On the Antiquity of the Chemical Art Part 5

"Large quant.i.ties of this salt are used by the nomad population, and a good deal is taken to Kandahar. The quant.i.ty turned out here must annually be very great. The salt pits extend over at least ten miles of the country we traversed, and we certainly saw some thousands of pits."

From what I have laid before you, it will be seen that I am strongly of opinion that we must go far beyond the time of Geber or the Arabian school for the origin of our science. The study of the question of its antiquity leads up to such remote times that there is little probability of any date being a.s.signed to its beginning, and to some it may appear but a waste of time to indulge in researches upon the subject; but it has a fascination peculiar to itself, and, in addition, brings before our minds so many phases in the philosophical thought of the world, that it will no doubt long continue to exercise the minds and attract the attention of chemists.

In the course of my own study of the subject, I have felt much dissatisfied with the derivation of the name chemistry or alchemy, as it is given in all works to which I have had access. It is said to be derived from a word meaning dark, hidden, black, and from the ancient name for Egypt, but to my own mind this is an unsatisfactory explanation, and seeking for another more consonant with the character of the science, I think I have found it in quite a different direction.

It is well known that in the old Hindoo philosophy there were recognized five elementary bodies or rather types. These were Water, Fire, Ether, Earth, and Air, and the system of Menu, of which the antiquity is enormous, recognizes as the greatest conception of the universe--

1st, G.o.d.

2nd, Mind.

3rd, Consciousness.

4th, Matras.

5th, Elements.

(matras being the invisible types of the visible atoms which compose the five elements previously named--viz., Water, Fire, Ether, Earth, and Air).

Now, these elements, with the sun and moon, composed the attributes of the dual deity Iswara and Isi, representing the male and female natural powers, and, applying this to the famous Pythagorean triangle, we find that the upright symbol or male, which was the number or power 3, when combined with the female prostrate symbol, which was the number or power 4, gives a product in the Hypotenuse of 5, which is the number of the typical elements of the oldest known Hindoo philosophy. It is also the product of the first male and female numbers, and was anciently called the number of the world--repeated anyhow by an odd multiple it always reappears.

If now we consider chemistry as that science which has to deal with the changes and combinations of the five elements, and if we call it--

_The science of the five parts or elements_, should we not, when we find that the Arabic word for five is _khams_, rather refer the name of our science to this word khams, and read it as

_Al-Khams_, The five-part science?

I am inclined, however, to go yet a step further, and remembering that the _fifth_ element or Ether of the most ancient Hindoo philosophy, was in reality an expression for active force, or, that emanating from the central sun caused the natural phenomena of attraction and repulsion, the emission and refraction of light, and other sensible changes of condition, would read the compound word

_Al-Khamis_ (The fifth),

as the grand and simple t.i.tle of our ancient science, meaning

_The force_--

that which causes the changes in the elementary types and their combinations--than which no more descriptive t.i.tle could be a.s.signed to it, even in the present enlightened age.