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177
The Story of Alchemy and the Beginnings of Chemistry
·
M. M. Pattison Muir
39
CHAPTER
IV.
THE
ALCHEMICAL
ELEMENTS
AND
PRINCIPLES.
The
alchemists
were
sure
that
the
intention
of
nature
regarding
metals
was
that
they
should
become
gold,
for
gold
was
considered
to
be
the
most
perfect
metal,
and
nature,
they
said,
evidently
strains
after
perfection.
The
alchemist
found
that
metals
were
worn
away,
eaten
through,
broken,
and
finally
caused
to
disappear,
by
many
acid
and
acrid
liquids
which
he
prepared
from
mineral
substances.
But
gold
resisted
the
attacks
of
these
liquids;
it
was
not
changed
by
heat,
nor
was
it
affected
by
sulphur,
a
substance
which
changed
limpid,
running
mercury
into
an
inert,
black
solid.
Hence,
gold
was
more
perfect
in
the
alchemical
scale
than
any
other
metal.
Since
gold
was
considered
to
be
the
most
perfect
metal,
it
was
self-evident
to
the
alchemical
mind
that
nature
must
form
gold
slowly
in
the
earth,
must
transmute
gradually
the
inferior
metals
into
gold.
"The
only
thing
that
distinguishes
one
metal
from
another,"
writes
an
alchemist
who
went
under
the
name
of
Philalethes,
"is
its
degree
of
maturity,
which
is,
of
course,
greatest
in
the
most
precious
metals;
the
difference
between
gold
and
lead
is
not
one
of
substance,
but
of
digestion;
in
the
baser
metal
the
coction
has
not
been
such
as
to
purge
out
its
metallic
impurities.
If
by
any
means
this
superfluous
impure
matter
could
be
organically
removed
from
the
baser
metals,
they
would
become
gold
and
silver.
So
miners
tell
us
that
lead
has
in
many
cases
developed
into
silver
in
the
bowels
of
the
earth,
and
we
contend
that
the
same
effect
is
produced
in
a
much
shorter
time
by
means
of
our
Art."
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