And as for the Chymists calling a body Salt, or Sulphur, or Mercury, upon pretence that the Principle of the same name is predominant in it, That it self is an Acknowledgment of what I contend for; namely that these productions of the Fire, are yet compounded bodies. Nor will they let the Peripateticks call Ashes, or Quicklime, Earth, notwithstanding the many likenesses between them; because they are not tastlesse, as Elementary Earth ought to be: But if you should ask me, what then it is, that all the Chymical Anatomies of Bodies do prove, if they prove not that they consist of the three Principles into which the fire resolves them?
I answer, that their Dissections may be granted to prove, that some mixt bodies for in many it will not hold are by the fire, when they are included in close Vessels, for that Condition also is often requisite dissolube into several Substances differing in some Qualities, but principally in Consistence.
Now if Chymists will agree to call the dry and sapid substance salt, the Unctous liquor Sulphur, and the other Mercury, I shall not much quarrel with them for so doing: But if they will tell me that Salt, Sulphur, and Mercury, are simple and primary bodies whereof each mixt body was actually compounded, and which was really in it antecedently to the operation of the fire, they must give me leave to doubt whether whatever their other arguments may do their Experiments prove all this.
And if they will also tell me that the Substances their Anatomies are wont to afford them, are pure and similar, as Principles ought to be, they must give me leave to believe my own senses; and their own confessions, before their bare Assertions. For we see that the Chymists will not allow the Aristotelians that the Salt in Ashes ought to be called Earth, though the Saline and Terrestrial part symbolize in weight, in dryness, in fixness and fusibility, only because the one is sapid and dissoluble in Water, and the other not: Besides, we see that sapidness and volatility are wont to denominate the Chymists Mercury or Spirit; and yet how many Bodies, think you, may agree in those Qualities which may yet be of very differing natures, and disagree in qualities either more numerous, or more considerable, or both.
So we find the Alkali of Wormwood much commended in distempers of the stomach; that of Eyebright for those that have a weak sight; and that of Guaiacum of which a great Quantity yields but a very little salt is not only much commended in Venereal Diseases, but is believed to have a peculiar purgative vertue, which yet I have not had occasion to try.
Aura Vitalis. And when I consider that to the obtaining of these Volatile Salts especially that of Urine there is not requisite such a Destructive Violence of the Fire, as there is to get those Salts that must be made by Incineration, I am the more invited to conclude, that they may differ from one another, and consequently recede from an Elementary Simplicity. And, if I could here shew You what Mr.
This Disparity is also highly eminent in the separated sulphurs or Chymical Oyles of things. For they contain so much of the scent, and tast, and vertues, of the Bodies whence they were drawn, that they seem to be but the Material Crasis if I may so speak of their Concretes.
Thus the Oyles of Cinna mon, Cloves, Nutmegs and other spices, seem to be but the United Aromatick parts that did ennoble those Bodies.
Nay I shall venture to add, Eleutherius , what perhaps you will think of kin to a Paradox that divers times out of the same Animal or Vegetable, there may be extracted Oyles of Natures obviously differing. You may consider also, that common Sulphur is readily dissoluble in Oyle of Turpentine, though notwithstanding its Name it abounds as well, if not as much, in Salt as in true Sulphur; witness the great quantity of saline Liquor it affords being set to flame away under a glasse Bell.
And if it were now Requisite, I could tell You of some other Bodies such as Perhaps You would not suspect that I have been able to work upon with certain Chymical Oyles. For I find that Spirit of Wine will dissolve Gumm Lacca , Benzoine , and the Resinous Parts of Jallap , and even of Guaiacum ; whence we may well suspect that it may from Spices, Herbs, and other lesse compacted Vegetables, extract substances that are not perfect Sulphurs but mixt Bodies.
And to put it past Dispute, there is many a Vulgar Extract drawn with Spirit of Wine, which committed to Distillation will afford such differing substances as will Loudly proclaim it to have been a very compounded Body. So that we may justly suspect, that even in Mineral Tinctures it will not alwaies follow, that because a red substance is drawn from the Concrete by spirit of Wine, that Substance is its true and Elementary Sulphur. But to returne to our Chymical Oyles, supposing that they were exactly pure; Yet I hope they would be, as the best spirit of Wine is, but the more inflamable and deflagrable.
We are next to Consider, whether in the Anatomy of mixt Bodies, that which Chymists call the Mercurial part of them be un-compounded, or no. Paracelsus himself, and therefore, as you will easily believe, many of his Followers, does somewhere call that Mercury which ascends upon the burning of Wood, as the Peripateticks are wont to take the same smoke for Air; and so seems to define Mercury by Volatility, or if I may coyne such a Word Effumability.
But since, in this Example, both Volatile Salt and Sulphur make part of the smoke, which does indeed consist also both of Phlegmatick and Terrene Corpuscles, this Notion is not to be admitted; And I find that the more sober Chymists themselves disavow it.
Which words are not so much a Definition of it, as an Encomium : and yet Quercetanus in his Description of the same Principle adds to these, divers other Epithets. But both of them, to skip very many other faults that may be found with their Metaphoricall Descriptions, speak incongruously to the Chymists own Principles. And this Sennertus Himself, though the Learnedst Champion for the Hypostatical Principles, does almost as frequently as justly complain of the unsatisfactoriness of what the Chymists teach concerning their Mercury; and yet he himself but with his wonted modesty Substitutes instead of the Description of Libavius , another, which many Readers, especially if they be not Peripateticks, will not know what to make of.
He sayes that which I confess is not at all satisfactory to me, who do not love to seem to acquiesce in any mans Mystical Doctrines, that I may be thought to understand them.
I should not perhaps sayes Carneades much quarrel with your Notion of Mercury. For, plainly, that which first ascends in the Distillation of Wine and Fermented Liquors, is generally as well by Chymists as others reputed a Spirit. However if this be a Spirit, it manifestly differs very much from that of Vinager, the Tast of the one being Acid, and the other Salt, and their Mixture in case they be very pure, sometimes occasioning an Effervescence like that of those Liquors the Chymists count most contrary to one another.
I speak not of that which is commonly sold in shops that many of themselves will confesse to be a mixt Body; but of that which is separated from Metals, which by some Chymists that seem more Philosophers then the rest, and especially by the above mentioned Claveus , is for distinction sake called Mercurius Corporum. But this is not all; for although I for merly told You how Little Credit there is to be given to the Chymical Processes commonly to be met with, of Extracting the Mercuries of Metals, Yet I will now add, that supposing that the more Judicious of Them do not untruly affirme that they have really drawn true and running Mercury from several Metals which I wish they had cleerly taught Us how to do also, yet it may be still doubted whether such extracted Mercuries do not as well differ from common Quicksilver, and from one another, as from the Mercuries of Vegetables and Animalls.
And being by me demanded whether or no any other Mercury would not as well have been changed by the same Operations, he assured me of the Negative. And since I am fallen upon the mention of the Mercuries of metals, you will perhaps expect Eleutherius! But the Sulphur of Antimony which is vehemently vomitive, and the strongly scented Anodyne Sulphur of Vitriol inclines me to think that not only Mineral Sulphurs differ from Vegetable ones, but also from one another, retaining much of the nature of their Concretes.
But if Paracelsus did alwaies write so consentaneously to himself that his opinion were confidently to be collected from every place of his writings where he seems to expresse it, I might safely take upon me to tell you, that he both countenances in general what I have delivered in my Fourth main consideration, and in particular warrants me to suspect that there may be a difference in metalline and mineral Salts, as well as we find it in those of other bodies.
For, Sulphur sayes he Paracel. Ita ut unicuique speciei suus peculiaris Mercurius sit. Et tamen res saltem tres sunt; una essentia est sulphur; una est sal; una est Mercurius. From which passage Eleutherius I suppose you will think I might without rashness conclude, either that my opinion is favoured by that of Paracelsus , or that Paracelsus his opinion was not alwaies the same.
I know not whether I should on this occasion add, that those very bodies the Chymists call Phlegme and Earth do yet recede from an Elementary simplicity. The Phlegme of the sugar of Saturne is said to have very peculiar properties. Divers Eminent Chymists teach, that it will dissolve Pearls, which being precipitated by the spirit of the same concrete are thereby as they say rendred volatile; which has been confirmed to me, upon his own observation, by a person of great veracity.
But I suppose You have heard, that there are some Modern Spagyrists , who give out that they can by further and more Skilfull Purifications, so reduce the separated Ingredients of Mixt Bodies to an Elementary simplicity, That the Oyles for Instance extracted from all Mixts shall as perfectly resemble one another, as the Drops of Water do.
And therefore I shall not peremptorily deny either the possibility of what these Artists promise, or my Assent to any just Inference; however destructive to my Conjectures, that may be drawn from their performances. But suppose sayes Eleutherius that you should meet with Chymists, who would allow you to take in Earth and Water into the number of the principles of Mixt Bodies; and being also content to change the Ambiguous Name of Mercury for that more intelligible one of spirit, should consequently make the principles of Compound Bodies to be Five; would you not think it something hard to reject so plausible an Opinion, only because the Five substances into which the Fire divides mixt Bodies are not exactly pure, and Homogeneous?
Wherefore I shall only tell you in General, that though I think this Opinion in some respects more defensible then that of the Vulgar Chymists; yet you may easily enough learn from the past Discourse what may be thought of it: Since many of the Objections made against the Vulgar Doctrine of the Chymists seem, without much alteration, employable against this Hypothesis also.
And this very thing continues Car neades may serve to take away or lessen your Wonder, that just so many Bodies as five should be found upon the Resolution of Concretes.
And as for the fixt part, or Caput Mortuum , it will most commonly consist of Corpuscles, partly Soluble in Water, or Sapid, especially if the Saline parts were not so Volatile, as to fly away before which make up its fixt salt; and partly insoluble and insipid, which therefore seems to challenge the name of Earth. For, as I told you above, notwithstanding this Resemblance in some one Quality, there may be such a Disparity in others, as may be more fit to give them Differing Appellations, then the Resemblance is to give them one and the same.
For I think it unseasonable for me to meddle now any further with a Controversie, which since it does not now belong to me, Leaves me at Liberty to Take my Own time to Declare my Self about it. And that the mixture may not be too hard and brittle, a Sulphureous or Oyly Principle must intervene to make the mass more tenacious; to this a Mercurial spirit must be superadded; which by its activity may for a while premeate , and as it were leaven the whole Mass, and thereby promote the more exquisite mixture and incorporation of the Ingredients.
For if when we are more at leasure, you shall have a mind that we may Solemnly consider of it together; I am confident we shall scarce find it insoluble. And in the mean time we may observe, that such a way of Arguing may, it seems, be speciously accommodated to differing Hypotheses. For I find that Beguinus , and other Assertors of the Tria Prima , pretend to make out by such a way, the requisiteness of their Salt, Sulphur and Mercury, to constitute mixt Bodies, without taking notice of any necessity of an Addition of Water and Earth.
Which being undeniable, how will they prove that Nature cannot compound Mixt Bodies, and even durable Ones, under all the five Elements or material Principles.
But to insist any longer on this Occasional Disquisition, Touching their Opinion that would Establish five Elements, were to remember as little as You did before, that the Debate of this matter is no part of my first undertaking; and consequently, that I have already spent time enough in what I look back upon but as a digression, or at best an Excursion.
Since, in the first place, it may justly be doubted whether or no the Fire be, as Chymists suppose it, the genuine and Universal Resolver of mixt Bodies;. Since also, though we should grant the Substances separable from mixt Bodies by the fire to have been their component Ingredients, yet the Number of such substances does not appear the same in all mixt Bodies; some of them being Resoluble into more differing substances than three, and Others not being Resoluble into so many as three.
And Since, Lastly, those very substances that are thus separated are not for the most part pure and Elementary bodies, but new kinds of mixts;. But alas, how narrow is this Philosophy, that reaches but to some of those compound Bodies, which we find but upon, or in the crust or outside of our terrestrial Globe, which is it self but a point in comparison of the vast extended Universe, of whose other and greater parts the Doctrine of the Tria Prima does not give us an Account!
For what does it teach us, either of the Nature of the Sun, which Astronomers affirme to be eight-score and odd times bigger then the whole Earth?
But I find not, that it gives us any other then a very imperfect information even about mixt Bodies themselves: For how will the knowledge of the Tria Prima discover to us the Reason, why the Loadstone drawes a Needle and disposes it to respect the Poles, and yet seldom precisely points at them? How does this Hypothesis shew us, how much Salt, how much Sulphur, and how much Mercury must be taken to make a Chick or a Pompion?
For to say, that some more fine and subtile part of either or all the Hypostatical Principles is the Director in all this business, and the Architect of all this Elaborate structure, is to give one occasion to demand again, what proportion and way of mixture of the Tria Prima afforded this Architectonick Spirit, and what Agent made so skilful and happy a mixture? And the Answer to this Question, if the Chymists will keep themselves within their three Principles, will be lyable to the same Inconvenience, that the Answer to the former was.
But interposes Eleutherus This Objection seems no more then may be made against the four Peripatetick Elements. For I know not why a Truth should be thought lesse a Truth for the being fit to overthrow variety of Errors. But I need not be tempted by an Artifice, or invited by a Complement, to acknowledge the great service that the Labours of Chymists have done the Lovers of useful Learning; nor even on this occasion shall their Arrogance hinder my Gratitude. And first, as for the very way of Probation, which the more Learned and more Sober Champions of the Chymical cause employ to evince the Chymical Principles in Mixt Bodies, it seems to me to be farr enough from being convincing.
At tale principium non sunt Elementa. Nullam enim habent ad tales qualitates producendas potentiam. Ergo alia principia, unde fluant, inquirenda sunt. In the Recital of this Argument, sayes Carneades I therefore thought fit to retain the Language wherein the Author proposes it, that I might also retain the propriety of some Latine Termes, to which I do not readily remember any that fully answer in English.
For that the Major of our Authors Argument is to be Understood of the Material Ingredients of bodies, appears by the Instances of Earth and Fire he annexes to explain it. For if it be demanded how it comes to be Fluid, they will answer, that it participates much of the Nature of Water. And indeed, according to them, Water may be the Predominant Element in it, since we see, that several Bodies which by Distillation afford Liquors that weigh more then their Caput Mortuum do not yet consist of Liquor enough to be Fluid.
But further to invalidate his supposition, I shall demand, upon what Chymical Principle Fluidity depends? And yet Fluidity is, two or three perhaps excepted, the most diffused quality of the universe, and far more General then almost any other of those that are to be met with in any of the Chymicall Principles, or Aristotelian Elements; since not only the Air, but that vast expansion we call Heaven, in comparison of which our Terrestrial Globe supposing it were all Solid is but a point; and perhaps to the Sun and the fixt Stars are fluid bodies.
I would gladly also know, in which of the three Principles the Quality, we call Sound, resides as in its proper Subject; since either Oyl falling upon Oyle, or Spirit upon Spirit, or Salt upon Salt, in a great quantity, and from a considerable height, will make a noise, or if you please, create a sound, and that the objection may reach the Aristotelians so will also water upon water, and Earth upon Earth. And I could name other qualities to be met within divers bodies, of which I suppose my Adversaries will not in haste assign any Subject, upon whose Account it must needs be, that the quality belongs to all the other several bodies.
And, before I proceed any further, I must here invite you to compare the supposition we are examining, with some other of the Chymical Tenents. For, they ascribe to Salt Tasts, and the power of Coagulation; to sulphur, as well Odours as inflamableness; And some of them ascribe to Mercury, Colours; as all of them do effumability, as they speak. And on the other side, it is evident that Volatility belongs in common to all the three Principles, and to Water too. And thus much for the first thing taken for granted, without sufficient proof, by your Sennertus : And to add that upon the Bye continues Carneades we may hence learn what to judge of the way of Argumentation, which that fierce Champion of the Aristotelians against the Chymists, Anthonius Guntherus Billichius In Thessalo redivivo.
The Ratiocination it self pursues Carneades being somewhat unusual, I did the other Day Transcribe it, and sayes He, pulling a Paper out of his Pocket it is this. Humorem aquosum admovebo Igni. But I will rather take Notice of what is more pertinent to the Occasion of this Digression, namely, that Taking it for Granted, that Fluidity with which he unwarily seems to confound Humidity must proceed from the Element of Water, he makes a Chymical Oyle to Consist of that Elementary Liquor; and yet in the very next Words proves, that it consists also of Fire, by its Inflamability; not remembring that exquisitely pure Spirit of Wine is both more Fluid then Water it self, and yet will Flame all away without leaving the Least Aqueous Moisture behind it; and without such an Amurca and Soot as he would Deduce the presence of Earth from.
So that the same Liquor may according to his Doctrine be concluded by its great Fluidity to be almost all Water; and by its burning all away to be all disguised Fire. And by the like way of Probation our Author would shew that the fixt salt of Wood is compounded of the four Elements.
And not to mention that our Authour makes a Body as Homogeneous as any he can produce for Elementary, belong both to Water and Fire, Though it be neither Fluid nor Insipid, like Water; nor light and Volatile, like Fire; he seems to omit in this Anatomy the Element of Earth, save That he intimates, That the salt may pass for that; But since a few lines before, he takes Ashes for Earth, I see not how he will avoid an Inconsistency either betwixt the Parts of his Discourse or betwixt some of them and his Doctrine.
For about the beginning of that passage of His lately recited to you, he makes the sweat as he calls it of the green Wood to be Water, the smoke Aire, the shining Matter Fire, and the Ashes Earth; whereas a few lines after, he will in each of these, nay as I just now noted in one Distinct Part of the Ashes, shew the four Elements.
But I consider further, that Chymists are for ought I have found far from being able to explicate by any of the Tria Prima , those qualities which they pretend to belong primarily unto it, and in mixt Bodies to Deduce from it. I will allow then, that the Chymists do not causelessly accuse the Doctrine of the four elements of incompetency to explain the Properties of Compound bodies.
But I am mistaken, if our Hermetical Philosophers Themselves need not, as well as the Peripateticks, have Recourse to more Fruitfull and Comprehensive Principles then the tria Prima , to make out the Properties of the Bodies they converse with. Not to accumulate Examples to this purpose, because I hope for a fitter opportunity to prosecute this Subject let us at present only point at Colour, that you may guess by what they say of so obvious and familiar a Quality, how little Instruction we are to expect from the Tria Prima in those more abstruse ones, which they with the Aristotelians stile Occult.
For about Colours, nei ther do they at all agree among themselves, nor have I met with any one, of which of the three Perswasions soever, that does intelligibly explicate Them.
But how Colours do, nay, how they may, arise from either of these Principles, I think you will scarce say that any has yet intelligibly explicated. And if Mr. But I must not any further prosecute an Occasional Discourse, though that were not so Difficult for me to do, as I fear it would be for the Chymists to give a better Account of the other Qualities, by their Principles, then they have done of Colours. And your Sennertus Sennert. For indeed he does not Teach us That which can in any Tollerable measure satisfie an inquisitive Searcher after Truth.
For what is it to me to know, that such a quality resides in such a Principle or Element, whilst I remain altogether ignorant of the Cause of that quality, and the manner of its production and Operation?
And how little does the Chymist teach the Philosopher of the Nature of Purgatition, if he only tells him that the Purgative Vertue of Medicines resides in their Salt? And if I know not how Purgation in general is effected in a Humane Body? Now that which I take to be the reason of this Chymical Deficiency, is the same upon whose account I think the Aristotelian and divers other Theories incompetent to explicate the Origen of Qualities.
For all that you have said will not keep this from being a useful Discovery, that since in the Salt of one Concrete, in the Sulphur of another and the Mercury of a third, the Medicinal vertue of it resides, that Principle ought to be separated from the rest, and there the desired faculty must be sought for.
I never denyed Replyes Carneades that the Notion of the Tria Prima may be of some use, but continues he laughing by what you now alledg for it, it will but appear That it is useful to Apothecaries, rather than to Philosophers, The being able to make things Operative being sufficient to those, whereas the Knowledge of Causes is the Thing looked after by These. And let me Tell You, Eleutherius , even this it self will need to be entertained with some caution.
For first, it will not presently follow, That if the Purgative or other vertue of a simple may be easily extracted by Water or Spirit of Wine, it Resides in the Salt or Sulphur of the Concrete; Since unlesse the Body have before been resolved by the Fire, or some Other Powerful Agent, it will, for the most part, afford in the Liquors I have named, rather the finer compounded parts of it self, Than the Elementary ones. And we see that the Extracts made either with Water or Spirit of Wine are not of a simple and Elementary Nature, but Masses consisting of the looser Corpuscles, and finer parts of the Concretes whence they are Drawn; since by Distillation they may be Divided into more Elementary substances.
For, if in Chymical Resolutions the separated Substances were pure and simple Bodies, and of a perfect Elementary Nature; no one would be indued with more Specifick Vertues, than another; and their qualities would Differ as Little as do those of Water. For though such compleatly purifyed Ingredients of Bodies might perhaps be more satisfactory to our Understanding; yet others are often more useful to our Lives, the efficacy of such Chymical Productions depending most upon what they retain of the Bodies whence they are separated, or gain by the new associations of the Dis sipated among themselves; whereas if they were meerly Elementary, their uses would be comparatively very small; and the vertues of Sulphurs, Salts, or Other such Substances of one denomination, would be the very same.
For by this means the Number of mixt Bodies is considerably increased. I remmember that Helmont Helmont Pharm. And elsewhere he judiciously affirmes, that there may be sometimes greater vertue in a simple, such as Nature has made it, than in any thing that can by the fire be separated from it. And lest you should doubt whether he means by the vertues of things those that are Medical; he has in one place this ingenuous confession; Credo sayes he simplicia in sua simplicitate esse sufficientia pro sanatione omnium morborum.
Barthias, Vide Jer. That also this Lead, which is so flexible a metal, may be made as brittle as Glasse, and presently be brought to be again flexible and Malleable as before.
And besides, that the same lead, which I find by Microscopes to be one of the most opacous bodies in the World, may be reduced to a fine transparent glasse; whence yet it may returne to an opacous Nature again; and all this, as I said, without the addition of any extraneous body, and meerly by the manner and Method of exposing it to the Fire.
But sayes Carneades after having al ready put you to so prolix a trouble, it is time for me to relieve you with a promise of putting speedily a period to it; And to make good that promise, I shall from all that I have hitherto discoursed with you, deduce but this one proposition by way of Corollary. This being but an inference from the foregoing Discourse, it will not be requisite to insist at large on the proofs of it; But only to point at the chief of Them, and Referr You for Particulars to what has been already Delivered.
In the next place, it may be considered, if what those Patriarchs of the Spagyrists , Paracelsus and Helmont , do on divers occasions positively deliver, be true; namely that the Alkahest does Resolve all mixt Bodies into other Principles than the fire, it must be decided which of the two resolutions that made by the Alkahest , or that made by the fire shall determine the number of the Elements, before we can be certain how many there are.
So, although we should acquiesce in that resolution which is made by fire, we find not that all mixt bodies are thereby divided into the same number of Elements and Principles; some Concretes affordding more of them than others do; Nay and sometimes this or that Body affording a greater number of Differing substances by one way of management, than the same yields by another.
And they that out of Gold, or Mercury, or Muscovy-glasse, will draw me as many distinct substances as I can separate from Vitriol, or from the juice of Grapes variously orderd, may teach me that which I shall very Thankfully learn. Nor does it ap pear more congruous to that variety that so much conduceth to the perfection of the Universe, that all elemented bodies be compounded of the same number of Elements, then it would be for a language, that all its words should consist of the same number of Letters.
And, to deal not only fairly but favourably with them, I will allow them to take in Earth and Water to their other Principles. To give you then a brief account of the grounds I intend to proceed upon, I must tell you, that in matters of Philosophy, this seems to me a sufficient reason to doubt of a known and important proposition, that the Truth of it is not yet by any competent proof made to appear. And congruously herunto, if I shew that the grounds upon which men are perswaded that there are Elements are unable to satisfie a considering man, I suppose my doubts will appear rational.
Namely, the one, that it is necessary that Nature make use of Elements to constitute the bodies that are reputed Mixt. And the other, That the Resolution of such bodies manifests that nature had compounded them of Elementary ones. In reference to the former of these Considerations, there are two or three things that I have to Represent. And I will begin with reminding you of the Experiments I not long since related to you concerning the growth of pompions, mint, and other vegetables, out of fair water.
And that Nature may contex a Plant though that be a perfectly mixt Concrete without having all the Elements previously presented to her to compound it of. We may further Take notice, that as a Plant may be nourisht, and consequently may Consist of Common water; so may both plants and Animals, perhaps even from their Seminal Rudiments consist of compound Bodies, without having any thing meerly Elementary brought them by nature to be compounded by them: This is evident in divers men, who whilst they were Infants were fed only with Milk, afterwards Live altogether upon Flesh, Fish, wine, and other perfectly mixt Bodies.
It may be seen also in sheep, who on some of our English Downs or Plains, grow very fat by feeding upon the grasse, without scarce drinking at all. And yet more manifestly in the magots that breed and grow up to their full bignesse within the pulps of Apples, Pears, or the like Fruit. And let us also consider a Graft of one kind of Fruit upon the upper bough of a Tree of another kind.
So little is it Necessary that even in the mixtures which nature her self makes in Animal and Vegetable Bodies, she should have pure Elements at hand to make her compositions of. Having said thus much touching the constitution of Plants and Animals, I might perhaps be able to say as much touching that of Minerals, and even Metalls, if it were as easy for us to make experiment in Order to the production of these, as of those.
Genius is not produced by the spirit of the age; it is the spirit of the age that is produced by genius. We may greatly profit from the study of Boyle's book. Click to Download! Tags: Chemistry Editor's Picks. Post a Comment. Share this book. Contact Form. Alchemy had an important and positive role in the history of science. Boyle first learned chemical ideas and practices and studied van Helmont under the tutelage of George Starkey, an immigrant from America and graduate of Harvard College.
Using the pen-name Eirenaeus Philalethes, Starkey wrote influential books on transmutation and devised a sophisticated theory of matter. Boyle himself strove to prepare the philosophers' stone, the secret substance able to transmute metals; he recounted how he had witnessed a demonstration of its powers and tested the gold it produced. He even petitioned Parliament successfully in to repeal a law forbidding gold-making, which he thought impeded research towards discovering the secret of the stone.
Far from repudiating alchemy, The Sceptical Chymist cites alchemical texts and theories to criticize the vulgar chymists. The Sceptical Chymist was neither the most widely read nor the most important of Boyle's works.
Its fame was thrust upon it by retrospective attempts more than two centuries after its publication to locate a revolutionary moment for chemistry. This view attributed to Boyle innovations that later generations thought were important — such as the definition of an element and the repudiation of alchemy — but which were far from Boyle's mind. Those attempts worked only because few cared to wade through Boyle's prose and still fewer took time to recognize his motives.
Besides, such revolutionary moments exist mostly in the minds of those who imagine that science develops by sudden leaps made by isolated geniuses rather than by slow, laborious steps accumulated and shared by many talented workers.
The Sceptical Chymist was one facet of Boyle's larger project to elevate the status of chemistry, to free it from servitude to medical and commercial endeavours, and to use it for exploring and explaining the hidden workings of nature. Today, chemistry continues to serve the basic physical needs of society and the intellectual and methodological needs of other sciences more than any other discipline.
Even as it continues to struggle with its identity in the ever-changing landscape of modern science, chemistry has become established as an independent, fundamental and philosophical discipline. Boyle, although sceptical of elements and convinced of alchemy, played a key part in this achievement. Lmafp jhu. You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar.
Reprints and Permissions. Principe, L. In retrospect: The Sceptical Chymist. Nature , 30—31 Download citation. Published : 05 January Issue Date : 06 January Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:. Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.
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