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2. Alchemy in Scirev History of Chemistry Organisch-chemisches Institut Universität Zürich Professor Ramberg Chymistry in the Seventeenth Century Some of the most exciting research in history of science today is on the nature and role of alchemy in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Until recently historians have not considered the study of alchemy worthwhile because it was “obviously” a pseudoscience and irrational. This has turned out to be a very presentist view. What historians have recently argued is that alchemy was rational on its own terms, and that alchemists were actually doing chemistry. For example, theoretical and practical alchemy appears to have played a large role in the formation of the mechanical philosophy, particularly in Robert Boyle and Isaac Newton, and careful weight measurements (i.e. quantification) were a tradition in the chemical arts dating back to the High Middle Ages. I. The Fate of Geberian Alchemy A. Corpuscularianism B. Quantitative techniques: Alexander von Suchten (mid-sixteenth century) C. Paracelsus and Iatrochemistry D. Increased emphasis on vitalism II. Alchemical Training A. Textual traditions B. Andreas Libavius (ca. 1555-1616), Alchymia, 1597 You ridicule atomic corpuscles and their concretion and segregation. ... when even very, thick things are dissolved in sharp waters they do not appear to the eyes, although they reappear once the humidity is removed. Salt cookers know this, and those who evaporate solutions of niter, halonitrium, chalcanthum, pure urine, clear wine, and innumberable such things. C. Chymistry at the Universities 1. Johannes Hartmann (1568-1631), Marburg 2. Conrad Barchusen (1666-1723), Utrecht III. Daniel Sennert (1572-1637) A. De Chymicorum cum Aristotelicis et Galenicis con sensu et dissensu, 1619 If gold and silver melt together, they are so thoroughly mixed per minima that the gold cannot in any way be detected by sight, but if aqua fortis is then poured on, the silver is so thoroughly dissolved that no metal can be detected in the water by sight. But since it is really present, it can emerge thence in segregated form, and certainly in such a way that both the gold and the silver retain their own nature; and it is in this fashion collected into the subtlest calx, which is nothing other than a heap of innumerable atoms, which is again reduced in to the purest gold and silver by fusion. B. Evidence for atoms: The “Reduction to the Pristine State” IV. George Starkey (1627-1665) and Eirenaeus Philalethes A. George Starkey and Chymistry B. The Adept Philalethes C. “Shell” theory of metals D. Concept of “Mediation” V. Robert Boyle (1626-1692), Atomism and Alchemy A. Early life and influences B. Boyle’s atomism and corpuscular theory 1. The Origin of Forms and Qualities (1666) The doctrine I shall here attempt to establish, take as follows: (1) There is one universal matter, common to all bodies, an extended, divisible, and impenetrable substance. (2) This matter being in its own nature but one, the diversity in bodies must necessarily arise from somewhat else: and since there should be no change in matter at rest, there is a necessity of motion to discriminate it: and for that motion, also, to have various tendencies. These two principles, matter and motion, being established, it will follow, that matter must be actually divided into parts; and that each of the primitive fragments, or other distinct and entire masses, must have two attributes, its own magnitude or size, and its own figure or shape. And since experience shows that this division of matter is frequently made into insensible particles, we may conclude that the minutest fragments, as well as the largest portions of the universal matter, have, likewise, their peculiar build and shape. ...We must, therefore, admit three essential properties of each entire part of matter, viz., magnitude, shape and wither motion or rest ... When oil takes fire, the oil is not said to be altered but corrupted or destroyed, and fire generated; [but] nothing substantial wither in this or any other kind of corruption is destroyed, only that particular connection of the parts, or manner of their coexistence, upon account whereof the matter was termed stone, or a metal, or belonging to any other determinate species of bodies. That then, which I chiefly aim at, is to make it probable to you by experiments, (which I think hath not yet been done) that almost all sorts of qualities, most of which have been by the schools either left unexplicated, or generally referred to I know not what corporeal agents, as do not appear to work otherwise than by virtue of the motion, size figure, and contrivance [arrangement], of their own parts (which attributes I call the mechanical affections of matter, because to them men willingly refer the various operations of mechanical engines); or to produce the new qualitites, exhibited by those bodies their action changes, by any other way than by changing the texture, or motion, or some other mechanical affection, of the body wrought upon. Though they [atoms] may be further subdivided by imagination … yet they cannot by nature, which not being able in her resolutions of natural bodies to proceed ad infinitum must necessarily stop somewhere and have some bodies with she can no further subdivide and which may be justly termed atoms. 2. Of the Atomicall Philosophy (early undated manuscript) [T]hus sylver being dissolved in Aqua fortis and that Menstruum so well filter'd that the dissolved silver and it will both passe through Cap paper all the invisible particle of ye Metall which are so small that they hinder not the Diaphaneity of the Menstruum are yet each of them true silver as appeares by precipitating them to the bottome (by a little resolv'd salt of Tartar) in the forme of a subtle powder which is easily reducible into the same numericall silver that was at first corroded and so in the mixture of Metalls there is a union per minima that is Atomes, as if gold and silver be duly melted together each part of the masse has an equall proportion of the respective Metalls, and any part of it being cast into Aqua fortis (which be reason of the virtue we are now going to ascribe to it is by the French often call d'eau de depart) or water of separation, the Menstruum will corrode and imbibe the Atomes of [the] silver and let those of the gold fall in the form of powder to the bottome, instances of this Nature might be easily multiplyed if I judg'd them requisite. C. Boyle and Alchemy 1. The Sceptical Chemist, or Chymico-physical Doubts and Paradoxes, Touching the Spagyrist’s Pinciples commonly called Hypostatical; as they are wont to be Propos’d and Defended by the Generality of Alchymists (1666) 2. Dialogue on Transmutation (1675-1680s) 3. Eyewitness accounts 4. Pursuit of the philosophical mercury 5. Motivations VI. Isaac Newton (1642-1727) and Alchemy A. Evidence for interest in alchemy B. Influence of Eirenaeus Philalethes 1. “An Hypothesis on Light” (1675) 2. Letter to Boyle, 1678 There is a certain secret principle in nature by which liquors are sociable to some things and unsociable to others. Thus water will not mix with oyle but readily with spirit of wine or with salts. ... But a liquor which is of it self unsociable to a body may by the mixture of a convenient mediator be made sociable. So molten lead which alone will not mix with copper or with Regulus of Mars, by the addition of Tin is made to mix with either. 3. De natura acidorum (1710) [The acid particles] are endowed with a great attractive force and in thie force their activity consists by which they dissolve bodies and aggect an stimulate the organs of the senses. They are of a middle nature between water and [terrestrial] bodies and they attract both. 4. Opticks, Query 31 (1704) As Gravity makes the Sea flow round the denser and weightier Parts of the Globe of the Earth, so the Attraction may make the watry Acid flow round the denser and compacter Particles of Earth for composing the Particles of Salt. For otherwise the Acid would not do the Office of a Medium between the Earth and common water, for making Salts dissolvable in the Water nor would Salt of Tarter readily draw off the Acid from dissolved Metals, nor Metals the Acid from Mercury. Now, as in the great Globe of the Earth and Sea, the densest Bodies by their Gravity sink down in Water, and always endeavor to go towards the Center of the Globe; so in Particles of salt, the denset Matter may always endeavor to approach the Center of the Particle: So that a Particle of Salt may be compared to a Chaos; being dense, hard, dry, and earthy in the center; and rare soft, moist, and watry in the Circumference. Further Reading William R. Newman and Lawrence M. Principe, Alchemy Tried in the Fire: Starkey, Boyle, and the Fate of Helmontian Chymistry, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002. William R. Newman, Atoms and Alchemy: Chemistry and the Experimental Origins of the Scientific Revolution, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006. Bruce Moran, Distilling Knowledge: Alchemy, Chemistry and the Scientific Revolution, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005. Tara E Nummedal, Alchemy and Authority in the Holy Roman Empire, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007. William R Newman, Gehennical Fire: The Lives of George Starkey, an American Alchemist in the Scientific Revolution, Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1994. William R. Newman, “The Alchemical Sources of Robert Boyle’s Corpuscular Philosophy,” Annals of science, 53 (1996): 567-85 Lawrence Principe, The Aspiring Adept: Robert Boyle’s Alchemical Quest, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998.
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