Greece, natural philosophy

The later chemistry, however, was the product of the influences of these practical chemical arts, combined with the mysticism of Asiatic or Egyptian origin, and the philosophy of the East and of Greece, respecting the nature of matter and the elements which impart to it its varying forms and properties. 

Though the writers upon whose works we are mainly dependent for our knowledge of practical chemistry have little to say of the prevalent theories of matter, yet from other sources we know that speculations on such subjects have earnestly occupied the minds of men since the earliest period of recorded philosophy. Especially in the earliest records of India and of Greece are met serious efforts to account for the origin and changes of the material universe by consistent theories of the nature of matter and its changes. 

While the collection of chemical facts continued to be enlarged by the artisan, these facts were interpreted by the philosophers— who also served as mathematicians, astronomers, anatomists, and physicists, as well as theologians and political theoreticians. In fact not until the 1800s did European scientists begin to think of their work as separate from that of philosophers. Though philosophy is common to all cultures, the most influential in the development of modern chemistry were the philosophers of Greece. These thinkers derived hypotheses about the nature of matter and material interactions that helped and hindered chemical developments over the next 2000 years. 

The idea that all matter is composed of minute atoms had first been suggested in ancient Greece, and Boyle had employed the concept of atomism in his mechanical philosophy. But atomism had as yet had little success in explaining the phenomena of chemistry. It was difficult to see how these minute particles, which were supposed to be the universal building blocks of nature, could provide an explanation for the chemical properties of the huge number of different materials known, a number that was continually increasing. 

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