The Limits of Matter A series in the history of chemistry, broadly construed, edited by Angela N. H. Creager, Ann Johnson, John E. Lesch, Lawrence M. Principe, Alan Rocke, E. C. Spary, and Audra J. Wolfe, in partnership with the Chemical Heritage Founda- tion The Limits of Matter Chemistry, Mining, and Enlightenment Hjalmar Fors The University of Chicago Press :: Chicago and London Hjalmar Fors is a researcher and teacher in the Department of History of Science and Ideas at Uppsala University, Sweden. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637 The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London © 2015 by The University of Chicago All rights reserved. Published 2015. Printed in the United States of America 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 1 2 3 4 5 isbn- 13: 978- 0- 226- 19499- 8 (cloth) isbn- 13: 978- 0- 226- 19504- 9 (e- book) doi: 10.7208/chicago/978022619504– 9.001.0001 Library of Congress Cataloging- in-Publication Data Fors, Hjalmar, author. The limits of matter : chemistry, mining, and Enlightenment / Hjalmar Fors. pages cm — (Synthesis) isbn 978- 0- 226- 19499- 8 (cloth : alk. paper) — isbn 978- 0- 226- 19504- 9 (e- book) 1. Matter—Philosophy. 2. Chemistry—History. 3. Mining engineering—History. 4. Enlightenment. I. Title. II. Series: Synthesis (University of Chicago Press) bd646.f67 2015 117—dc23 2014017926 o This paper meets the requirements of ansi/niso z39.48- 1992 (Permanence of Paper). To Karin, Hedda, and Beata . I heard footsteps behind me And there was a little old man — Hello! In scarlet and grey, shuffling away — (laughter!) . — Oh, I ought to report you to the Gnome office — Gnome Office? — Yes — Hahahahaha! . Ha ha ha, hee hee hee I’m a laughing Gnome and you can’t catch me Said the laughing Gnome david bowie, “The Laughing Gnome” (1967) Contents 1 Introduction: The Edges of the Map 1 2 Of Witches, Trolls, and Inquisitive Men 17 3 Chymists in the Mining Business 43 4 From Curious to Ingenious Knowledge 77 5 Elements of Enlightenment 99 6 Capturing the Laughing Gnome 121 7 Conclusion: Material Reality 147 and the Enlightenment Acknowledgments 155 Notes 157 Bibliography 201 Index 221 1 Introduction: The Edges of the Map Intellectual battles over the nature of reality were fought all over Europe in the seventeenth and eighteenth centu- ries. They were an integral part of the cultural shift that is usually referred to as the Enlightenment. At the heart of the matter lay a massive change in Western epistemol- ogy. The people of this period raised many questions, and found their answers to be different from those that had satisfied their forebears.1 What are the limits of attain- able knowledge? How should we proceed to understand the universe? What kinds of entities and forces may our world contain? The issues were not just philosophical. Debates raged in many arenas. There was the juridical question of whether the law should continue to punish witches who performed malevolent magic. There was the theological question of whether God still worked miracles in the modern world, and whether God and the Devil were aided in their work by legions of angels and demons. And what about the soul? Was it a spark of the divine or simply an innate ability to reason rationally? The de- bate also raged in physics, natural history, and alchemy/ chemistry. How should physics explain phenomena such as action at a distance and telepathic communication of thoughts and emotions? How should natural historians discuss the various beasts— dragons, trolls, gnomes, and the like— that could not be killed, preserved, and dis- C H A P T E R 1 2 played in natural history collections?2 Should alchemists and chemists abandon their quest for the philosophers’ stone, and with it their hopes of transmuting lesser metals into gold? Central to many of these discussions was the relationship between the realm of spirit (or imagination) and the realm of matter. Percep- tions of matter changed radically as many influential Europeans turned their backs on witches, trolls, magic, and miraculous transformations. Whereas matter once had been seen as malleable, transmuting, and ever- changing, it would increasingly be treated as predictable and possible to systematize into stable categories. This is a book about how the modern notion of materiality was established during the first half of the eighteenth century. It shows how alchemists and chemists contributed to Enlightenment discourse about matter by defining some objects as natural and others as out of the or- dinary and probably nonexistent. In doing so, it pins an important epis- temological change in European culture to the formation of the modern discipline of chemistry.3 When matter is redefined and given new bound- aries, notions of the nonmaterial and of the spirit world change also. Hence, this book takes the debate about the Enlightenment, which has mostly been confined to fields such as the history of philosophy, theol- ogy, and physics, into a new arena. As Cyril Stanley Smith remarked in 1967: “until recently, it has been mainly chemists who have contributed to the understanding of the nature of matter.”4 This book invites not only chemists into the debate, but also assayers, miners, mineralogists, and alchemists, that is, those who knew the most about the rocks, min- erals, metals, and mines that comprise the flesh, bones, and internal cavities of the Earth itself. The Early Modern Point of View: An Introduction When studying the early modern period, present- day notions of reality should not be taken for granted. A whole range of phenomena that to- day would be considered supernatural or superstitious were considered epistemically unproblematic by early moderns. That is to say, they had a different view of what reality and God would permit to happen in the normal run of things. Examples of beliefs that were acceptable to most of them, but that are unacceptable to most of us, are that metallic transmutation was viable, that one could use magical techniques for enchantment and treasure finding, and that intercourse with the spirits of the dead and sentient nature- spirits (who were endowed with a form of reason) were not uncommon occurrences. Indeed, our distinction INTRODUCTION: THE EDGES OF THE MAP 3 between natural and supernatural phenomena does not at all suffice to distinguish between what early modern people thought that nature would and would not allow.5 All of the above, as well as many other phenomena, were considered suitable objects of curious investigation by early modern natural philosophers. Not only where they thoroughly discussed, but they were considered important areas of investigation. Historian of science Lorraine Daston has pointed out that the late seventeenth century delighted in inexplicable phenomena, variety, and surprise. This interest in all things apparently strange can be traced not only in tracts on natural philosophy but also in learned theories on magic and spirits, demonological tracts, court proceedings from witch- craft trials, and ethnographical accounts. There was plenty of room for this kind of inquiry in the realms of physics, chemistry/alchemy, and natural history.6 Daston claims that toward the turn of the eighteenth century, 1700, interest in these matters was becoming unfashionable. She persuasively argues that the fading of interest in curious phenomena happened through a shift of focus, precipitated by Enlightenment utili- tarianism. As she puts it: “A new ethos of utility replaced the old one of curiosity . the stabilization of physical phenomena [was understood] as the necessary, if not sufficient condition for practical applications.”7 Utilitarian outlooks and a search for ingenious inventions, which carried the potential to improve society and yield economic benefits, replaced curiosity.8 Indeed, just as Daston indicates, things such as trolls or magic ceased to command the curious attention of mid- eighteenth- century natural philosophers in the way they had a generation before. But there were also strong continuities. When one regards the subtext of enlightened utilitarian discourse, it is apparent that these objects of knowledge con- tinued to have an importance. Increasingly categorized as superstitions outside of science, they were discussed nonetheless.9 The emerging ide- ology committed to the rationalization and commodification of both nature and culture needed the category of superstition as an object of ridicule. Superstition was opposed to rationality, and the superstitious was one of the major groups (along with artisans/craftsmen and others) that, allegedly, did not show an interest in making knowledge public and useful for the service and improvement of society. In the rhetoric of would- be reformers, useful knowledge, economic reform, rationality, and Enlightenment could be contrasted to allegedly useless enterprises and speculations, stagnation and superstition. This kind of utilitarian rhetoric was equally useful whether one sought to overthrow society, improve it, or simply advance one’s own career.10 C H A P T E R 1 4 Among the fields of early modern inquiry, the shift toward En- lightened utilitarianism was felt most strongly in the knowledge area of chemistry. In a very important sense, modern chemistry was born through this utilitarian transformation of its goals and outlook. During this period, chemistry transformed itself into a service science, facilitat- ing state control and aiding in industrial development. It gained a place in society that it has held ever since. Simultaneously the quest for utility, and for the patronage of manufacturists, led chemists away from their art’s long- term association with transmutation of metals and the quest for the philosophers’ stone. This change was also central to chemistry’s rejection of the strange and the curious. Mechanical chemistry, as the new breed of chemists sometimes called their field, allowed the existence of no objects that could not be isolated and handled in the laboratory.