Kimyanın Tanımı Üzerine

Chemistry is the art of dissolving mixed natural bodies, and of coagulating what has been dissolved, in order to prepare medicines that are more pleasant, more wholesome, and safer. The term Chemistry is Greek, and for the Latins it is the same as the art of making a liquid, or of dissolving solid things into a liquid: it is so called by excellence, because Chemistry teaches how to dissolve (which is the more difficult task) and how to coagulate. If anyone calls it Alchemy, after the manner of the Arabs, he insinuates its excellence; if Spagyria, its principal offices, namely combination and separation; if the Hermetic art, its author and antiquity; if Distillatory, its notable function, which is easily the chief. The object of this art is the mixed and concrete body, not insofar as it is mobile (for that is a matter of physical consideration), but insofar as it is soluble and coagulable. Such things are those perfectly or imperfectly mixed, such as plants, shrubs, metals, stones, trees, and animals of every kind. From this it appears how grievously those err who, upon hearing the name of Alchemist, immediately imagine a man who handles nothing else but the transformations of metals.