The Story Of Alchemy And The Beginnings Of Chemistry M M Pattison Muir 30 İndirim — M M Pattison Muir

A commentator on Aristotle writing in the 4th centur y A D calls certain instruments used for fusion and calcination chuika organa that is instruments for melting and pouring Hence probably came the adjective chyic or chymic and at a somewhat later time the word chemia as the name of that art which deals with calcinations fusions meltings and the like The writer of a treatise on astrology in the 5th centur y speaking of the influences of the stars on the dispositions of man says If a man is born under Mercur y he will give himself to astronomy if Mars he will follow the profession of arms if Saturn he will devote himself to the science of alchemy Scientia alchemiae The word alchemia which appears in this treatise was formed by prefixing the Arabic al meaning the to chemia a word as we have seen of Greek origin

For thousands of years before men had any accurate and exact knowledge of the changes of material things they had thought about these changes regarded them as revelations of spiritual truths built on them theories of things in heaven and earth and a good many things in neither and used them in manufactures arts and handicrafts especially in one very curious manufacture wherein not the thousandth fragment of a grain of the finished article was ever produced The accurate and systematic study of the changes which material things undergo is called chemistry we may perhaps describe alchemy as the superficial and what may be called subjective examination of these changes and the speculative systems and imaginary arts and manufactures founded on that examination We are assured by many old writers that Adam was the first alchemist and we are told by one of the initiated that Adam was createdon the sixth day being the 15th of March of the first year of the world certainly alchemy had a long life for chemistry did not begin until about the middle of the 18th century

For thousands of years before men had any accurate and exact knowledge of the changes of material things they had thought about these changes regarded them as revelations of spiritual truths built on them theories of things in heaven and earth and a good many things in neither and used them in manufactures arts and handicrafts especially in one very curious manufacture wherein not the thousandth fragment of a grain of the finished article was ever produced The accurate and systematic study of the changes which material things undergo is called chemistry we may perhaps describe alchemy as the superficial and what may be called subjective examination of these changes and the speculative systems and imaginary arts and manufactures founded on that examination We are assured by many old writers that Adam was the first alchemist and we are told by one of the initiated that Adam was created on the sixth day being the 15th of March of the first year of the world certainly alchemy had a long life for chemistry did not begin until about the middle of the 18th century