Alchemy and Chemistry: Chemical Discourses in the Seventeenth CenturyAuthor(s): Ferdinando AbbriSource: Early Science and Medicine, Vol. 5, No. 2, Alchemy and Hermeticism (2000), pp. 214-226Published by: BRILLStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4130477Accessed: 22/11/2009 21:43

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ALCHEMY AND CHEMISTRY: CHEMICAL DISCOURSES IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

FERDINANDO ABBRI Department of Socio-Historical and Philosophical Studies

University of Siena at Arezzo

I. A THEMATIC PRELUDE

In a recently published historiographical essay on the relationship between alchemy and chemistry in the modern age, William R. Newman and Lawrence M. Principe argue that, prior to the eight- eenth century, efforts "to differentiate alchemy from chemistry prove to be anachronistic, arbitrary, or presentist."' The two American historians consider Georg Ernst Stahl's work as a turn-

ing point, and for the seventeenth century, they propose the use of the archaically spelt "chymistry" in order to emphasize the im-

possibility of discriminating chemistry from alchemy. Their essay focuses mainly on language, that is, it contains an analysis of the nomenclature of well-known seventeenth-century "chemical" texts that support their interpretation. Notwithstanding some uncon-

vincing interpretations and an overly conventional image of Stahl, Newman and Principe's essay is an outstanding contribution to the debate concerning the genesis of modern chemistry which is apt to draw the historian's attention to the fluidity of the terms "al-

chemy" and "chemistry" in the seventeenth century. In my opinion, the topic considered by Newman and Principe is

very complex and cannot be clarified simply by postulating a sort of identity between alchemy and chemistry in the seventeenth

century, for any such "identity" would necessarily be indistinct. In the early modern era, one can perceive a surprising and impres- sive number of distinctive chemical discourses involving different

argumentative levels: historical, philological, ideological, medical, pharmaceutical, experimental and institutional.2

In this article, I want to discuss some of these discourses in or-

1 W.R. Newman, LM. Principe, "Alchemy vs. Chemistry: the etymological ori- gins of a historiographic mistake," Early Science and Medicine 3 (1998), 32-65, p. 33.

2 F. Abbri, "Antichiti e noviti del sapere chimico nel tardo Seicento", in Atti

? Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2000 Early Science and Medicine 5, 2

CHEMICAL DISCOURSES IN THE 17TH CENTURY 215

der to emphasize the complexity of seventeenth-century chemis-

try. I argue that alchemy did not miraculously transmute into

chemistry; instead, chemistry began to construct its specific do- main and to define its proper subject matter. Therefore, the al-

chemy/chemistry problem is not only etymological; one must also take into consideration the creation of a specific space for chem-

istry as a discipline, and this space was a historical construction. The proliferation of chemical discourses reveals that chemistry was in search of its disciplinary identity, and any reconstruction of the

genesis of modern chemistry must take this into account.

II. THE INTRICATE LANDSCAPE OF "CHEMISTRY"

In 1668, Ole Borch (Olaus Borrichius), a Danish physician and

polyhistor, published a popular dissertation entitled De ortu et

progressu chemiae.3 Being an artifact of the Baroque era, in which historical and antiquarian considerations predominated, its pages are filled with erudition. The final section of the work presents a discourse in praise of experimental activity, without which physics, chemistry and the other arts "mutae sint & ingloriae." According to Borch, students of nature must have recourse to experiments and scientific instruments in order to gain knowledge, and it is therefore necessary to promote a renaissance of experimental ac- tivities at the academies and at scientific and educational institu- tions. Without such an experimental approach and a proper insti- tutional context, it is impossible to cultivate the "noble" art of

chemistry, which is a discipline favored by nature and the human

mind.4 Chemistry is an experimental art of great importance, and it must be cultivated at official institutions and supported by royal power.

In the scientific and philosophical treatises of the early modern era, one encounters many passages eulogizing experimental activi- ties in general and the experimental art of chemistry in particular, but Borch strongly emphasized the importance of a public institu- tionalization of chemical research. Borch was neither a court al-

del V Convegno Nazionale di Storia e Fondamenti della Chimica, ed. G. Marino (Rome, 1993), 137-151.

s O. Borch, "De ortu & progressu chemiae dissertatio" (Hafniae, 1668) in Bibliotheca Chemica Curiosa, ed. J.-J. Manget (Geneva, 1702), I: 1-37.

4 Ibid., 37.

216 FERDINANDO ABBRI

chemist nor a pharmacist, but was a professor of medicine, botany, and philology at the University of Copenhagen and a friend of Thomas Bartholin and Nils Steensen (Steno).5 In the second half of the seventeenth century, philosophers and naturalists cultivat- ing chemical research were supporters of the experimental aspects of that discursive field that went by the various names of "chym- istry, chemistry, alchemy, spagirics," and so on.

In the seventeenth century, chemistry occupied a complex land- scape. In France, the creation of the Jardin du Roi allowed for the beginning of a public and official teaching of chemistry, but dif- ferent images of this art competed in different national contexts.6 In reconstructing the genesis of modern chemistry, the historian cannot isolate a particular image or tradition as the main road to "scientific" chemistry; nor is an epistemological criterion very use- ful. We cannot rely on the selective criterion of experimentation to furnish an account of modern chemistry, because virtually all seventeenth-century natural philosophers agreed that chemistry was founded on experiment. Robert Boyle considered the Baco- nian natural and experimental history of phaenomena as an essen- tial base from which to construct theories. Alchemists, Paracel- sians, and Hermeticists may be accused of misinterpreting experi- ments, but not of disregarding them.

Arguably one of the most important chemists of the second half of the seventeenth century was Johann Rudolph Glauber. He was the inventor of the famous "new philosophical furnaces" and cre- ated in Amsterdam the most impressive chemical laboratory in all of Europe, which contained many furnaces, apparatuses, and new instruments. The garden at his house was a veritable experimental laboratory for agricultural chemistry, for Glauber considered chemistry an art capable of solving a wide range of problems. In addition to being useful in the imperial wars against the Turks, it held the promise of reducing food shortages and of increasing the Wohlfahrt of Germany. It is not surprising that many naturalists and travellers visited Glauber's laboratory.7

5 See H.D. Schepelern (ed.), Olai Borrichii Itinerarium 1660-1665: the Journal of the Danish O. Borch, 4 vols. (Copenhagen, 1983).

6 A.G. Debus, The French Paracelsians: the chemical challenge to medical and scien- tific tradition in early modern France (Cambridge, 1991). R.C. Howard, "Guy de La Brosse and the Jardin des Plantes in Paris," in The Analytic Spirit, ed. H. Woolf (Ithaca and London, 1981), 195-224. R. Taton ed., Enseignement et diffusion des sciences en France au dix-huititme siecle (Paris, 1986).

7 J.R. Glauber, Furni novi philosophici oder Beschreibung einer neu-erfundenen

CHEMICAL DISCOURSES IN THE 17TH CENTURY 217

Glauber considered chemistry an experimental and useful art and enlarged its field with his research and discoveries. Not only was he a devotee of the preparation of medicines, he was also a

supporter of the Paracelsian chemical philosophy. His chemical

laboratory was a mirror of the laboratory of nature, and his great attention to salts was due to his belief that the laboratory salt had a role corresponding to that played by the salt principle in the macrocosm: "In Sole et Sale Omnia" was his adopted motto.8 Glau- ber's experimentation was a novelty but was also a consequence of his adoption of Paracelsian metaphysics and of the alchemical world view.

The history of early modern chemistry must adopt a method of contextualization that (1) attributes a primary role to philosophy in its historical reconstruction; and (2) acknowledges that seven-

teenth-century chemical topics were manifold and did not fall into a simple pattern. Chemistry was seldom considered a part of offi- cial science, but between the end of the seventeenth and the be-

ginning of the eighteenth centuries, it received official institu- tional sanction in certain political contexts.9 One might be

tempted to conclude from this that, because chemistry was already an established discipline, during the Enlightenment era it only modified some of its aspects, or merely enlarged its body of knowl-

edge and the number of its instruments. However, this conclusion is not warranted by the historical evidence, because if one looks for the real agenda of a chemist at the end of the seventeenth

century, one finds ideas, topics, and arguments that today belong to other sciences or are simply intellectual fossils. The birth of modern chemistry was a long process of defining its specific sub-

ject. I want to argue that in the second half of the seventeenth cen-

tury, the many heated debates and controversies about the origins and status of chemistry took place in different cultural contexts.

Distillirkunst, 5 vols. (Amsterdam, 1646-49). Id., Opera Chymica, 2 vols. (Frankfurt, 1658-59). See F. Abbri, "Gli arcana naturae: filosofia, alchimia e 'chimica' nel Seicento," in Cristina di Svezia. Scienza ed alchimia nella Roma barocca (Bari, 1990), 49-68.

8 J.R. Glauber, Arca thesauris opulentia, sive appendix generalis omnium librorum hactenus editorum (Amsterdam, 1660), 12-13. Id., Tractatus de natura salium (Am- sterdam, 1659), 30-31.

' R.P. Multhauf, The origins of chemistry (London, 1966), 257-273. M. Bougard, La chimie de Nicolas Lemery (Turnhout, 1999), 353-384.

218 FERDINANDO ABBRI

These discussions involved so many different topics that the histo- rian is obliged to navigate through different fields. It is not suffi- cient to find a term able to unify alchemy and chemistry; on the contrary, one must stress that diverse and heterogeneous subjects were essential parts of "chemistry" in this period, and they contin- ued to follow it for a long time. The history of early modern chem- istry is difficult to cultivate because it constitutes the space of an emerging new form of knowledge.

III. NEW CHEMISTRY AND ANCIENT WISDOM

We may now return to Borch's De ortu, because it is apparent that its manifest endorsement of experimental activity is the conse- quence of a metaphysics and a specific philosophy of history. Borch's dissertation is the product of an ideology which fired the polemics in support of the Hermetic tradition and maintained the supremacy of ancient Egypt in the history of human knowledge. It is a chapter in a series of discussions that were crucial in the sev- enteenth century context.

According to Borch, "the origins of chemistry can be found in the most ancient times": chemistry was born before the Flood as a metallurgical craft, thanks to Tubalcain. It was thus very ancient, divine, and holy, and originated directly from God, Egypt being its cradle. From Egypt it passed to Greece, to the Latin world, to the Arabs, to China and to the European nations.1'

In 1648, the German physician Hermann Conring denied the historical supremacy of Egypt and the philosophical value of the Hermetic tradition. He defended the superiority of the Mosaic tradition, stating that the Egyptians had received their wisdom from Moses." For Borch, however, Moses learnt his knowledge from the Egyptian priests, notably from Hermes Trismegistus. To him, the analysis of sources and documents confirmed the main

10 O. Borch, De ortu, 1-2. 1 H. Conring, De Hermetica Aegyptiorum vetere et Paracelsicorum nova medicina

liber unus (Helmstedt, 1648; 2nd ed. 1669). Another adversary of the Egyptian role in the history of science and civilization was Johann Heinrich Ursin, who is the author of De Zoroastre bactriano, Hermete Trismegisto, Sanchoniathone phoenicio eorumque scriptiis et aliis contra Mosaicae Scripturae antiquitatem (Nuremberg, 1661). See P. Rossi, Le sterminate antichita e nuovi saggi vichiani (Scandicci, Florence, 1999), 366-367.

CHEMICAL DISCOURSES IN THE 17TH CENTURY 219

role of Egypt in the spread of knowledge of the highest form, chemistry.

In 1674, Borch published a systematic treatise in which he de- fended Hermes' wisdom, which he maintained was both chemical and Egyptian. Against Conring he emphasised the great antiquity of chemistry and the relevance of ancient Egypt as the cradle of science. The chemical, Paracelsian medicines represented a re- trieval and an improvement of the medical practice, by "the an- cient followers of Hermes," of using stones and minerals. The

outstanding importance of chemistry was due to its ancient origins and no one could doubt or deny that the creator of chemico-medi- cal arts was Hermes or Thoth."2

According to Borch, experimental and historico-philological research are two complementary aspects of a same project. His defense of chemistry is a chapter of his metaphysics, which was based on his belief in the validity of the Hermetic tradition and its

spread from Egypt to the entire civilized world. Such a defense is

part of a precise philosophy of history that considers the various

tongues to be instruments to communicate knowledge. Borch

posited a millenary continuity in chemistry and was therefore

obliged to explain its continous existence and expansion. In 1674, Borch published a dissertation on the variety and dif-

ferentiation of languages after the episode of the Tower of Babel which, in his eyes, confirmed that both ancient knowledge- "prisca sapientia"-and a perfect world had indeed existed and could partially be renewed by "scientific" progress.13

In 1697, a posthumous booklet (libellus) on chemistry by Borch was published, which contained a sort of guided bibliography of the history of chemistry and in which one can find arguments in favor of the idea that the seeds of chemistry had been planted by Adam himself in Hermes Trismegistus' Egypt. According to the author, such an origin was confirmed by the "monumenta ve- terum" and by manuscripts. Borch's booklet, which reviews the chemical literature from antiquity to Islamic and Latin alchemy

" 0. Borch (Borrichius), Hermetis, Aegyptiorum et Chemicorum sapientia ab Hermanni Conringii animadversionibus vindicata (Copenhagen, 1674). The first part of this work is devoted to the topic of the antiquity of chemistry and to its spread from Egypt to Greece. The second part contains a defense of Paracelsus and the Paracelsians.

SO0. Borch (Borrichius), De causis diversitatis linguarum dissertatio (Copenha- gen, 1674), 5-15. See Rossi, Le sterminate, 347-386.

220 FERDINANDO ABBRI

and to the modern Paracelsians, documents the continuity of a tradition."4

In summary, Borch's philosophy makes the following main claims: (1) chemistry is an extraordinary experimental art which must be supported and cultivated at the academic institutions; and (2) it is ancient and divine in origin and has a millenary history, having been born as a science thanks to Hermes Trismegistus. The validity and novelty of chemistry are thus due to its antiquity and its divine origin. Borch used Renaissance philosophy as an ideol- ogy to justify the cultural meaning of chemistry.

It is of course possible to separate Borch, the careful experimen- tal physician, famous natural philosopher, and author of two hun- dred contributions to Bartholin's Acta medica and of a textbook of metallurgy, from the Borch who was a proponent of the Hermetic tradition, the patron and admirer of the Milanese alchemist Fran- cesco Giuseppe Borri,'5 and the devotee of ridiculous philological research. However, such a separation is historically invalid. For Borch, philology and philosophy, the study of hieroglyphics and of ancient and modern languages, medical research, and chemi- cal experiments were all parts of the same project, namely of the establishment of the importance of chemical knowledge. In short, then, late seventeenth-century chemistry had its roots in a complex terrain that was composed of antiquated ideas and surprising over- tures to modernity.

In the early modern era, alchemy did not magically transform into chemistry; instead, obscure, volatile, and ancient ideas coex- isted with clear and precise concepts. It is not sufficient merely to cite the chapter "Del Arte Alchimica" of Vannoccio Biringuccio's De la Pirotechnia (1540) in order to emphasize the end of alchemi- cal dreams and the birth of modern chemistry. Both the techni- cian Biringuccio, who denied alchemical transmutations, and the alchemists who sought just such transmutations, contributed to the modern knowledge of metals.

Historical research on seventeenth-century chemistry cannot ignore those antiquated and odd conceptions that modern chem-

'4 0. Borch (Borrichius), "Conspectus Scriptorum Chemicorum Celebriorum" (Copenhagen, 1697), in Bibliotheca Chemica, I: 38-53.

15 F. G. Borri, Specimina quinque chimiae Hyppocraticae (Cologne, 1664). This work is dedicated to Borch. Id., La Chiave del Gabinetto del Consigliere G.F. Borri Milanese (Cologne, 1681). See S. Rotta, "F.G. Borri," in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (Rome, 1971), XIII: 4-13. Abbri, Gli arcana naturae.

CHEMICAL DISCOURSES IN THE 17TH CENTURY 221

istry has forgotten long ago, because they were alive and influen- tial among contemporaries. Committing seventeenth-century chemical oddities to oblivion may allow the construction of a more

pleasant and "rational" history, but the result would be unsound. Borch was a famous scholar and physician, a friend and collabora- tor of Bartholin, but he was also a public supporter of the alche- mist Borri, whom he viewed as "the glory of all Europe" and au- thor of marvellous transmutations and alchemical projections. Borri considered the "Nymfae," "Gnomi," "Salamandrae," and

"Sylvi" as the creatures of water, earth, fire and air, who were the friends of lovers of science, the collaborators of lovers of wisdom, and the staunch enemies of foolish persons. As Charles Webster has shown, Paracelsus accepted popular beliefs in the creatures of the elements, but nevertheless favored the development of metal-

lurgical and mineralogical arts.16

IV. THE ALCHEMIST AS REFORMER

Borch's vision of chemistry as an ancient, Egyptian, and experi- mental science is a part of a vivid cultural tradition that coexisted with those created by Bacon, Galileo, Gassendi and Descartes. Al-

though one might easily classify Borch as a reactionary Hermeti- cist, an obscure natural philosopher who made no contribution to the genesis of modern chemistry, or as a marginal Danish physi- cian, from the travel diary of his European Grand Tour it is evi- dent that he had a sophisticated understanding of the most mod- ern and up-to-date philosophical and scientific ideas of the time. Nor must one forget that Borch met Robert Boyle in England and discussed chemical experimentation with him. Thus his support of the Hermetic tradition cannot be attributed to an ignorance of modern philosophy, but was the result of an ideological choice: to him, the scientific relevance and novelty of chemistry were due to its ancient origins.

As a point of comparison, Athanasius Kircher's criticism of Is- lamic transmutative alchemy was well known in Europe until the

beginning of the eighteenth century; nevertheless, the German

Jesuit cannot be described as an exponent of modernity, because

'6 C. Webster, "Paracelsus and Demons: Science as a Synthesis of Popular Belief," in Scienze, credenze occulte, livelli di cultura, ed. P. Zambelli (Florence, 1982), 3-20.

222 FERDINANDO ABBRI

he also upheld the validity of ancient Egyptian alchemy and of the

supremacy of ancient Egypt. Kircher's book, "Chymio-technicus," which forms part of the Mundus subterraneus (1665), maintains the

antiquity of alchemy and the importance of spagirical and metal-

lurgical alchemy." Equally illuminating is the example ofJohann Joachim Becher's

Oedipus chimicus (1664), a small, popular textbook of Paracelsian

chemistry that used Gerard Dorn's Clavis totius philosophiae chy- misticae (1567) as its model. In the Oedipus, Becher defines the contents of chemistry as including the ideas of matter and form, the principles of substances and qualities, the elements, and chemical operations. As for the nature of chemical language, Becher thought it was based on hieroglyphics, characters, and words.'18 According to him, chemistry was a science that required theory and praxis. As for its theoretical aspects, it was Hermetic and contained three parts: spagirics, chemistry and alchemy. Spagi- rics teaches how to separate and divide the bodies and is subservi- ent to the other two. Chemistry teaches how to prepare extracts and juices, and its fields are the vegetable and animal kingdoms. Alchemy, in turn, is concerned with the transmutation of metals and the preparation of the elixir.19 In sum, Becher's Oedipus de- scribes the disciplines of alchemy and chemistry according to the tenets of the Paracelsian tradition.

One might characterize Becher, who is also the author of a Ger- man treatise on the philosophical stone,20 as a seventeenth-century

17 A. Kircher, Mundus subterraneus in XII libros digestus, 2 vols. (Amsterdam, 1665). ID., "De Lapide Philosophorum Dissertatio", in Bibliotheca Chemica, I: 54- 82. Id., "De Alchymia Sophistica," ibid., 82-112. See M. Baldwin, "Alchemy and the Society of Jesus in the Seventeenth Century: strange bedfellows?" Ambix 40 (1993), 41-64.

18 J.J. Becher, Institutiones chimicae prodromae i.e. Oedipus Chimicus obscuriorum terminorum & principorum chimicorum mysteria aperiens & resolvens (Frankfurt, 1664). Id., "Oedipus Chimicus," in Bibliotheca Chemica, I: 331-332. Dorn's Clavis is reprinted in Theatrum Chemicum, ed. L. Zetzner, 6 vols. (Strasbourg, 1659), I: 192. See P.H. Smith, "Consumptions and Credit: The Place of Alchemy in Johann Joachim Becher's Political Economy, in Alchemy revisited, ed. Z.R.W.M. von Martels (Leiden, 1990), 215-221. Becher's interest in the alchemical language was con- nected with his project for a universal language proposed in his Character pro notitia linguarum universali (Frankfurt, 1661). Kircher's and Becher's linguistic proposals are illustrated in G. Schott's Technica curiosa (Wfirzburg, 1687), 221-257. See P. Rossi, La scienza e la filosofia dei moderni (Turin, 1989), 196-243.

19 Becher, Oedipus Chimicus, 306. 20 J.J. Becher, "De potentissima philosophorum medicina universali, lapis

philosophorum Trismegistus dicta," in Theatrum Chemicum, VI: 675-714. In 1654, Becher published this discourse anonymously in German. Its authorship is proved

CHEMICAL DISCOURSES IN THE 17TH CENTURY 223

alchemist, a reactionary hermeticist, and an antiquated natural

philosopher, and his work might be considered useless in defin-

ing chemistry and its position in the seventeenth century cultural context. Yet this characterization is inadmissible given the histori- cal data. Becher inspired many technological and commercial

enterprises, and his work was read by Leibniz, Newton, and Huy- gens. According to Pamela Smith, he was moreover the father of modern mercantilism. Though a supporter of the Hermetic tradi- tion, Becher also defined chemistry as a practical science, and he

distinguished it from alchemy. This distinction was very important for eighteenth-century science. Similarly, in 1676 Johannes Bohn stated that chemistry is quadruplex, comprising "Philosophica," "Pharmaceutica seu Medica," "Mechanica seu opificiaria," and

"Alchymistica,"2 while in 1778, Giuseppe Antonio Scopoli defined

chemistry as including physics, metallurgy, economics, and spagi- rics, the latter being concerned with the transmutations of met-

als.22 The author of the Oedipus is the same Becher whom Stahl

praised as the great innovator of chemistry. The historical meaning of Stahl's work has not yet been well

defined. Historians have not reconstructed and emphasized enough the extraordinary impact of the novelties that the German

physician introduced into medicine and chemistry. But Stahl

played a crucial role in the modification of the image of chemis-

try. He considered Becher's Physica subterranea (1669) a Paracel- sian work, yet fundamental for the new chemistry, just as he gen- erally regarded alchemical theory and research as the source of new chemical knowledge. Stahl's interpretation of Becher's work had a crucial significance: against the reductionism of the mecha- nistic tradition, he affirmed the epistemological relevance of the methods and contents of chemistry. Against Boyle, who considered

chemistry a science subordinate to physics, Stahl used the Paracel- sian-Becherian tradition in order to affirm the autonomy of chem-

istry and, at the same time, removed the strictly alchemical con- tents from that tradition. Thus he could introduce a new ideologi-

by a catalogue of Becher's works which is in the second edition of his Actorum laboratorii chymici Monacensis, seu physicae subterraneae libri duo (Frankfurt, 1681).

21 J. Bohn, Dissertationes chymico-physicae (Leipzig, 1676), "Praefatio ad lectorem."

22 G.A. Scopoli, Fundamenta chemiae praelectionibus publicis accomodata (Pavia, 1778), 1-3. Id., Elementi di Chimica e di Farmacia (Pavia, 1786) contain a very inter- esting section entitled "Della storia della chimica."

224 FERDINANDO ABBRI

cal approach to chemistry which was based on the consideration of chemistry as a useful art capable of improving the preparation of socially relevant substances and favoring the development of manufacture and industry. Metallurgy, mineralogy, agriculture, and food production were all improved by the most useful art, chemistry. Stahl invoked the Renaissance chemical tradition against the modern mechanical philosophy in order to create a public image of chemistry as an useful and specific art. He identi- fied the works of a Paracelsian alchemist as the base upon which to erect eighteenth-century chemistry. Thanks to Stahl and his followers, the German States became the Vaterland of chemistry.23

In the eighteenth century, references to Egypt, Hermes Tris- megistus, and the Paracelsian and alchemical traditions became a historico-cultural element that was ideologically used to strengthen the image of chemistry as an autonomous art or science which did not need to adopt the methods of the mechanical philosophy. In the middle of the century, in Denis Diderot's Encyclopidie, Guil- laume-FranCois Venel emphasized the specificity of the chemical qualities of bodies, eulogized Becher and lent support to the Stahlian research program.24

In 1706, the Italian physician Martino Poli, a member of the Paris Academy of sciences, published his Trionfo degli acidi. Quot- ing from the Hermes of the Emerald Tablet, he criticized the "corpuscolari filosofanti." The erroneous philosophy of the "mo- derni Democritici e riformati Epicurei" was, according to Poli, unable to explain the system of nature and the chemical opera- tions, because it was metaphysical and the result of obscure phantasies. Poli's harsh criticism of the mechanical philosophy was accompanied by an affirmation of the divine and experimental

23 J.j. Becher, Actorum laboratorii chymici Monacensis, seu physicae subterraneae libri duo (first ed., Frankfurt, 1669). Id., Physica subterranea ... editio novissima, 2 vols. (Leipzig, 1703). The reprint of 1703 was edited by Stahl and the second volume contains his Specimen Beccherianum. On Stahl, see I. Strube, Georg Ernst Stahl (Leip- zig, 1984). F. Abbri, "Tra 'disputazioni', 'lezioni' e 'manuali': Georg Ernst Stahl e la diffusione di una nuova idea di chimica," in Le forme della comunicazione scientifica, ed. M. Galuzzi, G. Micheli, M.T. Monti (Milan, 1998), 217-230. On the history of the Stahlian tradition: K.Hufbauer, The Formation of the German Chemical Community (Berkeley, 1982). F. Abbri, "Tradizioni chimiche nel settecento," in Atti del I Convegno di Storia della Chimica, ed. P. Antoniotti, L. Cerruti (Turin, 1986), 1-23.

24 G.-F. Venel, "Chymie," in Encyclopidie ou Dictionnaire raisonni des sciences, des arts et des mitiers. Troisiime idition enrichie de plusieures notes (Leghorn, 1772), III: 395-396.

CHEMICAL DISCOURSES IN THE 17TH CENTURY 225

contents of chemistry.25 However, his book is not an alchemical treatise, because it contains a clear illustration of the contents of modern chemical medicine. At the end of the seventeenth cen- tury, the Paracelsian tradition did not vanish as it confronted the mechanical philosophy; on the contrary, it gained a new ideologi- cal dimension and was used to affirm the specificity of the chemi- cal qualities of matter.

V. CONCLUSION

From a contextual perspective, seventeenth-century chemistry re- veals the following main characteristics:

(1) The existence of different and contrasting images of the chemical art or science.

(2) The fluidity of terms such as "alchemy" and "chemistry," which implied variable definitions of their contents and meanings and which was the result of the absence of a rigid and defined space for chemistry. Thus a historical view strictly focused on the passage from alchemy to chemistry is unacceptable.

(3) The crisis of the mechanical philosophy at the end of the seventeenth century precipitated by Stahl.

(4) Both traditional and Paracelsian alchemy favored the insti- tutionalization of chemistry through the creation of laboratories at princely courts, in pharmacies, and at metallurgical centers.

In conclusion, I would like to offer some methodological con- siderations. If one accepts that in the middle of the seventeenth century, chemistry did not yet comprise a proper field, it follows that historical reconstructions must focus on different chemical topics and characteristics. Metaphysical commitments, interpreta- tions of phenomena, experimental research, and political and so- cial contexts are different but related aspects of the history of sci- ence and of chemistry. Therefore, in order to construct a history of early modern chemistry, the various constituents of chemistry of that period must be considered; that is, one must consider a wide cultural range of topics, from philosophical speculations to the construction of furnaces. It is not sufficient to focus on Borch's, Kircher's, and Becher's experimental research and mere-

25 M. Poli, Il trionfo degli acidi vendicati dalle calunnie di molti moderni (Rome, 1706), 19-21.

226 FERDINANDO ABBRI

ly to classify their ideas concerning Hermes, ancient Egyptian knowledge, or hieroglyphics as philosophical dreams or beliefs. Nor does such an approach make for a very interesting or scien- tific historiography. With such an interpretation, one can only draw up a very partial, albeit more agreeable, history, but the re- sult would be unable to identify the true meaning of "chemistry" in the works of the authors studied.

Cultivating the history of early modern chemistry means being aware that the "subjects" of chemistry existed not a priori, but were

historically variable and culturally and socially constructed. The structure and contents of early modern chemical discourses are not very relevant from a logical point of view, because they con- tain too many heterogeneous elements and conceptual fossils. But

they are historically relevant because they speak about the mean-

ings of chemistry at a particular historical period and in a specific context. The history of chemistry is the story of the construction of homogeneous disciplinary fields. The cultivation of the history of early modern chemistry really involves playing on various stages.

SUMMARY

The landscape of seventeenth-century chemistry is complex, and it is impossible to find in it either a clear-cut distinction between alchemy and chemistry or a sort of simple identification of the two. The seventeenth- century cultural context contained a rich variety of "chemical" discourses with arguments ranging from specific experiments to the justification of the validity of chemistry and its novelty in terms of its extraordinary an- tiquity. On the basis of an analysis of the works by O. Borch, J. J. Glauber, and J. J. Becher, this paper tries to demonstrate that a historical recon- struction of "chemistry" must consider these different levels of the chemi- cal debate. Only then will it be possible to appreciate the outstanding role played by G.E. Stahl in founding modern chemistry. The paper argues in favor of a contextualization of the historical research on seventeenth-cen- tury chemistry.