Abstract
The importance of the Biblical creation story for the chemical philosophy of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and its reinterpretation in chemical terms by Paracelsus and his followers, has been clearly pointed out by A. G. Debus in The English Paracelsians (1965), The French Paracelsians (1991) and above all in The Chemical Philosophy (1977). My study owes an obvious debt to these books, and also to Debus’s edition of Fludd’s previously unpublished Philosophic all Key (1979). In this article I explore the contrasting theological attitudes that inspired Helmont and Fludd to produce their very different interpretations of creation and cosmology.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
Robert Fludd, Utriusque cosmi maioris scilicet et minoris metaphysica, physica atque technica historia (Oppenheim, 1617), vol. I, De macrocosmi historia, pp. 7–8 ((hereafter Mac. Hist.).
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1994 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Emerton, N.E. (1994). Creation in the Thought of J.B. van Helmont and Robert Fludd. In: Rattansi, P., Clericuzio, A. (eds) Alchemy and Chemistry in the 16th and 17th Centuries. International Archives of the History of Ideas / Archives Internationales D’Histoire des Idées, vol 140. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-0778-5_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-0778-5_4
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-94-010-4333-5
Online ISBN: 978-94-011-0778-5
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive