THE ALCHEMICAL CONCEPTION OF THE UNITY AND SIMPLICITY OF NATURE.
In the preceding chapter I have referred to the frequent use made by
the alchemists of their supposition that nature follows the same plan,
or at any rate a very similar plan, in all her processes. If this
supposition is accepted, the primary business of an investigator of
nature is to trace likenesses and analogies between what seem on the
surface to be dissimilar and unconnected events. As this idea, and
this practice, were the foundations whereon the superstructure of
alchemy was raised, I think it is important to amplify them more fully
than I have done already.
Mention is made in many alchemical writings of a mythical personage
named _Hermes Trismegistus_, who is said to have lived a little later
than the time of Moses. Representations of Hermes Trismegistus are
found on ancient Egyptian monuments. We are told that Alexander the
Great found his tomb near Hebron; and that the tomb contained a slab
of emerald whereon thirteen sentences were written. The eighth
sentence is rendered in many alchemical books as follows:
"Ascend with the greatest sagacity from the earth to heaven, and then
again descend to the earth, and unite together the powers of things
superior and things inferior. Thus you will obtain the glory of the
whole world, and obscurity will fly away from you."
This sentence evidently teaches the unity of things in heaven and
things on earth, and asserts the possibility of gaining, not merely a
theoretical, but also a practical, knowledge of the essential
characters of all things. Moreover, the sentence implies that this
fruitful knowledge is to be obtained by examining nature, using as
guide the fundamental similarity supposed to exist between things
above and things beneath.
The alchemical writers constantly harp on this theme: follow nature;
provided you never lose the clue, which is simplicity and similarity.
The author of _The Only Way_ (1677) beseeches his readers "to enlist
under the standard of that method which proceeds in strict obedience
to the teaching of nature ... in short, the method which nature
herself pursues in the bowels of the earth."
The alchemists tell us not to expect much help from books and written
directions. When one of them has said all he can say, he adds--"The
question is whether even this book will convey any information to one
before whom the writings of the Sages and the open book of Nature are
exhibited in vain." Another tells his readers the only thing for them
is "to beseech God to give you the real philosophical temper, and to
open your eyes to the facts of nature; thus alone will you reach the
coveted goal."
"Follow nature" is sound advice. But, nature was to be followed with
eyes closed save to one vision, and the vision was to be seen before
the following began.
The alchemists' general conception of nature led them to assign to
every substance a condition or state natural to it, and wherein alone
it could be said to be as it was designed to be. Each substance, they
taught, could be caused to leave its natural state only by violent, or
non-natural, means, and any substance which had been driven from its
natural condition by violence was ready, and even eager, to return to
the condition consonant with its nature.
Thus Norton, in his _Ordinal of Alchemy_, says: "Metals are generated
in the earth, for above ground they are subject to rust; hence above
ground is the place of corruption of metals, and of their gradual
destruction. The cause which we assign to this fact is that above
ground they are not in their proper element, and an unnatural position
is destructive to natural objects, as we see, for instance, that
fishes die when they are taken out of the water; and as it is natural
for men, beasts, and birds to live in the air, so stones and metals
are naturally generated under the earth."
In his _New Pearl of Great Price_ (16th century), Bonus says:--"The
object of Nature in all things is to introduce into each substance the
form which properly belongs to it; and this is also the design of our
Art."
This view assumed the knowledge of the natural conditions of the
substances wherewith experiments were performed. It supposed that man
could act as a guide, to bring back to its natural condition a
substance which had been removed from that condition, either by
violent processes of nature, or by man's device. The alchemist
regarded himself as an arbiter in questions concerning the natural
condition of each substance he dealt with. He thought he could say,
"this substance ought to be thus, or thus," "that substance is
constrained, thwarted, hindered from becoming what nature meant it to
be."
In Ben Jonson's play called _The Alchemist_, Subtle (who is the
alchemist of the play) says, " ... metals would be gold if they had
time."
The alchemist not only attributed ethical qualities to material
things, he also became the guardian and guide of the moral practices
of these things. He thought himself able to recall the erring metal to
the path of metalline virtue, to lead the extravagant mineral back to
the moral home-life from which it had been seduced, to show the
doubting and vacillating salt what it was ignorantly seeking, and to
help it to find the unrealised object of its search. The alchemist
acted as a sort of conscience to the metals, minerals, salts, and
other substances he submitted to the processes of his laboratory. He
treated them as a wise physician might treat an ignorant and somewhat
refractory patient. "I know what you want better than you do," he
seems often to be saying to the metals he is calcining, separating,
joining and subliming.
But the ignorant alchemist was not always thanked for his treatment.
Sometimes the patient rebelled. For instance, Michael Sendivogius, in
his tract, _The New Chemical Light drawn from the Fountain of Nature
and of Manual Experience_ (17th century), recounts _a dialogue between
Mercury, the Alchemist, and Nature_.
"On a certain bright morning a number of Alchemists met together in a
meadow, and consulted as to the best way of preparing the
Philosopher's Stone.... Most of them agreed that Mercury was the first
substance. Others said, no, it was sulphur, or something else.... Just
as the dispute began to run high, there arose a violent wind, which
dispersed the Alchemists into all the different countries of the
world; and as they had arrived at no conclusion, each one went on
seeking the Philosopher's Stone in his own old way, this one expecting
to find it in one substance, and that in another, so that the search
has continued without intermission even unto this day. One of them,
however, had at least got the idea into his head that Mercury was the
substance of the Stone, and determined to concentrate all his efforts
on the chemical preparation of Mercury.... He took common Mercury and
began to work with it. He placed it in a glass vessel over the fire,
when it, of course, evaporated. So in his ignorance he struck his
wife, and said: 'No one but you has entered my laboratory; you must
have taken my Mercury out of the vessel.' The woman, with tears,
protested her innocence. The Alchemist put some more Mercury into the
vessel.... The Mercury rose to the top of the vessel in vaporous
steam. Then the Alchemist was full of joy, because he remembered that
the first substance of the Stone is described by the Sages as
volatile; and he thought that now at last he _must_ be on the right
track. He now began to subject the Mercury to all sorts of chemical
processes, to sublime it, and to calcine it with all manner of things,
with salts, sulphur, metals, minerals, blood, hair, aqua fortis,
herbs, urine, and vinegar.... Everything he could think of was tried;
but without producing the desired effect." The Alchemist then
despaired; after a dream, wherein an old man came and talked with him
about the "Mercury of the Sages," the Alchemist thought he would charm
the Mercury, and so he used a form of incantation. The Mercury
suddenly began to speak, and asked the Alchemist why he had troubled
him so much, and so on. The Alchemist replied, and questioned the
Mercury. The Mercury makes fun of the philosopher. Then the Alchemist
again torments the Mercury by heating him with all manner of horrible
things. At last Mercury calls in the aid of Nature, who soundly rates
the philosopher, tells him he is grossly ignorant, and ends by saying:
"The best thing you can do is to give yourself up to the king's
officers, who will quickly put an end to you and your philosophy."
As long as men were fully persuaded that they knew the plan whereon
the world was framed, that it was possible for them to follow exactly
"the road which was followed by the Great Architect of the Universe in
the creation of the world," a real knowledge of natural events was
impossible; for every attempt to penetrate nature's secrets
presupposed a knowledge of the essential characteristics of that which
was to be investigated. But genuine knowledge begins when the
investigator admits that he must learn of nature, not nature of him.
It might be truly said of one who held the alchemical conception of
nature that "his foible was omniscience"; and omniscience negatives
the attainment of knowledge.
The alchemical notion of a natural state as proper to each substance
was vigorously combated by the Honourable Robert Boyle (born 1626,
died 1691), a man of singularly clear and penetrative intellect. In _A
Paradox of the Natural and Supernatural States of Bodies, Especially
of the Air_, Boyle says:--"I know that not only in living, but even in
inanimate, bodies, of which alone I here discourse, men have
universally admitted the famous distinction between the natural and
preternatural, or violent state of bodies, and do daily, without the
least scruple, found upon it hypotheses and ratiocinations, as if it
were most certain that what they call nature had purposely formed
bodies in such a determinate state, and were always watchful that they
should not by any external violence be put out of it. But
notwithstanding so general a consent of men in this point, I confess,
I cannot yet be satisfied about it in the sense wherein it is wont to
be taken. It is not, that I believe, that there is no sense in which,
or in the account upon which, a body may he said to be in its natural
state; but that I think the common distinction of a natural and
violent state of bodies has not been clearly explained and
considerately settled, and both is not well grounded, and is
oftentimes ill applied. For when I consider that whatever state a body
be put into, or kept in, it obtains or retains that state, assenting
to the catholic laws of nature, I cannot think it fit to deny that in
this sense the body proposed is in a natural state; but then, upon the
same ground, it will he hard to deny but that those bodies which are
said to be in a violent state may also be in a natural one, since the
violence they are presumed to suffer from outward agents is likewise
exercised no otherwise than according to the established laws of
universal nature."
There must be something very fascinating and comforting in the
alchemical view of nature, as a harmony constructed on one simple
plan, which can be grasped as a whole, and also in its details, by the
introspective processes of the human intellect; for that conception
prevails to-day among those who have not investigated natural
occurrences for themselves. The alchemical view of nature still forms
the foundation of systems of ethics, of philosophy, of art. It appeals
to the innate desire of man to make himself the measure of all
things. It is so easy, so authoritative, apparently so satisfactory.
No amount of thinking and reasoning will ever demonstrate its falsity.
It can be conquered only by a patient, unbiassed, searching
examination of some limited portion of natural events.