Mineral Point tribune. (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1869-1938, 1869-02-24

| with life | will not deny nor withhold
| from those early ages the tribute which is
theirs. An infinite darkness is sublime
| turn from the cherries spectacle to seek
the cause of the change. On one side | see
/ an age OF faith, on the other an age of fact :;
I on one an age of commentators, on the
| other, one of original discoveries on one
servile cringing to the old philosophers.
! on the other, a bold assumption of intellec-
tual independence and the grand prin-
| eiple which distinguishes the change. is an
assertion OF the supremacy of personal OBJ
| servation.
We can scarcely put too great an esti-
! mate upon what a man has seen for him
| self, and what has been related to him bv
| another. The mind is constituted that
1t is almost impossible for it to deliver a
a tact and communicate precisely the same
| effect that itself has received 1t is its
| quality to be unable to furnish its own i'm
/ pressions in all their original precision
| and sharpness. You cannot stamp upon
| wax with waxen seal without the marks
| becoming efaced and the images distorted.
There are multitudes of events and things
which no power of language can precisely
| tell. Were | now in the most elaborate
way, attempt to describe the countenance
| of an individual, would that ever enable
| you to recognize him in the street? but a
selves. Nor is it alone this inability of
one person to transmit to another his own
impressions, there is far more serious
difficulty encountered the indisposition
Of men to tell the strict truth
The fat knight of Shakespeare, himself no
| common adept in the art, exclaims, "Lord
Lord how this world is given to living ?"
And dare say that there are few persons
present who cannot recall to their minds
| nv
come under their own observation which
substantiate the views of Sir John FaIstaff
And beyond all ti.ase which may be looked
upon as mere constitutional or common
place affairs, there those more criminal de-
ceptions, of which the pages of history and
philosophy are full those scandalous i'm
postures invented for the sake of gain
Ii is interesting to trace, how from the
midst of the old philosophy, the new maxim
of the paramount nature of personal obser-
walton was gradually developed, and how it
originated in one of the most sordid and
and most powerful principles of the heart
As earl as the fourth century rumor
was very extensively propagated that it was
possible out of the baser materials to form
silver and gold. Like many of the rudi-
menCs of modern knowledge we owe the
beginning of chemistry to Asia Stories
were related how artists had suddenly be-
come possessed of immense wealth, and
how princes in remote countries maintained
their power and satisfied uuheard of eXtray-
agance by the possession of the great secret
There can be doubt that from early
times alchemy had been practiced as sa-
cred and secret art. The Egyptian priests
in their colleges and temples carried for
ward all kinds of chemical pursuits, such
as the manufacture of cotton and glass In
the collision which arose at the establish
ment of Christianity in the Roman empire
many of the secret pursuits of the pagan
priesthood were divulged, and among the
rest alchemy at first nameless science,
but soon known ndiiferently as the sacred
art, the hermetic science; and from a sup
posed connection of its cultiyaaors with the
evil One-the black art. From this obscure
and impure origin alchemy made its way
all over the civilized world Wandering
philosophers perambuating Europe exhib-
ltlng experiments in the natural magic. At
first the Church issued its anathemas against
practices, and successfully in different
countries sovereigns enacted laws against
them Charles Y. of France forbade his sub
Jects to practice chemistry or even to pos
sess furnace, for fear they should emit
false coinage. But the teII-taIe money of
all times shows the fact that some of those
princes themselves debased their own coin
in our own country nickel and paper rep
resent gold and silver; nor is the nickel
coin strictly pure.
1t Is to this condition of things that we
trace the origin of the maxim of the su-
premacy of personal observation. The ear
Tier natural philosophers were pursued by
the state authorities, and classed with for
gers, counterfeiters, prisoners. and ma
gIciaus. They were, scourged, imprisoned
Ist of wealth they still carried on their
operations in caverns and lonely places OF
the thousand floating rumors Of new ex-
periments that reached them, many must
have turned out on trial to be fictitious
but the habit was gained of directly test
ing their value, and experimental philoso-
ply arose as the embodiment of the new
principle.
All history bears witness TO the fact that
it is impossible to coerce the mind either
in matters of religion or in matters of phi
losophy. In the midst of the opposition
of Church and State in the face of severe
punishment inflicted again and again by the
magistrates. The art of king gold
steadily found increasing votaries. By de-
creeS all classes of men became inflated and
the Church itself has furnished US with
some OF the ableSt eNperImenteTS and most
eminent writer's. In the quietness of their
monaStic retreats, those men of leisure
turned TO the forbidden art. Albert, the
Bishop of katiSbon, the first who introduced
into chemistry the word affinity was a
great author with the adopts toward the
close of the middle ages and Thomas Az
Uinas, Il nan welI-known to the religious
gives us his method of transmitting copper
into silver, Il was done by the aid of arsenic
Nor was ii alone the Chstian clergy who
became infected with these decisions
Though expressly forbidden by the Koran,
the Arabs we're devoted chemists, and to
one OF them We owe the discovery Of nitric
acid. In other parts of knowledge they al
50 cxcelled TO them we owe much of our
astronomy, the fundamental branches of
modern mathematics, and tie reyg figures ere
use "a arite7aetlr. In the five centuries that
Spain was 4 Mahonedan country, the ores
cent of Arabia shed many a ray on Europe
The Saracens in Spain and the Byzantiues
were, At that time the only scientific people
and among them both philosophy and as
/ tronomy and alchemy were actively carried
on.
with this spread of its yotaries the aims
OF chemistry had become greatly enlarged,
and In the 10Th century compre hended three
+ great discoveries; the art of making gold
the discovery of the universal elixir,
F which should remove all diseases and an
inqUiryinto the nature and soul of the world
I Men were living in times when there was
no legend too miraculous 10 believe; no
practice too monStruous TO be followed
In h2u'an affairs 1t often happens that