ALCHEMY—THE ALCHEMISTS.
The word chemistry was used for the first time by Suidas, a
lexicographer of the tenth century, and at that time meant an alloy
of gold and silver. It is alluded to in connection with the Emperor
Diocletian, of whom it is said, that irritated by a revolt of the
Egyptians against the laws of the empire, he had all their books of
chemistry committed to the flames, so as to punish them for their
rebellion by preventing them from carrying on the lucrative business
arising out of the melting and working of precious metals. There is
little doubt the Egyptians and Greeks were acquainted with certain
chemical operations, or what was termed the hermetic science, which was
afterwards called alchemy in the first century of the Christian era.
The first two great lights that appeared were Al-Chindus, and Geber
who discovered the red oxide and bichloride of mercury, nitric acid,
hydrochloric acid, and nitrate of silver. Geber’s _Summa Perfectionis_
and _Liber Philisophorum_ embody his researches on the purification
and malleability of metals. In the ninth century, the Arab alchemist
Rhazes flourished. In his great work entitled _El Hharvi_, he
alludes to realgar, orpiment, borax, mixtures of sulphur and iron
with copper, and of mercury with acids, and arsenic. He further
recommends physicians to use alcoholic preparations and animal oils,
etc. He states: “The secret art of chemistry is nearer possible than
impossible; the mysteries do not reveal themselves except by force of
labour and perseverance. But what a triumph it is when man can raise
a corner of the veil which conceals the works of God!” The knowledge
displayed of chemistry and its application to the arts at that early
period is wonderful, but books were few. The chief evidence of this
knowledge is exhibited in the many specimens and art monuments in the
museums of Spain, showing the skill of the Saracens and of the Moors.
A little later Mesué states, “certain principles had been recognised as
to the analytical classification of the bodies which compose organic
matter”.
Of the ancient necromancers who have figured in history and romance,
Merlin was perhaps the most extraordinary. The earliest mention of
his name is in records of the eleventh century, although he appears to
have flourished about the time of the Saxon invasion of Britain, in the
latter part of the fifth century.
He is first mentioned in connection with the fortune of Vortigern,
who is represented by Geoffrey of Monmouth, as at that time King of
England. Vortigern having lost all his strongholds in his struggle
with the Saxons, at length consulted his magicians as to how he was
to defend himself from his troublesome foe. They advised him to build
an impregnable tower, and chose a suitable site for its erection. The
builders set to work with might and main, but were astonished to find,
that as fast as they built in one day, the next morning the earth had
swallowed it up, and not a vestige remained. So the king called the
wise men together again, when they arrived at the conclusion that the
only way to remedy the matter was to cement the walls of the tower with
the blood of a human being who was born of no human father.
Vortigern at once sent forth emissaries to scour the country in search
of this _rara avis_, and at length by good fortune they came across
Merlin, near the town of Caermarthen in Wales, who claimed that his
mother was the daughter of a king but his father was an angelic being.
The king’s emissaries evidently took his word for it, as they speedily
carried him before Vortigern. A great meeting of the magicians was
called, at which the king presided, and Merlin, instead of being
condemned as the victim, confounded the wise men, and told the king
the ground they had chosen for his tower had a lake beneath it, at
the bottom of which, on being drained, they would find two dragons of
inextinguishable hostility. Under the form of dragons he appears to
have figured the Britons and Saxons in his speech, “all of which,” the
historian tells us, “proved to be true”.
But the greatest exploit with which Merlin is credited, according to
tradition, is the erection of Stonehenge as a lasting monument to the
300 British nobles massacred by the Saxons. It is supposed that these
mighty stones had been originally set up in Africa, and from thence
were transported to Ireland. Merlin commanded that they should be
carried over the sea, and erected on Salisbury Plain; but no workman
could be found to move them. He therefore brought his magical power to
bear on the huge stones, and by this means they were caused to take the
form in which they now stand.
Of the other wonderful stories which romance has woven round the career
of this strange individual, we can only say they are interesting, if
not exactly true. As 600 years elapsed between the time of Merlin and
the earliest known records of his achievements, it is impossible to
pronounce on their veracity.
Among the more famous of the early alchemists was St. Dunstan, who
flourished in the tenth century; but, if tradition speaks truly, he
was anything but a saint in character. He is said to have been a man
of distinguished birth, who in his young days lived a life of great
self-indulgence, even for that period of peculiar morality. At length,
he was seized with a dangerous illness which threatened to terminate
his career; but at the last extremity an angel appeared, bringing
a medicine which speedily restored him to health. Hastening to the
nearest church to return thanks, he was stopped by the devil with a
pack of black dogs, whom however he speedily put to flight. In order to
expiate his former irregularities, he now secluded himself in the abbey
of Glastonbury, where he occupied a cell in which he could neither
stand upright nor stretch his limbs in repose, and mortified his flesh
exceedingly. Here he studied alchemy and magic, in which arts he soon
became well versed. While in this cell, he is said to have had the most
extraordinary visitations, and among others the devil was constantly
thrusting his head in at the window and taunting the saint, while
immersed in his studies. At length, one day, wearied out, Dunstan lost
all patience, and seizing his red-hot tongs from the little furnace in
which he conducted his chemical operations, caught the devil by the
nose, and held him firmly, “while the bellowings of Satan,” says the
historian, “filled the whole neighbourhood for many miles round”. This
incident is frequently represented in ancient carvings.
Dunstan was a Benedictine monk, and next came forth and took a
prominent part in political and religious matters. He seems to have
been the king-maker of his time, and took a prominent part in the
ruling of the kingdom during the reigns of Edwy and Edgar.
In the accompanying illustration the alchemist, with uplifted torch, is
repeating the specified incantation over the still, under which he has
just kindled a fire, having commenced the preparation of the “Elixir of
Life”.
[Illustration: AN ALCHEMIST.
From an engraving dated 1576.]
In the year A.D. 1260, Albertus Magnus, formerly a Dominican monk, was
made master of the sacred palace at the court of Rome, and afterwards
Bishop of Ratisbon. This great philosophical student was learned in
all the then known arts of chemistry, and his manuscripts and works
were copied by the thousand. All kinds of extraordinary powers were
attributed to him, and it was commonly stated that he could make gold,
and that he was a magician. Accused of “having dealings” with the evil
one, he resigned his high position and returned to his cloistered cell
to carry on his favourite researches and end his days. Next we come to
Vincent de Beauvais, often called the Pliny of the middle ages. He,
too, was accused of sorcery, and it is said that “at midnight people
would creep along the quays of the Seine towards his laboratory in St.
Chapelle yard, to see if they could get a glimpse reflected in the
river of the magic furnaces in which De Beauvais was supposed to evoke
his familiar spirit”.
About the same time Raymond Lulli became known to fame. He also
was a monk, and born in the island of Majorca, but having a roving
disposition he wandered over Europe. He wrote several works on alchemy,
among others _Libilli Aliquot Chemici_, etc. Fabulous stories are
related of his adventures; and he was cruelly stoned to death by
the populace in Tunis, in 1315. He left behind him a following of
believers, who called themselves Lullists and spread all over Europe.
The genius of the West at this time was Arnauld de Villeneuve, who
made several important discoveries in chemistry. His researches were
particularly directed to the relation of chemistry to medicine. He is
credited with having discovered sulphuric and other acids, and is said
to have been the first to distil alcohol or spirit of wine.
Contemporary with these men of learning was our own Roger Bacon, whose
love for his art nearly cost him his life, besides many years in
prison. The discoverer of gunpowder and the telescope spent most of his
life in experimental researches, with the result that he revolutionised
the art of war, and gave to astronomers the power of exploring the
heavens. He was a man of great ability, never justly appreciated by his
contemporaries, and has been rightly named the father of experimental
physics. He described most of the laws which regulate matter, and the
regular motion of the planets. Although a man of undoubted knowledge
and great power of conception, he was bitten with the mania of
endeavouring to discover the philosopher’s stone, his views respecting
which he set forth in his work entitled _Radix Mundi_. Following Bacon
came Antonio Quainer, of Pavia, who was the first to manufacture
artificial mineral waters.
It has been said by some that the discoveries made by the alchemists
were mainly the result of chance, and they were mostly ignorant
charlatans; but although they had little method in their research,
and a great deal of their knowledge was wrapped up in absurd and
superstitious theories, when we look at the result of their discoveries
up to the fifteenth century, the most prejudiced must admit that
their labours were not spent entirely in vain. They demonstrated the
existence of bismuth, liver of sulphur, and regulus of antimony, the
distillation of alcohol, volatilisation of mercury, and preparation of
aqua regia, sulphuric and other mineral acids, and the purification
of alkalies. They had the scarlet dye for cloth, the secret of which
has now been lost and cannot be equalled, and their processes of
glass-staining cannot be approached by those employed at the present
day. It is said that Eck, a German alchemist of Sultzbach, ascertained
the existence of oxygen 300 years before it was demonstrated by
Priestly. For these and other discoveries we have to thank the early
alchemists.
During the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries alchemy began to shake
itself free from the wild theories and absurd practices which had
impeded its progress. Henry VII. issued a severe edict against
alchemical practices, which put a stop to the impositions of a number
of charlatans. About this period John Baptist Porta discovered the
means of reducing the metallic oxides and of colouring silver, and
Isaac and Jean Hollandus made great improvements in enamelling, and
demonstrated the manufacture of artificial gems.
From the time of Paracelsus and the introduction of printing, the
science received a fresh impetus, and a new order of chemists came into
being, whose conflict with the old order for many years is a matter of
history.
The old theories of the alchemists were gradually exploded and
superseded, and many were driven to the most flagrant quackery to earn
a living.
Cornelius Agrippa, who was one of the leaders of the new order, says:
“It would take too much time to recount all the follies, the idle
secrets, and the enigmas of this trade, of the green lion, the fugitive
stag, the flying eagle, the inflated toad, the crow’s head of the black
blacker than the black, of the seal of Mercury, of the mud of wisdom,
and other countless absurdities of the time. Many of them travelled
from fair to fair in order to make a little money by the sale of white
lead, vermilion, antimony, and other drugs used by women for painting
the face, and drugs which the Scripture calls ointments of lust.”
Meanwhile the efforts of the practical workers were encouraged by
administrators and princes, with the result that the application of
chemistry and the technical arts became predominant, and metallurgy the
leading spirit of the science.
A notable character in the time of Queen Elizabeth was Dr. Dee,
alchemist and astrologer. The career of this man, who was more a
charlatan than aught else, was one of extraordinary vicissitude. A
Welshman by birth, he was educated at Oxford, and then travelled
throughout Europe, claiming that he had discovered the elixir of life
and the philosopher’s stone. He was a man of overweening ambition,
and delighted to hear himself called “Most Excellent”. In company
with a man named Kelly, it is said he discovered a quantity of the
elixir in the ruins of Glastonbury Abbey; this they at once annexed
and carried off to Poland, accompanied by a nobleman of that country.
After travelling from one Court to another, where he is said to have
performed wonderful feats with his elixir, he returned to England and
settled at Mortlake, where Elizabeth often visited him to consult him
on astrology, and he even ventured to predict her death.[3] He was a
great favourite at Court in 1595, and the Queen made him Chancellor of
Paul’s and Warden of Manchester, but he died in great poverty.
[3] Lilly’s _Autobiography_, 1774.
[Illustration: AN ALCHEMIST.
From an engraving dated 1576.]
The illustration represents an alchemist of the sixteenth century in
an ante-room of his laboratory, engaged in fixing a portion of his
apparatus. On the table is his luting box and knife. Through one window
a view of the laboratory with stills of varied size is obtained, while
through the other the sun looks with becoming gravity on the operation.
THE SYMBOLS OF THE ALCHEMISTS.
As in modern science chemists write their formulæ and work out their
processes by means of symbols, so the alchemists used signs and
hieroglyphics to represent the then known elements, metals, and other
articles in common use. The so-called elements—fire, air, water,
earth—were represented by special symbols, here represented. The
metals were supposed to be influenced by the planets to a certain
degree, and were represented by their corresponding signs. Various
other articles also had their symbols, which served as a means of
shorthand at a period when caligraphy was little known or employed.
[Illustration: Symbols for: Fire. Air. Water. Earth. Lead. Tin. Iron.
Gold. Copper. Mercury. Silver. Antimony. Arsenic. Aqua Vitæ. Borax.
To Purify. Cinnabar. Caput Mortuum. An Oil. Saltpetre. A Magnet. Sal
Ammoniac. Sulphur. Tartar. A Covered Pot. To Sublime. To Precipitate.]
[Illustration: Symbols for: Spirit of Wine. Roman Symbol for Denarius.
To Digest. To Distil. Aqua Fortis. Aqua Regalis. A Brick. To Calcine.
Camphire. Ashes. Cerusse. Lime. Quicklime. Cinnabar. Wax. Hartshorn.
A Crucible. Crystal. A Gum. Oil. Steel Filings. Litharge.]
[Illustration: Symbols for: To Lute. Sublimated Mercury. Precipitated
Mercury. Nitre. Realgar. Sand. Soap. Sal Alkali. Sal Ammoniac. Salt.
Talc. Vinegar. Verdigris. Vitriol. Urine. Day. Night.]