A History of Hindu Chemistry from the Earliest Times to the Middle of the Sixteenth Century A.D. v1.c10.t6.5

v1.c10.t6.5

¹ The term "element" was not generally used in the modern sense of a component of a compound; rather it connoted certain properties characteristic of matter, e.g., coldness, dryness, heaviness, fluidity etc., thus it referred to certain qualities in the abstract. The Greek philosophers also held similar, if not identical, views. Cf. "Empedokles und die moderne Chemie." pp. 185-86 of "Griechische Denker" by Gomperz vol. 1, ed. 1903. The following extract will also throw much light on the subject: "The four so-called "elements"—air, water, earth and fire—were regarded by that intellectually great philosopher, Empedocles of Agrigent (about 440 B.C.), as the basis of the world; but neither he himself nor Aristotle, who adopted these into his system of natural philosophy, looked upon them as different properties carried about by one original matter. Their chief qualities (the primæ qualitates of the later scholastics) he held to be those apparent to the touch, viz., warm, cold, dry, and moist. Each of the four so-called elements is characterised by the possession of two of these properties, air being warm and moist,