PRIMITIVE SCIENCE, the BACKGROUND of EARLY CHEMISTRY and ALCHEMY * TENNEY L. DAVIS Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts
ARLY chemistry and alchemy, like all the early of operation of man's mind. To that extent it is fundasciences, were erected upon the foundation of a mental and enduring-and it still survives. We are more general science, of a primitive all-including, prone to overlook its method, as we fail to be aware single, fundamental doctrine concerning the nature of of the procedure by which we perform habitual actions. the world as a whole and of the particular objects which Ancient elaborations of the doctrine approached the fantastic but they attached themmake it up. This primitive science selves to natural science and to was not merely a doctrine of nareligion; they long supplied a ture hut also, and probably conbackground for chemistry, and sciously so, a doctrine of the procthey still continue in many ways ess of knowing-for the ancients to influence the life of the present. were no better able than we are to distinguish the form from the conWhen we undertake to think, we proceed on the principle that tent of knowledge. Our present sciencesretain many marks of their a given proposition is either true or origin in the primitive science false, that a given object is an x or which existed before the various a not-x. When we nndertake to branches of knowledge were disstudy a group of objects or facts or tinguished from one another. The phenomena, our first step appears marks in question are not characto be the separation in the mind teristic of chemistry or physics or of those members of the group medicine, and no more! pertain which possess a certain character uniquely to any particular science from those members which don't. than does a general theory of The choice of the character by knowledge. But an understanding which one portion of the group of them is essential to an underdiffers from the other determines standing of the history of each of the quality and value of our scienthe special sciences. The doctrines tific result. For the present disto which the present paper is decussion, however, we are interested voted existed before chemistry in the method. We separate the and alchemy; they existed apart is so from the i s not so, the Tes from from them, and they later existed the no, and by that means comin combmation with purely chemimence the creation of order. Chaos cal and alchemical doctrines. A in the beginning was classified by the proceSs of separating opposites, clear recognition of the all-pervathe day from the night, the light siveness of primitive science--that from the darkness, until a t length the special sciences derived from the four "Aristotelean" elements, it, not it from the special sciences air, earth, fie, and water, ap-will help toward a clarification peared in their proper places, the of the problems which relate to fiery firmament, the waters under the origins of alchemy. the earth, etc. Allowing for the The universal applicability of fact that it is poetry, the first primitive science suggests, and chapter of Genesis contains an probably proves, that it represents FIGURE1 epistemologically correct account the spontaneous and natural mode Hermes Trismegistos, the Egyptian Thot, patron saint of the chemists, to whom we pay of the process by which the intel'Read hefore the Division of H i s homage when we speak of a vessel being her- ligence creates order out of the tory of Chemistry at the 88th meeting metically sealed. In his right hand he car- chaos of experience. of the American Chemical Societv. at ries the ankh, symbol of life from which the The earliest philosophies with Cleveland, Ohio. September 10-14.i934: cross as a symbol of life was derived. 3
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which we are acquainted teach that the universe is controlled by or consists of Two Contraries (two contrary principles, forces, deities, or kinds of raw material for the production of substance) by the interaction of which all things in the world are produced. In Mesopotamia these were Baal or Bel, the Father God, the Sun, hot, active, light, the positive principle, and Astarte, Astaroth, or Ishtar (for whom the festival of Easter
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Sulfur
Phlogiston
v Water
Seal of Solomon
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Earth FIGURE2 Considerable good sense went into the designing of the symbols of the Four Elements. Fire goes up, air goes up but is more substantial than fire, water goes down, and earth goes down and is more substantial than water. A comparison of the symbols of fire, sulfur, and phlogiston demonstrates the continuity of a single idea. Some early writers on chemistry treated the Seal of Solomon as a symbol of the unity of matter because it is made up out of the symbols of the Four Elements. Others regarded it as the symbol of Superlative Wisdom. The Three Contraries,* correspondingsto Wisdom, were represented by a single triangle within a circle, the three sides of the triangle representing, respectively. Knowledge, Will, and Power, and the circle representing the mediating Fourth, Intelligent Restraint.
was originally celebrated), the Mother Goddess, the Moon, cold.. ~assive. heaw, * .. the material and nepative ~~~~tthe same were osiris, the sun, principle, Isis, the Moon. The Emerald Table of Hermes Trismegistos' is a sincere and sober exposition of the primitive doctrine, a t once cosmogony and metaphysics. "That which is below is as that which is above, and that which is above is as that which is below, for accomplishing the miracles of a single thing. And as all things were from one,. by the meditation of one, so all things were born from this one thing, by adaptation. The father of it is the Sun, * Concerning the Three Contraries see I d Eng. Chem., 20, 772 (1928). See J. CHEM. EDUC.,3, 863-75 (1926).
the lMother of it the Moon. . . . So the world was created. Hence there will be marvelous adaptations of which this is the mode. And so I am called Hermes Trismegistos, having three parts of the philosophy of the whole world. I t is complete what I have said concerning the operation of the Sun." This is no document of chemistry or alchemy. The chemists took it over, read chemistry into it, and adopted Hermes as their patron saint. The Sun and Moon of the Emerald Table are not identical with the Sol and Lunu, gold and silver, of the medizval Latins. They are, however, the same as the two principles, Sulfur and Mercury, of Zosimos, Geber, and the later alchemists and chemists. The identity appears to be fully established by a passage in the Tractatus de metallis et AlchimiaLMWetouch first on these points in a special discussion of the metals, what are the father and mother of the metals? as the alchemists and Hermes Trismegistos say when they speak metaphorically. For sulfur is in effect the father and quicksilver in effect the mother." Just as the Sun and Moon of the Emerald Table produce all things, so the Sulfur and Mercury principles give rise to minerals and metals. The chemical doctrine is set forth clearly in the Speculum Alchemiae (Mirror of Alchemy) of Roger B a ~ o n . "It ~ ought to be noted that the mineral principles in mines are Quicksilver and Sulfur. The complex metals and all other mineral substances, of which the varieties are many and diverse, are procreated. from these. I say that Nature always sets before herself as an object the perfection of gold and strives for it. But various supervening accidents transfo:m the metals, as is set forth p1ainly.i~ many books of the philosophers. For pure and impure metals are generated according to the purity or impurity of the prime two, that is, of the Quicksilver and of the Sulfur." Albertus Magnus, in the treatise de AZ~hemia,~ states that "fetid earth" and "corrupt sulfur" are the causes which prevent the formation of the perfect metal, gold, whenever the two principles enter into combination. I t is to be noted that metals differ among themselves only in their accidental form, not in their essential, and that a spoliation of the accidents in metals is therefore possible. Hence it is possible by art to constitute a new substance, because all classes of metals are generated i n t h e earth from Sulfur and Quicksilver combined, or are generated because of fetid earth. . . . Just so it is among the metals which are corrupted either from corrupt sulfur or from fetid earth. Hence this is the difference of all the metals which differ among themselves. When clean red Sulfur encounters Quicksilver in the earth, thence gold is generated in a short or in a long time by the assiduity or decoction of nature
u. d. ~ e c h n i k . 12. 33 (1929). I n the &anuscript the pas&
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armztum vivum ouasi motrr." But i i seems reasonable to recoani& cimeginus a
