FoundationalConceptsNeuroscience

Among the alchemists of old were metalworkers who “magically”
extracted metals from rock, and physicians who prepared extracts
and essences from plants for healing the body and mind. Some
alchemists sought the Philosopher’s Stone, a legendary substance said
to facilitate transformation of common metals such as iron and lead
into precious metals such as gold and silver. But some say this is only
part of the alchemical story, perhaps even the lesser part. More impor-
tantly, there was also an esoteric or occult aspect of alchemy that was
concerned with investigation of the psyche, and with transformation
of one’s self and the human psychological condition—a kind of psy-
chotherapy or vision quest. In this context the Philosopher’s Stone
is understood as a vehicle for self-transformation—the method by
which the alchemical practitioner achieves an integrated wholeness.
Throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in Europe
alchemy was gradually redefined as chemistry, a science of matter
devoid of psyche. Robert Boyle (1627-1691) and Isaac Newton
(1642-1727) considered themselves alchemists, and both sought the
Philosopher’s Stone. But Boyle and Newton also made central con-
tributions to a new conception of the cosmos, one that sought to de-
scribe nature independent of any references to mind or magic.
By the end of the 1700s the transition was nearly complete. An-
toine Lavoisier (1743-1794) and Joseph Priestley (1733-1804), for
example, occupied themselves not with the Philosopher’s Stone but
with such things as discovering oxygen and investigating its roles in
combustion and respiration. Priestley published works on electricity,
carbonated water, and gases. And in 1789 Lavoisier published what
some consider the first modern text on chemistry—Traité Elémentaire
de Chimie—translated into English the next year as Elements of Chem-
istry in a New Systematic Order, Containing All the Modern Discoveries.
In his writing, Lavoisier developed chemical nomenclature still in use