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177
The Story of Alchemy and the Beginnings of Chemistry
·
M. M. Pattison Muir
20
CHAPTER
II.
A
SKETCH
OF
ALCHEMICAL
THEORY.
The
system
which
began
to
be
called
alchemy
in
the
6th
and
7th
centuries
of
our
era
had
no
special
name
before
that
time,
but
was
known
as
the
sacred
art,
the
divine
science,
the
occult
science,
the
art
of
Hermes.
A
commentator
on
Aristotle,
writing
in
the
4th
century
A.D.,
calls
certain
instruments
used
for
fusion
and
calcination
"chuika
organa,"
that
is,
instruments
for
melting
and
pouring.
Hence,
probably,
came
the
adjective
chyic
or
chymic,
and,
at
a
somewhat
later
time,
the
word
chemia
as
the
name
of
that
art
which
deals
with
calcinations,
fusions,
meltings,
and
the
like.
The
writer
of
a
treatise
on
astrology,
in
the
5th
century,
speaking
of
the
influences
of
the
stars
on
the
dispositions
of
man,
says:
"If
a
man
is
born
under
Mercury
he
will
give
himself
to
astronomy;
if
Mars,
he
will
follow
the
profession
of
arms;
if
Saturn,
he
will
devote
himself
to
the
science
of
alchemy
(Scientia
alchemiae)."
The
word
alchemia
which
appears
in
this
treatise,
was
formed
by
prefixing
the
Arabic
al
(meaning
the)
to
chemia,
a
word,
as
we
have
seen,
of
Greek
origin.
It
is
the
growth,
development,
and
transformation
into
chemistry,
of
this
alchemia
which
we
have
to
consider.
Alchemy,
that
is,
the
art
of
melting,
pouring,
and
transforming,
must
necessarily
pay
much
attention
to
working
with
crucibles,
furnaces,
alembics,
and
other
vessels
wherein
things
are
fused,
distilled,
calcined,
and
dissolved.
The
old
drawings
of
alchemical
operations
show
us
men
busy
calcining,
cohobating,
distilling,
dissolving,
digesting,
and
performing
other
processes
of
like
character
to
these.
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