 | Alchemy |  |
THE ALCHEMY of the sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries represents a fusion of many seemingly disparate themes derived from ancient and medieval Near and Far Eastern sources. A simple definition is difficult if not impossible. The alchemists always maintained a special interest in the changes of matter and surely most of them accepted the concept of transmutation, but there were other significant strains evident in alchemical thought as well. Important among these was the early and persistent belief that the study of alchemy had a special role in medicine through the preparation of remedies and the search for the prolongation of life. In addition to this was the belief that alchemy was the fundamental science for the investigation of nature. And yet, if the alchemists spoke repeatedly of experience and observation as the true keys to nature, they also maintained a fervent belief in a universe unified through the relationship of the macrocosm and the microcosm-a relationship that of necessity tied this science to astrology. The alchemists were convinced further that their search for the truths of nature might be conceived in terms of a religious quest which would result in a greater knowledge of the Creator. It is not surprising then to find a late sixteenth-century author defining medicine as "the searching out of the secretes of nature," a goal that was to be accomplished by resort to "mathematicall and supernaturall precepts, the exercise whereof is Mechanicall, and to be accomplished with labor." Having thus defined medicine, he went on to state that the real name of this art was simply chemistry or alchemy (Bostocke, 1585).
In short, while few would deny that there were elements of modern science in alchemy, it is also true that this was a study permeated with a mysticism foreign to the post-Newtonian world.
| Alchemy | |