CHEMISTRY. 



Van Hel- 



mont. 



Miitory. losophers' stone and the universal medicine to the 

 ""Y"*' greatest height of absurdity, and by exemplifying 

 their emptiness and useleesriess in his own person, he 

 undoubtedly contributed more than any man to their 

 disgrace and subsequent banishment from the science. 

 Just as Mr Hume, by carrying the ideal system to 

 the utmost pitch of extravagance, may be in some 

 measure considered as the occasion of that general 

 reform in metaphysics which has since taken place. 



In 1577, or just 36 years after the death of Para- 

 celsus, his great admirer and disciple Van Helmont 

 was burn of a noble family at Brussels. He studied 

 medicine contrary to the inclination of his relations, 

 was early distinguished for his extensive reading and 

 great knowledge, and was created doctor of medicine 

 at the age of 22, having previously read public lec- 

 tures on surgery at Lovain. Soon after, happening 

 to get a slight itch, and perceiving that the regular 

 treatment had no c fleet upon it, but that sulphur 

 speedily removed it, he brcame in consequence dis- 



f listed with medicine, renounced the study, divided 

 is fortune among his relations, and left his country 

 with an intention never more to return. He spent 

 ten years in travelling ; and at last, having acquired a 

 knowledge of chemistry, he became violently attach- 

 ed to it, and resolved to devote to it the remainder of 

 his life. In 1609, he married and returned to Wil- 

 woord, where he employed himself in making chemi- 

 cal experiments, and in applying that science to me- 

 dicine. His publications soon gave him celebrity, 

 and he was more than once invited to the court of 

 Vienna. He died in 1614, at the age of 67. Like 

 his predecessor Paracelsus, he boasted that he was 

 in possession of the universal remedy, to which he 

 gave the name of alkahest. His chemical discoveries 

 were numerous, and justly entitle him to distinction. 

 Van Helmont may be considered as the last of the 

 alchymists. His death completed the disgrace of 

 the universal medicine, which afterwards, like the 

 philosophers' stone, was considered by all rational 

 chemists as a palpable absurdity. His contempo- 

 raries, and those who immediately succeeded him, if 

 we except Crollius and a few other blind admirers of 

 Paracelsus, attended solely to the improvement of 

 chemistry, and the refutation of the absurd tenets of 

 the alchymists. The chief of them were Agricola, 

 Beguin, Glaser, Erkcin, Glauber, Kunkel, Boyle, 

 &c. 



The foundations of the alchymistical system being 

 thus shaken, the facts which had been collected 

 tumbled into a heap of rubbish, and chemistry was 

 left without any fixed principles, to wander about in 

 the dark, destitute of an object. At last, there arose 

 a man thoroughly acquainted with the whole of these 

 facts, capable of arranging them, and of perceiving 

 the important purposes to which they might be ap- 

 plied, and able to point out the proper objects to 

 which the researches of chemists ought to be directed. 

 This man was Beccher. He accomplished the ardu- 

 ous task in his work entitled Physica Subterranea, 

 published at Frankfort in the year 1669. The pub- 

 lication of this book forms a very important era in 

 the history of chemistry. It then escaped for ever 

 from the trammels of alchyray, afld became the science 

 which we find it at present. 



I .:clicr. 



Thus it appears, that the word chemistry has had History, 

 at different times no less than five meanings. It first ""-^ :"'"' 

 signified natural p/iilosnp/iij ; afterwards it was re- 

 stricted to the art of working metals ; at a later pe- 

 riod it meant the art of making gull ; at a still later 

 period, the discovery of a universal medicine was also 

 included under it ; and, last of all, in 1669, it became 

 the science which investigates the insensible motions 

 of' bodies. Thus, afcer a variety of trau.-formations, 

 it stopped at last, and now comprehends under it 

 precisely one-half of its original signification. At 

 first it was the name of the whole of natural science, 

 whereas now it is only the name of one of the two 

 branches into which science is divided. 



John Joachim Beccher, to whom the honour of 

 laying the foundation of the science of chemistry be- 

 longs, was born at Spires in 1625, and seems to have 

 been of Jewish extraction. He was first a professor 

 of medicine, then physician to the Elector of Mentz, 

 and afterwards to the Elector of Bavaria. Towards 

 the end of his life, he went to England, and died in 

 London in 1682, as is suspected, in great poverty. 

 His writings testify with what success he applied 

 himself to the study of chemistry. 



Ernest Stahl, his disciple, and the commentator of StahL 

 the Physica Suiterranea, gave the science a degree of 

 order and extension which raised it in some respects 

 to a level with mechanical philosophy, and secured 

 to himself the highest and most exalted reputation. 

 This philosopher, a German, first physician to the 

 King of Prussia, professor of medicine and of che- 

 mistry, who was born in the year 1660, seems to 

 have been actuated from his very infancy by a violent 

 passion for chemistry. At the age of fifteen he could 

 repeat, by heart, the whole of the C/temia Philoso- 

 p/iica of Barnerus, at that time the most popular 

 book on the subject. He attached himself particu- 

 larly to the writings of Beccher, whom he resem- 

 bled in activity and brilliancy of imagination, and far 

 surpassed in precision and judgment. Beccher's 

 theory, in his hands, was new modelled and simpli- 

 fied. He explained the nature of combustion, and 

 reduced the phenomena of chemistry under a certain 

 number of general heads. His system forms as com- 

 plete a whole, and has as imposing an aspect, as any 

 which has hitherto been promulgated. It was the 

 result of very cautious researches, and was elucida- 

 ted and confirmed by satisfactory experiment. No 

 wonder, then, that its author attracted general ad- 

 miration, and that he was dignified with the title of 

 the sublime Stahl. His theory consisted in suppo- 

 sing, that a certain substance, called phlogiston, forms 

 a part of all combustible bodies ; that its separation 

 constitutes Jire, while its various combinations pro- 

 duce most of the other phenomena of chemistry. It 

 was first developed soon after the commencement of 

 the 18th century ; and Stahl'b Fundamenta Chemia? 

 were first published in 1723. For a period of almost 

 fifty years after the appearance of that book, the 

 sole object of chemists was to confirm and extend 

 the theory of the author. And it applied so happi- 

 ly to their different discoveries, enabled them in 

 many cases to foretel the event, and assisted them 

 so much to penetrate into the still unexplored re- 

 cesses of nature, that we have no reason to be surpri. 



