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First, a little history (and art history...)
What do you see in this painting?
What do you see in this painting?
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The first is Adriaen Jansz van Ostade's "Alchemist" (1661),
(from Web Gallery of Art);
the second is Joseph Wright's "The Alchemist in Search of the Philosophers Stone" (1771)
(from WebMuseum, Paris).
What do you think might have been happening to alchemy
(the practice and the perception)
in the century between these two paintings?
I could present a lesson about the actual people who made the observations leading to the current scientific story and what their assumptions were...
Let me tell you a short(ened) story about Terry Newirth's forefathers, the alchemists--
and so link "cosmological change" with "change on a molecular level."
Before atoms, before molecules, chemistry was much different, and much broader.
Motivated by spiritual vision--that man could be made perfect.
Transmuting metals symbolic of man's regeneration,
of the possibility of transforming sinful humans to perfection.
Rembrandt, "Faust" (c. 1652-53, from Rembrandt--Olga's Gallery)
Made possible by urban revolution:
specialized craftsmen integrating technology and religion.
Used enigmatic language to protect themselves
(from avarice, and because they were avaricious?)
Geber's "gibberish"!
Experiments were founded in a belief in the fundamental harmony of the universe:
world composed of a single substance, prime matter,
pressed into various forms, existing in different proportions in all substances--
so all "elements" changeable into others by being treated to change proportions.
These ideas based on observations:
if you burn green wood:-->gives off water-->steam (air)--> fire--> ash (earth).
As per Aristotle--there were 4 elements, w/ distinct qualities:
| fire | dry | hot |
| air | wet | hot |
| water | wet | cold |
| earth | dry | cold |
Likewise: base metals differed from gold only in the relative proportion/purity of two principles.
Without any information beyond the superficial,
color was understood as the outward manifestion of inner properties,
and the most important characteristic of matter.
Appearance=thing itself.
If it resembled gold, it was gold.
(If tarnished: process of transmutation not completed.)
Counterfeit vs. transmuting a cultural distinction: depends on what you think you are doing!
With a presumed (unfounded? excessive?) belief in unity of matter,
macrocosm and microcosm were thought to be one.
Albrecht Durer, "Melencolia" (1514, from George W. Hart-Index) |
Robert Boyle's The Sceptical Chemist (1661, from ScienceTrek.Net) |
80 years later, Joseph Black used quantitative methods to identify "undecomposable" elements
(perfectly unmingled bodies: homogenous, not further resolveable).
Chemical revolution followed (Priestly, Lavoisier, Dalton...)
But chemistry continued to "perfect the imperfect."
It was the "spagyric" art of separating pure from impure
(preparing medicines, curing the sick....)
All nature seen as a vast chemical laboratory with deep religious significance.
Chemistry was a Christian science, investigating God's "second book" (nature),
with a pride in independent investigations, evangelicalism toward new observations, experiments.
And yet, with time...there was a "change" (or was there?)
It is erroneous to confuse alchemy with chemistry. Modem chemistry is a science dealing only with the outward manifestations of matter. It never produces anything new. One can mix, compose and decompose two or three chemical substances any number of times, and make them reappear in different forms, but in the end there is no increase in substance; there is only the combination of the substances used at the outset. Alchemy neither composes nor mixes: it increases and activates that which already exists in a latent state. Therefore alchemy can be more accurately compared with botany or agriculture than with chemistry. In fact, the growth of a plant, a tree or an animal is an alchemical process taking place in the alchemical laboratory of nature and conducted by the Great Alchemist, the active power of God in nature. - Franz Hartmann (Physician and Theosophist, 1838-1912 )
The alchemical tradition assumes that every physical art or science is a body of knowledge which exists only because it is ensouled by invisible powers and processes. Physical chemistry, as it is practiced in the modern world, is concerned principally with pharmaceutical or industrial research projects. It is confined within the boundaries of an all-pervading materialism, which binds labor to the advancement of physical objectives. - Manly P. Hall, Meditation Symbols in Eastern and Western Mysticism
Turning now to some contemporary explorations of "change on a molecular level...."
Terry? How do you see it?
How can you help us to "see what we are looking at"?
Resources:
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