Armia pojedynczych skarpetek

Arabic understanding of elements

"Świat to splecione ze sobą kręgi:
pierwszy zbudowany jest z tworzywa rzadkiego,
drugi zbudowany jest z tworzywa gęstego,
pomiędzy nimi są dwa kolejne kręgi: pierwszy – zbudowany z tworzywa ciemnego, drugi zaś – z tworzywa świetlistego,
pośrodku jest krąg ognisty,
w samym środku wszystkiego jest zaś Natura, która wszystkim rządzi."
Parmenides

The Jābirian texts, brought forward a physical doctrine inspired by the Greek system of the four elements as found in the words of Galen, but refined to an exceptional degree of complexity.
Each thing of the sublunary world is compounded of four elements: fire, earth, air and water. These four elements are in turn characterized by four elementary properties: Fire is hot and dry, air is hot and moist, water is cold and moist, and earth is cold and dry.
Things are distinguished from each other by their proportion of elements, and consequently by their proportion of elementary properties. The Jābirian authors innovated and developed a theory which had a prominent influence on the whole alchemical tradition, in the East and in the West, namely the elixir theory.
Since a thing is characterized by its elements proportion, it is theoretically possible, when this proportion is modified, to transform a thing into another, for instance, lead into gold. How can this be done? We calculate the elementary proportions of lead and gold, and we evaluate the 'intensity' of the four properties in them. In this way, we know how much of each property we must add to lead to turn it into gold. Then, we take a material called 'stone' (ḥajar in Arabic), but which is not necessarily a stone: it could be a mineral, an animal, or a plant. We distil it in order to isolate its four elements.
We work on these elements in order to reduce the 'intensity' of one of their two properties, and in order to obtain, by this way, pure heat, pure coldness, pure dryness and pure moisture.
Then, we produce a mixture of these four properties according to the proportion which must be added to lead. This mixture is called 'elixir', (from the Arabic al-iksīr, itself from the Greek ξήριον, ‘dry powder'). We project the elixir on the lead to transmute it into gold. This system will become a standard for all alchemists. This is one of the main principles of Arabic alchemy.