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177
The Story of Alchemy and the Beginnings of Chemistry
·
M. M. Pattison Muir
40
Stories
were
told
about
the
finding
of
gold
in
deserted
mines
which
had
been
worked
out
long
before;
these
stories
were
supposed
to
prove
that
gold
was
bred
in
the
earth.
The
facts
that
pieces
of
silver
were
found
in
tin
and
lead
mines,
and
gold
was
found
in
silver
mines,
were
adduced
as
proofs
that,
as
the
author
of
The
New
Pearl
of
Great
Price
says,
"Nature
is
continually
at
work
changing
other
metals
into
gold,
because,
though
in
a
certain
sense
they
are
complete
in
themselves,
they
have
not
yet
reached
the
highest
perfection
of
which
they
are
capable,
and
to
which
nature
has
destined
them."
What
nature
did
in
the
earth
man
could
accomplish
in
the
workshop.
For
is
not
man
the
crown
of
the
world,
the
masterpiece
of
nature,
the
flower
of
the
universe;
was
he
not
given
dominion
over
all
things
when
the
world
was
created?
In
asserting
that
the
baser
metals
could
be
transmuted
into
gold,
and
in
attempting
to
effect
this
transmutation,
the
alchemist
was
not
acting
on
a
vague;
haphazard
surmise;
he
was
pursuing
a
policy
dictated
by
his
conception
of
the
order
of
nature;
he
was
following
the
method
which
he
conceived
to
be
that
used
by
nature
herself.
The
transmutation
of
metals
was
part
and
parcel
of
a
system
of
natural
philosophy.
If
this
transmutation
were
impossible,
the
alchemical
scheme
of
things
would
be
destroyed,
the
believer
in
the
transmutation
would
be
left
without
a
sense
of
order
in
the
material
universe.
And,
moreover,
the
alchemist's
conception
of
an
orderly
material
universe
was
so
intimately
connected
with
his
ideas
of
morality
and
religion,
that
to
disprove
the
possibility
of
the
great
transmutation
would
be
to
remove
not
only
the
basis
of
his
system
of
material
things,
but
the
foundations
of
his
system
of
ethics
also.
To
take
away
his
belief
in
the
possibility
of
changing
other
metals
into
gold
would
be
to
convert
the
alchemist
into
an
atheist.
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