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177
The Story of Alchemy and the Beginnings of Chemistry
·
M. M. Pattison Muir
138
For
the
undefined,
ever-changing,
protean
essence,
or
soul,
of
a
thing
which
the
alchemists
thought
of
as
hidden
by
wrappings
of
properties,
the
exact
investigations
of
Lavoisier,
and
those
of
others
who
worked
on
the
same
lines
as
he,
substituted
this
definite,
fixed,
unmodifiable
property
of
mass.
Lavoisier,
and
those
who
followed
in
his
footsteps,
also
did
away
with
the
alchemical
notion
of
the
existence
of
an
essential
substratum,
independent
of
changes
in
those
properties
of
a
substance
which
can
be
observed
by
the
senses.
For
the
experimental
researches
of
these
men
obliged
naturalists
to
recognise,
that
a
change
in
the
properties
of
a
definite,
homogeneous
substance,
such
as
pure
water,
pure
chalk,
or
pure
sulphur,
is
accompanied
(or,
as
we
generally
say,
is
caused)
by
the
formation
of
a
new
substance
or
substances;
and
this
formation,
this
apparent
creation,
of
new
material,
is
effected,
either
by
the
addition
of
something
to
the
original
substance,
or
by
the
separation
of
it
into
portions
which
are
unlike
it,
and
unlike
one
another.
If
the
change
is
a
combination,
or
coalescence,
of
two
things
into
one,
then
the
mass,
and
hence
the
weight,
of
the
product
is
equal
to
the
sum
of
those
masses,
and
hence
those
weights,
of
the
things
which
have
united
to
form
it;
if
the
change
is
a
separation
of
one
distinct
substance
into
several
substances,
then
the
sum
of
the
masses,
and
hence
the
weights,
of
the
products
is
equal
to
that
mass,
and
hence
that
weight,
of
the
substance
which
has
been
separated.
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