THE DISCOVERY OF ALCOHOL. tol 
a writer of the 16th century, repeats the allegorical 
piéture of evaporation and its accompanying condensa- 
tion. And of condensed liquids reaéting on solid sub- 
stances exposed to their aétion “ Tell how blessed water * 
“ descends from on high to visit the dead, stretched out 
_ and chained, in the shades and darkness of the interior 
© of Hades, how the new born waters begotten by the 
“ation of fire penetrate. The clouds support them; 
“ these rising from the sea support the waters.” 
_ This singular language, this enthusiasm which borrows 
the most exalted religious formule ought not to surprise 
us. At that time men, with the exception of some 
superior minds, had not arrived at that state of calm and 
abstraétion which permits the contemplation of scientific 
truths with coo] serenity. Their very education, the 
symbolical traditions of Ancient Egypt, the gnostic ideas 
with which the earlier alchemists were filled, did not 
permit them to preserve their sang frozd. They were 
transported and as it were, intoxicated by the revelation 
of this hidden world of chemical transformations which 
for the first time appeared to the human mind. 
Thus in the early Greek treatises all the a€tive liquids 
of chemistry are compounded under one common name, 
that of divine water. “ Divine water,” said they, “is one 
“ in its genus but is multiplied as to its species, and allows 
“of an infinite variety of treatment.” They gave to 
these varieties different symbolical names, aerial water, 
river water, dew, virginal milk, natural water of sulphur, 
water of silver, Attic honey, sea foam, &c. The confusion 
caused by this variety of denominations was however 
systematic, since its obje€t was to hide from the world 
and uninitiated persons the secret of their manufacture. 
