Oct. 17, 1872] 



NATURE 



505 



astute mind may be led if unaided by experiment. The genera- 

 tion of fire, he says, is made evident by the senses, for Hame is 

 notably fire, but flame is burning smoke, and smoke is from air 

 and earth. 



It is not here that we may tell how the philosophy of Aristotle 

 was introduced into Europe by the Arabians, how from it arose 

 that stupendous mass of false philosophy and perverted Aris- 

 totelianism called Scliolasticism, and how for centuries the blind 

 acceptance of the Peripatetic dogmas retarded the progress of 

 science. Worse than all, Averroi-s, who has been called "I'ame 

 d'Aristote," and who scattered Aristotelianism broadcast over 

 Europe, did not know Greek, and the Latin versions of Averroes 

 were "Latin translations from an Hebrew version of an Arabic 

 commentar}' on an Arabic translation of a Syriac version of a 

 Greek texr/' We may not, therefore, blame Aristotle for the re- 

 sults w'u.cu followed from the too general and literal acceptance 

 of his philosophy. Mr. Lewes has well said. " However he 

 may have been impelled to systematise on imperfect bases, and 

 to reason where he should have observed, it is not too much 

 to say that had he reappeared among later generations, he 

 would have been the first to repudiate the ser\ility of his 

 followers, .the first to point out the inanity of Scholasticism. 

 His mighty and eminently inquiring intellect would have been 



Alchemical Representation of the Transmutation of the Elements. 

 the first to welcome and to extend the new discoveries. He 

 would have sided with Galileo and Bacon against the Aris- 

 totelians." 



We have spoken above of the endurance of the Thalesian 

 theory, that all things are formed from water, and of the yet 

 older theories of the existence of an ethereal medium, and of 

 atoms ; but the theory which affirms that the world is com- 

 posed of the four elements — earth, air, fire, and water, is yet 

 older, and is, indeed, the oldest physical theory of which we 

 have any knowledge. It certainly existed before the fifteenth 

 cctury B.C., it was adopted in Indi.a, Egypt, and as we have 

 seen, in Greece at a very early date. Then in the case of 

 those philosophers who made water, air, fire, &c., primal 

 elements, this element was first transmuted into the three 

 other elements, and the world was formed from the four. We 

 must be careful, however, to remember that these four ele- 

 ments are not to be understood too literally, they were rather 

 principles or types of qualities than actual elements. Several 

 philosophers divided fire into a purer and grosser part. Seneca 

 tells us that the Egyptians extended the theory by assigning to 

 each element an active and a passive form: thus fire was di- 

 vided into light which shines, and into fire ; air into passive at- 



mosphere and active wind ; water into fresh and salt water ; and 

 earth into cultivable land on the one hand, and rocks on the 

 other. These elements were extended yet more. In later limes 

 Fire would come to signify everything appertaining to ignition ; 

 thus light, whether accompanied by heat or otherwise, flame, 

 the heat inherent in all bodies, incandescent bodies, stars, fiery 

 meteors, lightning, and all visible manifestations of electricity, 

 would be included under the term. Air would include smoke, 

 steam, all vapours, and whatsoever approached to the nature of 

 a gas. When gases were first discovered a himdred years ago, 

 they were called Airs ; thus we read o{ fixed air, nitrous air, 

 dcphlogisticated air, &c. Water would include all liquids, of which, 

 no doubt, blood, milk, wine, and oil, were in early times the 

 most familiar ; the words aqua fortis, ai/iia regia, aguardiente, 

 eaii-de-vie, &c., are vestiges of the old practice. Earth included 

 all rocks, however dissimilar they might be, all kinds of cultivable 

 land, metals, and whatever appertained to solidity. Every solid 

 was regarded as a kind of earth at first. A century ago many sub- 

 stances were called earths. At the present time out of the sixty- five 

 elements known to the chemist, eight are classed as "earths" and 

 three as " alkaline earths. " The fact is, the four ancient elements 

 were types of great classes of which the whole world was con- 

 stituted. In their most general sense, eartli, water, air, signified 

 solidity, liquidity, gaseity, whileTiV.; was the force exercising itself 

 upon matter. We have seen that the elemental fire of Heraklei- 

 tos is the mover of matter, the principle of movement, that which 

 produces perpetual changes around us. Fire was the if'ux'fj the 

 anima, the soul, the vivifying spirit. The mythological side of 

 the belief is seen in the story of Prometheus, who is fabled to 

 have stolen fire from Heaven and therewith vivified mankind. 

 The philosophical side of the belief is seen in the dogmas of 

 Herakleitos. The four-element theory evolved itself from the 

 crude ideas about ether and chaos, mind and matter, before dis- 

 cussed ; it is one of those crude physical theories which is enun- 

 ciated and accepted by races the most diverse in character, 

 country, faith, destiny. There is great oneness in the human 

 mind in the matter of broad principles in crude cosmical 

 ideas. And let us not forget tha<" the four-element theory was 

 universally accepted during the Middle Ages, and was only dis- 

 proved a century ago, when air was proved to be a mixture of 

 two gases, water a combination of two gases, fire the result of 

 intense chemical action, and earth a mixture of some dozens of 

 elementary bodies, some combined, some single. We do not 

 deny that during the continuance of the four-element theory it 

 may often have been taken in its strictly literal sense ; but we do 

 venture to assert that the richer and more cultured intellects 

 regarded it in the light we have above described, 



We can quite understand why there was so httle natural 

 science among the ancients, when we remember the absence cf 

 all experimental method and means, and the obstacle presented 

 by the habit of mind which induced them to apply reasoning in 

 place of experiment in the study of nature, to reason upon an 

 immature or ill-observed fact, and to generalise upon altogether 

 insufficient data. A simple sophistry applied to observation 

 could lead to the most monstrous results. Take, for example, the 

 argument of Diodorus, as given by Sextus Empiricus to prove 

 that nothing is moved : — "If a thing be moved, it is either 

 moved in the place where it is, or in the place where it is not. 

 But not in that wherein it is, because it rests in the place wherein 

 it is ; neither in that wherein it is not, for where a thing is not, 

 there it can neither act nor suffer. Therefore nothing is moved." 

 Again, Sokrates and many of his followers taught that it was 

 unwise to leave those affairs which directly concern man, to study 

 those which are beyond his control and extenial to him. Thus, 

 to inquire into the nature and distance of the stars seems an use- 

 less speculation, because even if we could ascertain these things, 

 we could neither alter the course of the stars nor apply them to 

 any benefit of mankind. 



We have, however, seen above that many of the Greek philo- 

 sophers had more or less definite notions concerning matter and 

 force, and that they frequently insist upon tlie transmutation of 

 matter from one form into another ; so far and so far only are we 

 concerned with their dogmas in our inquiry into the Birth of 

 Chemistry. But we must not fail to notice the existence at a very 

 early date of the four-element theory, of an atomic theory, of the 

 idea of an ethereal medium, of the idea of transforming one 

 kind of matter into another by the agency of some motive prin- 

 ciple. Neither let us forget to note the similarity of principles 

 in diverse philosophies ; thus the homceomeries of Anaxagoras 

 and the atoms of Leukippos are clearly related, so, too, are the 



