According to the Oxford English Dictionary, Alchemy is "The branch of study and practical craft in the medieval and early renaissance period concerned with the nature and transformation of physical substances, esp. the transmutation of baser metals into gold; the physical and chemical transformation of metals and other substances performed by practitioners of this craft."  The art flourished throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth century, but experienced a dramatic decline at the turn of the eighteenth century, making it a worthwhile effort to explore the positions of alchemy in this century.

 

 

 

 

REDIFINITIONS

 

For a modern reader, the very word alchemy is evocative of various strange images, ranging from a ragged person stooping over a weird-shaped apparatus, to a conjuror murmuring over a boiling cauldron. One thing for sure, the image evoked is mysterious, dark and supposedly disparaging. However, it would be wrong to assume that this is the case all along, that the definitions of alchemy had remained fixed over the span of its history.  Although alchemy received criticism even at the height of its popularity, it would not have immediately evoked a negative response as it began to have in the eighteen century. Before the eighteen century, the term chemistry and alchemy convey largely the same meanings and were interchangeable.  For example, In Chymistry made easie and useful. Or, The agreement and disagreement of the chymists and galenists (1662), Daniel Sennert states explicitly that the realm of chemical study overlaps with alchemy "melt Metals, and separate one Mettle from another, but a hope to turn inferior Metals into Gold. And by use and operation, they still discovered new things.......... But they are by custom called only the true Chymists, that labour to turn the cheap Metals into Gold and Silver." It is clear that until the latter half of the seventeenth century there existed little or no differentiation between the two terms, and the whole domain of practices, chiefly the physical and chemical transformation of metals and other substances, but also the investigation of their properties and reactions, can be called alchemy or chemistry.  .

 

  Chymistry made easie and useful (1662)               The title page of the sceptical chemist (1661)

Similarly, Robert Boyale's The Skeptical Chemist (1661), though often celebrated as establishing chemistry as a scientific discipline, still identifies alchemy with chemistry to a great extent, and gives it serious consideration, as exemplified by its cover page.

 

 

 

 

However, a shift in the definition of alchemy had taken place during the eighteenth century.  Somehow the two terms had separated with each other, with all the credit of the art going to chemistry and all the blame to alchemy.  In the Secrets of Alchemy,  Lawrence M. Principe concludes suggests that "chemist and chemistry became respectable terms--- descriptive of modern, useful, productive and scientific persons and things. Alchemist and alchemy became pejorative terms, descriptors of archaic, empty, fraudulent, even irrational persons and activities. Below is a paradigm of the sort of definition attributed to alchemy in the eighteen century, manifesting a huge change in people's attitude towards alchemy. It is now associated with fraudulence and destitution, and becomes an object of contempt and disdain.

 

 

The experimental husbandman and gardener: containing a new method of improving estates and gardens, ... By G.A. Agricola, M.D. Translated from the original... By R. Bradley

 

 

 

OSTRACIZATION

 

By the eighteenth century, the ideas about alchemy have become very similar to the modern understanding of the  concept, that it is essentialyl chicanery, or that it is closely connected with magic and belongs to the occult sciences, along with witchcraft, astrology and the like. There are many pictorial representations of alchemists who are portrayed as quacks.

 

 

 

 

a 18t century engraving of the alchemist, welcome collection

Here we have an eighteenth century engraving, where a monkey alchemist pumping a bellows in a laboratory. The fact that we have a monkey in replacement of a person intends to expose alchemists as an object of ridicule and mockery. It also immediately reduces the profession into a sub-human position, suggesting that alchemy by the eighteenth century is associated with disrespect and disdain. The monkey alchemist is shown fully engrossed by his task at hand. Nevertheless, the more he is focused the more ridiculous the whole presentation of the image seems. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                                                                                                                    An alchemist in the 18th century, Chemical Heritage Foundation Collection

Here we see an 18the century alchemist, who engages with his experiment. Supposedly he is scrutinizing an urine sample.  In this representation there is a strong linkage between the alchemist and destitution, as illustrated by the frayed hat of the alchemist, his cheap stockings wore inappropriately.  Even the brownish tint of the paining suggests a cheap quality.  It hints at the idea that the alchemist is but a charlatan and earns his living through dupes. 

 

 

 

ALCHEMY IN LITERATURE.

 

Literature concerning alchemy have experienced a sharp decline after it has reached its acme during the 17th century. The repudiation of alchemy is also reflected in the works featuring alchemy. In his novel St Leon, William Godwin writes, 

 

"When I consider the mystery and inscrutableness of your character, I am lost in conjecture. You are said to be a magician, a dealer in the unhallowed secrets of alchemy  and the elixir vitæ . In cases like this all the ordinary rules of human sagacity and prudence are superseded, the wisest man is a fool, and the noblest spirit feels the very ground he stood on struck from under his feet. How can I know that the seduction of Pandora's affections is not owing to magical incantations, who in that case is rather an object for compassion than for censure? How can I

tell that the fraternal resemblance borne by your features to my own, and the sudden and ardent partiality that rose in my breast when first I saw you, have not been produced by the most detested arts? Magic dissolves the whole principle and arrangement of human action, subverts all generous enthusiasm and dignity, and renders life itself loathsome and intolerable.

This is to me the most painful of all subjects. I had a father whom I affectionately loved: he became the dupe of these infernal arts. I had a mother, the paragon of the creation: that father murdered her. All the anguish I ever felt, has derived its source from alchemy and  magic. While the infamous Chatillon thus stands before me, I feel all the long-forgotten wounds of my heart new opened, and the blood bursting afresh from every vein. I have rested and

been at peace. And now the red and venomed plague, that tarnished the years of my opening youth, returns to blast me. Begone, infamous, thrice-damned villain, and let me never see thee more!"

 

Here, the alchemist is not only portrayed to be related with magic and witchcraft, but he is depicted in the most pejorative terms imaginable.  You can see that the protagonist is losing control of his emotions, raging against the infamous alchemist, whose quackery have brought dire consequences to his family, as his father kills his mother due to alchemy.

 

 

Moreover, in Elizabeth Thomas' poem: an Expostulation, she writes,

 

" Love without Hope , is like Breath without Air ,
An impossible Joy , a ridiculous Care.
 Yet Cupid like Alchemy lures us on,  In search of a Blessing which never was known;
  nd tho' numberless Ruins around us we view,
  Yet so pleasing's our Madness, their Steps we pursue.

If Love be Madness , as the Muse tells me, there is surely a Pleasure in it which none but mad Folks know; I do not, I cannot wish to be cured, it is impossible, but forgive me if I sometimes wish I had never been raised from my happy State of Indolence to the Knowledge of a superior Excellence, which I can never hope to preserve long, or possess alone" .

 

Here, alchemy is portrayed as a force of seduction, luring us into love that is potentially devastating and ruinous. Once again alchemy is evocative of negative images and notions that make people fall into their ruin.  As opposed to a constructive source of energy, the metaphor here hints at the corruptive nature of the mysterious art, manifesting how inseparably it is associated with a range of negative connotations by the eighteenth century.

 

 

 

DORMANT OR DEAD

 

However, it is worth noting that throughout the eighteenth century, alchemy is dormant rather than dead. Although the trend of the epoch dictates that oppositions should be formed towards alchemy, there are still people who embrace it. Indeed, it is believed that endorsement of alchemy is a lot more than we could find in the archive nowadays, for most of it goes underground and or is conducted secretly. Thomas Beddoes, a prominent English physician and scientific writer in the 18th century, expresses in a letter to Erasmus Darwin (1793) the high hopes he has in  medicine, culminating in that he believes one day medicine will "half realize the ream of alchemy" . Indeed, here Beddoes holds alchemy in a very high respect; according to him, alchemy dwindles even medicine into relative insignificance. Moreover, since Beddoes is free to reveal his feelings about alchemy, which at the time is commonly unaccepted, it is reasonable to assume that Erasmus Darwin, one of the key thinkers of the Enlightenment in England, is also not against or even upholds the values of alchemy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1.  

                                                                                                                         Aletter to Erasmus Darwin, M.D. on a new method of treating pulmonary consumption, and some other diseases hitherto found incurable. By Thomas Beddoes, M.D. 1793. 

 

 

 

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

 

 

Primary resources:

 

 

  Aletter to Erasmus Darwin, M.D. on a new method of treating pulmonary consumption, and some other diseases hitherto found incurable. By Thomas Beddoes, M.D. 1793. 

 

 

 

   Chymistry made easie and useful (1662)            

 

 

  The title page of the sceptical chemist (1661)

 

 

 

The experimental husbandman and gardener: containing a new method of improving estates and gardens, ... By G.A. Agricola, M.D. Translated from the original... By R. Bradley

 

 

 

 a 18t century engraving of the alchemist, welcome collection

 

 

An alchemist in the 18th century, Chemical Heritage Foundation Collection

 

 

St Leon, William Godwin. 

 

 

 

     Aletter to Erasmus Darwin, M.D. on a new method of treating pulmonary consumption, and some other diseases hitherto found incurable. By Thomas Beddoes, M.D. 1793. 

 

 

Secondary Resources,

 

The Secrets of Alchemy, Lawrence. Principe. The University of Chicago Press. 2013