But

lurgic chemistry was well understood at that time; for copper and iron are of all the metals most difficultly extracted from their ores, and cannot, even in our days, bé rendered malleable without much skill and trouble; and it proves also, that the arts in general, were in an improved state amongst the antediluvians. It is said, indeed, that some tribes of Hottentots (who can have no pretensions to be ranked amongst the cultivators of the arts) know how to melt both iron and copper*; but this knowledge of their, if they have not derived it from an intercourse with the Europeans, is a very extraor dinary circumstance, since the melting and manufacturing of metals are justly considered, in general, as indications of a more advanced state of civilization than the Hottentots have yet arrived at. not to dwell upon this; Cain we know built a city, and some would thence infer, that metals were in use before the time of Tubal.cain, and that he is celebrated principally for his ingenuity in fabricating them for domestic purposes. History seems to support our pre. tensions thus far. As to the opinion of those who, too zealously contending for the dignity of chemistry, make the discovery of its mysteries to have been the pretium amoris which angels paid to the fair daughters of men, we, in this age, are more disposed to apologize for it, than to adopt it. We may say of arts, what the Roman historian has said of states-datur hæc venia antiquitati, ut, miscendo humana divinis, primordia artium augustiora faciat +.

For many ages after the flood, we have no certain accounts of the state of chemistry. The art of making wine, indeed, was known, if not before, soon after the deluge; this may be collected from the intoxication of Noah 1, there being no inebriating qua. lity in the unfermented juice of the grape. The Egyptians were skilled in the manufacturing of metals, in medicinal chemistry, and in the art of embalming dead bodies, long before the time of Moses; as appears from the mention made of Joseph's cups, and from the physicians being ordered to embalm the body of Jacob ||. They practised also the arts of dying, and of making coloured glass, at a very early period; as has been gathered, not only from the testi. mony of Strabo, but from the relics found with their mummies, and from the glass beads with which their mummies are sometimes

Forster's Voy. vol. 1. p. 81.

+ Livy's Præf.
Gen. xliv. 2.

Gen. ix. 21. || Gen. 1. 2.

studded *. But we cannot, from these instances, conclude that chemistry was then cultivated as a separate branch of science, or distinguished in its application, from a variety of other arts which must have been exercised for the support and convenience of human life. All of these had probably some dependence on chemical principles, but they were then, as they are at present, practised by the several artists without their having any theoretical knowledge of their respective employments. Nor can we pay much attention in this inquiry to the obscure accounts which are given of the two great Egyptian philosophers, Hermes the elder, supposed to be the same with Mizraim, grandson of Noah ; and Hermes, surnamed Trismegistus, the younger, from whom chemistry has by some been affectedly called the Hermetic art.

The chemical skill of Moses, displayed in his burning, reducing to an impalpable powder, and rendering potable the golden calf in the wilderness, has been generally extolled by writers on this subject; and constantly adduced as a proof of the then flourishing state of chemistry amongst the Egyptians, in whose learning he is said to have been well versed. If Moses had really reduced the gold of which the calf consisted, into ashes, by calcining it in the fire; or made it any other way soluble in water, this instance would have been greatly in point; but neither in Exodus nor in Deuteronomy, where the fact is mentioned, is there any thing said of its being dissolved in water. The enemies of revelation, on the other hand, conceiving it to be impossible to calcine gold, or to render it potable, have produced this account as containing a proof of the want of veracity in the sacred historian. Both sides seem to be in an error; Stahl, and other chemists, have shewn that it is possible to make gold potable, but we have no reason to con. clude that Moses either used the process of Stahl, or any other chemical means for effecting the purpose intended-" he took the calf which they had made, and burnt it in the fire, and ground it to powder, and strewed it upon the water, and made the children of Israel to drink of itt." Here is not the least intimation given of the gold having been dissolved, chemically speaking, in water; it was stamped and ground, or, as the Arabic and Syriac versions

* See Delaval's ingenious Inquiry into the Cause of the Changes of Colours, Pref. LVI.; and Dutens' learned Inquiry into the Discoveries attributed to the Moderns, p. 241.

+ Exod. xxxii. 20.

have it, filed into a fine dust, and thrown into the river, of which the children of Israel used to drink: part of the gold would re. main, notwithstanding its greater specific gravity, suspended for a time (as happens in the washing of copper and lead ores), and might be swallowed in drinking the water; the rest would sink to the bottom, or be carried away by the flux of the stream.

Nevertheless, though nothing satisfactory can be concluded con. cerning the Egyptian chemistry, from what is said of Moses in this instance; yet the structure of the ark, and the fashion of Aaron's garments, clearly indicate to us that the arts of manufacturing me. tals, of dying leather red, and linen blue, purple, and scarlet; of distinguishing precious stones, and engraving upon them, were at that time practised in a very eminent degree*. The Israelites had unquestionably learned these arts in Egypt, and there is great reason to suppose, not only that learning of every kind first flourished in Egypt, but that chemistry in particular, was much cultivated in that country, when other sciences had passed into other parts of the world. Pliny, in speaking of the four periods of learning which had preceded the times in which he lived, reckons the Egyp. tian the first: and Suidas, who is thought to have lived in the tenth century, informs us, that the Emperor Diocletian ordered all the books of chemistry to be burned, lest the Egyptians learning from them the art of preparing gold and silver, should thence derive re. sources to oppose the Romans. It is worthy of notice, that Suidas uses the word chemistry in a very restricted sense, when he interprets it by the preparation of gold and silver;-but all the chemists in the time of Suidas, and for many ages before and after him, were alchemists. The edict of Diocletian in the third century, had little effect in repressing the ardour for that study in any part of the world, since we are told, that not less than five thousand books, to say nothing of manuscripts, have been published upon the subject of alchemy, since his time t.

At what particular period this branch of chemistry, respecting the transmutation of the baser metals into gold, began to be dis. tinguished by the name of alchemy, cannot be determined. An author of the fourth century, in an astrological work, speaks of the science of alchemy as well understood at that time; and

this is said to be the first place in which the word alchemy is used*. But Vossius asserts that we ought, in the place here re ferred to, instead of alchemia, to read chemia: be this as it may, we can have no doubt of alchemia bein compounded of the Arabic al (the) and chemia, to denote excellence and superiority, as in alWhether the Greeks invent. manack, al-koran, and other words. ed, or received from the Egyptians, the doctrine concerning the transmutation of metals, or whether the Arabians were the first who professed it, is uncertain. To change iron, lead, tin, copper, or quicksilver into gold, seems to be a problem more likely to animate mankind to attempt its solution, than either that of squaring the circle, or of finding out perpetual motion; and as it has never yet been proved, perhaps never can be proved, to be an impossible problem, it ought not to be esteemed a matter of wonder, that the first chemical books we meet with, are almost entirely employed in alchemical inquiries.

Chemistry, with the rest of the sciences, being banished from the other parts of the world, took refuge among the Arabians, Geber, in the seventh, or as some will have it in the eighth, and others in the ninth century, wrote several chemical, or rather alchemical books, in Arabic. In these works of Geber are contained such useful directions concerning the manner of conducting distillation, calcination, sublimation, and other chemical operations; and such pertinent observations respecting various minerals, as justly seem to entitle him to the character, which some have given him, of being the father of chemistry; though, in one of the most celebrated of his works, he modestly acknowledges himself to have done little else than abridge the doctrine of the ancients, concerning the transmutation of metals. Whether he was preceded by Mesue and Rhazes, or followed by them, is not in the present inquiry a matter of much importance to determine; since the forementioned physicians, as well as Avicenna, who, from all accounts, was pos terior to Geber, speak of many chemical preparations, and thus

*Jul. Fermi. Mater. Astronomicon. Lib. III. c. 15.
+ Voss. Etymo. Vox Alchemia.

Totam nostram metallorum transmutandorum scientiam, quam ex libris antiquorum philosophorum abbreviavimus, compilatione diversa, in nostris voluminibus, hic in unam summam redegimus. Gebri Alch. cap. 1, edition by Zetzner, in 1512. In Tancken's edition, in 1681, the words, metallorum transmutandorum, are omitted.

thoroughly establish the opinion, that medical chemistry, as well as alchemy, was in those dark ages well understood by the Arabians.

Towards the beginning of the thirteenth century, Albert the Great, in Germany, and Roger Bacon, in England, began to cul. tivate chemistry with success, excited thereto, probably by the perusal of some Arabic books, which about that time were trans. lated into Latin. These two monks, especially the latter, seem to have as far exceeded the common standard of learning in the age in which they lived, as any philosophers who have appeared in any country, either before their time or since. They were succeeded in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, by a great many eminent men, both of our own country and foreigners, who, in applying themselves to alchemy, made, incidentally, many useful discoveries in various parts of chemistry: such were Arnoldus de Villa Nova, in France; our countryman George Ripley; Raymund Lully, of Majorca, who first introduced, or at least more largely explained, the notion of an universal medicine; and Basile Valentine, whose excellent book, intitled Currus Antimonii Triumphalis, has contributed more than any thing else, to the introduction of that most useful mineral into the regular practice of most physicians in Europe; it has given occasion also to a variety of beneficial, as well as a circumstance which might be expected, when so ticklish a mineral fell into the hands of interested empirics), to many per. nicious nostrums. To this, rather than to the arrogant severity with which Basile Valentine treats the physicians, his cotempora ries, may we attribute the censure of Boerhaave; who, in speak. ing of him, says, "he erred chiefly in this, that he commended every antimonial preparation, than which nothing can be more foolish, fallacious, and dangerous; but this fatal error has infected every medical school from that time to this*.”

The attempting to make gold or silver by alchemical processes, had been prohibited by a constitution of Pope John the 22d, who was elevated to the pontificate in the year 1316+; and within about one hundred and twenty years from the death of Friar Bacon, the nobility and gentry of England had become so infatu. ated with the notions of alchemy, and wasted so much of their sub. stance in search of the philosopher's stone, as to render the interposition of government necessary to restrain their folly. The fol

* Boerh. Ch. vol. 1. p. 18.

+Kirch. Mun. Sub. 1. xi. sect, iv. c. 1.