Abstract
The aim of the present chapter is to outline the relationship between chemistry and corpuscular philosophy in England after the publication of Boyle’s Sceptical Chymist (1661). Boyle’s ideas played a relevant part in chemistry, at least until the beginning of the eighteenth century. It was not Boyle’s intention to establish a systematically organised body of chemical theories, so the impact of his chemistry is not easily measurable. The pars destruens of Boyle’s programme, namely his rejection of the chemists’ theory of principles, was not universally accepted, and a number of chemists and physicians did not rule out this doctrine. It is however relevant that in England, as on the Continent, some of Boyle’s objections to the spagyrical theories were accepted. A number of chemists redefined the notion of chemical principle as a useful ‘working tool’. They came to consider the three (or five) principles not as the ultimate constituents of bodies, but merely as the products of chemical analysis. In addition, Boyle’s quest for a better classification of chemical substances motivated more research on salts, notably on alkalised salts. Finally, the fusion of chemistry and corpuscular philosophy became widely accepted, so that in the 1660s and the 1670s a number of Helmontians reinterpreted the main notions of van Helmont’s iatrochemistry in corpuscular terms.
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References
In the Preface to The Sceptical Chymist Boyle evidently referred to Willis and other English physiologists when he wrote: “For I observe, that of late chymistry begins, as indeed it deserves, to be cultivated by learned men, who before despised it... whence it is come to pass, that divers chymical notions about matters philosophical are taken for granted and employed, and so adopted by very eminent writers both naturalists and physicians. Now this. I fear, may prove somewhat prejudicial to the advancement of solid philosophy” Works, i, p. 459. See Willis, De Fermentationen in T. Willis, Practice of Physics (London, 1684), p. 2.
Willis, Practice of Physics (n. 1), pp. 21–3.
See Mayow, ‘De respiratione’, Tractatus duo (Oxford, 1668). On Mayow see Partington, ii, pp. 577–613 and Frank, Harvey, pp. 224–232. Before Mayow the spirit of nitre was conceived as the source of life by Sendivogius and by R. Bathurst.
See H. Guerlac, ‘The Poets’ nitre. Studies in the chemistry of John Mayow. IF, Isis 45 (1954), 243–55;
A.G. Debus, ‘The Paracelsian Aerial Niter’, in A.G. Debus, Chemistry, Alchemy and the New Philosophy (London, 1987), ch. ix.
According to Mayow, spirit of nitre is composed of two distinct substances, only one of them necessary to life: “But when I had seriously considered the matter, the acid spirit of nitre seemed to be too ponderous and fixed to circulate as a whole through the very thin air. Besides, the nitro-aerial salt, whatever it may be, becomes food for fires, and also passes into the blood of animals by means of respiration. But the acid spirit of nitre, being humid and extremely corrosive, is fitted rather for extinguishing flame and the life of animals, than for sustaining them”. Tractatus quinque, repr. in John Mayow, Medico-Physical Works (London, 1907), p. 8.
Ibid., pp. 5–6. As most of his contemporaries, Mayow explained the generation of metals by means of the seminal principles.
J.R. Partington, ‘The Life and Work of John Mayow’ Isis 47 (1956), 217–30 and 405–417 (esp. p. 406).
See A. Clericuzio, ‘From van Helmont to Robert Boyle. A study of the transmission of chemical and medical theories in seventeenth-century England’, The British Journal for the History of Science 26 (1993), 303–34, esp. pp. 319–26. On Starkey’s medical work see Newman, Gehennical Fire, pp. 175–208.
See G. Thomson, Aimatiasis, or the true way of preserving the bloud (London, 1670), p. 31.
W. Simpson, Hydrologia Chymica (London, 1669) pp. 246, 258–9.
J. Webster, Metallographia, or an History of Metals (London, 1671), pp. 41–2.
On John Webster see A. Clericuzio, ‘Alchimie, philosophie corpusculaire et minéralogie dans la Metallographia de John Webster’, Revue d’histoire des sciences 49 (1996), 287–304.
Webster, Metallographia (n. 9), p. 46.
Ibid., pp. 50, 54–9.
T. Sherley (or Shirley), A Philosophical Essay (London, 1672), sig. A6v–A7r. For Shirley see
A.G. Debus, Thomas Sherley’s Philosophical Essay (1672): Helmontian Mechanism as the basis of a new philosophy’, Ambix 27 (1980), 124–35.
Sherley, Philosophical Essay (n. 12), sig A7r and pp. 24; 32; 35.
W. Simpson, Zymologia physica, or a brief discourse of fermentation (London, 1675), sig. A4r; pp. 4–7. See also id., Philosophical Dialogues (London, 1677).
W. Bacon, A Key to Helmont (London, 1672) pp. 1–3, 31–2.
See T. Birch, The History of the Royal Society of London, 4 vols. (London, 1756–7), vol. i, p. 123 (a paper on the degradation of Gold read by P. Stahl); ii, pp. 97; 105; 107; 113 (paper on transmutation read by Coxe).
Frank, Harvey, pp. 61; 70–1.
See Boyle’s manuscript notes in Royal Society MS 1, fols. 74r–88v, Oldenburg’s letter to Boyle of 10 August 1665 and Boyle to Oldenburg of 12 August 1665, Oldenburg, Correspondence, ii, pp. 457–60 and 475–6.
Coxe was not the only Fellow of the Royal Society to adopt Helmontian views. They were also adopted by Jonathan Goddard. For Jonathan Goddard, see Webster, Instauration, pp. 55; 57; 79–81.
Coxe to Boyle, Boyle Letters, ii, fols. 76–7. Coxe’s letters are included in M. Hunter and A. Clericuzio (eds.), The Correspondence of Robert Boyle, 6 vols., forthcoming (vols, ii and iii).
Boyle Letters, ii, fol. 72. On Aroph, see Partington, ii, p. 226.
Boyle Letters, ii, fol. 54.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Boyle Letters, ii, fol. 55.
Boyle Letters, ii, fol. 55.
Ibid.
Ibid.
“Communicate somewhat Considerable on this subject, with some hints att least about the volatile Salt of Tartar. The Compendious way of Distilling Mercury: Method of reducing Alcalis into earth: the flux powder which accelerates the fusion of mettalls. If you will bee pleased to intrust mee with these Arcana assure your selfe Sir you shall never have cause to repent that ever you reposed so great s Confidence in mee. For I shall faithfully Conceale them if you oblidge mee to secrecy & industriously improve them as far as my small Ingeny & Experience will permitt.” Ibid.
Ibid.
Birch, History (n. 16), vol. ii, p. 67.
Ibid., p. 86.
Ibid., p. 97.
Ibid., p. 105.
Ibid., p. 113.
Oldenburg, Correspondence, v, pp. 404–7.
Philosophical Transactions 101 (1674), 4–8, esp. p. 8.
Ibid., 171.
Ibid., 172–3. The paper of November 1674 contains some reflexions on the regeneration of plants from their ashes. Coxe observes the similarity of the ashes of fern with the plant and seems to believe that their regeneration is possible. There is another set of papers published by Coxe in the Philosophical Transactions in November 1674, containing detailed descriptions of vitriols, besides some general remarks on the texture of the particles of sulphur.
N. Grew, ‘A Discourse read before the Royal Society Dec 10 1674 Concerning the Nature, Causes, and Power of Mixture’, in Several Lectures Read before the Royal Society (London, 1682), pp. 223–9.
Ibid., pp. 229–31.
N. Grew, The Anatomy of Plants (London, 1682).
N. Grew, Experiments in Consort of the Luctation Arising from the Affusion of several Menstruums upon all sorts of Bodies (London, 1678), p. 9. This paper was read at the Royal Society on 13 April and 1 June 1676.
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Clericuzio, A. (2000). Chemical Theories of Matter in England after 1661. 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_6
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