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177
The Story of Alchemy and the Beginnings of Chemistry
·
M. M. Pattison Muir
11
Can
one
thing
be
changed
into
any
other
thing;
or,
are
there
classes
of
things
within
each
of
which
change
is
possible,
while
the
passage
from
one
class
to
another
is
not
possible?
Are
all
the
varied
substances
seen,
tasted,
handled,
smelt,
composed
of
a
limited
number
of
essentially
different
things;
or,
is
each
fundamentally
different
from
every
other
substance?
Such
questions
as
these
must
have
pressed
for
answers
long
ago.
Some
of
the
Greek
philosophers
who
lived
four
or
five
hundred
years
before
Christ
formed
a
theory
of
the
transformations
of
matter,
which
is
essentially
the
theory
held
by
naturalists
to-day.
These
philosophers
taught
that
to
understand
nature
we
must
get
beneath
the
superficial
qualities
of
things.
"According
to
convention,"
said
Democritus
(born
460
B.C.),
"there
are
a
sweet
and
a
bitter,
a
hot
and
a
cold,
and
according
to
convention
there
is
colour.
In
truth
there
are
atoms
and
a
void."
Those
investigators
attempted
to
connect
all
the
differences
which
are
observed
between
the
qualities
of
things
with
differences
of
size,
shape,
position,
and
movement
of
atoms.
They
said
that
all
things
are
formed
by
the
coalescence
of
certain
unchangeable,
indestructible,
and
impenetrable
particles
which
they
named
atoms;
the
total
number
of
atoms
is
constant;
not
one
of
them
can
be
destroyed,
nor
can
one
be
created;
when
a
substance
ceases
to
exist
and
another
is
formed,
the
process
is
not
a
destruction
of
matter,
it
is
a
re-arrangement
of
atoms.
Only
fragments
of
the
writings
of
the
founders
of
the
atomic
theory
have
come
to
us.
The
views
of
these
philosophers
are
preserved,
and
doubtless
amplified
and
modified,
in
a
Latin
poem,
Concerning
the
Nature
of
Things,
written
by
Lucretius,
who
was
born
a
century
before
the
beginning
of
our
era.
Let
us
consider
the
picture
given
in
that
poem
of
the
material
universe,
and
the
method
whereby
the
picture
was
produced.[2]
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