Chemistry Reference
In-Depth Information
means sacrificing Hasan as part of some magical practice.
29
Ironically,
European writers borrowed their xenophobic motifs from Arabic sources,
just as Latin alchemists had taken their knowledge from Arabic alche-
mists many centuries before.
Unlike the authors who had general Christian reservations about sci-
ence overall discussed earlier, the authors discussed in this section ex-
pressed specific objections to chemistry, including pharmacy and chemi-
cal physiology, and they did so by picking up the medieval alchemist.
Because they acknowledged to some extent the success of experimental
chemistry, the medieval plots needed to be revised and modified. On the
one hand, they furnished their figures with some modern ingredients,
such as diamond-making, and references to contemporary chemistry and
chemists. On the other hand, they tried to show that, even if experimental
efforts are successful, all the goals pursued by such efforts are narrow-
minded and blind and lead to failure rather than success overall. For
many writers, who saw themselves in the humanistic tradition of moral
education, the increasing impact of experimental science on society, on
societal promises and hopes, was a threat, something alien to themselves
and their moral ideas. Thus, during an atmosphere of growing national-
ism in Europe, they transformed the fiendish temptation of medieval al-
chemy plots into a threat from those countries most different from and
hostile to their own.
Some of the writers discussed in this section went much further than
that, however. They started what would nowadays be called a 'Science
War', by bringing up a battery of metaphysical and religious weapons to
which we now turn.
5.
Chemists against God, I: Materialism and Nihilism
God created everything out of nothing.
But you alchemists,
False children of light,
God's antagonists!
You make nothing out of everything.
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Quoted from Burton's edition, vol. 8, 781st Night.
