Mediaeval Lore from Bartholomew Anglicus | Page 8

Egyptian practical receipts, the
neo-Greek philosophies, and the Chinese dreams of an "elixir vitae"
were fused into one by the Arab and Syriac writers. Its period of
activity ranges from the seventh to the tenth centuries. Little is really
known about it, or can be, until the Arabic texts, which are abundant in
Europe, are translated and classified both from the scholar's and the
chemist's standpoint. Many works were translated into Latin about the
end of the tenth century, such as the spurious fourth book of the
_Meteorics of Aristotle_, the treatises of the _Turta Philosophorum_,
_Artis Auriferae_, etc., which formed the starting-point of European

speculation. The theoretical chemistry of our author is derived from
them.
The third stage of chemistry begins with the fourteenth and ends with
the sixteenth century. It is characterized by an immense growth of
theory, a fertile imagination, and untiring industry. It reached its height
in England about 1440, and is represented by the reputed works of
Lully (vixit circ. 1300), which first appeared about this date. In this
period practical alchemy is on its trial.
The fourth stage begins with Boyle, and closes with the eighteenth
century. Still under the dominion of theoretical alchemy, practical
alchemy was rejected by it, and its interest was concentrated on the
collection of facts. It led up to modern chemistry, which begins with
Lavoisier, and the introduction of the balance in the study of chemical
change.
Chemical theory, then, in our author's time stood somewhat thus.
Metals as regarded their elemental composition were considered to
partake of the nature of earth, water, and air, in various proportions.
Fossils, or those things generated in the earth which were not metals,
were again subdivided into two classes--those which liquefy on being
heated, as sulphur, nitre, etc., and those which do not. The metals were
considered to be composed of sulphur and mercury. These substances
are themselves compounds, but they act as elements in the composition
of metals. Sulphur represented their combustible aspect, and also that
which gave them their solid form; while mercury was that to which
their weight and powers of becoming fluid were due.
This theory was due to two main facts. Most ores of metals, especially
of copper and lead, contain much sulphur, which can be either obtained
pure from them, or be recognised by its smell when burning. This gave
rise to the sulphur theory, while the presence of mercury was inferred
doubtless from the resemblance of the more commonly molten metals,
silver, tin, and lead, to quicksilver. The properties of each metal were
then put down to the presence of these substances. The list of seven
metals is that of the most ancient times--gold, electrum, silver, copper,
tin, lead, iron; but it is clearly recognised that electrum is an alloy of
gold and silver.
Most of the facts in this book are derived from Pliny through Isidore,
but, that the theory is Arab in origin, one fact alone would convince us.

A consideration of the composition of the metals shows us that tin is
nearest in properties of all metals to the precious ones, but tin is
precisely the metal chosen by Arab alchemists as a starting-point in the
Chrysopoeia.
Beside their scientific interest these passages have supplied many
analogies. When Troilus is piling up his lover's oaths to Cressida, his
final words are:
"As iron to adamant, as earth to centre;"
our chapter on the adamant supplies the origin of this allusion in part,
astronomy gives the other. Diamonds are still, unfortunately, the
precious stones of reconciliation and of love our author bespeaks them.
The editor has not lengthened the chapter by extracts giving the occult
properties of gems, and has contented himself by quoting from the
chapter on glass a new simile and an old story.
Matter and form are principles of all bodily things; and privation of
matter and form is naught else but destruction of all things. And the
more subtle and high matter is in kind, the more able it is to receive
form and shape. And the more thick and earthly it is, the more feeble is
it to receive impression, printing of forms and of shapes. And matter is
principle and beginning of distinction, and of diversity, and of
multiplying, and of things that are gendered. For the thing that
gendereth and the thing that is gendered are not diverse but touching
matter. And therefore where a thing is gendered without matter, the
thing that gendereth, and the thing that is gendered, are all one in
substance and in kind: as it fareth of the persons in the Trinity. Of form
is diversity, by the which one thing is diverse from another, and some
form is essential, and some accidental. Essential form is that which
cometh into matter, and maketh