Chemistry Track
PAPER 1: HERMES TRISMEGISTUS, PARACELSUS, AND ALCHEMY
THE CASE
The first theories of matter come from the artisans who concerned themselves with metallurgy, dye making, beer brewing, and other practical uses of those substances found around them. They created lists of cookbook-type recipes telling how they took what they found in nature and used it to isolate other substances. Explanations for the successes of these methods led thinkers to believe that the substances we observe are in fact combinations of more basic substances-air, water, earth, and fire. Notice that these correspond to what we now call the states of matter. The ancients developed theories about the interconnection of these basic elements. We can see them organized, for example, in terms of their basic qualities of hot/cold and wet/dry. Fire is hot and dry while air is hot and wet. Earth is cold and dry while water is cold and wet. We can combine the elements and then operate upon them, heating or cooling, for example, in order to alter their properties and create new substances as a result. The system of such methods of affecting the essences of substances and thereby creating new ones, what was called “transmutation,” was alchemy. In the Renaissance, this system was revived. Out of fear that the knowledge could be misused by the greedy and in an attempt to make sure their knowledge was wellguarded, alchemists began to use a code in which to transmit their recipes. This code used mythological figures and could be interpreted as mystical stories as well as practical instructions. In this way, a mystique grew up around the practice. Adding to this reputation, the basic writings were claimed to have been rediscovered ancient Egyptian knowledge, that of Hermes Trismegistus. The Emerald Tablet was the touchstone of alchemy, providing the basic principles-the axioms of the system. In addition to the transmutation of metals, medicine was also a significant interest ofthe alchemists. In this realm, the primary figure was Paracelsus, who may be considered the forefather of biochemistry. Following the traditional alchemical system, Paracelsus contended that one must understand the interactions of the basic substancesmercury, sulfur, and salt-in terms of the four elements. For the Christian Paracelsus, that the basic elements created by God would be three in number itself had mystical meaning, adding yet another level to the foundations of alchemy. Previous alchemists had held that everything was comprised of sulfur and mercury-the more sulfur, the more combustible the substance was, and relatively more mercury, the less so. Paracelsus added salt as the third element with the combustible sulfur representing the spirit, mercury the soul, and salt the body.
Human beings as a combination of the three are a microcosm of the larger Creation and illnesses could be thought to be particular imbalances that could be cured by ingesting the correct restorative substance.
THE SCIENTIST
Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim (1493-1541), better known as Paracelsus, was born in Zurich, Switzerland, the son of a doctor. As a boy, he worked in the mines and metallurgic shop of a noted alchemist and became well acquainted with the field before studying medicine. Upon becoming a professor of medicine, he became a contentious figure as the first university professor to lecture in German instead of Latin. He also began his courses by burning the books of Galen and Avicenna, the major authorities of medicine at the time, and inviting apothecaries and barbersurgeons common, nonacademic medical practitioners who were looked down upon by the professors-to give lectures at the university.
YOUR JOB
Read the excerpts of Paracelsus’s Hermetic and Alchemical Writings (beginning on P. 332) and explain Paracelsus’s doctrine of three ingredients and four elements. Discuss how this theory accounts for the claim by alchemists that all things can be transmuted into any other thing, if appropriately treated. Explain deductivism, making clear the role of metaphysical principles. How would a deductivist make sense of Paracelsus’s alchemical approach? What are the metaphysical principles he makes use of? Why, for example, does he add a third basic ingredient? Is there any part of Paracelsus’s work that does not fit well into the deductivists’ picture of the scientific method?
RESEARCH HINTS
• When reading the historical selection and the philosophical essays, underline passages that express the author’s conclusion and supporting premises. Use these as direct quotations in your paper-type them out and then explain what the passage means and how it is used by the author in his argument. • Structure is very important in a philosophical essay. Make clear what is being argued in each step of your essay by using strong thesis sentences and section headings.
Please reading：
CHEMISTRY TRACK Reading is Paracelsus-Hermetic and Alchemal Writings
From Paracelsus, Hermetic and Alchemical Writings, ed. A. E. Waite (London: James Elliot and Co., 1894), 167, 204-5, 208-9, 257. I praise alchemy, which compounds secret medicines, whereby all hopeless maladies are cured. Theywho are ignorant of this deserve neither to be called chemists nor physicians. For these remedies lie either in the power of the alchemists or in that of the physicians. If they reside with the latter, the former are ignorant of them. If with the former, the latter have not learned them. How, therefore, do those men deserve any praise? I, for my part, have rather judged that such a man shall be highly extolled who is able to bring Nature to such a point that she will lend help, that is, who shall know how after the extraction of the health-giving parts, what is useless is to be rejected; who is also acquainted with the efficacy, for he must see that it is impossible that the preparation and the science-in other words, the chemia and the medicine-can be separated from one another, because should anyone attempt to separate them he will introduce more obscurities into medicine, and the result will be absolute folly. I do not think I need labour very hard in order that you may recognize the certainty of my reasons. … The separation of those things which grow out of the earth and are combustible, such as fruits, herbs, flowers, leaves, grasses, roots, woods, etc., is also arranged in many ways. By distillation is separated from them first the phlegma, afterwards the Mercury, after this the oil, Fourthly the sulphur, lastly their salt. When all these separations are made according to Spagyric Art, remarkable and excellent medicaments are the result, both for internal and external use. As to the manner in which God created the world, take the following account. He originally reduced it to one body, while the elements were developing. This body He made up of three ingredients, Mercury, Sulphur, and Salt, so that these three should constitute one body. Of these three are composed all the things which are, or are produced, in the four elements. These three have in themselves the force and the power of all perishable things. In them lie hidden the mineral, day, night, heat, cold, the stone, the fruit, and everything else, even while not yet formed. It is even as with wood which is thrown away and is only wood, yet in it are hidden all forms of animals, of plants, of instruments, which anyone who can carve what else would be useless, invents and produces. So the body of Master [primitive chaos] was a mere trunk, but in it lay hidden all herbs, waters, gems, minerals, stones, and chaos itself, which things the Creator alone carved and fashioned most subtly, having removed and cast away all that was extraneous. First of all, He produced and separated the air. This being formed, from the remainder issued forth the other three elements, fire, water, earth. From these He afterward took away the fire, while the other two remained, and so on in due succession. Now, as to the philosophy of the three prime elements, it must be seen how these flourish in the element of air. Mercury, Sulphur, and Salt are so prepared as the element of air that they constitute the air, and make up that element. Originally, the sky is nothing but white Sulphur coagulated with the spirit of Salt and clarified by Mercury, and the hardness of this element is in this pellicle and shell thus formed from it. Then secondly, from the three primal parts it is changed into two-one part being air and the other chaosin the following way. The Sulphur resolves itself by the spirit of Salt in the liquor of Mercury, which of itself is a liquid distributed from heaven to earth, and is the albumen of the heaven, and the mid space. It is clear, a chaos, subtle, and diaphanous. All density, dryness, and all its subtle nature, are resolved, nor is it any longer the same as it was before. Such is the air. The third remnant of the three primals has passed into air, thus; If wood is burnt it passes into smoke. So this passes into air, remains in the air to the end of its elements, and becomes Sulphur, Mercury, and Salt, which are substantially consumed and turned into air, just as the wood which becomes smoke. It is, in fact, nothing but the smoke of the three primal elements of the air. So, then, nothing further arises from the elements of air beyond what has been mentioned.
CONCERNING SALT AND SUBSTANCES COMPREHENDED UNDER SALT
God has driven and reduced man to such a pitch of necessity and want that he is unable in anyway to live without Salt, but has most urgent need thereof for his food and eatables. This is man’s need and condition of compulsion. The causes ofthis compulsion I will briefly explain. Man consists of three things: Sulphur, Mercury, and Salt. Of these consists also whatever anywhere exists, and of neither more nor fewer constituents. These are the body of every single thing, whether endowed with sense or deprived thereof. Now, since man is divided into species, he is therefore subject to decay, nor can he escape it except in so far as God has endowed him with a congenital balsam which also itself consists of three ingredients. This is Salt, preserving man form decay, so also Salt naturally diffused into us by God preserves our body from putrification. Let that theory stand, then, that man consists of three bodies, and that one of these is Salt, as the con servative element which prevents the body born with it from decaying. As, therefore, all created things, all substances, consist of these three, it is necessary that they should be sustained and conserved by their nutriments according to this kind.
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