ANCIENT AND MODERN VIEWS REGARDING THE 

 CHEMICAL ELEMENTS. 1 



By Prof. Sir William Ramsay, K.C.B., Ph.D., LL.D., D.Sc, M.D., F.R.S. 



It has been the usual custom of my predecessors in office either to 

 give a summary of the progress of science within the past year or to 

 attempt to present hi intelligible language some aspect of the science 

 in which they have themselves been engaged. I possess no qualifica- 

 tions for the former course, and I therefore ask you to bear with me 

 while I devote some minutes to the consideration of ancient and 

 modern views regarding the chemical elements. To many in my 

 audience part of my story will prove an oft-told tale; but I must 

 ask those to excuse me, in order that it may be in some wise complete. 



In the days of the early Greeks the word "element" was applied 

 rather to denote a property of matter than one of its constituents. 

 Thus, when a substance was said to contain fire, air, water, and earth 

 (of which terms a childish game doubtless once played by all of us 

 is a relic), it probably meant that they partook of the nature of the 

 so-called elements. Inflammability showed the presence of concealed 

 fire; the escape of "airs" when some substances are heated or when 

 vegetable or animal matter is distilled no doubt led to the idea that 

 these airs were imprisoned in the matters from which they escaped; 

 hardness and permanence were ascribed to the presence of earth, 

 while liquidity and fusibility were properties conveyed by the pres- 

 ence of concealed water. At a later date the Spagyrics added three 

 hypostatical principles to the quadrilateral; these were salt, sulphur, 

 and mercury. The first conveyed solubility, and fixedness in fire; 

 the second, inflammability; and the third, the power which some 

 substances manifest of producing a liquid, generally termed "phlegm," 

 on application of heat, or of themselves being converted into the liquid 

 state by fusion. 



It was Robert Boyle, in his Skeptical Chymist, who first contro- 

 verted these ancient and medieval notions, and who gave to the word 



1 Presidential address by Prof. Ramsay at the Portsmouth meeting of the British Association for the 

 Advancement of Science, 1911. Reprinted by permission from author's separate, omitting introductory 

 matter on work of the association. 



183 



