obliged to do the best he could in each case with his materials. He set out all that was known or believed on each subject, and added to the knowledge or criticised the beliefs as well as he could. The real aids for the advance and verification of science which exist in modern times— instruments, such as the telescope, the microscope, the barometer, the thermometer, the spectroscope, and countless others; the knowledge of many great laws of nature; and the practice of accurately observing and carefully recording,—were all wanting in the days of Aristotle. Therefore it is absurd to treat him as if he had been a modern man of science, with a vicious method. It may be called a mistake that he attempted so much; still what he accomplished was wonderful if we merely regard it as a map of the Sciences belonging to the 4th century b.c., full of his own additions and improvements.
There is one great science of modern days which Aristotle failed to separate off, or sketch out, or in any way to foreshadow — and that is the science of Chemistry. Some erroneously spell this word “chymistry” as though it were derived from the Greek chymos, [1] a juice, and as though it had been known to the Greeks. But of course “chemistry” comes from the Semitic word chem (which is the same as “Ham,” the son of Noah), meaning “black,” and then “Egyptian.” And thus
- ↑ Aristotle, in treating of the sense of Taste, gives an enumeration of different flavours, and then says, “The other properties of juices form a proper subject for inquiry in connection with the physiology of plants.” Thus by “juices” he means vegetable fluids, to be treated of from the point of view of Botany or of Materia Medica.
