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177
The Story of Alchemy and the Beginnings of Chemistry
·
M. M. Pattison Muir
16
The
atomic
theory
of
the
Greek
thinkers
was
constructed
by
reasoning
on
natural
phenomena.
Lucretius
constantly
appeals
to
observed
facts
for
confirmation
of
his
theoretical
teachings,
or
refutation
of
opinions
he
thought
erroneous.
Besides
giving
a
general
mental
presentation
of
the
material
universe,
the
theory
was
applied
to
many
specific
transmutations;
but
minute
descriptions
of
what
are
now
called
chemical
changes
could
not
be
given
in
terms
of
the
theory,
because
no
searching
examination
of
so
much
as
one
such
change
had
been
made,
nor,
I
think,
one
may
say,
could
be
made
under
the
conditions
of
Greek
life.
More
than
two
thousand
years
passed
before
investigators
began
to
make
accurate
measurements
of
the
quantities
of
the
substances
which
take
part
in
those
changes
wherein
certain
things
seem
to
be
destroyed
and
other
totally
different
things
to
be
produced;
until
accurate
knowledge
had
been
obtained
of
the
quantities
of
the
definite
substances
which
interact
in
the
transformations
of
matter,
the
atomic
theory
could
not
do
more
than
draw
the
outlines
of
a
picture
of
material
changes.
A
scientific
theory
has
been
described
as
"the
likening
of
our
imaginings
to
what
we
actually
observe."
So
long
as
we
observe
only
in
the
rough,
only
in
a
broad
and
general
way,
our
imaginings
must
also
be
rough,
broad,
and
general.
It
was
the
great
glory
of
the
Greek
thinkers
about
natural
events
that
their
observations
were
accurate,
on
the
whole,
and
as
far
as
they
went,
and
the
theory
they
formed
was
based
on
no
trivial
or
accidental
features
of
the
facts,
but
on
what
has
proved
to
be
the
very
essence
of
the
phenomena
they
sought
to
bring
into
one
point
of
view;
for
all
the
advances
made
in
our
own
times
in
clear
knowledge
of
the
transformations
of
matter
have
been
made
by
using,
as
a
guide
to
experimental
inquiries,
the
conception
that
the
differences
between
the
qualities
of
substances
are
connected
with
differences
in
the
weights
and
movements
of
minute
particles;
and
this
was
the
central
idea
of
the
atomic
theory
of
the
Greek
philosophers.
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