The Story of Alchemy and the Beginnings of Chemistry Part 3

In his _Tract Concerning the Great Stone of the Ancient Sages_, Basil Valentine speaks of the "three Principles," salt, sulphur, and mercury, the source of which is the Elements.

"There are four Elements, and each has at its centre another element which makes it what it is. These are the four pillars of the earth."

Of the element _Earth_, he says:--"In this element the other three, especially fire, are latent.... It is gross and porous, specifically heavy, but naturally light.... It receives all that the other three project into it, conscientiously conceals what it should hide, and brings to light that which it should manifest.... Outwardly it is visible and fixed, inwardly it is invisible and volatile."

Of the element _Water_, Basil Valentine says:--"Outwardly it is volatile, inwardly it is fixed, cold, and humid.... It is the solvent of the world, and exists in three degrees of excellence: the pure, the purer, and the purest. Of its purest substance the heavens were created; of that which is less pure the atmospheric air was formed; that which is simply pure remains in its proper sphere where ... it is guardian of all subtle substances here below."

Concerning the element _Air_, he writes:--"The most n.o.ble Element of Air ... is volatile, but may be fixed, and when fixed renders all bodies penetrable.... It is n.o.bler than Earth or Water.... It nourishes, impregnates, conserves the other elements."

Finally, of the element _Fire_:--"Fire is the purest and n.o.blest of all Elements, full of adhesive unctuous corrosiveness, penetrant, digestive, inwardly fixed, hot and dry, outwardly visible, and tempered by the earth.... This Element is the most pa.s.sive of all, and resembles a chariot; when it is drawn, it moves; when it is not drawn, it stands still."

Basil Valentine then tells his readers that Adam was compounded of the four pure Elements, but after his expulsion from Paradise he became subject to the various impurities of the animal creation. "The pure Elements of his creation were gradually mingled and infected with the corruptible elements of the outer world, and thus his body became more and more gross, and liable, through its grossness, to natural decay and death." The process of degeneration was slow at first, but "as time went on, the seed out of which men were generated became more and more infected with perishable elements. The continued use of corruptible food rendered their bodies more and more gross; and human life was soon reduced to a very brief span."

Basil Valentine then deals with the formation of the three _Principles_ of things, by the mutual action of the four Elements.

Fire acting on Air produced _Sulphur_; Air acting on Water produced _Mercury_; Water acting on Earth produced _Salt_. Earth having nothing to act on produced nothing, but became the nurse of the three Principles. "The three Principles," he says, "are necessary because they are the immediate substance of metals. The remoter substance of metals is the four elements, but no one can produce anything out of them but G.o.d; and even G.o.d makes nothing of them but these three Principles."

To endeavour to obtain the four pure Elements is a hopeless task. But the Sage has the three Principles at hand. "The artist should determine which of the three Principles he is seeking, and should a.s.sist it so that it may overcome its contrary." "The art consists in an even mingling of the virtues of the Elements; in the natural equilibrium of the hot, the dry, the cold, and the moist."

The account of the Elements given by Philalethes differs from that of Basil Valentine.

Philalethes enumerates three Elements only: Air, Water, and Earth.

Things are not formed by the mixture of these Elements, for "dissimilar things can never really unite." By a.n.a.lysing the properties of the three Elements, Philalethes reduced them finally to one, namely, Water. "Water," he says, "is the first principle of all things." "Earth is the fundamental Element in which all bodies grow and are preserved. Air is the medium into which they grow, and by means of which the celestial virtues are communicated to them."

According to Philalethes, _Mercury_ is the most important of the three Principles. Although gold is formed by the aid of Mercury, it is only when Mercury has been matured, developed, and perfected, that it is able to trans.m.u.te inferior metals into gold. The essential thing to do is, therefore, to find an agent which will bring about the maturing and perfecting of Mercury. This agent, Philalethes calls "Our divine Arcanum."

Although it appears to me impossible to translate the sayings of the alchemists concerning Elements and Principles into expressions which shall have definite and exact meanings for us to-day, still we may, perhaps, get an inkling of the meaning of such sentences as those I have quoted from Basil Valentine and Philalethes.

Take the terms _Fire_ and _Water_. In former times all liquid substances were supposed to be liquid because they possessed something in common; this hypothetical something was called the _Element, Water_. Similarly, the view prevailed until comparatively recent times, that burning substances burn because of the presence in them of a hypothetical imponderable fluid, called "_Caloric_"; the alchemists preferred to call this indefinable something an Element, and to name it _Fire_.

We are accustomed to-day to use the words _fire_ and _water_ with different meanings, according to the ideas we wish to express. When we say "do not touch the fire," or "put your hand into the water," we are regarding fire and water as material things; when we say "the house is on fire," or speak of "a diamond of the first water," we are thinking of the condition or state of a burning body, or of a substance as transparent as water. When we say "put out the fire," or "his heart became as water," we are referring to the act of burning, or are using an image which likens the thing spoken of to a substance in the act of liquefying.

As we do to-day, so the alchemists did before us; they used the words _fire_ and _water_ to express different ideas.

Such terms as hardness, softness, coldness, toughness, and the like, are employed for the purpose of bringing together into one point of view different things which are alike in, at least, one respect. Hard things may differ in size, weight, shape, colour, texture, &c. A soft thing may weigh the same as a hard thing; both may have the same colour or the same size, or be at the same temperature, and so on. By cla.s.sing together various things as hard or soft, or smooth or rough, we eliminate (for the time) all the properties wherein the things differ, and regard them only as having one property in common. The words hardness, softness, &c., are useful cla.s.s-marks.

Similarly the alchemical Elements and Principles were useful cla.s.s-marks.

We must not suppose that when the alchemists spoke of certain things as formed from, or by the union of, the same Elements or the same Principles, they meant that these things contained a common substance.

Their Elements and Principles were not thought of as substances, at least not in the modern meaning of the expression, _a substance_; they were qualities only.

If we think of the alchemical elements earth, air, fire, and water, as general expressions of what seemed to the alchemists the most important properties of all substances, we may be able to attach some kind of meaning to the sayings of Basil Valentine, which I have quoted. For instance, when that alchemist tells us, "Fire is the most pa.s.sive of all elements, and resembles a chariot; when it is drawn, it moves; when it is not drawn, it stands still"--we may suppose he meant to express the fact that a vast number of substances can be burnt, and that combustion does not begin of itself, but requires an external agency to start it.

Unfortunately, most of the terms which the alchemists used to designate their Elements and Principles are terms which are now employed to designate specific substances. The word _fire_ is still employed rather as a quality of many things under special conditions, than as a specific substance; but _earth_, _water_, _air_, _salt_, _sulphur_, and _mercury_, are to-day the names applied to certain groups of properties, each of which is different from all other groups of properties, and is, therefore, called, in ordinary speech, a definite kind of matter.

As knowledge became more accurate and more concentrated, the words _sulphur_, _salt_, _mercury_, &c., began to be applied to distinct substances, and as these terms were still employed in their alchemical sense as compendious expressions for certain qualities common to great cla.s.ses of substances, much confusion arose. Kunckel, the discoverer of phosphorus, who lived between 1630 and 1702, complained of the alchemists' habit of giving different names to the same substance, and the same name to different substances. "The sulphur of one," he says, "is not the sulphur of another, to the great injury of science. To that one replies that everyone is perfectly free to baptise his infant as he pleases. Granted. You may if you like call an a.s.s an ox, but you will never make anyone believe that your ox is an a.s.s." Boyle is very severe on the vague and loose use of words practised by so many writers of his time. In _The Sceptical Chymist_ (published 1678-9) he says: "If judicious men, skilled in chymical affairs, shall once agree to write clearly and plainly of them, and thereby keep men from being stunned, as it were, or imposed upon by dark and empty words; it is to be hoped that these [other] men finding, that they can no longer write impertinently and absurdly, without being laughed at for doing so, will be reduced either to write nothing, or books that may teach us something, and not rob men, as formerly, of invaluable time; and so ceasing to trouble the world with riddles or impertinences, we shall either by their books receive an advantage, or by their silence escape an inconvenience."

Most of the alchemists taught that the elements produced what they called _seed_, by their mutual reactions, and the principles matured this seed and brought it to perfection. They supposed that each cla.s.s, or kind, of things had its own seed, and that to obtain the seed was to have the power of producing the things which sprung from that seed.

Some of them, however, a.s.serted that all things come from a common seed, and that the nature of the products of this seed is conditioned by the circ.u.mstances under which it is caused to develop.

Thus Michael Sendivogius writes as follows in _The New Chemical Light, drawn from the fountain of Nature and of Manual Experience_ (17th century):--

"Wherever there is seed, Nature will work through it, whether it be good or bad." "The four Elements, by their continued action, project a constant supply of seed to the centre of the earth, where it is digested, and whence it proceeds again in generative motions. Now the centre of the earth is a certain void place where nothing is at rest, and upon the margin or circ.u.mference of this centre the four Elements project their qualities.... The magnetic force of our earth-centre attracts to itself as much as is needed of the cognate seminal substance, while that which cannot be used for vital generation is thrust forth in the shape of stones and other rubbish. This is the fountain-head of all things terrestrial. Let us ill.u.s.trate the matter by supposing a gla.s.s of water to be set in the middle of a table, round the margin of which are placed little heaps of salt, and of powders of different colours. If the water be poured out, it will run all over the table in divergent rivulets, and will become salt where it touches the salt, red where it touches the red powder, and so on. The water does not change the '_places_,' but the several '_places_'

differentiate the water.[4] In the same way, the seed which is the product of the four Elements is projected in all directions from the earth-centre, and produces different things, according to the quality of the different places. Thus, while the seed of all things is one, it is made to generate a great variety of things.... So long as Nature's seed remains in the centre it can indifferently produce a tree or a metal, a herb or a stone, and in like manner, according to the purity of the place, it will produce what is less or more pure."

[4] The author I am quoting had said--"Nature is divided into four '_places_' in which she brings forth all things that appear and that are in the shade; and according to the good or bad quality of the '_place_,' she brings forth good or bad things.... It is most important for us to know her '_places_'

... in order that we may join things together according to Nature."

CHAPTER V.

THE ALCHEMICAL ESSENCE.

In the last chapter I tried to describe the alchemical view of the interdependence of different substances. Taking for granted the tripart.i.te nature of man, the co-existence in him of body, soul, and spirit (no one of which was defined), the alchemists concluded that all things are formed as man is formed; that in everything there is a specific bodily form, some portion of soul, and a dash of spirit. I considered the term _soul_ to be the alchemical name for the properties common to a cla.s.s of substances, and the term _spirit_ to mean the property which was thought by the alchemists to be common to all things.

The alchemists considered it possible to arrange all substances in four general cla.s.ses, the marks whereof were expressed by the terms hot, cold, moist, and dry; they thought of these properties as typified by what they called the four Elements--fire, air, water, and earth. Everything, they taught, was produced from the four Elements, not immediately, but through the mediation of the three Principles--mercury, sulphur, and salt. These Principles were regarded as the tools put into the hands of him who desired to effect the trans.m.u.tation of one substance into another. The Principles were not thought of as definite substances, nor as properties of this or that specified substance; they were considered to be the characteristic properties of large cla.s.ses of substances.

The chemist of to-day places many compounds in the same cla.s.s because all are acids, because all react similarly under similar conditions.

It used to be said that every acid possesses more or less of _the principle of acidity_. Lavoisier changed the language whereby certain facts concerning acids were expressed. He thought that experiments proved all acids to be compounds of the element oxygen; and for many years after Lavoisier, the alchemical expression _the principle of acidity_ was superseded by the word _oxygen_. Although Lavoisier recognised that not every compound of oxygen is an acid, he taught that every acid is a compound of oxygen. We know now that many acids are not compounds of oxygen, but we have not yet sufficient knowledge to frame a complete definition of the term _acid_. Nevertheless it is convenient, indeed it is necessary, to place together many compounds which react similarly under certain defined conditions, and to give a common name to them all. The alchemists also cla.s.sified substances, but their cla.s.sification was necessarily more vague than ours; and they necessarily expressed their reasons for putting different substances in the same cla.s.s in a language which arose out of the general conceptions of natural phenomena which prevailed in their time.

The primary cla.s.sification of substances made by the alchemists was expressed by saying; these substances are rich in the principle _sulphur_, those contain much of the principle _mercury_, and this cla.s.s is marked by the preponderance of the principle _salt_. The secondary cla.s.sification of the alchemists was expressed by saying; this cla.s.s is characterised by dryness, that by moisture, another by coldness, and a fourth by hotness; the dry substances contain much of the element _Earth_, the moist substances are rich in the element _Water_, in the cold substances the element _Air_ preponderates, and the hot substances contain more of the element _Fire_ than of the other elements.

The alchemists went a step further in their cla.s.sification of things.

They a.s.serted that there is One Thing present in all things; that everything is a vehicle for the more or less perfect exhibition of the properties of the One Thing; that there is a Primal Element common to all substances. The final aim of alchemy was to obtain the One Thing, the Primal Element, the Soul of all Things, so purified, not only from all specific substances, but also from all admixture of the four Elements and the three Principles, as to make possible the accomplishment of any trans.m.u.tation by the use of it.

If a person ignorant of its powers were to obtain the Essence, he might work vast havoc and cause enormous confusion; it was necessary, therefore, to know the conditions under which the potencies of the Essence became active. Hence there was need of prolonged study of the mutual actions of the most seemingly diverse substances, and of minute and patient examination of the conditions under which nature performs her marvellous trans.m.u.tations. The quest of the One Thing was fraught with peril, and was to be attempted only by those who had served a long and laborious apprentices.h.i.+p.

In _The Chemical Treatise of Thomas Norton, the Englishman, called Believe-me, or the Ordinal of Alchemy_ (15th century), the adept is warned not to disclose his secrets to ordinary people.

"You should carefully test and examine the life, character, and mental apt.i.tudes of any person who would be initiated in this Art, and then you should bind him, by a sacred oath, not to let our Magistery be commonly or vulgarly known. Only when he begins to grow old and feeble, he may reveal it to one person, but not to more, and that one man must be virtuous.... If any wicked man should learn to practise the Art, the event would be fraught with great danger to Christendom.

For such a man would overstep all bounds of moderation, and would remove from their hereditary thrones those legitimate princes who rule over the peoples of Christendom."

The results of the experimental examination of the compositions and properties of substances, made since the time of the alchemists, have led to the modern conception of the chemical element, and the isolation of about seventy or eighty different elements. No substance now called an element has been produced in the laboratory by uniting two, or more, distinct substances, nor has any been separated into two, or more, unlike portions. The only decided change which a chemical element has been caused to undergo is the combination of it with some other element or elements, or with a compound or compounds.

But it is possible that all the chemical elements may be combinations of different quant.i.ties of one primal element. Certain facts make this supposition tenable; and some chemists expect that the supposition will be proved to be correct. If the hypothetical primal element should be isolated, we should have fulfilled the aim of alchemy, and gained the One Thing; but the fulfilment would not be that whereof the alchemists dreamed.

Inasmuch as the alchemical Essence was thought of as the Universal Spirit to whose presence is due whatever degree of perfection any specific substance exhibits, it followed that the more perfect a substance the greater is the quant.i.ty of the Essence in it. But even in the most perfect substance found in nature--which substance, the alchemists said, is gold--the Essence is hidden by wrappings of specific properties which prevent the ordinary man from recognising it. Remove these wrappings from some special substance, and you have the perfect form of that thing; you have some portion of the Universal Spirit joined to the one general property of the cla.s.s of things whereof the particular substance is a member. Then remove the cla.s.s-property, often spoken of by the alchemists as _the life_, of the substance, and you have the Essence itself.

The alchemists thought that to every thing, or at any rate to every cla.s.s of things, there corresponds a more perfect form than that which we see and handle; they spoke of gold, and the _gold of the Sages_; mercury, and the _mercury of the Philosophers_; sulphur, and the _heavenly sulphur of him whose eyes are opened_.

To remove the outer wrappings of ordinary properties which present themselves to the untrained senses, was regarded by the alchemists to be a difficult task; to tear away the soul (the cla.s.s-property) of a substance, and yet retain the Essence which made that substance its dwelling place, was possible only after vast labour, and by the use of the proper agent working under the proper conditions. An exceedingly powerful, delicate, and refined agent was needed; and the mastery of the agent was to be acquired by bitter experience, and, probably, after many disappointments.

"Gold," an alchemist tells us, "does not easily give up its nature, and will fight for its life; but our agent is strong enough to overcome and kill it, and then it also has the power to restore it to life, and to change the lifeless remains into a new and pure body."

Thomas Norton, the author of _The Ordinal of Alchemy_, writing in the 15th century, says the worker in trans.m.u.tations is often tempted to be in a hurry, or to despair, and he is often deceived. His servants will be either stupid and faithful, or quick-witted and false. He may be robbed of everything when his work is almost finished. The only remedies are infinite patience, a sense of virtue, and sound reason.

"In the pursuit of our Art," he says, "you should take care, from time to time, to unbend your mind from its sterner employments with some convenient recreation."