306 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XVII. No. 425. 



accession to our data as well as to our outfit 

 of useful tools for work of this kind. 



E. H. Thurston. 



The Story of Alchemy and the Beginnings of 



Chemistry. By M. M. Pattison Mum. 



New York, D. Appleton & Co. 1903. 12mo. 



Pp. 182. 111. 



The author of this little book, Matthew Mon- 

 crieff Pattison Muir, fellow and prselector in 

 chemistry of Gonville and Caius College, 

 Cambridge, is known to the scientific world 

 as joint editor with Dr. Foster Morley of the 

 new edition of Watts' ' Dictionary of Chem- 

 istry,' as the translator of Ostwald's ' Solu- 

 tions,' and as author of several treatises on 

 practical chemistry published in part with the 

 cooperation of others. Besides these valued 

 works he is the author of ' The Story of the 

 Chemical Elements' (London, 1896), as well 

 as of ' The Alchemical Essence and the Chem- 

 ical Element' (London, 1894). In the latter 

 Professor Muir showed the weakness of the 

 pseudo-science of alchemy in the attempts of 

 its advocates to explain natural facts by wit 

 and reason, before they had ascertained what 

 the facts were that required explanation, and 

 he contrasted with this useless undertaking 

 the well-grounded, suggestive and rational 

 methods of modern chemistry. 



In ' The Story of Alchemy ' the author ex- 

 pands and elaborates this view of alchemy 

 and points out that it regarded nature by emo- 

 tional methods, and that they resulted in base- 

 less speculations ; the alchemist ' began the 

 study of nature with introspection, and spins 

 his Tiniverse from his own ideas of order, 

 symmetry and simplicity, as the spider spins 

 her web from her own substance.' One of 

 the characteristic features of alchemical doc- 

 trine was a commingling of ethical and phys- 

 ical ideas; the alchemists attributed to nat- 

 ural things moral virtues and even vices, and 

 remains of this survive in many expressions 

 still in use, such as ' noble and base metals,' 

 ' imperfect gases,' and * good and bad conduct- 

 ors of electricity.' These are Muir's examples, 

 but the reviewer suggests that in some of these 

 cases the adjectives ' good and bad ' signify 

 ' successful and unsatisfactory ' (or terms 



analogous thereto) without any idea of im- 

 puting moral qualities. 



The transmutation of metals was a natural 

 adjunct of alchemical theory, and was based 

 in part on observation of nature's methods, 

 but erroneously interpreted; philosophers re- 

 garded metals as living things, and since na- 

 ture strove to bring other living things to a 

 more perfect state, so too the noble metals had 

 been evolved from the ignoble and less valu- 

 able ones by Nature herself in the bowels of 

 the earth. Were not gold found in copper 

 mines and silver in lead mines, proofs of this ? 



Conceptions of an orderly, material uni- 

 verse were so intimately associated with ideas 

 of morality and with religious beliefs, that to 

 disprove the possibility of the great trans- 

 mutation would have undermined the basis of 

 material things as well as of ethics. Plants 

 are improved by appropriate culture, by loos- 

 ening and enriching the soil, and by choice 

 of seed; animals are improved by judicious 

 breeding; metals by analogous processes 

 should be helped toward perfection. Metals, 

 the alchemists argued, have bodies, souls and 

 spirits ; each has specific bodily form, a metal- 

 line soul characteristic of a class, and a spirit, 

 or inner immaterial potency, the very essence 

 of all metals. They asserted that there is pres- 

 ent in all things One Thing, the Primal Ele- 

 ment, and the final aim of alchemy was to ob- 

 tain this primal element, the soul of all things, 

 so purified from all admixture of ' elements ' 

 and ' principles ' as to make it available for 

 any transmutation. To secure this essence 

 required patient, prolonged study in the labo- 

 ratory, and the quest was fraught with peril. 



After stating that the words ' element ' and 

 ' transmutation ' did not mean to the alchemist 

 what they signify at the present time, the 

 author remarks that our present knowledge 

 makes such a change as lead into silver un- 

 thinkable, yet facts may be discovered 

 which will make possible the separation from 

 lead af things tmlike itself, from which silver 

 may be produced by the combination of some 

 of these constituents. 



The alchemical quest of the primal matter 

 still goes on, but modern chemistry conducts 

 it in a more rational manner; considerations 



