ALCHEMY AS AN EXPERIMENTAL ART.
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Muir, M. M. Pattison (Matthew Moncrieff Pattison)
A modern writer, Mr A.E. Waite, in his Lives of the Alchemystical Philosophers, says: "The physical theory of transmutation is based on the composite character of the metals, on their generation in the bowels of the earth, and on the existence in nature of a pure and penetrating matter which applied to any substance exalts and perfects it after its own kind." It must he admitted that the alchemists could cite many instances of transmutations which seemed to lead to the conclusion, that there is no difference of kind between the metals and other substances such as water, acids, oils, resins, and wood. We are able to-day to effect a vast number of transformations wherein one substance is exchanged for another, or made to take the place of another. We can give fairly satisfactory descriptions of these changes; and, by comparing them one with another, we are able to express their essential features in general terms which can be applied to each particular instance. The alchemists had no searching knowledge of what may be called the mechanism of such changes; they gave an explanation of them which we must call incorrect, in the present state of our knowledge. But, as Hoefer says in his Histoire de la Chimie, "to jeer at [the alchemical] theory is to commit at once an anachronism and an injustice.... Unless the world should finish to-morrow, no one can have the pretension to suppose that our contemporaries have said the last word of science, and nothing will remain for our descendants to discover, no errors for them to correct, no theories for them to set straight."
FIG. VI. See p. 90.
FIG. VII. See p. 90.
FIG. VIII. See p. 91.
What kind of experimental evidence could an alchemist furnish in support of his theory of transmutation? In answering this question, I cannot do better than give a condensed rendering of certain pages in Hoefer's Histoire de la Chimie.
The reader is supposed to be present at experiments conducted in the laboratory of a Grand Master of the Sacred Art in the 5th or 6th century.
Experiment.—Ordinary water is boiled in an open vessel; the water is changed to a vapour which disappears, and a white powdery earth remains in the vessel.
Conclusion.—Water is changed into air and earth.
Did we not know that ordinary water holds certain substances in solution, and that boiling water acts on the vessel wherein it is boiled, we should have no objection to urge against this conclusion.
It only remained to transmute fire that the transmutation of the four elements might be completed.
Experiment.—A piece of red-hot iron is placed in a bell-jar, filled with water, held over a basin containing water; the volume of the water decreases, and the air in the bell-jar takes fire when a lighted taper is brought into it.
Conclusion.—Water is changed into fire.
That interpretation was perfectly reasonable at a time when the fact was unknown that water is composed of two gaseous substances; that one of these (oxygen) is absorbed by the iron, and the other (hydrogen) collects in the bell-jar, and ignites when brought into contact with a flame.
Experiment.—Lead, or any other metal except gold or silver, is calcined in the air; the metal loses its characteristic properties, and is changed into a powdery substance, a kind of cinder or calx. When this cinder, which was said to be the result of the death of the metal, is heated in a crucible with some grains of wheat, one sees the metal revive, and resume its original form and properties.
Conclusion.—The metal which had been destroyed is revivified by the grains of wheat and the action of fire.
Is this not to perform the miracle of the resurrection?
No objection can he raised to this interpretation, as long as we are ignorant of the phenomena of oxidation, and the reduction of oxides by means of carbon, or organic substances rich in carbon, such as sugar, flour, seeds, etc. Grains of wheat were the symbol of life, and, by extension, of the resurrection and eternal life.
FIG. IX. See p. 91.
Experiment.—Ordinary lead is calcined in a cupel made of cinders or powdered bones; the lead is changed to a cinder which disappears into the cupel, and a button of silver remains.
Conclusion.—The lead has vanished; what more natural than the conclusion that it has been transformed into silver? It was not known then that all specimens of lead contain more or less silver.
FIG. X. See p. 92.
Experiment.-The vapour of arsenic bleaches copper. This fact gave rise to many allegories and enigmas concerning the means of transforming copper into silver.
Sulphur, which acts on metals and changes many of them into black substances, was looked on as a very mysterious thing. It was with sulphur that the coagulation (solidification) of mercury was effected.
Experiment.—Mercury is allowed to fall, in a fine rain, on to melted sulphur; a black substance is produced; this black substance is heated in a closed vessel, it is volatilised and transformed into a beautiful red solid.
One could scarcely suppose that the black and the red substances are identical, if one did not know that they are composed of the same quantities of the same elements, sulphur and mercury.
How greatly must this phenomenon have affected the imagination of the chemists of ancient times, always so ready to be affected by everything that seemed supernatural!
Black and red were the symbols of darkness and light, of the evil and the good principle; and the union of these two principles represented the moral order. At a later time the idea helped to establish the alchemical doctrine that sulphur and mercury are the Principles of all things.
Experiment.—Various organic substances are analysed by heating in a distillation-apparatus; the products are, in each case, a solid residue, liquids which distil off, and certain spirits which are disengaged.
The results supported the ancient theory which asserted that earth, water, air, and fire are the four Elements of the world. The solid residue represented earth; the liquid products of the distillation, water; and the spirituous substances, air. Fire was regarded sometimes as the means of purification, sometimes as the soul, or invisible part, of all substances.
Experiment.-A strong acid is poured on to copper. The metal is attacked, and at last disappears, giving place to a green liquid, as transparent as water. A thin sheet of iron is plunged into the liquid; the copper re-appears, and the iron vanishes.
What more simple than to conclude that the iron has been transformed into copper?
Had lead, silver, or gold been used in place of copper, one would have said that the iron was transformed into lead, silver, or gold.
In their search for "the pure and penetrating matter which applied to any substance exalts and perfects it after its own kind," the alchemists necessarily made many inventions, laid the foundation of many arts and manufactures, and discovered many facts of importance in the science of chemistry.
The practitioners of the Sacred Art of Egypt must have been acquainted with many operations which we now class as belonging to applied chemistry; witness, their jewellery, pottery, dyes and pigments, bleaching, glass-making, working in metals and alloys, and their use of spices, essential oils, and soda in embalming, and for other purposes.
During the centuries when alchemy flourished, gunpowder was invented, the art of printing was established, the compass was brought into use, the art of painting and staining glass was begun and carried to perfection, paper was made from rags, practical metallurgy advanced by leaps and bounds, many new alloys of metals came into use, glass mirrors were manufactured, and considerable advances were made in practical medicine and sanitation.
FIG. XI. See p. 92.
Basil Valentine, who was one of the greatest alchemists of the 16th century, discovered many of the properties of the metal antimony, and prepared and examined many compounds of that metal; he made green vitriol from pyrites, brandy from fermented grape-juice, fulminating gold, sulphide of potash, and spirits of salt; he made and used baths of artificial mineral waters, and he prepared various metals by what are now called wet methods, for instance, copper, by immersing plates of iron in solutions of bluestone. He examined the air of mines, and suggested practical methods for determining whether the air in a mine was respirable. Hoefer draws attention to a remarkable observation recorded by this alchemist. Speaking of the "spirit of mercury," Basil Valentine says it is "the origin of all the metals; that spirit is nothing else than an air flying here and there without wings; it is a moving wind, which, after it has been chased from its home of Vulcan (that is, fire), returns to the chaos; then it expands and passes into the region of the air from whence it had come." As Hoefer remarks, this is perhaps one of the earliest accounts of the gas discovered by Priestley and studied by Lavoisier, the gas we now call oxygen, and recognise as of paramount importance in chemical reactions.
FIG. XII. See p. 92.
Besides discovering and recording many facts which have become part and parcel of the science of chemistry, the alchemists invented and used various pieces of apparatus, and conducted many operations, which are still employed in chemical laboratories. I shall reproduce illustrations of some of these processes and pieces of apparatus, and quote a few of the directions, given in a book, published in 1664, called The Art of Distillation, by John French, Dr. in Physick.
The method recommended by French for hermetically sealing the neck of a glass vessel is shown in Fig. VI. p. 80. The neck of the vessel is surrounded by a tray containing burning coals; when the glass melts it is cut off by shears, and then closed by tongs, which are made hot before use.