Introduction

Abstract

It is a widely accepted view that for much of the seventeenth century chemistry and atomism were dominated by two different theories of matter. The former was dominated by vitalistic ideas, the latter by mechanical theories. According to this interpretation, in the first decades of the seventeenth century chemistry was not yet part of the new science, but was either a purely practical discipline or a confused mélange of philosophical and mystical doctrines. On the other hand, the revival of atomism in the early seventeenth century was the beginning of a process leading to the establishment of mechanical philosophy. The mechanical philosophy replaced the qualitative theories of matter of both the Aristotelians and the Paracelsians. Atomism expanded into the mechanical philosophy, which reduced all natural phenomena to matter and motion. It rejected the scholastic notion of substantial forms and explained sensible qualities in terms of motion of corpuscles endowed with purely mechanical properties.¹ Evidently, this interpretation considered Descartes’s mechanism as the prototype for understanding the mechanical philosophy which flourished in the second part of the century. Historians have paid attention to Descartes’s and Gassendi’s different metaphysical views, but, with a few exceptions (as for instance O. Bloch), have failed to evaluate the difference between their theories of matter.²