2 CHEMISTRY. : 
ideas with respect to the combinations of matter, it was a delusion which 
occupied men’s minds for many centuries in succession; and in futile 
endeavors to find the philosopher’s stone and the elixir of life, a mass of 
facts was accumulated which served as material for the foundations of 
chemistry. From the seventh to the eleventh century the Arabians were 
principally engaged in the discovery and preparation of medicines. In a 
complete ignorance of the true character of the mineral kingdom, it is 
exceedingly likely that the problem of finding a substance which should 
heal all diseases, and transmute a base metal into a noble one,’ was 
suggested by the fact of their finding occasionally in the ashes of some 
worthless earth, or as the result of some chance experiment, a highly 
valued metal. The substance to which the above-mentioned virtues were 
ascribed was called the philosopher’s stone, and the endeavor to find it 
caused, first of all, the Arabians to make a host of combinations of the most 
different substances. In this way they made many discoveries which were 
carried to Europe during the crusades, where the endeavor to transmute 
the common metals into gold was prosecuted with unprecedented ardor. 
From the thirteenth to the seventeenth century the art of making gold 
attained the rank of a so-called science, and while there were so many 
persons who actually did hope to solve the problem, this art, alchemy, 
gained the great consideration which it at that time enjoyed by means of 
deceivers, who knew how to conceal finely comminuted gold in substances, 
which, when mixed with lead, became visible for the first time, appearing as 
if an actual transmutation of the baser metal into gold had taken place. 
The writings of the alchemists were preserved as treasures, and they had 
at least the result of teaching a number of observations on the affinities of 
different substances, which, when properly understood, greatly facilitated 
the rapid progress of chemistry. The first chemical system arose with 
George Ernest Stahl, towards the beginning of the eighteenth century, a 
system which endeavored to arrange all known facts according to general 
principles; thus the development of chemistry falls within the limits of the 
preceding and the present century. 
In its present form chemistry is the science of matter. It teaches the 
properties of matter, its mutual relations, and the laws of its combinations. 
These are ascertained in two ways: by combining several elements in a 
given manner, or by separating combinations into their elements, and 
measuring or weighing the ingredients. The latter method, or analysis, is 
by far more productive in results than the former, or synthesis. To 
recompose a substance from its elements, after these have been accurately 
ascertained, is a problem of great difficulty in many cases. 
The number of simple substances contained in our earth is not very 
great, as we shall see hereafter, but the combinations of several single 
elements are numerous, while the secondary combinations with one another 
of these primary combinations of elements are vastly greater in amount, 
new ones being almost daily added in the progress of science. It is only 
necessary to point the observer to the various minerals, plants, and animals, 
of which each one possesses some peculiar odor, or color, or taste, or 
432 
