Philoso

pher's Stone.

About two years after this, the city of Messene withdrew itself from the Achæan league. Philopomen attacked them; but was wounded, taken prisoner, and poisoned by the magistrates. Thus died one of the greatest heroes that Greece or any other country ever produced. He was no way inferior in valour, military knowledge, and virtue, to any of the boasted heroes of Rome. Had Achaia been nearer to an equality with Rome, he would have preserved his country from the yoke which the Roman republic forced it to bear. Both the Greek and Roman writers put him upon the level with Hannibal and Scipio, who were his contemporaries, and happened to die the same year. They allow him to have been not only one of the greatest commanders, but also one of the greatest statesmen of his age. To his valour and prudence Achaia owed her glory, which upon his death began to decline, there being none after him in that republic able to oppose her enemies with the like steadiness and prudence: whence Philopomen was called the last of the Greeks, as Brutus was afterwards styled the last of the Romans.

PHILOSOPHER, a person versed in philosophy; or one who makes profession of, or applies himself to, the study of nature.

PHILOSOPHER'S Stone, the greatest object of alchemy, is a long sought for preparation, which, when found, is to convert all the true mercurial part of metal into pure gold, better than any that is dug out of mines or perfected by the refiner's art.

Some Greek writers in the fourth and fifth centuries speak of this art as being then known; and towards the end of the 13th century, when the learning of the East had been brought hither by the Arabians, the same pretensions began to spread through Europe. It is supposed that this art, called Alchemy, was of Egyptian origin; and that when the ancient Greek philosophers travelled into Egypt, they brought back some of the allegoric language of this Egyptian art, ill understood, which afterwards passed into their mythology. Alchemy was the earliest branch of chemistry, considered as a philosophical science in the other parts of chemical knowledge, facts preceded reasoning or speculation; but alchemy was originally speculative.

The alchemists supposed the general principles of metals to be chiefly two substances, which they called mercury and sulphur; they apprehended also, that the pure mercurial, sulphureous, or other principles of which they imagined gold to be composed, were contained separately in other bodies; and these principles, therefore, they endeavoured to collect, and to concoct and incorporate by long digestions; and by thus conjoining the principles of gold, if they could be so produced and conjoined, it might be expected that gold would be produced. But the alchemists pretend to a product of a higher order, called the elixir, the medicine for metals, the tincture, the philosopher's stone; which by being projected on a large quantity of any of the inferior metals in fusion, should change them into fine gold; which being laid on a plate of silver, copper, or iron, and moderately heated, should sink into the metal, and change into gold all the parts to which it was applied; which, on being properly heated with pure

Philoso

Stone.

gold, should change the gold into a substance of the same nature and virtue with itself, so as thus to be sus- pher's ceptible of perpetual multiplication; and which, by continued coction, should have its power more and more exalted, so as to be able to transmute greater and greater quantities of the inferior metals, according to its different degrees of perfection.

Alchemists have attempted to arrive at the making. of gold by three methods: the first by separation; for every metal yet known, it is affirmed, contains some quantity of gold; only, in most, the quantity is so little as not to defray the expence of getting it out.

The second is by maturation; for the alchemists think mercury is the basis and matter of all metals; that quicksilver purged from all heterogeneous bodies would be much heavier, denser, and simpler, than the native quicksilver; and that by subtilizing, purifying, and digesting it with much labour, and long operations, it is possible to convert it into pure gold.

This method is only for mercury. With respect to the other metals, it is ineffectual, 1. Because their matter is not pure mercury, but has other heterogeneous bodies adhering to it; and, 2. Because the digestion, whereby mercury is turned into gold, would not succeed in other metals, because they had not been long enough in the mines.

Weight is the inimitable character of gold, &c. Now mercury, they say, has always some impurities in it, and these are lighter than mercury. Could they be purged away, which they think is not impossible, mercury would be as heavy as gold, and what is as heavy as gold is gold, or at least might very easily be made gold.

The third method is by transmutation, or by turning all metals readily into pure gold, by melting them in the fire, and casting a little quantity of a certain preparation into the fused matter; upon which the fæces retire, are volatilized and burnt, and carried off, and the rest of the mass is turned into pure gold. That which works this change in the metals is called the philosopher's stone.

Whether this third method be possible or not, it is difficult to say. We have so many testimonies of it from persons who on all other occasions speak truth, that it is hard to say they are guilty of direct falsehood, even when they say that they have been masters of the secret. We are told, that it is only doing that by art which nature does in many years and ages. For as lead and gold differ but little in weight, there fore there is not much in lead beside mercury and gold. Now, if we had any body which would so agitate all the parts of lead as to burn all that is not mer cury therein, and had also some sulphur to fix the mercury, would not the mass remaining be converted into gold? There is nothing in nature so heavy as lead except gold, mercury, and platina, which was not known to these reasoners; it is evident, therefore, there is something in lead that comes very near to gold. But in lead there is likewise some heterogeneous matter different both from mercury and gold. If therefore 19 ounces of lead be dissolved by the fire, and 8 ounces be destroyed by these means, it is argued that we shall have the rest good gold; the ratio of lead to gold being as 11 to 19. If then the philosopher's stone can purify the mercurial matter in lead, so as that nothing shall remain but the pure mercurial body, and you can

duced in certain substances by the force of heat carried Philosotheir imaginations beyond what sound judgment might pher's Stone warrant. The first instance of which on record is

in vol. xi. p. 68. of the Fœdera; wherein Henry VI. Philosophi grants a licence to Jolin Cobbe, freely to work in me- zing. tals; he having, by philosophical art, found out a method of transferring imperfect metals into perfect gold and silver.

"This pretended secret, known afterwards by the name of the Philosopher's stone or powder, was encouraged by four licences, granted to different projectors during this reign, and at sundry times after, during this century particularly, and in succeeding times, all over Europe. The frenzy has not entirely ceased even to this day, although it meets with neither public encouragement nor countenance from men of sober reason; the projectors having yet found nothing from their airy

Philoso- fix and coagulate this by means of sulphur, out of 19 pher's ounces of lead you will have 11 of gold: or, if you Stone. reduce the lead from 18 to 14, you will then have converted it into mercury; and if you farther purify this mercury to the proper standard, you will have gold; provided you have but a sulphur with which to fix and coagulate it. Such is the foundation of the opinion of the philosopher's stone; which the alchemists contend to be a most subtile, fixed, concentrated fire, which, as soon as it melts with any metal, does, by a magnetic virtue, immediately unite itself to the mercurial body of the metal, volatilize and cleanse off all that is impure therein, and leave nothing but a mass of pure gold. Many frauds and artifices have unquestionably been practised in this operation, and there might be political reasons why princes and others should encourage those who pretended to a power of furnishing this inexhaustible source of wealth; but it would be wrong to censure as impostors all those who have declared themselves convinced, from their own experiments, of the transmutability of base metals into gold. There are strong reasons, however, to believe that the authors have been deceived themselves by fallacious appearances. Mr Boyle gives an account of a process by which he imagines part of the substance of gold to have been transmuted into silver. He also relates a very extraordinary experiment, under the title of the degradation of gold by an anti-elixir, which was published in his own life-time, and since reprinted in 1739. Hence many have been led to conclude in favour of the alchemical doctrine of the transmutability of metals. See an account of this experiment, with remarks upon it by Dr Lewis, in his Commerce of Arts, sect. 12. p. 297, &c.

Characters "The opinion (says Holt) that one metallic or of the Kings other foreign substance might be changed into another, and Queers was, it seems, at this time (reign of Henry VI. of of Englarad. England) propagated by certain chemists, whose ob

I

servations on the surprising effects and alterations pro

Definitions IS

of philoso

phy.

schemes in this mode of search but certain ruin to their property." See CHEMISTRY.

The same author, when speaking of the commerce of the kingdom, and the wonderful increase and riches of commercial cities, speaks thus: "This is the true philosopher's stone, so much sought after in former ages, the discovery of which has been reserved to genius, when studying to improve the mechanic arts. Hence a pound of raw materials is converted into stuffs of fifty times its original value. And the metals too are not, indeed, transmuted into gold-they are more: for the labour of man has been able to work the baser metals, by the ingenuity of art, so as to become worth, more than many times its weight in gold."

PHILOSOPHIC, or PHILOSOPHICAL, something. belonging to PHILOSOPHY.

PHILOSOPHICAL EGG, among chemists, a thin glass body or bubble, of the shape of an egg, with a long neck or stem, used in digestions.

PHILOSOPHIZING, rules of. See NEWTONIAN Philosophy, N° 16. and the following article.

a word derived from the Greek, and literally signifies the love of wisdom (A). In its usual acceptation, however, it denotes a science, or collection of sciences, of which the universe is the object; and of the term thus employed many definitions have been given, differing from one another according to the different views of their several authors. By Pythagoras, philosophy is defined swiolnun tar` orlwr, "the knowledge of things existing ;" by Cicero, after Plato, scientia rerum divinarum et humanarum cum CAUSIS; and by the illustrious Bacon, interpretatio naturæ. Whether any of these definitions be sufficiently pre

cise, and at the same time sufficiently comprehensive, History of may be questioned; but if philosophy in its utmost hilosophy. extent be capable of being adequately defined, it is. not here that the definition should be given. "Explanation (says an acute writer *), is the first of Tatham's fice of a teacher; definition, if it be good, is the Chart and last of the inquirer after truth; but explanation is one Scale of thing, and definition quite another." It may be Truth, v. i. per, however, to observe, that the definition given by P. 8. Cicero is better than that of Pythagoras, because the chief object of the philosopher is to ascertain the causes of things; and in this consists the difference between his

pro

History of his studies and those of the natural historian, who merePhilosophy. ly enumerates phenomena, and arranges them into separate classes.

2

Its objects.

3

Philosophy of the Chaldeans.

+Apud

Laert. lib. 1. § S.

The principal objects of philosophy are, God, nature, and man. That part of it which treats of God is called theology; that which treats of nature, physics and metaphysics; and that which treats of man, logic and ethics. That these are not separate and independent sciences, but, as Bacon expresses it (B), branches from the same trunk, we shall endeavour to show, after we have given, agreeably to our usual plan, a short history of philosophy from the earliest ages to the present day.

To attempt to assign an origin to philosophy, would be ridiculous; for every man endeavours to ascertain the causes of those changes which he observes in nature; and even children themselves are inquisitive after that which produces the sound of their drums and their rattles. Children, therefore, and the most illiterate vulgar, have in all ages been philosophers. But the first people among whom philosophy was cultivated as a profession, was probably the Chaldeans. We certainly read of none earlier; for though we have more authentic accounts of the Hebrews than of any other nation of remote antiquity, and have reason to believe that no people was civilized before them, yet the peculiar circumstances in which they were placed, rendered all philoso phical investigation to them useless, and even tended to suppress the very spirit of inquiry. The Egyptians indeed pretended to be the first of nations, and to have spread the blessings of religion and the light of science among every other people; but, from the earliest records now extant, there is reason to believe that the Chaldeans were a civilized and powerful nation before the Egyptian monarchy was founded.

Of the Chaldean philosophy much has been said, but little is known. Astronomy seems to have been very their favourite study; and at the era of Alexander's conquest of their country, they boasted that their ancestors had continued their astronomical observations through a period of 470,000 years. Extravagant claims to antiquity have been common in all nations (c). Calisthenes, who attended the Macedonian conqueror, was requested by Aristotle to inform himself concerning the origin of science in Chaldea; and upon examining into the grounds of this report, he found that their observations reached no farther backwards than 1903 years, or 2234 years before the Christian era. Even this is a remoter antiquity than Ptolemy allows to their science; for he mentions no Chaldean observations prior to the era of Nabonassar, or 747 years before Christ. That they cultivated something which they called philosophy at a much earlier period than this, cannot be questioned; for Aristotle +, on the credit of the most ancient records,

speaks of the Chaldean magi as prior to the Egyptian History of priests, who were certainly men of learning before the Philosophy. time of Moses. For any other science than that of the stars, we do not read that the Chaldeans were famous; and this seems to have been cultivated by them merely as the foundation of judicial astrology. Persuading the multitude that all human affairs are influenced by the stars, and professing to be acquainted with the nature and laws of this influence, their wise men pretended to calculate nativities, and to predict good and bad fortune. This was the source of idolatry and various su-* Sext. perstitions; and whilst the Chaldeans were given up to Emp. ad such dotages, true science could not be much indebted lib. 4. § 2. to their labours. If any credit be due to Plutarch and Strabo, Vitruvius, who quote Berosus, (see BEROSUS), it was lib. 100. the opinion of the Chaldean wise men that an eclipse of Cic. de Div. lib. 1. §1. the moon happens when that part of its body which is destitute of fire is turned towards the earth. cosmogony, as given by Berosus, and preserved by Syncellus, seems to be this, that all things in the beginning consisted of darkness and water; that a divine power dividing this humid mass, formed the world; and that the human mind is an emanation from the Divine nature+.

"Their

The large tract of country which comprehended the empires of Assyria and Chaldea, was the first peopled region on earth. From that country, therefore, the rudiments of science must have been propagated in every direction through the rest of the world; but what particular people made the earliest figure, after the Chaldeans, in the history of philosophy, cannot be certainly known. The claim of the Egyptians is probably best founded; but as their science was the immediate source of that of the Greeks, we shall defer what we have to say of it on account of the connection between the parent and the offspring, and turn our attention from Chaldean to Indian philosophy, as it has been cultivated from a very early period by the Brachmans and Gymnosophists. We pass over Persia, because we know not of any science peculiar to that kingdom, except the doctrines of the magi, which were religious rather than philosophical; and of them the reader will find some account under the words MAGI, POLYTHEISM, and Zo

ROASTER.

Math.

+ Enfield's Hist. Phil

vol. i.

From whatever quarter India received its wisdom, we Indian phiare certain that its philosophers were held in high repute losophy. at a period of very remote antiquity, since they were visited by Pythagoras and other sages of ancient Greece, who travelled in pursuit of knowledge. Yet they seem to have been in that early age, as well as at present, more distinguished for the severity of their manners than for the acquisition of science; and, as Dr Enfield observes, to have more resembled modern monks than ancient

Flistory of cient philosophers. The brachmans or bramins, it is Phiosophy, well known, are all of one tribe; and the most learned

of them are in their own language called Pundits or Pandits. The Greek writers, however, mention a society called Sumanæans, who, voluntarily devoting themselves to the study of divine wisdom, gave up all private property, committed their children to the care of the state, and their wives to the protection of their relations. This society was supported at the public expence; and its members spent their time in contemplation, in conversation on divine subjects, or in acts of religion. Ingrafted The philosophy of the Indians has indeed from the on religion. beginning been engrafted on their religious dogmas, and seems to be a compound of fanatic metaphysics and extravagant superstition, without the smallest seasoning of rational physics. Very unlike the philosophers of modern Europe, of whom a great part labour to exclude the agency of mind from the universe, the Pandits of Hindostan allow no powers whatever to matter, but introduce the Supreme Being as the immediate cause of every effect, however trivial. "Brehm, the Spirit of God, (says one of their most revered Bramins), is absorbed in self-contemplation. The same is the mighty lord, who is present in every part of space, whose omnipresence, as expressed in the Reig Beid or Rigveda, I shall now explain. Brehm is one, and to him there is no second; such is truly Brehm. His omniscience is self-inspired or self-intelligent, and its comprehension includes every possible species. To illustrate this as far as I am able; the most comprehensive of all comprehensive faculties is omniscience; and being selfinspired, it is subject to none of the accidents of mortality, conception, birth, growth, decay, or death; neither is it subject to passion or vice. To it the three distinctions of time, past, present, and future, are not. To it the three modes of being (D) are not. It is separated from the universe, and independent of all. This omniscience is named Brehm. By this omniscient Spirit the operations of God are enlivened. By this Spirit also the 24 powers (E) of nature are animated? How is this? As the eye by the sun, as the pot by the fire, as iron by the magnet (F), as variety of imitations by the mimic, as fire by the fuel, as the shadow by the man, as dust by the wind, as the arrow by the spring of the bow, and as the shade by the tree; so by this Spirit the world is endued with the powers of intellect, the powers of the will, and the powers of action; so that if it emanates from the heart by the channel of the ear, it causes the perception of sounds; if it emanates from the heart by the channel of the skin, it causes the perception of touch; if it emanates from the heart by the channel of the eye, it causes the perception of

visible objects; if it emanates from the heart by the History of channel of the tongue, it causes the perception of Philosophy. taste; if it emanates from the heart by the channel of the nose, it causes the perception of smell. This also invigorating the five members of action, and invigorating the five members of perception, and invigora ting the five elements, and invigorating the five senses, and invigorating the three dispositions of the mind, &c. causes the creation or the annihilation of the universe, while itself beholds every thing as an indifferent spectator *."

*Prelimi

to Halhed's

Laws.

the sepa

ence of

From this passage it is plain that all the motions nary Disc. in the universe, and all the perceptions of man, are, Gento according to the Bramins, caused by the immediate agency of the Spirit of God, which seems to be here 6 considered as the soul of the world. But it appears Admits not from some papers in the Asiatic Researches, that the rate existmost profound of these oriental philosophers, and even the authors of their sacred books, believe not in the matter, and existence of matter as a separate substance, but hold an opinion respecting it very similar to that of the celebrated Berkeley. The Vedantis (says Sir William Jones), unable to form a distinct idea of brute matter independent of mind, or to conceive that the work of Supreme Goodness was left a moment to itself, imagine that the Deity is ever present to his work, and constantly supports a series of perceptions, which in one sense they call illusory, though they cannot but admit the reality of all created forms, as far as the happiness of creatures can be affected by them.

This is the very immaterialism of Berkeley; and in proof that it is the genuine doctrine of the Bramins, the learned president quotes the Bhagavat, which is believed to have been pronounced by the Supreme Being, and in which is the following sentence.

66

Except the first cause, whatever may appear, and may not appear, in the mind, know that to be the mind's Máyá, or ' delusion,' as light, as darkness."

7

We have shown elsewhere (see METAPHYSICS, No Teaches

the me

269.) that the metaphysical doctrines of the Bramins, tempsycho

respecting the human soul, differ not from those of Pythagoras and Plato; and that they believe it to be an emanation from the great soul of the world, which, after many transmigrations, will be finally absorbed in its parent substance. In proof of their believing in the metempsychosis, Mr Halhed gives us the following translation of what (he says) is a beautiful stanza in the Gēētā: "As throwing aside his old clothes, a man puts on others that are new; so our lives, quitting the old, go to other newer animals."

sis.

8

From the Bramins believing in the soul of the world Physics of not only as the sole agent, but as the immediate cause of the Braevery motion in nature, we can hardly suppose them mins.

to

3 A 2

cient Hindoos chose that point of time counted back, History of when, according to their motions as they had determin- Philosophy, ed them, they must have been in conjunction in the beginning of Mésha or Aries, and coeval with which circumstance they supposed the creation. This, as it concerned the planets only, would have produced a moderate term of years compared with the enormous antiquity that will be hereafter stated: but having discovered a slow motion of the nodes and apsides also, and taken it into computation, they found it would require a length of time corresponding with 1955884890 years now expired, when they were so situated, and 2364115110 years more before they would return to the same situation again, forming together the grand anomalistick period denominated a Calpa, and fancifully assigned as the day of Brahma."

History of to have made any great progress in that science which hilosophy. in Europe is cultivated under the name of physics. They have no inducement to investigate the laws of nature; because, according to the first principles of their philosophy, which, together with their religion, they believe to have been revealed from heaven, every phenomenon, however regular, or however anomalous, is produced by the voluntary act of an intelligent mind. Yet if they were acquainted with the use of fire-arms 4000 years ago, as Mr Halhed seems to believe, he who made that discovery must have had a very considerable knowledge of the powers of nature; for though gunpowder may have been discovered by accident in the East, as it certainly was in the West many ages afterwards, it is difficult to conceive how mere accident could have led any man to the invenTheirastro- tion of a gun. In astronomy, geometry, and chronology too, they appear to have made some proficiency at a very early period. (See ASTRONOMY, No 4.). Their chronology and astronomy are indeed full of those extravagant fictions which seem to be essential to all their systems; but their calculation of eclipses, and their computations of time, are conducted upon scientific principles.

nomy.

*Asiatic

"It is sufficiently known (says Mr Davis *) that Researches, the Hindoo division of the ecliptic into signs, degrees, vol. ii. &c. is the same as ours; that their astronomical year is sidereal, or containing that space of time in which the sun, departing from a star, returns to the same; that it commences on the instant of his entering the sign Aries, or rather the Hindoo constellation Mesha; that each astronomical month contains as many even days and fractional parts as he stays in each sign; and that the civil differs from the astronomical account of time only in rejecting those fractions, and beginning the year and month at sunrise, instead of the intermediate instant of the artificial day or night. Hence arises the unequal portion of time assigned to each month dependent on the situation of the sun's apsis, and the distance of the vernal equinoctial colure from the beginning of Mésha in the Hindoo sphere; and by these means they avoid those errors which Europeans, from a different method of adjusting their kalendar by intercalary days, have been subject to."

Mr Davis observes, that an explanation of these matters would have led him beyond his purpose, which was only to give a general account of the method by which the Hindoos compute eclipses, and to show that the science of astronomy is as well known among them now as ever it was among their ancestors. This he does very completely; but in the present short historical sketch, we can neither copy nor abridge his memoir. Suffice it to say, that he has shown the practical part of the Hindoo astronomy to be founded on mathematical principles; and that the learned Pandits appear to have truer notions of the form of the earth, and the economy of the universe, than those which are ascribed to their countrymen in general.

The same writer shows likewise, that the prodigious duration which the Hindoos attribute to the world, is the result of a scientific calculation, founded indeed on very whimsical principles. "It has been common with astronomers to fix on some epoch, from which, as from a radix, to compute the planetary motions; and the an

But though the mathematical part of the astronomy of the Pandits is undoubtedly respectable, their physical notions of the universe are in the highest degree ridicu lous and extravagant. In the Vedas and Puranas, writings of which no devout Hindoo can dispute the divine authority, eclipses are said to be occasioned by the intervention of the monster Rahu; and the earth to be supported by a series of animals. "They suppose (says Mr Halhed) that there are 14 spheres, seven below and and six above the earth. The seven inferior worlds are said to be altogether inhabited by an infinite variety of serpents, described in every monstrous figure that the imagination can suggest. The first sphere above the earth is the immediate vault of the visible heavens, in which the sun, moon, and stars, are placed. The second is the first paradise, and general receptacle of those who merit a removal from the lower earth. The third and fourth are inhabited by the souls of those men who. by the practice of virtue and dint of prayer, have acquired an extraordinary degree of sanctity. The fifth is the reward of those who have all their lives performed some wonderful act of penance and mortification, or who have died martyrs for their religion. The highest sphere is the residence of Brahma and his particular favourites, such as those men who have never uttered a falsehood during their whole lives, and those women who have voluntarily burned themselves with their husbands. All these are absorbed in the divine essence."

10

Strange notions of the

universe.

On ethics, the Hindoos have nothing that can be Ethics of called philosophy. Their duties, moral, civil, and re- the Hin ligious, are all laid down in their Vedas and Shasters; doos. and enjoined by what they believe to be divine authority, which supersedes all reasoning concerning their fitness or utility. The business of their Pandits is to interpret those books, which are extremely ancient, and written in a language that has long been unintelligible to every other order of men; but no Pandit will alter the text, however impossible to be reconciled to principles established in his own practice of astronomy. On such occasions, the usual apology for their sacred books is, that "such things may have been so formerly, and may be so still; but that for astronomical purposes, as- Davis's tronomical rules must be followed." The great duties Memoir, of morality have been prescribed in every religious code; and they are not overlooked in that of the Hindoos, vol. ii. though the highest merit that a Bramin can have consists in voluntary acts of abstinence and mortification, and in contempt of death..

Of

Asiatic Re

searches,