certain evidence that the Egyptians ever pursued chemistry in the spirit of science, or even in the manner in which they and the Chaldæans followed, for example, astronomy or mathematics. The operations of chemistry as performed by them were of the nature of manufacturing processes, empirical in character and utilitarian in result. It was comparatively late in the world's history that men were found willing to occupy themselves in chemical pursuits in order to gain an insight into the nature of chemical change, and to learn the causes and conditions of its action.
Although we have cited the ancient Egyptians as practising the chemical arts, there is no proof that these arts actually originated with them. China, India, Chaldæa have each in turn been regarded as the birthplace of the various technical processes from which chemistry may be said to have taken its rise. Nevertheless, it is mainly from Egyptian records, or from writings avowedly based on information from Egyptian sources, that such knowledge as we possess of the earliest chemical processes is derived. It is significant that the word “chemistry” has its origin in chemi, “the black land,” the ancient name for Egypt. The art itself was constantly spoken of as the “Egyptian art.”
“The word chemistry,” says Boerhaave in the Prolegomena of his New Method of Chemistry
