From Magic to Science

Abstract

A MEETING of the Society for the Study of Alchemy and Early Chemistry took place on December 7, at Queen Mary College, London, when Mr. J. C. Gregory delivered a lecture entitled “From Magic to Science“. Mr. Gregory traced the interplay between reliance on magical efficacies, on one hand, and a recognition of rationally conceived agencies, or natural laws, on the other. Thus alchemy, complicated by mysticism and animism, had its rational theory, as in the Aristotelian Doctrine of the Elements, and its reliance on laboratory procedure. It had also its magically conceived efficacies, such as the reputed powers of the Philosopher's Stone. As the rational recourse constantly invaded magic, so the magical recourse influenced rational procedure. There came a point, however, when the magical belief was discarded to make way for a more scientific concept of natural laws. Mr. Gregory pointed out that the seventeenth-century corpuscle was a great scientific rationalizer of magic. Boyle discreetly reserved, however, some medicinal virtues for gems as a scientifically 'purified magic'. His reduction of the potency in the Powder of Projection, or in the Alkahest, to corpuscular catalysis illustrated the rationalization of magic by science. Though the master Therion still hoped to vindicate the thaumaturgic agent of alchemy, he deferred to present thought by applying the 'method of science' to the 'art of magic'.