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177
The Story of Alchemy and the Beginnings of Chemistry
·
M. M. Pattison Muir
33
The
alchemists'
general
conception
of
nature
led
them
to
assign
to
every
substance
a
condition
or
state
natural
to
it,
and
wherein
alone
it
could
be
said
to
be
as
it
was
designed
to
be.
Each
substance,
they
taught,
could
be
caused
to
leave
its
natural
state
only
by
violent,
or
non-natural,
means,
and
any
substance
which
had
been
driven
from
its
natural
condition
by
violence
was
ready,
and
even
eager,
to
return
to
the
condition
consonant
with
its
nature.
Thus
Norton,
in
his
Ordinal
of
Alchemy,
says:
"Metals
are
generated
in
the
earth,
for
above
ground
they
are
subject
to
rust;
hence
above
ground
is
the
place
of
corruption
of
metals,
and
of
their
gradual
destruction.
The
cause
which
we
assign
to
this
fact
is
that
above
ground
they
are
not
in
their
proper
element,
and
an
unnatural
position
is
destructive
to
natural
objects,
as
we
see,
for
instance,
that
fishes
die
when
they
are
taken
out
of
the
water;
and
as
it
is
natural
for
men,
beasts,
and
birds
to
live
in
the
air,
so
stones
and
metals
are
naturally
generated
under
the
earth."
In
his
New
Pearl
of
Great
Price
(16th
century),
Bonus
says:--"The
object
of
Nature
in
all
things
is
to
introduce
into
each
substance
the
form
which
properly
belongs
to
it;
and
this
is
also
the
design
of
our
Art."
This
view
assumed
the
knowledge
of
the
natural
conditions
of
the
substances
wherewith
experiments
were
performed.
It
supposed
that
man
could
act
as
a
guide,
to
bring
back
to
its
natural
condition
a
substance
which
had
been
removed
from
that
condition,
either
by
violent
processes
of
nature,
or
by
man's
device.
The
alchemist
regarded
himself
as
an
arbiter
in
questions
concerning
the
natural
condition
of
each
substance
he
dealt
with.
He
thought
he
could
say,
"this
substance
ought
to
be
thus,
or
thus,"
"that
substance
is
constrained,
thwarted,
hindered
from
becoming
what
nature
meant
it
to
be."
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