Lab
Library
Journal
Shop
Sign in
to keep
1
177
The Story of Alchemy and the Beginnings of Chemistry
·
M. M. Pattison Muir
10
Humboldt
tells
of
a
parrot
which
had
lived
with
a
tribe
of
American
Indians,
and
learnt
scraps
of
their
language;
the
tribe
totally
disappeared;
the
parrot
alone
remained,
and
babbled
words
in
the
language
which
no
living
human
being
could
understand.
Are
the
words
I
have
quoted
unintelligible,
like
the
parrot's
prating?
Perhaps
the
language
may
be
reconstructed;
perhaps
it
may
be
found
to
embody
something
worth
a
hearing.
Success
is
most
likely
to
come
by
considering
the
growth
of
alchemy;
by
trying
to
find
the
ideas
which
were
expressed
in
the
strange
tongue;
by
endeavouring
to
look
at
our
surroundings
as
the
alchemists
looked
at
theirs.
Do
what
we
will,
we
always,
more
or
less,
construct
our
own
universe.
The
history
of
science
may
be
described
as
the
history
of
the
attempts,
and
the
failures,
of
men
"to
see
things
as
they
are."
"Nothing
is
harder,"
said
the
Latin
poet
Lucretius,
"than
to
separate
manifest
facts
from
doubtful,
what
straightway
the
mind
adds
on
of
itself."
Observations
of
the
changes
which
are
constantly
happening
in
the
sky,
and
on
the
earth,
must
have
prompted
men
long
ago
to
ask
whether
there
are
any
limits
to
the
changes
of
things
around
them.
And
this
question
must
have
become
more
urgent
as
working
in
metals,
making
colours
and
dyes,
preparing
new
kinds
of
food
and
drink,
producing
substances
with
smells
and
tastes
unlike
those
of
familiar
objects,
and
other
pursuits
like
these,
made
men
acquainted
with
transformations
which
seemed
to
penetrate
to
the
very
foundations
of
things.
Marker
Marker
Fine marker
White-out
Fine white-out
Circle
Paint
Unmarker
Hand
Scalpel
Dice
Sieve
Purify
Undo
Redo
Start over
