The Story of Alchemy and the Beginnings of Chemistry

The conclusion of the Canon's Yeoman's Tale shows that, in the 14th century, there was a general belief in the possibility of finding the philosopher's stone, and effecting the transmutation, although the common practitioners of the art were regarded as deceivers. A disciple of Plato is supposed to ask his master to tell him the "namè of the privee stoon." Plato gives him certain directions, and tells him he must use magnasia; the disciple asks-- 'What is Magnasia, good sire, I yow preye?' 'It is a water that is maad, I seye, Of elementés fourè,' quod Plato. 'Telle me the rootè, good sire,' quod he tho, Of that water, if it be yourè wille.' 'Nay, nay,' quod Plato, 'certein that I nylle; The philosophres sworn were everychoon That they sholden discovers it unto noon, Ne in no book it write in no manere, For unto Crist it is so lief and deere, That he wol nat that it discovered bee, But where it liketh to his deitee Man for tenspire, and eek for to deffende Whom that hym liketh; lo, this is the ende.' The belief in the possibility of alchemy seems to have been general sometime before Chaucer wrote; but that belief was accompanied by the conviction that alchemy was an impious pursuit, because the transmutation of baser metals into gold was regarded as trenching on the prerogative of the Creator, to whom alone this power rightfully belonged. In his Inferno (which was probably written about the year 1300), Dante places the alchemists in the eighth circle of hell, not apparently because they were fraudulent impostors, but because, as one of them says, "I aped creative nature by my subtle art."