In The Story of Alchemy and the Beginnings of Chemistry (1902) M. M. Pattison Muir reveals the history of Chemistry from the old Greek thinkers until his own age, the end of the 19th century. Excerpt from the book: 'The Story of Alchemy and the Beginnings of Chemistry is very interesting in itself. It is also a pregnant example of the contrast between the scientific and the emotional methods of regarding nature; and it admirably illustrates the differences between well-grounded, suggestive, hypotheses, and baseless speculations. I have tried to tell the story so that it may be intelligible to the ordinary reader.'