Alchemy/chemistry
Annibal Bartlet, Le Vray Methodique
Cours de Chymie (1653) larger image
Index
Much of the older historiography was concerned to disentangle
forward-looking chemistry from disreputable alchemy. Wherever major
figures in the Whiggish narrative were seen to have an interest in alchemy,
such as Francis Bacon, Robert Boyle or Isaac Newton, the story had to be
that they were only interested in purging it of its fantasies. Most
scholars have now abandoned this task, finding that even the most virulent
opponents of Paracelsus often harboured alchemical
ambitions. Andreas Libavius and Robert Boyle can be seen to have
had an intense interest in alchemical pursuits, even if they condemned
the more high-flown rhetoric of some philosophical alchemists. During
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, no clear and fixed linguistic
boundary can be discerned between alchemy and chemistry. The lifelong
fascination of Isaac Newton with alchemy was simultaneously practical,
religious and philosophical.
In each European context, the religious positions that could be openly allied with alchemy were slightly different, for local reasons. In France, as a persecuted minority, the Huguenots were generally more sympathetic than were Calvinists elsewhere in Europe. In England, orthodox Calvinists avoided alchemy and astrology for the most part, with only a very few being prepared to entertain an interest. This would appear to be consonant with particular views about the nature of the relationship between God and humanity, and was encouraged by the university training of Calvinist intellectuals. The occult sciences were attractive to outsiders, whether formalists in religion or radical separatists. During the Elizabethan period, such men as John Dee cultivated alchemy alongside astrology and spiritual magic in the hope of acquiring knowledge that was otherwise unavailable. During the mid-seventeenth century, there was a growing interest in the work of Paracelsus and Jan Baptist van Helmont among radical sectarians, such as the Quakers, whose theology of direct inspiration was compatible with alchemical notions. However, in England as elsewhere in Europe, there was a difference between the attitude taken by aristocrats and courtiers and that taken by orthodox clergymen and physicians. Both Catholic and Calvinist courtiers and rulers throughout Europe were often more tolerant of the occult sciences than orthodox doctrine would permit.
Much of the opposition to alchemy derived from criticisms, on religious grounds, of Paracelsus by Thomas Erastus and Conrad Gesner and of the Rosicrucians by a wide range of natural philosophers and orthodox Protestants. It was frequently asserted that such authors were advocating methods of acquiring knowledge or healing the body, such as amulets and the weapon salve, which, if they worked, could only do so through the intervention of the Devil. Authors who allied themselves with the utopian, millenarian and pansophical aspirations associated with the Rosicrucian movement, such as Robert Fludd and Michael Maier, were at pains to assert their religious orthodoxy when attacked by Kepler, Mersenne or Libavius.
George Ripley, The compound of alchemy (London 1591)
George Ripley was born about 1415, in Yorkshire, according to some authorities, but at Ripley in Surrey according to Camden. He became a canon regular of St. Augustine at Bridlington, and devoted himself to the study of physical science, especially alchemy. To acquire fuller knowledge he travelled in France, Germany, and Italy, and lived for a long time at Rome, where in 1477 he was made chamberlain by Pope Innocent VIII. In 1478 he returned to England in the belief that he had the secret of transmutation. He pursued his alchemical work, but his labours became irksome to the abbot and other canons so he was released from the Order and joined the Carmelites at Boston, where he died in 1490. Ripley?s name is attached to as many as twenty-five works, most of which remain in manuscript. Whether or not they are by him may be doubted, but the this work is universally acknowledged to be his. It was one of the most popular works on alchemy and manuscript copies circulated widely. This is a the title page of the first printed edition.
Elias Ashmole's Theatricum Chemicum Brittanicum (1652)
John French's Art of Distillation (1651)
Robert Boyle's Sceptical
chymist (1661)
The bibliography of alchemy and early chemistry is vast, and plagued with enthusiastic but ill-informed writings by modern occultists and Jungians. The main journal in the field is AMBIX. Here are a few sample titles:
William R. Newman, Gehennical Fire: The Lives of George Starkey, an American Alchemist in the Scientific Revolution (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1994)
Gareth Roberts, The Mirror of Alchemy: Alchemical Ideas and Images in Manuscripts and Books from Antiquity to the Seventeenth Century (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1994)
Jole Shackelford, "Rosicrucianism, Lutheran Orthodoxy, and the Rejection of Paracelsianism in Early Seventeenth-Century Denmark", Bulletin of the History of Medicine 70.2 (1996) 181-204
Pamela H. Smith, The Business of Alchemy: Science and Culture in the Holy Roman Empire (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994)
Lyndy Abraham, Marvell and Alchemy (Aldershot: Scolar, 1990)
John T. Young, Faith, Medical Alchemy, and Natural Philosophy: Johann Moriaen, Reformed Intelligencer, and the Hartlib Circle (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1998)
