CHAPTER I. 



IMPROVEMENT or THE NOTION OF CHEMICAL ANALYSIS, AND RECOGNI- 

 TION OF IT AS THE SpAGIRIC ART. 



THE doctrine of " the four elements " is one of the oldest monuments 

 of man's speculative nature ; goes back, perhaps, to times anterior 

 to Greek philosophy ; and as the doctrine of Aristotle and Galen, 

 reigned for fifteen hundred years over the Gentile, Christian, and Mo- 

 hammedan world. In medicine, taught as the doctrine of the four 

 " elementary qualities," of which the human body and all other sub- 

 stances are compounded, it had a very powerful and extensive influence 

 upon medical practice. But this doctrine never led to any attempt 

 actually to analyse bodies into their supposed elements : for composi- 

 tion was inferred from the resemblance of the qualities, not from the 

 separate exhibition of the ingredients; the supposed analysis was, in 

 short, a decomposition of the body into adjectives, not into substan- 

 ces. 



This doctrine, therefore, may be considered as a negative state, ante- 

 cedent to the very beginning of chemistry ; and some progress beyond 

 this mere negation was made, as soon as men began to endeavor to 

 compound and decompound substances by the use of fire or mixture, 

 however erroneous might be the opinions and expectations which they 

 combined with their attempts. Alchemy is a step in chemistry, so far 

 as it implies the recognition of the work of the cupel and the retort, 

 as the produce of analysis and synthesis.. How perplexed and pervert- 

 ed were the forms in which this recognition was clothed, how mixed 

 up with mythical follies and extravagancies, we have already seen ; and 

 the share which Alchemy had in the formation of any sounder know- 

 ledge, is not. such as to justify any further notice of that pursuit. 



The result of the attempts to analyse bodies by heat, mixture, and the 

 like processes, was the doctrine that the first principles of things are 

 three, not four ; namely, salt, sulphur, and mercury ; and that, of these 

 three, all things are compounded. In reality, the doctrine, as thus 

 stated, contained no truth which was of any value ; for, though the 

 chemist could extract from most bodies portions which he called salt. 



