Page 186 - Berkshire Encyclopedia Of World History Vol I - Abraham to Coal

alchemy 71

You are an alchemist; make gold
of that. • William Shakespeare
Francis Bacon on
(1564–1616)
The Making of Gold

Let there be a Small Furnace made, of a Temper-
tions of a more ancient, quasireligious search for what ate Heat; Let the Heat be such, as may keep the
might be termed the fountain of youth: The alchemist’s Metall perpetually Moulten, and no more; For that
ultimate quest was to uncover the secrets of matter and above all importeth to the Work. For the Materi-
of life itself, so that it might be prolonged indefinitely. all, take Silver, which is the Metall that in Nature
Alchemy has long been of interest to historians of sci- Symbolizeth most with Gold; Put in also, with the
ence, anthropologists, and a host of other scholars with Silver, a Tenth Part of Quick-silver, and Twelfth
an interest in the human religious impulse and its shap- Part of Nitre, by weight; Both these to quicken
ing of rituals aimed at the transformation of individuals and open the Body of the Metall: And so let the
and social groups. It is a topic perhaps best approached Worke be continued by the Space of Sixe Mon-
from four distinct avenues of inquiry: The first has to do thes, at the least. I wish also, that there be, at some
with the etymology of the word; the second concerns its times, an Injection of some Oyled Substance;
history; the third focuses on both the practice of alchemy such as they use in Recovering of Gold, which by
and its ideological foundations; the fourth deals with Vexing with Separations hath beene made Churl-
alchemy as a global phenomenon with a set of universal ish: And this is, to lay the Parts more Close and
precepts identifiable through cross-cultural comparison. Smooth, which is the Maine Work. For Gold (as
The story of alchemy must, in sum, be understood from we see) is the Closest (and therefore the Heaviest)
a highly nuanced standpoint that takes into account its of Metalls: And is likewise the most Flexible and
complex history and global diffusion. More than just a Tensible. Note, that to thinke to make Gold of
simple precursor of the modern science of chemistry, it is Quick-silver, because it is the heaviest, is a Thing
a way of thinking about the relationship of humanity and not to bee hoped; For Quick-silver will not endure
nature that emphasizes the importance of transformation the Mannage of the Fire. Next to Silver, I thinke
in both. It also focuses on the role that human agency Copper were fittest to bee the Materiall.
plays in mediating the processes by which substances—
Source: Bacon, F. (1627). Century IV of Sylva Sylvarum, or a Naturall Historie in
natural and human—are transmuted, or raised to a ten Centuries. London.
higher form.
The word alchemy enters the English language by
way of a long philological journey that parallels, in some four and a half centuries later, Islamic scholars adopted
respects, the evolution of the practice in the Western the tradition and added to its cosmological conceptions,
world. Its semantic core comes from one of two possible precepts, and practices; ultimately, it was their steward-
Greek terms: The first, chymeia, is a noun denoting ship and mediation that enabled it to spread throughout
something poured or infused. The second, chêmeia, is a Europe in the fourteenth century CE.Although considered
noun that refers specifically to the transformation of of questionable merit at best by Christian ecclesiastical
metallic substances. One or the other of these terms was authorities, alchemy had become a vital part of the Euro-
likely the source for the Arabic term al-kîmiyâ, which pean intellectual ethos by the sixteenth and seventeenth
comes into the lexicon of Medieval Latin as alchimia, into centuries. Many of history’s well-known personalities,
Old French as alkemie, and ultimately into English as including, in England, Sir Walter Raleigh, Sir Isaac New-
alchemy. ton, and King Charles II, have been favorably inclined
This linguistic evolution provides some clues as to the toward its esoteric and exoteric dimensions.
origin and spread of the art in Greece, Northern Africa, Moreover, the symbolism of alchemy has had a pro-
and the Near East. Its first flowering is believed to have found impact on the literary and artistic traditions of the
been in Egypt around 300 BCE, a time when scientific West. Evidence of its influence can be seen in the work
inquiry was in full bloom in the Hellenistic world. Some of William Shakespeare, John Milton, Johann von