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177
The Story of Alchemy and the Beginnings of Chemistry
·
M. M. Pattison Muir
48
As
knowledge
became
more
accurate
and
more
concentrated,
the
words
sulphur,
salt,
mercury,
&c.,
began
to
be
applied
to
distinct
substances,
and
as
these
terms
were
still
employed
in
their
alchemical
sense
as
compendious
expressions
for
certain
qualities
common
to
great
classes
of
substances,
much
confusion
arose.
Kunckel,
the
discoverer
of
phosphorus,
who
lived
between
1630
and
1702,
complained
of
the
alchemists'
habit
of
giving
different
names
to
the
same
substance,
and
the
same
name
to
different
substances.
"The
sulphur
of
one,"
he
says,
"is
not
the
sulphur
of
another,
to
the
great
injury
of
science.
To
that
one
replies
that
everyone
is
perfectly
free
to
baptise
his
infant
as
he
pleases.
Granted.
You
may
if
you
like
call
an
ass
an
ox,
but
you
will
never
make
anyone
believe
that
your
ox
is
an
ass."
Boyle
is
very
severe
on
the
vague
and
loose
use
of
words
practised
by
so
many
writers
of
his
time.
In
The
Sceptical
Chymist
(published
1678-9)
he
says:
"If
judicious
men,
skilled
in
chymical
affairs,
shall
once
agree
to
write
clearly
and
plainly
of
them,
and
thereby
keep
men
from
being
stunned,
as
it
were,
or
imposed
upon
by
dark
and
empty
words;
it
is
to
be
hoped
that
these
[other]
men
finding,
that
they
can
no
longer
write
impertinently
and
absurdly,
without
being
laughed
at
for
doing
so,
will
be
reduced
either
to
write
nothing,
or
books
that
may
teach
us
something,
and
not
rob
men,
as
formerly,
of
invaluable
time;
and
so
ceasing
to
trouble
the
world
with
riddles
or
impertinences,
we
shall
either
by
their
books
receive
an
advantage,
or
by
their
silence
escape
an
inconvenience."
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