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177
The Story of Alchemy and the Beginnings of Chemistry
·
M. M. Pattison Muir
69
CHAPTER
VI.
ALCHEMY
AS
AN
EXPERIMENTAL
ART.
A
modern
writer,
Mr
A.E.
Waite,
in
his
Lives
of
the
Alchemystical
Philosophers,
says:
"The
physical
theory
of
transmutation
is
based
on
the
composite
character
of
the
metals,
on
their
generation
in
the
bowels
of
the
earth,
and
on
the
existence
in
nature
of
a
pure
and
penetrating
matter
which
applied
to
any
substance
exalts
and
perfects
it
after
its
own
kind."
It
must
he
admitted
that
the
alchemists
could
cite
many
instances
of
transmutations
which
seemed
to
lead
to
the
conclusion,
that
there
is
no
difference
of
kind
between
the
metals
and
other
substances
such
as
water,
acids,
oils,
resins,
and
wood.
We
are
able
to-day
to
effect
a
vast
number
of
transformations
wherein
one
substance
is
exchanged
for
another,
or
made
to
take
the
place
of
another.
We
can
give
fairly
satisfactory
descriptions
of
these
changes;
and,
by
comparing
them
one
with
another,
we
are
able
to
express
their
essential
features
in
general
terms
which
can
be
applied
to
each
particular
instance.
The
alchemists
had
no
searching
knowledge
of
what
may
be
called
the
mechanism
of
such
changes;
they
gave
an
explanation
of
them
which
we
must
call
incorrect,
in
the
present
state
of
our
knowledge.
But,
as
Hoefer
says
in
his
Histoire
de
la
Chimie,
"to
jeer
at
[the
alchemical]
theory
is
to
commit
at
once
an
anachronism
and
an
injustice....
Unless
the
world
should
finish
to-morrow,
no
one
can
have
the
pretension
to
suppose
that
our
contemporaries
have
said
the
last
word
of
science,
and
nothing
will
remain
for
our
descendants
to
discover,
no
errors
for
them
to
correct,
no
theories
for
them
to
set
straight."
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