy) out of the various mixtures and reactions of such chemicals as they knew. They had their pestles an^ mortars, their crucibles and furnaces, their alembics and aludels, their vessels for infusion, for decoction, for cohabitation, sublimation, fixation, lixiviation, filtration, coagulation, etc. Their scientific creed was transmutation, and their methods were mostly blind gropings ; and yet, in this way, they found out many a new substance and invent- ed many a useful process.

From the Arabs, alchemy found its way through Spain into Europe, and speedily became entangled with the fantastic subtleties of the scholastic philosophy. In the Middle Ages, it was chiefly the monks who occupied themselves with alchemy. Pope John XXII. took great delight in it, though it was afterward forbidden by his successor. The earliest authentic works on European alchemy now extant are those of Roger Bacon (died about 1294) and Albertus Magnus. Bacon appears rather the earlier of the two as a writer, and is really the greatest man in all the school. He was acquainted with gun-powder. Although he condemns magic, necromancy, charms, and all such things, he believes in the convertibility of the inferior metals into gold, but does not profess to have ever effected the conversion. He had more faith in the elixir of life than in gold-making. He followed Gel)er in regarding potable gold — that is, gold dissolved in nitro-hydroehloric acid or aqua vegia — as the elixir of life. Urging it on the attention of Pope Nicholas IV., he informs his Holiness of an old man who found some yellow liquor (the solution of gold is yellow) in a golden vial, when plowing one day in Sicily. Supposing it to be dew, he drank it off. He was thereupon transformed into a hale, robust, and highly accomplished youth. Bacon no doubt took many a dose of this golden water himself. Albertus Magnus had a great mastery of the practical chemistry of his times; he was acquainted with alum, caustic alkali, and the purification of the royal metals by means of lead. In addition to the sulphur-and-mercury theory of the metals, drawn from Geber, he regarded the element water as still nearer the soul of nature than either of these bodies. He appears, indeed, to have thought it the primary matter, or the radical source of all things — an opinion held by Thales, the father of Greek speculation. Thomas Aciuinas also wrote on alchemy, and was the first to employ the word amalgam (q.v.). Raymond Lully is another great name in the annals of alchemy. His writings are much more disfigured by unintelligible .jargon than those of Bacon and Albertus Jlagniis. He was the first to introduce the use of chemical symbols, his system consisting of a scheme of arbitrary hieroglyphics. He made much of the spirit of wine (the art of distilling spirits woidd seem to have been then recent), imposing on it the name of aqua vita; ardens.