Hermes: A Journal in Occasional Issues

[they are] right in every respect. No one can
complain about their integrity in this regard,
for very few of them in the distant past
were in a position to precisely define or
name that which we, given the vast scope
of chemistry and its countless decompositions original: "Zerlegungen." In this context, it refers to chemical analysis or the breaking down of substances into components.,
are better able to know and to name. —
It is remarkable that Sendivogius Michael Sendivogius (1566–1636) was a renowned Polish alchemist who theorized that a "food of life" existed in the air, later identified by historians of science as oxygen. speaks of
a fixed air term: fixed air (fixe Luft) A term coined by Joseph Black in the 1750s for carbon dioxide, though here the author uses it more broadly to describe a spirit trapped in matter.: for this air
denotes precisely that disguised philo-
sophical fire-spirit, and it is none
other than this. It is that which reveals
itself in rot, in fermentation, in the life
of animals, in the burning of combust-
ible things, consequently in phosphorus,
in the friction of such bodies that
contain much fixed mercury—for example,
glass, earth-resins original: "Erdharze." Natural bitumens or resins found in the earth, such as amber or asphalt., etc.—namely in electrici-
ty, etc., and so it would be, in short, the me-
phitic gas term: mephitic gas (mephitische Gas) Historically, "mephitic" referred to foul-smelling or life-extinguishing air (like nitrogen or carbon dioxide). The author is attempting to link this physical gas to the vital spiritual force of alchemy..

The ancients knew this gas only by
its effect, and that was sufficient
for them. One does not demand from the baker
and brandy distiller an explanation of the air-.