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So why begin a book of case studies in scientific method illustrating chemical themes with a selection which is neither scientific nor chemical? Aristotle's conception of the elements, even though it was concerned primarily with physical aspects of matter, was one which later chemists had to confront. Aristotle wrote on subjects which are now part of the disciplines of biology and physics, but not on chemical subjects, and in this respect, he was no different from other figures in ancient Greek philosophy. the absence of material of a specifically chemical character in ancient Greek natural philosophy has largely escaped the attention it deserves.". If Aristotle was not a scientist, he was especially not a chemist: "Aristotle's chemistry, like Socrates' book, does not exist. Although he was not a bad observer in some instances, Aristotle's mode of explanation was rationalistic rather than empirical. The experimental method of putting hypothetical explanations to an empirical test was unknown to Aristotle and his contemporaries. In fact, the authority attached to Aristotle nearly two millennia after his death was one of the main obstacles in the path of the scientific outlook as it emerged in the 17 th century. His approach to understanding the natural world was not a scientific one. Four Elements: Aristotle Elements and Atoms: Chapter 1Īristotle (384-322 BCE view sculpture bust at the Galileo Project, Rice University) is not generally considered a chemist, and for good reason.