THE EARLY DAYS OF CHEMISTRY 3 



nor apply our knowledge so as to benefit mankind. And 

 in Timaeus, Plato remarks, ' God only has the knowledge 

 and the power which are able to combine many things 

 into one, and to dissolve the one into the many. But 

 no man either is, or ever will be, able to accomplish either 

 the one or the other operation.' 



Even in the middle ages, the same spirit of content 

 with insufficient observation, and the same disposition 

 to draw conclusions from insufficient premises, is to be 

 noticed. It is difficult for us, in this age when a certain 

 acquaintance with scientific methods of thought, if not 

 with scientific facts, is common to almost every one, to 

 imagine the kind of reply to elementary questions which 

 satisfied our predecessors, even those who devoted time 

 and, one would hope, some powers of mind to a con- 

 sideration of the subject. Let us take a few examples. 



The answer which one of the schoolmen would give 

 to the question : c Of what are bodies composed ? ' is thus 

 paraphrased by Le Febure, apothecary to His Majesty 

 Charles the Second : * If the substance is a body, it must 

 possess quantity ; and of necessity, it must be divisible ; 

 now, bodies must be composed either of things divisible, 

 or indivisible, that is, either of points, or of parts : a body, 

 however, cannot be composed of points, for a point is 

 indivisible, possessing no quantity, and, consequently, 

 it cannot communicate quantity to a body, since it does 

 not itself possess it. Hence it must be concluded that 

 a body must be composed of divisible parts; to this, 

 however, it may be said that such parts must either be 

 divisible or indivisible; if the former, then the part 

 cannot be the smallest possible, since it may itself be 

 divided into others still more minute ; and if this smallest 

 part is indivisible, the same difficulty confronts us, for 

 it will be without quantity, which, therefore, it cannot 

 communicate to a body, for it itself does not possess it, 



