OBSERVATION AND EXPERIMENT 77 



phur and mercury"; while the beginnings of physics were 

 perhaps even more clouded by the fantastic unrealities of fertile 

 but unchecked imaginations. 



But man early learned to measure the value of chemistry b\' 

 the *' gold standard." It is hinted, in fact, though without ade- 

 quate evidence, that the Golden Fleece of the Argonautic ex- 

 pedition was a manuscript containing valuable secrets of the 

 chemist's art ; and Suidas, of the eleventh century, to whom 

 the word chemistry is attributed, relates that Diocletian, fearing 

 that the Egyptians, by reason of their knowledge, might become 

 rich and restive, ordered, in true Roman fashion, that their 

 books on chemistry should be burned. The thirst for gold as- 

 sisted also in the development of alchemy, which flourished from 

 the eleventh to the fifteenth century, especially, and has had not 

 a few adherents, it would seem, during all the centuries down to 

 and including the one just past. The philosopher's stone was 

 almost universally believed to be a real agent in medieval times ; 

 and this strange fiction also has its survivals in the "mad 

 stones," "moon stones," "lucky stones," and other "charms" 

 whose use even at the present time is not uncommonly justi- 

 fied by the wise saying that " there may be something in 

 them." 



The difficulty in getting the human mind started with the ele- 

 ments of physical science is well illustrated, likewise, by the 

 superstitious rubbish that encumbered the early progress of 

 knowledge concerning magnets. They were endowed with 

 imaginary qualities far more wonderful than subsequent obser- 

 vation and experiment have disclosed. It was believed, for ex- 

 ample, that they would cause some diseases and cure others ; 

 that they were effective as love philters ; that they would lose 

 their properties when rubbed with garlic (which seems not so 

 unlikely), but that a bath in goat's blood v/ould readily counter- 

 act this destructive effect. And in this case, also, as with alchemy 

 and the philosopher's stone, it is to be noted that such crude 

 notions of the phenomena of matter find their survivals at the 

 present day in a wide acceptance of the unverified efficac}' of 

 " magnetic healers " and " electric belts," and in the ease with 



