Chemistry Reference
In-Depth Information
metaphysical system to provide an overall framework and orientation,
and nor was it any longer acceptable for religious ideas to interfere in
scientific matters. Furthermore, compared to the rapid growth of the
sciences, the humanities considerably lost influence and reputation.
Many nineteenth-century writers, frequently with a background in the
humanities, in law, or in theology, observed these tremendous changes
with great concern. Not only were the approaches and methods of the
new sciences alien to most of them, but they also worried particularly
about the fragmentation of knowledge and the loss of any unifying meta-
physical, moral, or religious framework. The more they considered their
profession as public moral education, the more they felt obliged to com-
pensate for the growing independence of the sciences and their goals and
to warn the public of misleading hopes and promises resulting from pre-
liminary successes of the sciences.
In this chapter I have distinguished between four kinds of literary re-
sponse, which all picked up the alchemist from the medieval and early
modern literature and transformed the figure for their own purposes.
Some writers, particularly of the earlier period, considered the sciences
altogether useless and recommended instead a spiritual and religious life
that refrained not only from the temptations of the material world but
also from the curiosity of any scientific investigation. Following up a
medieval debate, they praised their own way as the true alchemy. A sec-
ond group of writers, well aware of the contemporary success of the ex-
perimental sciences, particularly of chemistry and its applications,
pointed out their narrow-minded goals and their reduced view of the
world. In their writings, they refurnished the obsessed 'mad alchemist'
with some ingredients from modern chemistry and let him, after some
preliminary successes, fail overall. A third group responded more ag-
gressively, as if modern science was undermining the fundamentals of
their culture. Their 'al-chemists' are atheists, materialists, and nihilists,
who reject any moral or spiritual values and who, in their blind obsession
with science, are presumptuous and destructive fools. Of all these accu-
sations, many writers considered the sin of hubris to be the most impor-
tant one, since they elaborated on it to form a fourth response that fea-
tured the powerful figure of the 'mad scientist', which resulted from a
transformation of the 'mad alchemist'. Whereas the 'mad alchemist' in
