Abstract
In France, as distinct from Germany, Paracelsianism and chemistry were up against a strong and enduring opposition, on both intellectual and political grounds.1 The medical establishment launched a virulent attack on Paracelsian medicine — witness the antimony controversy. In the second half of the sixteenth century, Paracelsianism was becoming widespread among Paris physicians and, as Didier Kahn has shown, Roch le Baillif was by no means alone.2 The supposed association of alchemists and Paracelsians with the Rosicrucians contributed towards dramatising the controversies over Paracelsianism. 3
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References
For a general view of Paracelsianism, see A.G. Debus, The Chemical Philosophy, 2 vols, (New York, 1977)
W. Pagel, The Smiling Spleen. Paracelsianism in Storm and Stress (Basle, 1984)
H. Trevor Roper, ‘The Paracelsian Movement’, in Renaissance Essays (London, 1986), pp. 149–99
J. Telle (ed.), Parega Paracelsica. Paracelsus in Vergangenheit und Gegenwart (Stuttgart, 1991); id. (ed.), Analecta Paracelsica. Studien zum Nachleben Theophrast von Hohenheims im deutschen Kulturgebiet der frühen Neuzeit (Stuttgart, 1994); H. Schott und I. Zinguer (eds.), Paracelsus und seine internationale Rezeption in der frühen Neuzeit. Beiträge zur Geschichte des Paracelsismus (Leiden, 1998); O.P. Grell (ed.), Paracelsus: the Man and his Reputation, his Ideas and their Transformation (Leiden, 1998). For the French scene, see Metzger, Doctrines Chimiques; H. Guerlac, ‘Guy de La Brosse and the French Paracelsians’, in A.G. Debus (ed.), Science, Medicine and Society in the Renaissance. Essays to Honor Walter Pagel 2 vols. (New York, 1972), i, pp. 177–85; H. Trevor-Roper, ‘The Sieur de la Rivière’, in Renaissance Essays, pp. 200–22; A.G. Debus, The French Paracelsians. The Chemical Challenge to Medical and Scientific Tradition in Early Modern France (Cambridge, 1991); and Didier Kahn, ‘Paracelsisme et alchimie en France à la fin de la Renaissance (1567–1625)’ (unpublished dissertation, Paris IV, 1998).
D. Kahn, ‘La Faculté de Médecine de Paris en échec face au Paracelsisme: enjeux et dénouement réels du procès de Roch le Baillif, in Schott and Zinguer (n. 1), pp. 146–221.
On the ‘antimony war’, see P. Pilpoul, La querelle de Vantimoine (Paris, 1928) and A.G. Debus, French Paracelsians (n. 1), pp. 21–30.
On Renaudot see H.M. Solomon, Public Welfare, Science and Propaganda in Seventeenth-Century France: The Innovations of Théophraste Renaudot (Princeton, 1972). On Guy de la Brosse see DSB, Guerlac (n. 1); and id., ‘Guy de la Brosse: Botanist, Chemist, and Libertine’, in H. Guerlac, Essays and Papers in the history of Modern Science (Baltimore and London, 1977), pp. 440–50; R.C. Howard, ‘Guy de La Brosse and the Jardin des Plantes’, in H. Woolf (ed.), The Analytic Spirit. Essays in the History of Science in Honor of Henry Guerlac (Ithaca and London, 1981), pp. 195–224; id., La bibliothèque et le laboratoire de Guy de la Brosse au Jardin des Plantes à Paris (Geneva, 1983).
Following Petrus Severinus, de la Brosse conceived water and earth as matrices and receptacles of the semina rerum. See G. de La Brosse, De la Nature, Vertu et Utilité des Plantes (Paris, 1628), pp. 289–440.
Metzger, Doctrines Chimiques, p. 233; R. Lenoble, Mersenne ou la naissance du mécanisme, (Paris, 1943) pp. 134–153 and Debus (n. 1), pp. 154–155.
W. Harvey, Exercitationes duae Anatomicae de Circulatione Sanguinis ad Joannem Riolanum filium (Rotterdam, 1648), pp. 66–7.
J. d’Espagnet, Enchiridion Physicae Restitutae (Paris, 1608). References are taken from the 1642 Paris edition, pp. 131, 137, 147–8. On Jean d’Espagnet (1564–1637), see Ferguson, Bibliotheca Chemica; F. Secret, “Littérature et alchimie, X: Mlle de Gournay alchimiste”, Bibliothèque d’Humanisme et Renaissance, 35 (1973), 526–531; T. Willard, ‘The Many Worlds of Jean d’Espagnet’, in A.G. Debus and M.T. Walton (eds), Reading the Book of Nature. The Other Side of the Scientific Revolution (Kirksville, Missouri, 1998), pp. 201–14.
Cf. B.J.T. Dobbs, The Foundations of Newton’s Alchemy, or The Hunting of the Greene Lyon (Cambridge, 1984), pp. 37–9, 153. A source of d’Espagnet’s view of universal spirit and magnets might be M. Sendivogius’s Novum Lumen Chymicum (Prague, 1604). On Sendivogius, see DSB. As we shall see in chapter 4, the quest for the celestial magnet crops up in Boyle’s Correspondence of 1659.
D’Espagnet(n. 8), p. 169.
Cf. Lasswitz, Geschichte, i, pp. 333–9. d’Espagnet’s atomism is ignored by Dobbs and by Debus. The latter labelled d’Espagnet’s Enchiridion a “mystical writ”, French Paracelsians, (n. 1), p. 177.
D’Espagnet (n. 8), pp. 122–4.
Ibid., pp. 44–5; 119–20.
Nuysement, Traittez de l’Harmonie et Constitution generalle du vray sel, secret des Philosophes, & de l’Esprit universel du Mond (Paris 1621), pp. 2; 11; 17; 23. On Nuysement see W. Kirsop, ‘Clovis Hesteau, sieur de Nuysement, et la littérature alchimique en France à la fin du XVIe et au début du XVIIe siècle’ (unpublished dissertation, Université de Paris, 1960). As S. Matton (‘La figure de Démogorgon dans la littérature alchimique’, in D. Kahn and S. Matton, Alchimie: art, histoire et mythes (Paris and Milan, 1995), pp. 308–17), and D. Kahn (n. 2) have demonstrated, Nuysement’s Traittez is entirely based on Jean Brouaut’s Trois livres des elemens chymiques et spagyriques.
H. de Rochas, La Physique Reformée, contenant la refutation des erreurs populaires, et le triomphe des veritez philosophiques... (Paris, 1648, first edn: 1638), pp. 60, 133; id., La Physique demonstrative, (Paris, 1644), pp. 148–9; id., Histoire des eaux mineralles (Paris, 1648), 2 parts with separate pagination, part i, pp. 31, 234, 239–51. On Rochas (1619–1648) see Ferguson, Bibliotheca Chemica and S. Matton, “Henry de Rochas plagiaire des ‘Trois livres des elemens chymiques et spagyriques’ de Jean Brouaut”, Chrysopoeia 5 (1992–1996), 703–719.
Rochas, La Physique (n. 15), p. 60.
Rochas, Histoire des eaux mineralles (n. 15), vol. i, pp. 174–6 and vol. ii (separate pagination), p. 6.
S. Basso, Philosophiae Naturalis adversus Aristotelem libri XII (Amsterdam, 1649, first edn Geneva 1621). On Sebastien Basso’s life, see DBI and C. Lüthy, Thoughts and Circumstances of Sébastien Basson. Analysis, Micro-history, Questions’, Early Science and Medicine 111 (1997), 1–73. On Basso’s philosophy, see Lasswitz, Geschichte, i, pp. pp.467–81; T. Gregory, ‘Studi sull’Atomismo del Seicento, I’, Giornale Critico della Filosofia Italiana 44 (1964), 38–65; G. Zanier, ‘II macrocosmo corpuscolaristico di Sebastiano Basson’, in Ricerche sull’Atomismo del Seicento (Firenze, 1977), pp. 77–118, L.O. Nielsen, ‘A Seventeenth-Century Physician on God and Atoms: Sebastian Basso’, N. Kretzmann (ed.), Meaning and Inference in Medieval Philosophy (Dordrecht, 1988), pp. 297–369.
“Caeterum quomodo ex illis diversissimis particulis primis partes in infinitum discrepantes conflari possint; atque per aliquarum particularum, vel detractionem, vel additionem, vel situs partium variationem, aliae in aliarum naturam facile transeant, non intellectu est difficile.”, Basso (n. 18), pp. 72; 118 and 387.
Ibid., p. 302. Nielsen stresses that the motion of ether, and consequently of atoms, completely depend on God’s will. See Nielsen (n. 18), pp. 318–23 and 343–4.
Basso (n. 18), p. 391: “Diximus spiritum ilium universalem elementis coniunctum duplicem illis appetitum impertiri, similis scilicet coniunctionem, et spacium, locumque suae naturae debitum. Primus ille appetitus duos motus excitat, unum primarium quo scilicet simile attrahit simile, vel forte potius ad simile se recepit; neque enim vi fit talis attractio, sed amore. Alterum secundarium quo scilicet dum simile appetit similis connexionem”
Ibid., p. 112.
“Vix ulla res est ex qua non eliciant tres naturas valde inter se differentes; quarum quae subtilior est et volatilior, spiritum vocant, seu etiam mercurium, Quae vero crassior et pinguior, oleum et sulphur appellant, Quae vero omnium maxime fixa ex intimis veluti partis cuiusque penetralibus ultima educitur, sal illis nuncupatur. Praeter has tres naturas valde utiles, superest quaedam materia terrestris et inutilis quam foeces vocant et caput mortuum, est insuper aquaeus quidam et insipidus liquor quae phlegma dicunt.” Ibid., pp. 31–2.
“Materia rerum ex minutissimis particulis diversae naturae comparata est; quae quidem naturae sive sint quatuor elementa: ignis, aër, aqua, terra; sive quid aliud prius, ex quo haec elementa componantur, speciei diversissimae sunt. Caeterum, naturas illas, quae ad ignem conficiendum sunt magis idoneae, nos ignem vocamus, & ita de caeteris.” Ibid., p. 112.
Ibid., p. 70.
Ibid., p. 70. Cf. H.H. Kubbinga, ‘Les premières théories ‘moleculaire’: Isaac Beeckman (1620) et Sébastien Basson (1621). Le concept d’individu substantiel et d’espèce substantielle’, Revue d’Histoire des sciences 37 (1984), 215–33.
“Hae primae particulae adeo minutae sunt, ut nisi plurimae in unam molem coeëant, sensum non affîciant. [...] Hinc licet primae sint immutabiles quantum ad essentiam, secundae & tertiae & reliquae facile possunt aliae in aliarum naturam transire, paucioribus, aut pluribus mutatis, prout magis vel minus aliae ab aliis recedunt.” Basso (n. 18), p. 113.
Ibid, p. 304. Cf. Zanier (n. 18), pp. 104–110.
According to Basso, air contains “varia rerum semina”, Basso (n. 18), p. 21.
Metzger, Doctrines chimiques, pp. 53–4. On Beguin, see T.S. Patterson, ‘Jean Beguin and his Tyrocinium Chymicum’, Annals of Science 2 (1937), 243–98.
J-B. Morin, Refutation des theses erronees d’Antoine Villon…, & Etienne de Claves...(Paris, 1624). Mersenne, Verité des Sciences, (Paris, 1625), pp. 79–83. See D. Kahn, ‘Entre atomisme, alchimie et théologie: la réception des thèses d’Antoine de Villon et Étienne de Clave contre Aristote, Paracelse et les “cabalistes” (24–25 août 1624)’, Annals of Science, forthcoming.
Morin(n.31), pp. 13–7.
Ibid., p. 17.
E. de Clave, Paradoxes ou traittez philosophiques des pierres et pierreries (Paris, 1635). It would seem that the author had already written a number of tracts on mineralogy, chemistry and medicine before 1635. See ‘Preface’ sig. Eiijr‒v.
“Nous disons donc que ce n’est pas le lieu qui donne la faculté generative à la semence, ouy bien l’esprit qui est contenuu en icelle, excité au prealable par l’agent externe...” E. de Clave, Paradoxes (n. 34) p. 346. See also ibid. pp. 366–7.
“Car cet esprit seminaire, comme nous dirons plus amplement cy-aprés, est la vraye semence qui ouvre les elemens plus compactes, pour donner entrée en iceux aux autres moin grossiers, & qui neantmoins n’y pourroient avoir aucun accés sans cét esprit, qui ouvre et mesle toutes les autres substances diverses & heterogenes, pour les rendre comme homogenes, et les unir sous une mesme forme.” Ibid., p. 368.
Ibid., p. 225.
“Nous disons donc qu’il y a cinq corps simples, que nous appelions elemens, non pas à cause qu’ils sont simples: autrement le Ciel & l’air seroient elemens, ains seulment par ce qu’ils composent tous les mixtes.” E. de Clave, Nouvelle lumiere philosophique des vrais principes et elemens de nature (Paris, 1641), p. 159.
“Il faut donc sçavoir que les Chymistes veulent que ce [l’esprit] une substance corporelle, la plus subtile & penetrante du mixte, laquelle estant liberée des liens d’iceluy, ouvre, dissout, penetre ou pennée les corps mixtes, voire le plus compactes, pour ayder à la separation des diverses, voire plus pures parties du mixte.” Ibid., p. 65.
Ibid., p. 68.
Ibid., pp. 46–7; 55. On fermentation in seventeenth-century chemistry and medicine, see W. Pagel, Jan Baptista van Helmont Reformer of Science and Meleme (Cambridge, 1982), pp. 79–87.
E. de Clave, Nouvelle Lumiere (n. 38), pp. 40–1.
Ibid., p. 101. It is somewhat surprising to see that spirit is both the most active and the heaviest principle. It is apparent that de Clave identifies spirit with mercury.
Ibid., p. 222.
“De ce que dessus nous pouvons inferer que la chaleur & la froideur sont bient un mouvement, & de plus sont qualitez tactiles, la chaleur, dautant qu’elle congrege & assemble les choses homogenes & de mesme nature, & separe les heterogenes ou dissimilaires, & en outre est une qualité qui affecte nostre attouchement, en sorte qu’elle separe tant qu’elle peut, & suivant sa chaleur plus ou moins grande, les choses heterogenes, premierement les plus volatiles, & en suite celles qui le sont moins, & neantmoins elle ne laisse de causer un mouvement de parties reverbéré en soy, parce qu’elle se met avec reverberation & prompte alteration: mais la difference qu’il y a de la chaleur de nos elemens à celle qui se fait par la reflexion & repercussion de la lumiere & de la collision reïterée des corps compactes, consiste en ce que toutes ces choses eschauffent par le seul mouvement; & nos trois elemens chauds, huile, esprit, & sel, produisent le mesme effect, non seulement par le mouvement, mais encores par leur qualité de chaleur, qui leur est tellement inherente & fixe, qu’ils ne peuvent recevoir aucune qualité contraire...” Ibid., pp. 223–4.
On the Conimbricenses’ commentaries, see D. des Chene, Physiologia. Natural Philosophy in Late Aristotelian and Cartesian Thought (Ithaca and London, 1996), passim.
E. de Clave, Nouvelle Lumiere (n. 38), pp. 275–6.
On Mersenne see Lenoble, Mersenne (n. 6); and P. Dear, Mersenne and the Learning of the Schools, (Ithaca-New York, 1988). On Mersenne and alchemy see Debus, French Paracelsians (n. 1), pp. 72–3; and A. Beaulieu, ‘L’attitude nuancée de Mersenne envers la chymie’, in J.-C. Margolin and S. Matton (eds.), Alchimie et philosophie à la Renaissance (Paris, 1993), pp. 395–403.
M. Mersenne, Quaestiones Celeberrimae in Genesim (Paris, 1623), cols. 539; 565–6. Besides attacking Paracelsus and Fludd, Mersenne selected Khunrath as a champion of the impious alchemy and magic. In the Questions Théologiques, Physiques, Morales et Mathematiques (Paris, 1634), pp. 133–4, Mersenne published, with approbation, the Sorbonne’s Censure of Heinrich Khunrath’s Anphitheatrum Sapientiae (1609), which reads: “La Sacrée Faculté de la Theologie de Paris, à tous les Catholiques Puisque l’Apostre nous enjoint d’éprouver toutes choses, & de retenir ce qui est bon, ayant apperceu que depuis quelques mois les Catholiques ont un certain livre tres-pernicieux entre les mains, dans lequel il y a premierement quelques figures, & puis plusieurs explications de divers passages de la saincte Escriture disposees par sept degrez, & finalement quelques corollaires, & dont le titre est L’Amphiteatre Christianocabalistique Divinomagique... la sudite Faculté de Theologie yant leu exactement, & examiné le livre entier par quelques docteurs qu’elle a specialement deputez pour ce sujet, a jugé que les explications estant prises à la lettre, & tous les corollaires pris comme ils sont, avec le livre mesme, doivent estre condamnés, particulierement parce qu’estant remply d’ipietez, d’erreurs, & d’Heresies, & d’une perpetuelle profanation sacrilege des passages de la saincte Escriture, il abuse de plus saints mysteres de la Religion Catholique, & conduit les lecteurs aux arts deffendus & abominables, c’est pourquoy elle a jugé qu’un livre si contageieux ne peut pas estre leu, ny exposé en public sans perte de la Foy, de la Religion, & de la pieté.”, dated March l, 1625.
M. Mersenne, L’Impieté des Déistes (Paris, 1624), pp. 238–9; id., Quaestiones Celeberrimae (n. 49), col. 1838. In La Verité des Sciences (Paris, 1625), pp. 78–83, Mersenne’s target was the theses of 1624. On van Goorle, see below, pp. 184–5; on Nicholas Hill, see below, pp. 75–7. See Nathanael Carpenter, Philosophia Libera (London, 1621). On Carpenter see DNB and C.B. Schmitt, ‘Nathanael Carpenter’, in F. Ueberweg, Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophie, revised edn (gen. ed. R.W. Meyer), Die Philosophie des 17. Jahrhunderts, 3: England, ed. J-P. Schobinger (Basle, 1988), pp. 355–6 and 488.
Mersenne, Quaestiones Celeberrimae (n. 49), ‘Praefatio’ and col. 1483; id., La Verité des Sciences (n. 50), pp. 105–6.
Mersenne, Questions Inouyes, ou Récréation des Sçavans (Paris, 1634), p. 126.
On Mersenne’s theory of knowledge see R.H. Popkin, The History of Skepticism from Erasmus to Spinoza (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1979), pp. 129–40; and P. Dear (n. 48), pp. 23–79.
Mersenne, Questions Inouyes (n. 52), p. 64.
Mersenne, Verité des Sciences (n. 50), p. 56, and id., Questions Inouyes, (n. 52), p. 124.
Mersenne, Questions Théologiques (n. 49), pp. 24–6.
Ibid., pp. 11–5.
Ibid., pp. 109–11.
Mersenne, Harmonie Universelle (Paris, 1636), p. 203.
Lenoble, Mersenne (n. 6), p. 70.
On Stanihurst, see Mersenne, Correspondance, i, 274. On Lefèvre, see ibid, pp. 324–5.
Mersenne, Correspondance, i, pp. 280–2.
Mersenne, Correspondance, i, pp. 282–3.
Jean Rey (c.1582 — c.1645) was born at Le Bugue in Dordogne, M.D. at Montpellier, practised at Le Bogue. He was connected with several correspondents of Mersenne: Jean Brun, Deschamps, apothecary and physician of Bergerac, and Pierre Trichet of Bordeaux. A biographical account of Rey and a bibliography of his Essays is to be found in D. McKie’s introduction to the reprint of the Essays, see The Essays of Jean Rey (London, 1951), pp. ix–xliv.
Rey, Essay xvi, The Essays, (n. 64), p. 97 and Essay xxvi, ibid., p. 139.
Essay xiii, ibid., pp. 77–8.
Essay xii, ibid., p. 70.
Essay xxvii, ibid., pp. 140–1.
Théodore Deschamps (c. 1588 — ?) corresponded with Mersenne from 1640 to 1645. He studied in Leiden and practised medicine in Bergerac. See Mersenne, Correspondance, ix, p. 537.
Mersenne, Correspondance, v, pp. 573–7.
Mersenne, Correspondance, ix, pp. 276–7. On Hero’s Pneumatica, see M. Boas, ‘Hero’s Pneumatica. A Study of its Transmission and Influence’, Isis 40 (1949), 38–48.
Letter of 31 July 1640, Mersenne, Correspondance, ix, p. 539.
Letter of December 1640, Mersenne, Correspondance, x, p. 369: “Maintenant touchant les animaux, il est evident que leur vie consiste en la chaleur, et la chaleur au mouvement des atomes plus menus, qui se meuvent dans les espaces des autres.”
‘Lettre du Sieur Brun qui a donné subject au present discours’, Rey, Essays (n. 64), p. 12.
Mersenne, Correspondance, ix, pp. 275–82.
Villiers was physician at Sens. The role of salt as the main agent in nature had already been stressed by Joseph Duchesne, cf. N.E. Emerton, The Scientific Reinterpretation of Form (Ithaca and London, 1984), pp. 209–220. In a letter to Mersenne of 28 October 1640 Descartes expressed a critical view of Villiers’s theory of matter, see AT, iii, pp. 211.
Villiers to Mersenne, June 1640, Mersenne, Correspondance, ix, p. 426.
Mersenne, Correspondance, ix, pp. 470–1.
Villiers to Mersenne June 1640, Mersenne, Correspondance, ix, p. 427.
Mersenne, Correspondance, x, p. 105.
Descartes, Météores, discours troisiesme, A.T., vi, p. 249.
Descartes to Mersenne 30 July 1640. Mersenne, Correspondance, ix, pp. 518–9.
Lazare Meyssonnier (1602–72) studied medicine at Montpellier and became médecin du Roy in 1642. See Nouvelle Biographie Générale, ed. Hoefer, 46 vols, (Paris 1862–66), s.v.
Meyssonnier to Mersenne 31 May 1640, Mersenne, Correspondance, ix, pp.358–9.
Villiers to Mersenne, end of October 1640, Mersenne, Correspondance, x, p. 198. See Descartes, Météores, discours vi and vii, AT, vi, pp. 291–324. Cfr. E. Gilson, Etudes sur le rôle de la pensée médiévale dans la formation du système cartésien (Paris, 19672), pp. 102–37.
Villiers to Mersenne 9/10 December 1640, Mersenne, Correspondance, x, p. 309.
On Jacques Gaffarel see R. Pintard, Le Libertinage érudit dans la première moite du XVII e siècle (Geneva, 19832), pp. 187–90. In 1625 Gaffarel published Abdita divinae Cabala mysteria, containing attacks on Mersenne, who in turn responded by publishing a short booklet, bearing the title De Gaffarello Judicio (s.1., 1625). See Mersenne, Correspondance, i, pp. 303–6.
J-B. van Helmont to Mersenne, 26 September 1630, Mersenne, Correspondance, ii, pp 530–40. In this letter van Helmont rejected the Paracelsian doctrine of signatures, claiming that the spirit contained in the seed produces the form of plants. On the doctrine of signatures, see M.L. Bianchi, Signatura rerum. Segni, magia e conoscenza da Paracelso a Leibniz (Rome, 1987). On van Helmont’s De Magnetica Vulnerum Curatione, see Pagel, van Helmont (n. 41), pp. 8–11.
Lasswitz, Geschichte, i, pp. 343–351.
Newman, Gehennical Fire, pp. 110–4.
Van Helmont, Totestas Medicaminum’, §§ 37–8, Ortus, p. 479.
Van Helmont, ‘Terra’, § 14, Ortus, p. 56.
Van Helmont, ‘Gas Aquae’, § 10, Ortus, p. 75.
Lasswitz, Geschichte, i, pp. 345–6, Newman, Gehennical Fire, pp. 112–3.
“Nunquam autem in aqua fieri trium primorum separationem, multoque minus essentialem transmutationemullam.” (‘Elementa’, §§ 15–16, Ortus, p. 53.).
This explanation is suggested by Hooykaas, ‘Het Begrip’, p. 170.
“Haec suppono, pro ut Astronomi suos excentricos, ut intelligendi imbecillitati nostrae, eatur obviam.” (‘Gas Aquae’, §§ 8–9, Ortus, p. 74.). “Quod autem quandoque elemento aquae sua tria tribuerim, id analogice locutum est.” (‘Tria Prima Chymicorum...’, § 54, Ortus, p. 407).
“Seminibus quidem concessum est, ex aqua, sua fingere concreta, suamque tragoediam per formarum defluxum ad interitum ludere.” (‘Gas Aquae’, § 44, Onus, p. 80).
“Seminalis enim concreti proprietas, quae in Gas persévérât, vi frigoris, & dierum maturitate moritur & in pristinam aquam Gas redit”. (‘Complexionum atque Mistionum Elementalium Figmentum’, §§ 29, Onus, p. 108). On van Helmont’s concept of gas see Pagel, van Helmont (n. 41), pp. 61–3 and G. Giglioni, Ter una storia del termine Gas da van Helmont a Lavoisier: costanza e variazione del significato’, Annali délia Facoltà di Lettere e Filosofia deW Université di Macerata 25–26 (1992–3), 431–68, esp. 439–40.
’Aër’, § 11, Onus, pp. 63–4.
“Duo igitur, nee plura, sunt corporum, & causarum corporalium prima initia. Elementum aquae nimirum, sive initium ex quo: & fermentum, sive initium séminale, per quod, id est dispositivum, unde mox producitur semen, in materia.”(‘Causae et initia naturalium’ § 23, Onus, pp. 35–6.). In van Helmont’s philosophy there is a hierarchy of psycho-physical agents. Seeds are the most complex, they are matter-bound, whereas ferments are only by choice connected with matter. See ‘Imago fermenti’, §§ 12–13, Onus, pp. 113–4, cf. Pagel, van Helmont, pp. 72–3.
Trogymnasmata Meteori’, § 11, Ortus, p. 69.
Trogymnasmata Meteori’, §§ 19–20, Ortus, p. 71.
“Aqua enim vacuum non tolérât, ut neque sui compressionem, per aliquod movens comprimendo. Duntaxat inspissatione seminali comprimitur, per sui transmutationem formalem. Ex opposito autem, aer, sine vacuo subsistere nequit... ideoque sui compressionem, atque dilatationem tolerat.” (Trogymnasmata Meteori’, §§ 3–4, Ortus, p. 67).
“Si l’air rarifié a du vide? Respondeo affirmative, et in poris aeris est ether sive magnale, quod est medium inter corpus et non.” (van Helmont to Mersenne 15 January 1631, Mersenne, Correspondance, iii, p. 34.).
Van Helmont to Mersenne, 30 January 1631, Mersenne, Correspondance, iii, p. 55.
Van Helmont to Mersenne, 11 January 1631, Merserme, Correspondance, iii, p. 13.
Van Helmont to Mersenne, 15 January 1631, Mersenne, Correspondance, iii, p. 31.
See ‘Complexionum atque Mistionum Elementalium Figmentum’, § 10, Ortus, p. 105, ‘Imago Fermenti Impregnat Massam Semine?’, § 7, ibid., p. 112 and ‘Tria Prima Chymicorum Principia’, ibid., pp. 398–412. Pagel stressed the anti-materialistic overtones of van Helmont’s criticism of the Paracelsian doctrine of principles, see Pagel, Van Helmont (n. 41), pp. 59–60.
‘Tria Prima Chymicorum Principia’, § 58, Ortus, p. 408. For a detailed analysis of van Helmont’s views of mercury, see Newman, Gehennical Fire, pp. 146–51.
“Ego siquidem nudam lubens physicam aspicio ubique, non sane figuras; aut vires moventes in mathesi applico naturae”. (‘Imago Fermenti’, § 7, Ortus, p. 112.) See also van Helmont, ‘De lithiasi’, iv, §§ 11–12, Opuscula Medica Inaudita (Amsterdam, 1648, first edn: Cologne, 1644), pp. 34–5.
In 1651 Davidson moved to Poland, where he became physician to the Queen Maria Luisa Gonzaga. On Davidson see DSB; E.T. Hamy, ‘William Davidson, Intendant du Jardin du Roy et Professeur de Chimie (1647–51), Nouvelles Archives du Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle, 3e série, 10 (1898), 1–38; Metzger, Doctrines Chimiques, pp. 45–51; J. Read, ‘William Davidson, First Professor of Chemistry at the Jardin du Roi (1648)’, Archives Internationales d’Histoire des Sciences 30 (1951), 660–66; id., ‘William Davidson of Aberdeen. The First British Professor of Chemistry’, Ambix 9 (1961), 70–101; Partington, iii, pp. 4–7. J-P. Brach ‘Deux exemples de symbolisme géométrique dans des textes alchimiques du XVIIe siècle’, in D. Kahn and S. Matton (eds.), Alchimie. Art histoire et mythes (n. 14), pp. 717–35.
See Read (n. 112), 74; 77.
See Brach (n. 112). See also R. Halleux’s notes to Kepler’s L’Etrenne ou la neige sexangulaire (Paris, 1975), p. 115.
W. Davidson, Philosophia Pyrotechnica, seu Cursus Chymiatricus (Paris, 16502), pp. 85–89; and 316.
Ibid., p. 316.
Ibid., pp. 317–31.
Ibid., p. 326.
W. Davidson, Commentariorum in Sublimis Philosophi & Incomparabilis Viri Petri Severini Dani Ideam Medicinae Philosophicae Propediem proditorum Prodromus (The Hague, 1660).
Ibid., pp. 206–12.
Ibid., p. 79.
Ibid., pp. 258–61 and 363. Davidson’s experiments are taken mainly from Sennert and Sperling.
The bibliography on Gassendi is huge. An updated bibliography is to be found in S. Murr (ed.), Gassendi et l’Europe (Paris, 1997), pp. 467–92. An exception to the standard view is Bloch, who showed the presence of chemical themes in Gassendi’s philosophy, see O. Bloch, La Philosophie de Gassendi. Nominalisme, Matérialisme et Métaphysique (The Hague, 1971), pp. 252–9. The interpretation of Gassendi’s theory of matter as strictly mechanist is reiterated by M.J. Osier, Divine Will and the Mechanical Philosophy. Gassendi and Descartes on Contingency and Necessity in the Created World (Cambridge, 1994), pp. 196–8.
Syntagma Philosophicum, in Petri Gassendi Diniensis... Opera Omnia 4 vols (Lyons, 1658) [hereafter Opera Omnia], i, p. 265b. Cf. T. Gregory, Scetticismo ed empirismo. Studio su Gassendi (Bari, 1961), pp. 157–9.
Gassendi, Syntagma Philosophiae Epicuri, in Animadvertiones in Decimum Librum Biogenis Laertii (Lyons, 1649), repr. in Opera Omnia, iii, p. 19b. “Videlicet supponens motum (quern Democritus non negabat) convenire Atomis, absurdum censuit vim specialem ipsis non attribuere, qua talis motus cieretur: huiusmodi autem est gravitas, seu pondus, impulsiove, ac impetus, qua agi quicquid movetur, constat.” Ibid., p. 201.
‘Dicimus deinde explodendum esse, quod Atomi a seipsis habeant vim motricem, seu impetum.’ Syntagma Philosophicum, Opera Omnia, i, p. 280.
Ibid., p. 273.
See Bloch (n. 123), pp. 268; and M. Messeri, Causa e Spiegazione. La Fisica di Pierre Gassendi (Milan, 1985), pp. 102–3.
Syntagma Philosophicum, Opera Omnia, i, 277a.
Syntagma Philosophicum, Opera Omnia, i, p. 336a.
For Gassendi’s notion of molecule, see Bloch (n. 123), pp. 252–9; Messeri (n. 128), pp. 109–12; and H. Kubbinga, ‘La théorie moléculaire chez Gassendi’, in Quadricentenaire de la Naissance de Gassendi 1592–1992. Actes du Colloque International Pierre Gassendi. Digne-les-Bains, 18–21 Mai 1992, 2 vols. (Digne, 1994), ii, pp. 283–302.
“Heine ex atomis conformari primum moleculas quasdam inter se diversas, quae sint semina rerum diversarum.” Syntagma Philosophicum, Opera Omnia, i, p. 282b.
Philosophiae Epicuri Syntagma, Opera Omnia, iii, p. 25b.
Philosophiae Epicuri Syntagma, Opera Omnia, iii, p. 20a.
Syntagma Philosophicum, Opera Omnia, i, pp. 241ab and 472a.
Syntagma Philosophicum, Opera Omnia, i, p. 472a.
Syntagma Philosophicum, Opera Omnia, i, p. 245b.
Cf. Bloch (n. 123), pp. 258–9.
Syntagma Philosophicum, Opera Omnia, ii, p. 39a.
Syntagma Philosophicum, Opera Omnia, ii, pp. 136a-b.
Syntagma Philosophicum, Opera Omnia, ii, p. 114b. Emerton (n. 76), pp. 133–53.
Syntagma Philosophicum, Opera Omnia, ii, 36b-37a. Cf. A.E. Shapiro, Fits, Passions, and Paroxysms. Physics, Method, and Chemistry and Newton’s Theories of Colored Bodies and Fits of Easy Reflections (Cambridge, 1993), pp. 40–8.
Syntagma Philosophicum, Opera Omnia, ii, p. 37b.
Syntagma Philosophicum, Opera Omnia, i, p. 41 la.
Syntagma Philosophicum, Opera Omnia, ii, pp. 37b–38b and 41b–42a.
Georg Bauer (Agricola), De Ortu et Causis Subterraneorum (Basle, 1546).
Syntagma Philosophicum, Opera Omnia, ii, p. 114a: “Deinde non videntur etiam calor, & frigus necessaria agentia, a quibus lapides creentur. Neque enim qui lapides in fluviorum fundis gignuntur, ob calorem concrescunt; neque qui intra Animalia formantur, compinguntur a frigore: & neque aut stillicidia, quae lapidescunt, aut fontes, qui vertunt res diversas in lapides, id a calore, aut frigore habent, cum absque utrovis idem faciant.”
“... non videtur profecto posse tales lapides fieri ex massa indiscreta, & quam non pervadat spiritus quidam elaborator, a quo illa partium, particularumque tarn regularis distributio, & minorum in conformandis maioribus compactio fit.” Syntagma Philosophicum, Opera Omnia, ii, p. 114b. “lam ergo Lapidificum germen in succo collecto intra receptaculum totam interius massam pervadens corpuscula ita coaptat, ut simul massam coagulet, figat, ipsique duo quaedam praestet, quae non possunt lacti praestari a coagulo. Unum, quod ipsam interea dispescat in plureis massulas, easque seu aequaleis, seu inaequaleis uniformiter configured habet id vero quatenus est non coagulum modo, verum etiam semen; idemque agit in materia lapidea intra conceptaculum, quod in materia triticea vis seminalis intra vaginam: nempe ut ex hac multa grana consimilia discernuntur, unde spica componitur; ita ex illa multi lapilli consimiles, unde contexitur rupicula gemmea.” Syntagma Philosophicum, Opera Omnia, ii, p. 117b.
“Colorum autem varietas referenda videtur partim ad seminalem vim, quae contexturae corpuscula uti ad specialem configurationem; ita ad specialem colorationem attemperet; partim ad commistionem succorum, qui ex Terris, Succis concretis, Mineralibusque aliis quidpiam coloratum delibaverit.” Syntagma Philosophicum, Opera Omnia, ii, p. 118a.
Syntagma Philosophicum, Opera Omnia, i, pp. 277b; 334a and 386a.
Syntagma Philosophicum, Opera Omnia, ii, p. 172a–b. Gassendi maintains that the vegetative principle of plants (which is material) can be named anima only “ex analogia”, ibid., ii, p. 145.
Syntagma Philosophicum, Opera Omnia, ii, p. 171b. On salt as generative principle see Emerton (n. 76), pp. 209–226.
Syntagma Philosophicum, Opera Omnia, ii, p. 275a.
“Intelligi deinde potest Animam, quae in semine, prout ipsa quoque defluxit ex omnibus partibus esse & consciam nutricationis, animationis, constitutionis singularum adeo, ut cum iam sit animae totius quasi epitome, agere idem pergat in materiam seminis, quae est ipsa quoque epitome totius corporis...”, Syntagma Philosophicum, Opera Omnia, iii, 275b. Cf. J. Roger, Les sciences de la vie dans la pensée française au XVIII e siècle (Paris, 19932), pp. 135–140.
Syntagma Philosophicum, Opera Omnia, ii, p. 262b. See also ibid, pp. 170b–171a, on the spontaneous generation of plants.
Syntagma Philosophicum, Opera Omnia, i, p. 334a.
Syntagma Philosophicum, Opera Omnia, i, 280b.
Petri Gassendi Theologi Epistolica Exercitatio...(Paxis, 1630), repr. as Examen Philosophiae Roberti Fluddi, in Opera Omnia, iii, pp. 211–268. See Gassendi to Peiresc 2 December 1628, and also Mersenne, Correspondance, i, pp. 61–2; ii, pp. 86–7 and 132–41. Mersenne had also asked van Helmont’s view of Fludd. Van Helmont’s judgement of Fludd is contained in a letter dated 19 December 1630, see Mersenne, Correspondance, ii, p. 584.
See F.A. Yates, Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition (London, 1964), pp. 434–40; L. Cafiero, ‘Robert Fludd e la polemica con Gassendi’, Rivista Critica di Storia della Filosofia, 19 (1964), 367–410, and ibid., 20 (1965), pp. 3–15, and J-C. Darmon, ‘Quelques enjeux épistémologiques de la querelle entre Gassendi et Fludd’, F. Greiner, Aspects de la tradition alchimique au XVII e siècle (Paris and Milan, 1998), pp.63–84.
On Fludd, see W.H. Huffman, Robert Fludd and the End of the Renaissance, (London, 1988).
Gassendi, Examen, Opera Omnia, iii, pp. 231b–232a. On Fludd’s alchemical interpretation of the Scriptures see N.E. Emerton, ‘Creation in the thought of J.B. van Helmont and Robert Fludd’, in P. Rattansi and A. Clericuzio (eds.), Alchemy and Chemistry in the 16 th and 17 th Centuries (Dordrecht, 1994), pp. 85–101. For the Philosophia ad Athenienses, see Paracelsus, Sämtliche Werke, l. Abteilung: Medizinische, naturwissenschaftliche und philosophische Schriften, Hrsg. von K. Sudhoff, vols 1–14 (München-Berlin, 1922–33), vol. 13, pp. 387–423.
Gassendi rejects the doctrine of the ancient origins of alchemy, see Examen, Opera Omnia, iii, pp. 259a-b. Cf. A. Clericuzio, ‘Alchemia Vetus et Vera. Les théories sur l’origine de l’alchimie en Angleterre au XVIIe siècle’, in D. Kahn and S. Matton (eds.), Alchimie, art, histoire et mythes (n. 14), pp. 737–48. On the prisca sapientia see D.P. Walker, The Ancient Theology (London, 1972).
“Capite iam tertio tuetur Consonantias suas Macrocosmicas. Ut concedam vero licere, Pytagoreorum exemplo, harmoniam quandam inter membra Mundi praecipua constituere: hoc tarnen videor posse dicere, non abesse a fabula quidquid de illa usquam somniatur. Etenim, ut Opifex Mundi rationem quandam habuit, cur hoc situ, hac mole, hac forma condiderit omnia; ita miselli homunculi videntur nimis temere rationem illam determinare.” Examen, Opera Omnia, iii, p. 232a.
Examen, Opera Omnia, iii, p. 236a.
Examen, Opera Omnia, iii, p. 259a.
“Hac de re vero quidquid sit, existimo negari non posse, quin duo quaedam valde utilia cognitionis genera debeantur Alchymiae. Unum est circa Naturam. Etsi enim intimos usque rerum naturalium penetrare non liceat, ut ipsarum essentias, discrimina, vireis, actiones, & agendi modos, proportionem item, atque contexturam cum radicali, & propria singulorum causa dignoscamus: veruntamen si quidpiam ex iis, quae res quasque interne componunt, cognoscere concedatur, illud profecto isti Arti acceptum referendum est. Haec enim est, quae Naturae librum sola evolvit, ac perscrutatur, cum ceterae omnes superficie tenus naturalia considerent.” Examen, Opera Omnia, iii, p. 259a.
Examen, Opera Omnia, iii, p. 259a.
Syntagma Philosophicum, Opera Omnia, ii, p. 140a.
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Clericuzio, A. (2000). Spirit, Chemical Principles and Atoms in France in the First Half of the Seventeenth Century. In: Elements, Principles and Corpuscles. Archives Internationales D’Histoire des Idées / International Archives of the History of Ideas, vol 171. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-9464-6_3
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