We can find the origin of alchemy in the practice and academic activities of Hellenistic Alexandria. The earliest Greek alchemists may have appeared in the first century, but the oldest alchemical works we know are the works of pseudo-Democritus Democritus and Zosemos of unknown age. In the 3rd or 4th century, Xue Xisi lived in Upper Egypt. There are also some works, which are said to be the works of the Greek gods of Hermes Trismegistos in Hermes, equivalent to the Egyptian gods, probably the products of the third century. These works mainly discuss the philosophy of Plato and Stoicism, but they also contain a lot of astrology and alchemy, and later became famous in Latin translation.
To understand the origin of alchemy, we must understand the technical situation and philosophical atmosphere of Alexandria. In the past few centuries, an industry has emerged in Mediterranean countries, using early chemical methods to make counterfeit goods that are expensive and people can't afford. Artificial pearls, cheap dyes comparable to expensive Tyr purple and alloys such as gold and silver have all become commodities.
From a very early age, alchemy was associated with other fields of thought at that time, especially astrology. The sun nourishes everything and grows gold on the earth. Gold is the image or prototype of the sun. The silver moon represents silver, Venus represents copper, Mercury represents mercury, Mars represents iron, Jupiter represents tin, and Saturn is the farthest and coldest of the five planets, representing the heaviest and darkest metal lead.
Philosophy in Plato's time is completely monistic idealism. It emphasizes that matter is a necessary but not essential element in the sensory world, and there is basically only one kind of matter. If nothing embodies an ideal, it doesn't really exist, so it doesn't matter whether it is good or bad; Everything is alive, trying to improve itself, and later it was extended by Gnosticism. Alchemists believe that matter itself is not important, but its characteristics are real. People's bodies are all made of the same substance, and people's good and evil do not change because of changes.
They are caused by the body, not by the change of the soul. So changing the characteristics of metal can change the metal. They say craftsmen have a deep understanding of this. In fact, the characteristic is metal. All metals strive to improve themselves towards the golden ideal soul that is not afraid of fire. Therefore, it should be easy to help them on this road. It was known at that time that mordants used for dyeing would corrode metals. Therefore, if a small amount of gold is added to the base metal, this alloy can be etched with mordant, leaving a golden surface. They believe that in this way, precious metals with the same function as yeast overcome the inferiority of the alloy and make it have the soul of gold.
The main characteristics of precious metals are their colors-silvery white and yellow gold. Copper can turn yellow after chemical treatment, so it becomes gold. They think there are two ways to do this: first, remove cheap soil, thus eliminating the tendency to rust; First, by improving its fire color or color, it can increase better elemental gas and fire. When dead matter gets a colored soul, it becomes alive, just as people get a soul.
Practical alchemy usually goes through four steps. 1 fuse tin, lead, copper and iron into a black alloy. In this alloy, tin, lead, copper and iron all lost their individuality and merged into Plato's "oneness" of the first substance. Adding mercury, arsenic or antimony makes copper white, similar to silver. Then add a small amount of gold "yeast", and then treat this white alloy with sulfur water, that is, calcium sulfide or mordant. In this way, the alloy appears yellow-in the eyes of alchemists in Alexandria, it really turned into gold. In their view, the essence of matter does not lie in its quality and its specific physical characteristics and chemical reactions. In our opinion, this should be the case, but among the characteristics that Aristotle said are easy to change, such as color. Therefore, if a metal has the basic characteristics of gold such as yellow and luster, it becomes gold. Unlike some later alchemists, Alexander's alchemists were neither fools nor liars. They conducted experiments according to the best contemporary philosophy; The fault lies not in them, but in that philosophy.
Alchemy was popular in Alexandria for about 300 years, and then stopped. Some people say that it was ordered by the Roman emperor Diocletian. In 292 AD, Diocletian ordered the burning of all books on alchemy. Later, alchemy revived in other places, first among Arabs and later in Europe. By that time, however, the philosophy on which alchemy was based had changed. Therefore, later writers did not understand the terminology of Alexandria or their spirit. They tried to create gold unilaterally, but they didn't realize that the meanings of the words "gold" and "change" had changed with philosophy during this period. Most of them used many mysterious words to cover up their failure. Finally, the real scientific chemistry began to emerge from their decadent alchemy.
Astrology and alchemy have a fundamental basis, that is, observation of nature and rational thinking, although most of this thinking is wrong; Therefore, astrology and alchemy played a real and noble role in the early development of astronomy and chemistry. On the other hand, except among primitive people, witchcraft has never been noble, but psychologically affected people's credulity and urgent pursuit of irresponsible power. Witchcraft has nothing to do with the origin of science, but its spirit is definitely contrary to the spirit of science, because science always pursues truth slowly, cautiously and humbly. In the Hellenistic era, witchcraft superstition developed and ancient science declined. Later, science revived, not because people believed in witchcraft, but because people's belief in witchcraft books could not stop the progress of science.