alchemy only offered a doubtful spark

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An historical example of metaphor in writing about science:

"In 'this opake of nature and of soul', the perverse activity of the alchemists from time to time struck out a doubtful spark; and our illustrious countryman, Roger Bacon, shone out at the obscurest moment, like an early star predicting dawn. It was not, however, till the sixteenth century that the light of nature began to break forth with a regular and progressive increase."

Sir John Frederick William Herschel

Herschel, J. F. W. (1830). Preliminary Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy.

[Please be aware that a word may have different nuances, or even a different meaning, according to context.]« Back to Index