alchemy vs. chemistry, the etymological origins of a historiographic mistake

Alchemy vs. Chemistry: The Etymological Origins of a Historiographic MistakeAuthor(s): William R. Newman and Lawrence M. PrincipeReviewed work(s):Source: Early Science and Medicine, Vol. 3, No. 1 (1998), pp. 32-65Published by: BRILLStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4130048 .Accessed: 29/03/2012 15:35

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ALCHEMY VS. CHEMISTRY: THE ETYMOLOGICAL ORIGINS OF A HISTORIOGRAPHIC MISTAKE'

WILLIAM R. NEWMAN Department of History and Philosophy of Science

Indiana University, Bloomington

LAWRENCE M. PRINCIPE Department of Chemistry

The Johns Hopkins University

I. The Need for Clarification

One of the significant problems in writing the history of alchemy is perhaps embarrassingly fundamental, namely, what is alchemy? A similar question might be asked by any historian studying any field, but in this case it is a particularly knotty (and important) question because of the presence of the two words "alchemy" and

"chemistry."2 How can we speak accurately and consistently of alchemical theories, texts, or activities, and also of chemical theories, texts, or activities occurring in the same period? What are the

identifying marks of alchemy and the lines of demarcation, if any, between it and chemistry? Clearly such queries impact radically upon questions regarding the relationship between alchemy and

chemistry. But as fundamental as such questions appear, we here

argue that the neglect of a consistent and historically-grounded solution to the problem has allowed the propagation of distorting category mistakes in secondary literature on early modern "chem-

istry." The historiographic mistake alluded to in the title is the belief

(or presumption) that there existed before the eighteenth cen-

tury a clear and widely held distinction between alchemy and

chemistry (or alchemists and chemists). Allied to this view is the

1 We wish to thank Frederic L. Holmes, Didier Kahn, Bruce Moran, and Alan J. Rocke for reading and commenting upon this paper and the National Endow- ment for the Humanities (RH-21301-95) and the National Science Foundation (SBR-9510135) for their support of our collaboration.

2 The same problem exists in other modern languages as well, of course: Ger- man, for example, has Alchemie and Chemie, while French has alchimie and chimie. This is merely a reflection of their linguistic patrimony, for all these terms derive from the Latin alchemia (or alchymia or alchimia) and chemia (or chymia or chimia).

? Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 1998 Early Science and Medicine 3,1

ALCHEMY VS. CHEMISTRY 33

belief that the distinctions in meaning which we now recognize between alchemy and chemistry can be somehow read backwards to the seventeenth century and before, so that alchemy and chem-

istry can be differentiated and treated separately.3 The existence of both words in the seventeenth century and the use of both in modern secondary literature in reference to seventeenth-century activities implies that these words were commonly used at that time to distinguish two different disciplines, or at least two sets of practices. We attempt here to show that such an implication is false. We shall show that the terms were not used with any consistent difference of meaning and that the boundaries between what we

retrospectively call "alchemy" and "chemistry" were extremely dif- fuse at best. We find that efforts to differentiate alchemy from

chemistry prove to be anachronistic, arbitrary, or presentist. An

important consequence of this historiographic mistake is that the division in the secondary literature between alchemy and chemis-

try spuriously supports a discontinuity thesis regarding the devel-

opment of chemistry. Consider a few of the attempts to separate alchemy from chem-

istry. In the 1920s and '30s, He61ne Metzger divided alchemy from

chemistry on the basis of mechanism and corpuscularianism. She visualized alchemy as organic and vitalistic, and chemistry as "scientific" and mechanistic; thus, alchemy naturally withered at the advent of Cartesian mechanism.4 Alchemy and chemistry were not

only separate for Metzger but mutally incompatible. Nicolas

Lemery (1645-1715) provided a clean break for her, for he both

rejected metallic transmutation and employed a fully mechanistic view of chemical change.5 While Metzger's view has the allure of a

straightforward and progressive model for the history of chemis-

try, recent studies have greatly undermined it. These studies have shown that traditional alchemical theories are themselves fre-

Although it is true that Paracelsus von Hohenheim (1493-1541) "reformed" alchemy by emphasizing its role in preparing medicines, he did not establish a clear demarcation between alchemy and medical chemistry (called chemiatria or iatrochemia by his followers, and treated as a species of chemia). As Alan Rocke has pointed out, Paracelsus continued to use the German term Alchimey or Alchimei for all chemical concerns and Alchimist for the practitioner thereof ("Agricola, Paracelsus, and Chymia," Ambix 32 (1985), 38-45). The point can be confirmed by reference to Massimo Luigi Bianchi, Lessico del "Paragranum" di Theophrast von Hohenheim detto Paracelsus (Rome, 1983) vol. 1, sub vocibus.

4 Helne Metzger, "L'evolution du regne metallique d'apreis les alchimistes du XVIIe sieicle," Isis 4 (1922), 466-482.

5 Metzger, Les doctrines chimiques en France du dibut du XVIIe i la fin du XVIIIe siecle, (Paris, 1923), 94, 133-138.

34 WILLIAM R. NEWMAN AND LAWRENCE M. PRINCIPE

quently corpuscularian, and furthermore that the supposed division between "vitalism" (in Metzger's sense) and mechanism is itself suspect. Finally, as we argue elsewhere, the view that such vitalism is a necessary component of alchemy is largely an illu- sion.6

Marie Boas Hall, in her influential study of Boyle and seventeenth-century chemistry, asserts that the very existence of the two words "alchemy" and "chemistry" is sufficient argument for the existence of two separate disciplines.7 For her and many historians of her generation, alchemy represents the archaic, irrational, and even consciously fraudulent, while chemistry represents the modern, scientific, and rational. Boas Hall's study attributes "alchemy" or "chemistry" to this or that author dependent, seemingly, on their degree of congruity with specific modern chemical notions, or their received degree of "importance" in the history of chemistry. Sir Kenelm Digby, Frederick Clodius, and George Starkey are all "alchemists," while their contemporary Boyle remains a chemist. This division, besides its Whiggism, becomes yet more untenable now that Boyle's pursuit of metallic transmutation, the Philosophers' Stone, the alkahest, and so forth have been revealed.8 Boyle learned much from Digby, Clodius, and Starkey, collaborated with them, and pursued many of the same goals as they (even long after his association with them); thus their grouping in different categories stems not from the histori-

6 William R. Newman, Gehennical Fire: The Lives of George Starkey, an American Alchemist in the Scientific Revolution (Cambridge, MA, 1994), 92-114; 141-169; "The Corpuscular Transmutational Theory of Eirenaeus Philalethes," in Alchemy and Chemistry in the XVI and XVII Centuries, ed. by Piyo Rattansi and Antonio Clericuzio, (Dordrecht, 1994), 161-82; "The Corpuscular Theory of J. B. van Helmont and its Medieval Sources," Vivarium 31 (1993), 161-191; "Boyle's Debt to Corpuscular Alchemy," in Robert Boyle Reconsidered, ed. by Michael Hunter, (Cam- bridge, 1994), 107-118; "The Alchemical Sources of Robert Boyle's Corpuscular Philosophy," Annals of Science 53 (1996), 567-585. For the problem of distinguishing vitalism and mechanism in the seventeenth century, see Antonio Clericuzio, "A Redefinition of Boyle's Chemistry and Corpuscular Philosophy," Annals of Sci- ence 47 (1990), 561-589. We critique the anachronistic connection of vitalism and alchemy in our next joint article "The Historiography of Alchemy," forthcoming in Archimedes.

7 Marie Boas [Hall], Robert Boyle and Seventeenth-century Chemistry, (Cambridge, 1958), 48.

8 Lawrence M. Principe, The Aspiring Adept: Robert Boyle and his Alchemical Quest, (Princeton, 1998); "Boyle's Alchemical Pursuits," in Boyle Reconsidered, 91- 105; "Robert Boyle's Alchemical Secrecy: Codes, Ciphers, and Concealments," Ambix 39 (1992), 63-74; Hunter, "Alchemy, Magic and Moralism in the Thought of Robert Boyle," BritishJournal for the History of Science 23 (1990), 387-410.


cal record, but rather from historiographic predispositions. While B. J. T. Dobbs' important studies of Newton constitute

some of the best-known treatments of early modern alchemy, they too rest upon implicit divisions between alchemy and chemistry. Dobbs rightly dissents from Metzger's thesis on the incompatibil- ity of alchemy and mechanistic chemistry, but retains Metzger's insistence on alchemical vitalism and the common (but largely anachronistic) belief that alchemy was intrinsically "spiritual" in distinction from chemistry. It remains to be demonstrated from the historical record however, that Newton himself differentiated in a modern sense between alchemy and chemistry.9 Historio-

graphic presuppositions surface, for example, when Dobbs argues that Newton was the author of a crucial document known as the Clavis-a recipe for producing a Philosophical Mercury essential for making the Philosophers' Stone-because it is too precise and too quantitative to be the composition of a real "alchemist."'o The

implicit criterion here is that alchemy is characterized by a lack of

accuracy and clarity, the presence of which identifies chemistry. We now know this document to have been authored by Eirenaeus Philalethes, alias George Starkey, whom Dobbs calls the "last great philosophical alchemist of the seventeenth century.""1

Thus in all three of these cases, the seemingly separable categories of alchemy and chemistry remain fully intertwined, because the criteria of demarcation are untenable in the light of the historical record. These criteria are in most cases drawn from pre- sumptions about the nature and content of alchemy which (as we will elsewhere argue) arose largely out of ahistorical interpretations of alchemy advanced by nineteenth-century occultists and

twentieth-century partisans of analytical psychology (following Carl Gustav Jung). These interpretations identify a spiritual or

psychic dimension as the sine qua non of "true" alchemy, distin-

guishing it from more rational and purely physical chemistry.'2 But in spite of the fact that such suppositions are not well supported by the historical record, they are often accepted rather

9 Newman, review of Betty Jo Teeter Dobbs, The Janus Faces of Genius, in Isis 84 (1993), 578-9.

10 B. J. T. Dobbs, The Foundations of Newton's Alchemy, or The Hunting of the Greene Lyon (Cambridge, 1975), esp. 44, 176-77. For Starkey's authorship, see Newman, "Newton's Clavis as Starkey's Key," Isis 78 (1987), 564-74.

11 Dobbs, Foundations, 52. 12 See our forthcoming paper on the historiography of alchemy in Archimedes.


uncritically as starting points for historical investigations, and become liable not only to the charge of being presentist, but also to that of being elastic and circular. In the first case, one or another

person, thing, or text might be denominated as "alchemical" or as "chemical" on the basis of the advantage accruing from such a la- bel to a given historiographic programme. In the second, if one defines alchemy as a non-quantitative, vitalistic, or vaguely "non- scientific" endeavor, and then differentiates source materials into alchemy or chemistry using these criteria, the findings will of course reconfirm the definition and all that accompanies it. A recent example is Marco Beretta's 1994 Enlightenment of Matter, where the author (adopting both a radically Jungian approach and Metzger's division of alchemy and chemistry) utterly and

scornfully rejects any scientific or experimental content to al-

chemy, and then "proves" his point by picking on remarkably obscure (even by alchemical standards) and uninfluential authors, while ignoring the more widely-followed authors like "Geber," Philalethes, Basilius Valentinus, and others who would have invali- dated his argument.13

13 Marco Beretta, The Enlightenment of Matter: The Definition of Chemistry from Agricola to Lavoisier, (Canton, MA, 1993), see 77, 329-362. While Beretta rightly criticizes the reductionist errors of positivist approaches to alchemy, his own por- trayal of alchemy is little more than a parody. He takes Enlightenment polemic at face value, confounds different traditions within alchemy, and makes no distinction among symbols (as abbreviations), emblems, allegories, and metaphors, cat- egorizing them as "chemical" or "alchemical" according to preconceived notions of the division between alchemy and chemistry. Perhaps more gravely, he shows little understanding of the sources. For example, in treating Becher's 1689 Tripus hermeticus fatidicus (which he seems to think a single work rather than three diverse treatises) he reproduces an engraving of "alchemical and chemical apparatus" (how do we decide which is which?). There he calls the ovum philosophicum "a furnace to engender the transmutation of metals" when it is really (and is de- picted as) a glass vessel for digestions; then, apparently to heap scorn upon alchemical pretensions, he cites "a set of needles that were thought to be capable of detecting the presence of silver and gold," implying a magical operation (346- 7). But Becher himself describes these needles as "acus probatoria," that is, the standard alloys used for assaying with a touchstone (a streak is made on the stone with the sample, and its color compared with streaks made by the standards.) While Beretta makes much of the metallurgical tradition throughout his book, he does not seem to recognize its common implements. It may be wise to postpone judgments on experimental content until one learns to recognize it accurately. Similarly, when Biringuccio gives woodcuts of implements, Beretta cites them as related to metallurgical chemistry as opposed to alchemy (83), but when Becher shows the implements to be used with his ingenious "portable furnace," Beretta labels them as alchemical. It is such inconsistency and the misguided historiography which informs it that we assail.


An attempt to deal explicitly with the issue of the demarcation between alchemy and chemistry has been made by Dietlinde Goltz. She begins by positing three distinguishing criteria for al-

chemy-a peculiar language of secrecy, the goal of the transmutation of metals, and the drawing of correspondences with "extrin- sic" subjects such as theology and cosmogony. She concludes, however, that the real distinction between alchemy and chemistry is that the former is a "philosophy of matter" (Philosophie von den

Stoffen) and the latter a "science of matter" (Wissenschaft von den

Stoffen). Regardless of the validity of this new dichotomy, it merely "passes the buck," for now the problem is how to distinguish philosophy from science, a pair of words used by Goltz, perhaps un-

wittingly, in a fully nineteenth-century sense. The inadequacy of Goltz's distinction is further underscored by the fact that it leads her to the absurd conclusion that the medieval "Geber," presumably because he was insufficiently "philosophical," was not an alchemist, but a chemist.14 And yet "Geber" was the author of perhaps the most influential alchemical treatise of the Latin Middle

Ages: even in the seventeenth century he was referred to as the "master of the alchemists."'5 Thus, we are still left with the al-

chemy-chemistry conundrum unsolved.

Any legitimate division between alchemy and chemistry must be drawn from the primary source materials, but this endeavor, we believe, will prove unhelpful and perhaps impossible. Yet the very existence and use of the two words "alchemy" and "chemistry"-in use both in the early modern period and today-seems to foster the belief that a real division is possible. It is in large part the existence of the two terms which gives rise to the historiographical errors outlined above, for they all involve a transferral of our con-

temporary distinction of usage backwards to the early modern period. But when, how, and why did our familiar, contemporary distinction of usage arise? In the balance of this paper we will exam-

14 Goltz argues that "Alchemie ist unabdingbar mit irgendeiner Art von Weltanschauung verknuepft und stellt eine Naturphilosophie dar." When she fails to find the Weltanschauung of the alchemists in the highly mineralogical work of "Geber," Goltz concludes that he writes in a fashion that is "nicht alche- mistisch." See Dietlinde Goltz, "Versuch einer Grenzziehung zwischen Chemie und Alchemie," in Sudhoffs Archiv 52 (1968), 30-47; cf. 34, 39-40. For Geber, see Newman, The Summa perfectionis of pseudo-Geber (Leiden, 1991).

15 Kenelm Digby, Two Treatises: In the One of Which, the Nature of Bodies; in the Other, the Nature of Mans Soule, is looked into (London, 1645), 425.


ine the origins and changing referents of these two words in order to explore how the historical characters themselves actually viewed the words and the practices attached to them.

II. The Sundering of the Terms Alchemy and Chemistry

Before the end of the seventeenth century, the words "alchemy" and "chemistry" (and their cognates in Western languages) were used largely interchangeably; the restriction of alchemy specifically to gold-making is a late development.'6 We can find plenty of

seventeenth-century texts on gold-making entitled as "chemistry"; for example, Michael Sendivogius' 1604 New Light of Chemistry (Novum lumen chymicum) or the collections of treatises on transmutation published as Theatra chemica, or "Theatres of Chemis-

try." Conversely, Andreas Libavius' massive 1597 tome entitled

simply Alchemia contains virtually nothing about goldmaking, but instead details straightforward laboratory operations like distilla- tion, crystallization, and assaying and the production of chemical

products such as salts, alums, mineral acids, and pharmaceuticals. This synonymity of the terms "alchemy" and "chemistry" has

been remarked upon by several historians, most notably Robert Halleux. The Greek term chemeia or chymeia, probably derived from the word for smelting metals (cheein), had encompassed a va-

riety of metallurgical and chemical techniques by the time it was

appropriated by the Arabs in the early Middle Ages.17 Arabic-

speaking authors of course added the definite article al to the trans- literated noun kimiya', to arrive at al-kimiya', the linguistic progeni- tor of the Latin akhymia and its orthographic variants such as alchemia and alchimia. Humanist attempts, for example by Geor-

gius Agricola, to "purify" the term had only sporadic acceptance, and as a result, we see variants of both alchemia and chemia used in both Latin and the vernaculars, sometimes by the same author in the same text, but only rarely with any distinction of meaning.'8 In the few places where a discrimination is made, it is not the one modern readers would make between alchemy and chemistry, as

16 The connection of alchemy to "spirituality" occurred much later; see our paper forthcoming in Archimedes.

17 Robert Halleux, Les textes alchimiques (Turnhout, 1979), 47; See also Newman, GehennicalFire, xi-xiv, 85-87.

18 Rocke, "Agricola, Paracelsus, and Chymia," 38-45. On Boyle's indiscrimi- nate use of the words see Principe, The Aspiring Adept, 30-31.


we shall see in the case of Andreas Libavius.19 This fact rules out

completely any attempt to divide alchemy from chemistry based upon the terminology found in sources before the end of the seventeenth century.

By the third decade of the eighteenth century, however, we find the term "alchemy" being applied almost exclusively to topics related to metallic transmutation, whereas "chemistry" was increas-

ingly being defined as the art of analysis and synthesis; thus, by that time "alchemy" and "chemistry" had acquired nearly their modern meanings.20 Halleux notes the bitter attack made on al-

chemy (qua metallic transmutation) by Bernard Le Bovier de Fon- tenelle in the 1722 Histoire de l'academie royale des sciences.21

Fontenelle, writing a brief introduction to Etienne-Francois

Geoffroy's Des supercheries concernant la pierre philosophale, clearly as- sumes that all alchimistes are frauds, and states that the art of

alchemy has never made even a grain of imperfect metal, much less gold.22 Although Fontenelle says nothing about the parallel term chimie here, his contemporary Georg Ernst Stahl (1660-1734) makes a clear distinction between Chymie and Alchymie, reserving the latter term for the practice of "gold-making" in his Bedencken von der Gold-Macherey of 1723.23 Contemporaneously, Hermann

19 See also, for example, Jean-Marc Mandosio, "La place de l'alchimie dans les classifications des arts et des sciences 'a la Renaissance," Chrysopoeia 4 (1990- 91), 199-282. Mandosio finds only a single example of a distinction made between alchemy and chemistry in the Renaissance, and that relates alchimia to the purifi- cation of metals and chymia to the "extraction of juices and liquors," (199, n. 2, and 257). This distinction, we expect, arises from the carry-over of the medieval alchimia (which was largely mineralogical) plus the "re-derivation" of chymia from the Greek chymos, or juice.

20 Importantly, however, the fit is still not exact, for "chemistry" in the early eighteenth century tends to mean exclusively medical chemistry, the descendant of chemiatria. This usage is still evident in Britain, where the popular sense of "chemist" remains that of "pharmacist." For the negative effects that this pro- crustean view of chemistry had on the discipline in the eighteenth century, see Christoph Meinel, "Artibus Academicis Inserenda: Chemistry's Place in Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Century Universities," History of Universities 7 (1988), 89-115.

21 Memoires de l'acad&mie royale des sciences, annie MDCCXXII., 1:68-72. 22 E. F. Geoffroy l'aine, "Des supercheries concernant la pierre philoso-

phale," Memoires de l'academie royale des sciences, 1 (1722; Paris ed. of 1778), 372-388. For Fontenelle, cf. 69: "L'art n'a jamais fait un grain d'aucun des metaux imparfaits, qui selon les Alchimistes sont de l'or que la nature a manque, il n'a seulementjamais fait un caillou." Cf. Halleux, Les textes alchimiques, 48.

23 Georg Ernst Stahl, Bedencken von der Gold-Macherey, in J. J. Becher, Clymischer


Boerhaave (1668-1738) states that chemistry may be applied towards alchemy as if alchemy were a subset of, or even external to, chemistry. Boerhaave defines alchemy specifically as "an art, which teaches means unknown to common chemists, whereby to make gold."24 Unlike Fontenelle, who rejects transmutation, Stahl and Boerhaave still make the unequivocal divorce of alchemy from chemistry despite their continuing belief in the possibility of the transmutation of base metals into gold as late as the 1720s.25 This strict use of the term alchemy to mean the attempted transmutation of metals was later given very wide dispersion by the entry for Chymie in the volume of Diderot's Encyclopidie that appeared in 1753. The author, Venel, defines alchimie as "the art of transmuting metals," in contradistinction to chimie, the science "which concerns separations and unifications of the principles making up bodies."26

Gliickshafen (Leipzig, 1755), sigs. blv-2: "Die recht gruendlich vorzunehmende Untersuchung solcherley Dinge, hat fast nunmehro, obschon eben nicht von so gar langen Jahren, den Nahmen der Chymie behauptet: Die andere aber, nicht allein verwirrende, sondern an unzaehligen Exempeln vergeblich, ja verderbliche, Bemuehung, behaelt meistenteils den Nahmen der Alchymie. Um- sonst waere es, von dem blossen Wort und Nahm-Kuenstlern anzuhoeren, dass die Nahme Chymie und Alchymie gantz einerley achten sey. Dann gleichwie die blosse Nahmen, nicht allein zur Bedeutung dessen, was man darunter verstehen will; sondern zu noethiger Unterscheidung, gemeynet ist: Also soll auch billig in diesem stueck es dazu dienen, dass man durch die Alchymie-Benennung hauptsaechlich, nicht allein die am meisten verwirrete, sondern auch groesten- theils unerfindliche und vergebliche Unternehmen, kurtz zu sagen, die Gold- Macherey, und was denen anhaengig ist, nach dem allgemeinesten Lauf, und gewiss unzaehligen Exempeln solcher Unterwindungen, verstehen koenne, wolle und solle. Hingegen durch die Nahmen der Chymie, vernuenftige, wohlbedaech- liche, wohl verstandene, und zu gruendlicher Erkaenntniss fuehrende, Unter- suchung und Bearbeitung."

24 Hermann Boerhaave, A New Method of Chemistry, trans. by Peter Shaw, (Lon- don, 1727), 215-8, see also 42-8. The validity of this translation as a legitimate in- dication of Boerhaave's views is denied by James P. Scopa, "Boerhaave on Al- chemy," Synthesis 4(4) (1979), 24-37; nonetheless, we are interested here not so much in the specific views of Boerhaave himself, but rather in the linguistic us- ages of the 1720s.

25 Stahl, Philosophical Principles of Universal Chemistry, trans. by Peter Shaw, (London, 1730), 393-424; Hermann Kopp, Die Alchemie in dlterer und neuerer Zeit (Heidelberg, 1886), part 1, gives a good description of Stahl's evolving beliefs on 69-75. On Boerhaave, see G. A Lindeboom, Herman Boerhaave: The Man and His Work (London, 1968), 348-52.

26 Encyclopedie ou Dictionnaire Raisonne des Sciences des Arts et des Metiers. Nouvelle impression en facsimile de la premiere edition de 1751-1780, vol. 3 (Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt, 1966): (425A) "Quant l'art de transmuer les metaux, ou a l'Alchimie...," (417A) "La Chimie est une science qui s'occupe des separations & des unions des principes constituans des corps...."


Thus the history of chemistry presents us with a rather peculiar case. This linguistic development is not merely an example of the

impermanence or incommensurability of terms well-recognized by historians and philosophers, namely, that words change their

meanings and referents over time and particularly over changes in theoretical systems-e.g., the physics of the late Middle Ages is not the physics of the late 1990s. Here instead, there existed a set of referents which was for a long time equally well denominated

by two synonymous terms-"alchemy" and "chemistry"; at a given point in time that set of referents was divided, segregating out a certain class of members to which the term "alchemy" was then as-

signed, and its former synonym "chemistry" applied to the re- mainder. Synonyms became non-synonymous.

Two issues need to be settled here, the first purely historical, and the second programmatic. First, we need to know how and

why it happened that the once-synonymous terms "alchemy" and

"chemistry" were sundered. Second, once that issue is resolved, we need to suggest measures to be adopted by historians so that the long-lived historiographical mistake of assuming a division between alchemy and chemistry can be avoided in the future. As be- fits a paper devoted largely to etymology, the measures we suggest are largely terminological.

We will present some of our terminological conclusions now so that they may be adopted for the balance of this paper. First, since all the topics we today associate under the two terms "alchemy" and "chemistry" were indiscriminately classed under either term

by early modern writers, we advocate the use of the archaically- spelt chymistry to express inclusively the undifferentiated domain. This usage will help evade the potential arbitrariness and conse-

quent misunderstandings evoked when the terms "alchemy" and

"chemistry" are used casually in reference to activities between the time of the Reformation and the end of the seventeenth century. (The term "chymistry" need not be employed in cases before the sixteenth century, since the Latin chemia/chymia/chimia appears rarely before that time, and there was no issue of Paracelsianism. For the Middle Ages, then, "alchemy" remains a perfectly appro- priate term.) For greater precision, we advocate the revived use of now obsolete terms which originally described specific subsets within chymistry. The transmutation of metals-now fairly univer-

sally classed merely as "alchemy"-was originally termed chrysopoeia from the Greek chryson poiein, to make gold, and occasionally


coupled with the less common (and less profitable) argyropoeia, the making of silver. Two words expressed the specifically medical domain of chymistry-iatrochemia and chemiatria-both hybrids with the Greek iatros (physician).27

Having set down the terminology we should employ, let us now

investigate the historical differentiation of alchemy and chemistry. It is tempting, given the authority -ofTontenelle and the encyclopidistes, to argue that the modern distinction between "alchemy" and "chemistry," with its restriction of the former term to the

meaning "transmutation of metals," was a product of the Enlight- enment. One could even sandwich Stahl into this viewpoint, for Venel was highly influenced by his mature writings, as were other

philosophes, such as Baron d'Holbach.28 But such an argument, despite its allure, would be mistaken. In fact, the modern distinction between alchemy and chemistry does not find its origin in the refined scepticism of a Fontenelle or a Geoffroy: it derives instead from an etymological error made by seventeenth-century writers of lexica and textbooks. Just as uncertain translations and the

philological zeal of humanists saddled us with the two words "al-

chemy" and "chemistry," the etymological "learned accoutre- ments" of early modern pedagogy laid the foundations for our

historiographical mistake.

Many chymical writers include an etymological excursus in their texts, and the variety of spurious etymologies found therein is as-

tounding. A common source of confusion is the initial al of "al-

chemy." One common explanation traces it to the Greek hals, or salt, and authors who do so naturally emphasize the role of salts in their practice.29 Even when al is rightly recognized as Arabic, the

27 On the two words see Wolfgang Schneider, "Chemiatry and latrochemis- try," 141-50 in Science, Medicine, and Society in the Renaissance, ed. Allen G. Debus, (New York, 1972).

28 Venel's entry pays prominent laud to Stahl, as on p. 436B, where he refers to the German's "Genie vaste." On 434B, Venel cites Stahl's Specimen Becherianum as "le code de la Chimie, I'Euclide des Chimistes, &c." Venel also knew Stahl's mature critique of transmutational alchemy, for he refers on 434A to Stahl's criticism of Glauber's experiments for having been distorted by "la manie des les diriger aux vues chimeriques de l'Alchimie ..." For d'Holbach's use of Stahl, see Thomas L. Hankins, Science and the Enlightenment (Cambridge, 1985), 95.

29 For example, Johann Chrysippus Fanianus, De arte metallicae metamorphoseos (written 1559), in Theatrum chemicum, ed. Lazarus Zetzner, 6 vols., (Strasbourg, 165961; reprint ed., Turin: Bottega d'Erasmo, 1981), 1:30-47, on 33, 44-45; Gaston DuClo (Claveus), De ratione progignendi lapidis philosophici (written early 1590s), in


results are sometimes fanciful. The author of Instructio de arbore solari, for example, claims that alchymia is simply the Arabic word for fire.30 Johann Joachim Becher claims that al is Arabic for gold, which added to the Greek chymos (juice) denotes "gold juice," a chief interest of the subject.31 But amid this welter of amusing etymologies, one trail of descent is prominent-the recognition of al as the Arabic definite article, but coupled with a misunder-

standing of its grammatical purpose. This error was enshrined in the "chymical textbooks" and thus very widely disseminated, and

plays an important role in the eventual divorce between alchemy and chemistry.

It has been widely known since at least the 1920s that an important tradition of chymical textbooks originated in France around the beginning of the seventeenth century. H61ene Metzger identi- fied the principal authors in this tradition as Jean Beguin, William Davidson or Davisson, Etienne de Clave, E. R. Arnaud, Annibal Barlet, Nicaise Le Febvre, Christophle Glaser, Pierre Thibaut, and

Jean Malbec de Tresfel.32 In 1960, Andrew Kent and Owen

Hannaway expanded this list, arguing that substantial portions of

Beguin's work were borrowed from the 1597 Alchemia of Andreas Libavius.33 Alan Rocke, after clearly showing that the words "al-

chemy" and "chemistry" did not have distinct meanings in the sixteenth century, rightly points to the chymical textbooks as the be-

ginning of the distinction in the seventeenth century. Despite ap- pearances, however, a meaningful distinction between the two terms does not appear even in the textbooks until the very end of the century.34 The same view is already found implicitly in

Metzger's work. But no one has examined these chemical textbooks carefully in order to see exactly how the distinction between

Theatrum chemicum, 4:388-413, on 390; George Starkey, Pyrotechny Asserted (Lon- don, 1658), 4.

so Theatrum chemicum, 4:163-94, on 166. The anonymous work is probably early seventeenth century.

~1 Johann Joachim Becher, Chymischer Gliickshafen, (Frankfurt, 1682), 108. 32 Metzger, Doctrines chimiques, 30. 3 Andrew Kent and Owen Hannaway, "Some New Considerations on Beguin

and Libavius," Annals of Science 16 (1960), 241-250. 34 Rocke, "Agricola, Paracelsus, and Chymia." The words still did not have

their modern meanings at the time of Boyle. Having made a census of the words "alchemist" and "alchemy" in Boyle's writings, we find that although these words are used much less frequently than their more modern counterparts, we find no coherent and consistent discrimination whatsoever in their use; see Principe, As- piring Adept, 30-31.


alchemy and chemistry was made. Such an examination will reveal that the textbook writers did not begin consciously to divide al-

chemy from chemistry until the last quarter of the seventeenth

century, and when they did so, their decision was built on the bed- rock of error.

III. "Alchemy" and "Chemistry" in the Seventeenth Century

The Opening Scene: Libavius, Riolan, and Guibert

In order to appreciate the situation at the beginning of the seventeenth century, let us first consider three authors, all of whom, in

spite of their wide differences of opinion about the value of

chymistry, still assert the synonymity of the words "alchemy" and

"chemistry." Andreas Libavius, whose Alchemia we have already mentioned, defines "alchemy" as "the art of perfecting magister- ies, and of extracting pure essences from mixts by separating the

body" and considers it to contain two parts. The first part is encheria, which comprises manual operations such as the use of

apparatus and the regulation of the fire. The second part of alchemia is chemia, the preparation of chemical substances. Thus here chemistry is a subset of alchemy, exactly the opposite of the distinction Boerhaave would make over a century later. Clearly, Libavius' division makes no distinction akin to our own between

alchemy and chemistry. In fact, in later works Libavius reverts to a

synonymous use of the two terms.35 In his 1606 Response to the Madness of Libavius, Jean Riolan (1538-

1605), a physician of the medical faculty of Paris, assailed Libavius' condemnation of Galenic medicine and incidentally pointed out the multitude of topics encompassed under the rubric of "alchemy." He begins by asserting that "the homonym must first be divided, before it is defined ... otherwise the mind shall wander aimless, nor have any sure subject upon which to make a stand."36

35 Andreas Libavius, Alchemia, (Frankfurt a. M., 1597), sigs. B2v-B3, and 1-2, and 85; Commentariorum alchymiae, in Alchymia (Frankfurt a. M., 1606), 71-78; and

Syntagmatis arcanorum, (Frankfurt a. M., 1612), part 3, 1-8. 36 Jean Riolan, Ad Libavi maniam loan. Riolani responsio, (Paris, 1606), 6-7;

"Omne enim homonymum prii?s dividendum est, quam definiatur, aut propriae affectiones de illo demonstrentur; alioquin vagus oberrat animus, nec habet certum subiectum in quo subsistat."


Alchemy has two very different significations to which only the name is common, but the goal [ratio] plainly different. For what does alchemy the transmuter of metals into gold have in common with alchemy the dispenser of medicines save the name? Health is the aim of latter, the making of gold from the other metals the aim of the former. It is a homonym by happenstance [apo tas tuchls]; the name of alchemy is by chance imposed on both significations, as the name of "dog" is applied to a heavenly, a domes- tic, and a marine thing.37

Riolan claims that alchimia transmutatrix or chrysopoeia is vain and

cheating, and utterly refuted by "unconquered arguments." Alchimia medicatrix, or chemiatria is itself divided in two. The first

part is chymia medica, which explains diseases and cures in terms of

Mercury, Sulphur, and Salt, and of which Quercetanus (Joseph DuChesne) is a chief; Riolan condemns it as an "inane sect." The second part of alchimia medicatrix, the preparation of new rem- edies, may or may not be valid according to Riolan, but is at best

unnecessary, for the medicines of the Greek, Arab, and Latin phy- sicians are quite sufficient.38 Thus Riolan, while positing different

pursuits under the rubric of "alchemy," clearly states that there is no terminological distinction and that alchemy describes a range of quite different pursuits-in this case chrysopoeia, chemiatria, and pharmaceutical chemistry-homonymically, and "by happenstance."

A similar synonymous use of "alchemy" and "chemistry" may be found in the vitriolic works of Nicolas Guibert (1547-ca. 1620), whose Alchymia ratione et experientia impugnata was published in 1603. Guibert begins this work by saying that alchymia is neither art nor science, but low cunning (calliditas). On the next page he

speaks of attempts at transmutation as the "experience of

chymists" (Chymicarum experientia), and soon asserts that the

"chymists" (Chymistae) uphold metallic transmutation, the object of his wrath.39 In passing, Guibert made the mistake of denounc-

ing Libavius' belief in transmutation.40 The schoolmaster of Ro-

37 Riolan, Ad Libavi maniam responsio, 7: "Habet autem Alchymia duo sig- nificata tam differentia, ut utrique solum nomen sit commune, ratio plane differens. Quid enim habet commune Alchimia metallorum in aurum transmutatrix cum medicatrice praeter nomen? Huic sanitas est pro fine, illi auri ex caeteris metallis confectio; est homonymum apo tes tuches: Alchimiae enim nomen utrique significato temere impositum est, ut nomen canis sidereo, domestico, & marino." We thank Prof. Bruce Moran for this reference.

38 Ibid., 7-9. 39 Nicolas Guibert, Alchymia ratione et experientia ... impugnata (Strasbourg,

1603), 1-4. 40 Ibid., 55.


thenburg met this with a full scale assault in 1604, to which Guibert responded with his own De interitu alchymiae metallorum transmutatoriae of 1614.41 Interestingly, the Guibert of 1614 felt that he had to justify his use of the term alchymia for chrysopoeia:

He [Libavius] accuses me of temerity because I use the word alchymia for the knowledge of transmuting metals, as if I brought alchymia into too narrow a scope, for what concerns the transmutation of metals is but a little part of alchymia ... [But] those who busy themselves with the transmutation of metals are vulgarly called alchymistae, and alchymia is both properly and an- tonomastically used by virtually all alchemical writers as a predicate for that vanity which concerns the transmutation of metals.42

Ironically it is Libavius, a believer in transmutation, who is repri- manding the sceptic Guibert for restricting the scope of alchemy to chrysopoeia. Another peculiarity emerges from Guibert's language in 1614--he justifies his use of alchymia for chrysopoeia partly on the basis of the "vulgar"-possibly vernacular-use of the term. The major vernacular languages of Europe did, of course, all have versions of the word alchemy, derived from the medieval Arabo-Latin alchimia and its variants rather than the Greek chemeia or the purified later Latin chemia.43 And since chrysopoeia figured prominently in most medieval alchemical texts, it was only natural that gold-making should be a primary connotation of the vernacular forms derived from alchimia. But note that this does not explain how chemeia and its derivatives came to mean some-

thing other than chrysopoeia, since the Greek term chemeia originally had the transmutation of metals as its primary sense as well. Had Guibert himself come to view "chemistry" as something other than "alchemy" by 1614? The answer is clearly no, for on the fol-

41 Lynn Thorndike, History of Magic and Experimental Science, 8 vols. (New York, 1941), 6:245.

42 Guibert, De interitu alchymiae metallorum transmutatoriae, (Toul, 1614), 77-78: Ibi enim conviciandi temeritate accusat me quod vocem Alchymiae usurpem de transmutatoria metallorum scientia, quasi Alchymiam ad nimias angustias revocem: ut quae versatur circa metallorum transmutationem, vix aliqua sit Alchy- miae particula... Nam & vulgo Alchymistae dicuntur ij duntaxat, qui circa metallorum transmutationem versantur, & Alchymia Antonomastice & proprie apud om- nes fere Alchymiae scriptores praedicatur de ea vanitate quae circa metallificium versatur.

43 Vernacular variants of the Latin alchimia are well-attested in German, Ital- ian, French, and English, by the fourteenth century. See Deutsches Woerterbuch von Jacob Grimm und Wilhelm Grimm (Leipzig, 1988), Gran dizionario della lingua italiana (Turin, s.d.), Emile Littre, Dictionnaire de la languefrancaise (Paris, 1956), and The Oxford English Dictionary (Oxford, 1989), all sub voce.


lowing pages of his De interitu Guibert describes transmutational

language as a phrasis Chymica, refers to a transmuter as a Chymista, and sarcastically excuses himself for not speaking chymice.44 It is clear that with Guibert we are still in the realm of synonyms, de-

spite his mention of the vernacular or vulgar usage. The first decade of the seventeenth century therefore provides no evidence of a distinction between "alchemy" and "chemistry." In order to find the etymological error alluded to in our title, we must turn to a

lexicographer of the 1610s.

Martin Ruland

Martin Ruland the younger (1569-1611) seems to have completed his Lexicon alchemiae by 1607, but it did not appear until 1612.45 The Lexicon provides clear evidence for the synonymous use of alchemia and chemia, and yet we shall see that Ruland was one source of the linguistic error that facilitated their later separation. Ruland's Lexicon includes entries for alchimia, chemia, and (curi- ously) chymia. Alchimia is defined simply as the "separation of the

impure from a purer substance," with no reference whatsoever made to transmutation.46 Under chemia Ruland provides a lengthier entry which asserts the synonymity of this term with alchimia, but adds the following important remarks:

Some of those skilled in languages say that Chemia is and means a fusing and pouring art, an art of separation, and that Ali [presumably a misprint for Al] is an emphatic and completive particle: just as the word Manach means "counting," so one says Almanach, in which the whole year and all the days are counted.47

Although Ruland writes both chemia and alchemia completely in-

discriminately in this entry, his peculiar remarks about the power of the Arabic "ali," or rather al, are of the highest significance. His comments about the word almanac show that he thinks that the Arabic definite article at has the power of intensifying a word's

44 Guibert, De interitu, 80-81.

45 Martin Ruland, Lexicon alchemiae, (Frankfurt, 1612; reprint ed. Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlag, 1964): the book bears an Imperial privilege dated "Prague, 1607."

46 Ruland, Lexicon, 26: "Alchimia est impuri separatio a substantia puriore." 47 Ibid., 145: "Etliche der Sprachkuendig sagen/ Chemia sey unnd heisse ein

schmeltz und giesse Kunst/ ein scheidkunst/ und das Ali, sey ein particula emphatica & completiva gleich/ wie das Wort Manach heisset zehlen/ so spricht man Almanach/ darinn das gantze Jahr/ und alle Tag gezehlet/ und viel anders mehr gerechnet wirdt."


meaning. Ruland develops this notion further in his entry for

chymia. He starts by saying that chymia takes its origin from the Greek "chy6" (or ched), "to melt," which in turn is the source of

chymos, or 'juice." Hence the primitive meaning of chymia is "mak-

ing juice or resolving solids into juice."48 Then Ruland elaborates his earlier comments on the Arabic definite article.

...the Arabs, signifying the preeminence of it with their article Al, ... give it the cognomen Alchymia.49

Two things are immediately worthy of note in Ruland's treatment of alchymia. First, he is quite wrong in saying that Arabic writers intended to "dignify" the noun kimiyd' by adding the definite article to it. Al-kimiyd' is simply the normal form in which the noun is found in Arabic texts: the definite article has little more significance there than it would have, for example, in modern French, where one customarily refers to chemistry as la chimie.50 It is not at all clear where Ruland got his mistaken interpretation of the al, for even the Arabic grammar-books and lexica at his disposal do not err on this point.51 Ruland finishes by calling chymia the

"physical art of separating the pure from the impure for the mak-

ing of medicines capable of both healing human bodies, and lead-

48 Ibid., 149: "Chymia ars succum faciens, seu res solidas in succum resol- vens."

49 Ibid., "Arabes praestantiam eius notantes articulum Al, atque illam Alchy- miam ... cognominarunt."

50 We owe confirmation of this point to oral communications from Professors Wolfhart Heinrichs, A. I. Sabra, Gerald Toomer, and Salman Al-Ani. Nor does Maneh Hammad Al-Johani, English and Arabic Articles: A Contrastive Analysis in

Definiteness and Indefiniteness, (Ph. D. diss, Indiana University, 1982) attest to this use, although he gives a comprehensive treatment of the uses of the Arabic definite article on 210-41. It is true, as Edward Lane points out in his Arabic-English Lexicon (Edinburgh, 1863), Book I, Part I, 74, that al can be used to "denote pre- dominance of application," as when al-madina, "the city," is used to mean "the city of the Apostle," or al-kitab, "the book," is used to mean "the book of the Seebahweyh," but this is clearly not what the Arabs had in mind with al-kimiyd'. In the former cases the al is used to single out one city or one book among many: in the latter, since there is only one kimiya ', it is used simply as a normal definite article.

51 For example the Grammatica Arabica (s.d., s.l.) of Guillaume Postel (sig. D vir) reads: "Eliph itaque est nota, quum servit, aut articuli per se, vel cum lam, aut primae personae singul. num. futuri temporis, vel imperativi, vel ordinis aut formae verbi, pluralis numerae post vau, dualis ante nun in futuro, aut sine ipso in preterito, que in verbis patebunt. Est in nominibus signum pluralis numeri, in medio vel fine, praeterea, interrogandi signum comparationisque, & vocandi ac numeri adverbium. Ut semel finiam rara est sine alicuius eliph officio apud Arabes dictio in sententia collocata." It is possible that the error comes from


ing metallic bodies to the highest perfection," thus clearly com-

bining both chemiatria and chrysopoeia under the single catch-all of chymistry.52 Despite the "dignifying power" of the al, which supposedly raises the status of the art as a whole, alchemia and chemia are still the same discipline to Ruland.

Jean Beguin and the Textbook Tradition

Let us now turn to the French textbook tradition and its depend- encies, which Metzger says to have begun with Jean Beguin, an op- ponent of chrysopoeia in her view.53 Beguin's Tyrocinium chymicum of 1612, the most influential and popular chymical textbook published in the first half of the seventeenth century, uses both alchemy and chemistry to refer to the same discipline.54 He does, however, try to explain why authors use both terms (along with oth-

ers) to describe the same disciplinary domain. In entering into this terminological exercise, Beguin may well have relied on the Lexicon of Ruland.55 Let us quote Beguin in extenso.

The word chymia is Greek: to the Latins it means the same thing as "art making liquor," or "dissolving solid things into liquor." Thus it is said that chymia teaches par excellence to dissolve (which is more difficult) and to coagulate. If anyone should call it alchymia, he denotes the excellency of it, in the man-

Ruland the elder (1532-1602) who published some grammatical and lexigraphical works.

52 Ruland, Lexicon, 149: "ars physica separandi purum ab impuro ad conficien- dum medicamenta tam corporibus humanis persanandis, quam metallicis ad sum- mum perfectionem perducendis, accommodata."

53 Metzger, Doctrines chimiques, 36-37.

54 For an exhaustive bibliographical study of Beguin, see T. S. Patterson, '"Jean Beguin and his Tyrocinium chymicum," in Annals of Science 2 (1937), 243- 298. Beguin's Tyrocinium chymicum also exists in a pirated 1610 version, but given the lack of editorial control that the author exercised over the 1610 version, it seems better to rely on his 1612 Paris edition, whose printing he supervised.

5 We have not ruled out a common source, but the evidence for Ruland's chronological priority is as follows. First, Ruland seems to have completed his Lexicon alchemiae by 1607, to judge by the dated Imperial privilege. Second, the 1612 edition of the Lexicon contains Ruland's dedicatory letter dated "Prague, 20 April, 1611," which provides further evidence that the book had gone to press before the appearance of Beguin's 1612 Tyrocinium chymicum, by which time, moreover, Ruland was already dead. Third, Beguin's pirated 1610 Tyrocinium chymicum lacks the spurious explanation of the Arabic al, showing that it must have been added between 1610 and 1612. Fourth, when the spurious explanation of al does appear in Beguin, its inclusion is brief and without explanation, unlike Ruland's Lexicon where a lengthier explanation with illustrative examples is provided.

Let us here reproduce the definition of chymistry that Beguin gives in the pirated version ([Jean Beguin], Tyrocinium chymicum (s.l., 1610), Aiir): "Alchymia


ner of the Arabs. If he should call it spagyria, he denotes its principal operations, namely synkrisis and diakrisis. If he should call it the Hermetic art, he refers to its inventor and its antiquity. If he should call it the distillatory art, he refers to its most excellent and easily its principal function.56

The point of Beguin's excursus is that the terms chymia, alchymia, spagyria, Hermetic art, and distillatory art all refer to the same dis-

cipline, but are used to highlight different perspectives upon it. Thus chymia points to the power of the art to induce dissolution or fusion, while spagyria refers to its ability to analyze and synthe- size. Hermetic art is simply an eponymous term intended to convey antiquity, and distillatory art can stand for the whole discipline by way of synecdoche. As for alchymia, this means the same thing as

chymia, but is merely "dignified" with the definite article al "in the manner of the Arabs." This is the same erroneous notion we en- countered in Ruland's Lexicon.

There is nothing in the rest of Beguin's text to support a claim that he distinguished alchemy from chemistry as distinct disci-

plines. To the contrary, Beguin goes on to complain that those who imagine only a transmuter of metals when they hear the word "alchemist" (alchymista) are hallucinating, since the art contains not only "the marvelous mystery of the philosophers' stone," but all the pursuits alluded to by the terms with which Beguin initially defined the discipline.57 It is important also to recognize that, pace Metzger, Beguin was not opposed to metallic transmutation; not

only do several editions of the Tyrocinium chymicum contain letters

by Beguin describing his chrysopoetic attempts, but Beguin even

est ars quae purum ab impuro separare docet. Vel ars perficiendi magisteria, & essentias puras e mistis corporibus segregandi. Alchymiae duae sunt species, Altera quae Pyrotechnia sive igniaria ars resolutoria, purificatoria & transmutatoria metallorum, quam hic silentio praetermitto. Alia quae spiritus subtilissimos ex metallis, gemmis, plantisque educit: quo subtiliora, eo puriora, quo puriora, eo efficaciora remedia praebens: metalla depurat, segregat, perficit, aurum indu- ratissimum dissolvit, metalla per infirmitatem vegetabilium vexat, tincturas subiectis disiungit, finitam naturam exaltat in infinitum, lapides conflat, aquam elicit, ignem vegetat, & in igne vegetato ac quasi perennato specimen edit artis & efficacitatis suae in humana vita proroganda."

56 Jean Beguin, Tyrocinium chymicum recognitum et auctum (Paris: Matheus le Maistre, 1612), 1-2: "Chymiae vocabulum Graecum est: Latinis idem, quod ars liquorem faciens: aut res solidas in liquorem solvens: dicta ita kat' exochen, quod Chymia solvere (id quod difficilius) & coagulare doceat. Alchymiam si quis nun- cuparit; Arabum more praestantiam eius: si Spagyriam; praecipua officia, synkrisin nempe & diakrisin: si artem Hermeticam; autorem & antiquitatem; si Destilla- toriam; functionem eius praeclaram & facile principem insinuet."

57 Beguin, Tyrocinium (1612), 3: "Unde apparet: quam graviter illi halluci-


edited the Novum lumen chemicum of Michael Sendivogius, a work of pronounced transmutational import.58

The erroneous comments about the "dignifying" Arabic al made by Ruland and Beguin, though innocuous in themselves, were to have an astonishing influence. They were repeated in var- ied form by almost all of the French chemical textbook writers and, as we shall see, formed the humble basis upon which the

eighteenth century erected its "purified" chemistry. In the follow-

ing we shall trace the fate of the Arabic definite article through the seventeenth century, in order to show how its altered meaning ultimately allowed for the partitioning of chymistry.

E. R. Arnaud

Let us pass now to E. R. Arnaud, who published his Introduction a' la chymie in 1650, and about whom very little is known. The text

depends on Beguin for its etymology of alchymie and for much else besides. Arnaud, presenting this etymology, says

The Arabs, in order to express its excellence better, have added the emphatic article al to its name, which is equivalent to the Greek article ho, he, to, and they have called it alchemy.59

Oddly, although Arnaud realizes the equivalence of al with the Greek definite article, he still reiterates Beguin's statement that the Arabs added it for the sake of magnifying its importance.

Arnaud is more interesting in his discussion of the types of

chymistry. He views chymistry as itself forming a genus whose most

general species are chymie universelle and chymie particuliere. Univer- sal chymistry concerns itself with the production of a universal medicine, the Elixir or Philosophers' Stone, that "can consume

indifferently all the impurities of bodies without damaging their

nentur: qui audito Alchymistae nomine, statim sibi hominem imaginantur, qui ni- hil tractet aliud, quam metallorum metamorph6seis, nihilque meditetur, quam mi- rabile lapidis Philosophici myst'rion."

58 [Michael Sendivogius,] Novum lumen chymicum (Paris, 1608): aiir-[aiiiv] con- sist of a laudatory letter by Beguin, in which he says of Sendivogius that "nec ullum hactenus Philosophorum clarius & brevius de artis & naturae potestate scripsisse iudicarem." See also Patterson, '"Jean Beguin," 245-247, 296.

59E. R. Arnaud, Introduction & la chymie, oi' le lecteur treuvera la definition de

toutes les Opirations de la Chymie, (Lyon, 1655), 4: "Les Arabes, pour exprimer mieux quelle est son excellence, ont adioust• a son nom cet article Emphatique, Al, qui est equivalent i l'article Grec ho, h?, to, & ils l'ont appellee, Alchimie...."


substance in any way."60 Particular chymistry itself contains two subsets. The first of these includes chrysopoeia and argyropoeia, which Arnaud views unproblematically as the transmutation of base metals into gold and silver. The other species within chymie particuliere is chymiatria essata, or iatrochemistry, which teaches how to extract the medically valuable essences of things. Although Arnaud treats only chymiatria essata in his textbook, this is not for lack of belief in chrysopoeia. The latter, he says, can be proven by "very strong and convincing reasons, and by irrefrangible exam-

ples."61

Werner Rolfinck

A similar division of chymistry into species reappears in the Chimia in artisformam redacta (1661) of Werner Rolfinck (1599-1673), the first professor of chymistry at the University of Jena.62 Rolfinck's textbook, which borrows its title from a textbook written thirty years earlier by the Jena professor of medicine Zacharias Brendel (1592-1638), is pedantic and crammed with Greek and Arabic. Ac-

cordingly, he expends more space on etymology than any other textbook writer, and does not follow the error of Ruland and

Beguin, propagated by Arnaud, regarding the supposed "dignifying" power of the Arabic article. But his conclusion regarding ter-

minology is clear.

Truly there is no difference between chimia and alchimia. The same art is de- noted by both words. Nor are they on the right path who so distinguish alchimia and chimia from each other that the latter only pertains to the artifi- cial preparation of medicaments, while the former deals with the transmutation of metals. Both are names of the same thing, save that the former has the Arabic al prefixed, which is equivalent to the Greek article ho, he, to.63

60 Arnaud, Introduction, p. 9: "qui puisse consumer indifferamment toutes les impuretez du corps, sans blesser aucunement sa substance...."

61 Ibid., 10: "... par des raisons assez fortes, & assez convaincantes; & par des

exemples irrefragables...." 62 Fritz Chemnitius, Die Chemie in Jena von Rolfinck bis Knorr (Jena, 1929);

Chymia Jenensis: Chymisten, Chemisten, und Chemiker in Jena (Jena, 1989), 4-5. In

spite of Rolfinck's vehement opposition to metallic transmutation, two of his students, Gabriel Clauder (1633-1691) and Georg Wolfgang Wedel (1645-1721), became apologists for it.

63 Rolfinck, Chimia, 21: "Veruim inter chimiam & alchimiam nullum discri- men. Utroque vocabulo eadem ars denotatur. Neque etiam rectam insistunt viam, qui alchimiam & chimiam sic distinguunt, ut haec soluim in artificiosa medica- mentorum praeparatione, illa ver6 in metallorum transmutatione saltem occu- pata sit. Eadem est ejusdem rei appellatio, nisi quod altera praefixum habeat Arabicus Al aequipollens Graecorum articulo ho, hj, to."


Although Rolfinck elsewhere repeats Arnaud's classification scheme, unlike Arnaud, Rolfinck is an uncompromising foe of the

reality of the Philosophers' Stone and its reputed powers. Rolfinck first divides chymistry, like Arnaud, into universal and

particular; the former, which aims at using the Philosophers' Stone as a panacea, he asserts to be simply false because the Stone is a fiction. The latter, again like Arnaud, he divides into chimia metallica-which aims at transmutation and which he claims also to be false-and chimia medica or essata. Only this last has any real-

ity, and thus Rolfinck reduces chymistry to "a part of medicine

pertaining to pharmacy, and differing from it only in name."64

Rolfinck continues his attack on transmutation in the sixth

chapter of his textbook, a section which was later published separately as Non ens chimicum, mercurius metallorum et mineralium, a

catalogue of traditional desiderata like metallic Mercuries, the

Philosophers' Stone, and transmutation, which he lists as "non-en- tities." Rolfinck's dogmatism on this score evoked explicit refuta- tions from Johann Joachim Becher and Johann Kunckel, and several thinly-veiled attacks from Robert Boyle, all three of whom

supported the reality of these chrysopoetic items.65 In this section Rolfinck cites a warning commonly attributed to the sixteenth-

century Bernard Penotus to keep clear of the quest for transmutation.

Let whosoever has his own welfare at heart guard himself from this art that despoils wealth. Whosoever wishes anyone ill yet does not dare to approach him in open combat, let him at least advise his enemy to devote himself to this study."

Indeed, Rolfinck's complete rejection of transmutation goads him to quote a mocking definition of such pursuits:

"Alchemy," the Britannic Mercury writes briefly in his Mundus alter et idem, "is an art without art, knowledge of which is to mix part with part, the middle of which is strenuously to lie, and the end to go a-begging or to ascend to the gallows."67

64 Rolfinck, Chimia, 28; "medicinae potiibs esse videtur pars, ad Pharmakoitikin pertinens, & ab ea nomine solfim differens." The attrition of chymistry down to mere pharmacy by a method like Rolfinck's may shed light on the origins of the definition of "chemist" preserved in Britain, namely, a pharmacist.

65 Principe, Aspiring Adept, 54-56. 66 Rolfinck, Chimia, 436; "Caveat sibi ab hac opum depraedatrice arte, cui

salus sua cordi. Qui alicui male vult, eum autem aperto marte aggredi non audet, saltem autor ipsi sit, ut huic studio se tradat. Hoc Bernhardi Penoti ..."

67 Ibid., 26; "Alchimia, breviter Mercurius Britannicus in mundo altero &


This "Britannic Mercury" is the pseudonym used by Bishop Joseph Hall (1574-1656) in his satire Mundus alter et idem published in 1605. In his farcical account of travels through unknown lands south of Tierra del Fuego, he recounts that in a country populated entirely by fools and mountebanks, there are many who seek for the transmutation of metals. A marginal note contains this "definition" and attributes it to Libavius.68

The terminological problems which this paper addresses are thrown into high relief when we seek out Libavius' usage of the

phrase. It appears in Libavius' criticism of an anti-transmutational work by Thomas Moresinus (1558?-1603?) where Moresinus claims that "chymia is not a science [scientia]" but rather "a worn out bit of worthlessness which they dress up from time to time."69 Libavius of course assails Moresinus' censure, claiming it to be "little different from the witticism and sporting song which impos- ters have contrived and I recall reading somewhere: 'Alchymia is a science without art ..."',,70 Note how Moresinus' term chymia (by which he clearly means chrysopoeia) is freely equated with the

alchymia of the "sporting song." Interestingly, Libavius uses the verse again a few years later in quite a different way. For while Rolfinck uses it to assail chrysopoeia in favor of chemical medicine, Libavius used the same phrase originally for exactly the opposite purpose. In De igne naturae, Libavius defends himself against the charge of being a Paracelsian, and plays with etymologies of

spagyrus.

eodem, est ars sine arte, cujus scire est pars cum parte, medium strenue mentiri, finis mendicatum ire, vel in patibulo superbire." The Latin of the second verse is obscure, and may refer to mixing things blindly according to a recipe or debasing precious metals by alloying them with base metals as extenders.

68 Joseph Hall, Mundus alter et idem, (London, 1605), book 3, ch. 6, sect. 2: "Alchymia est ars sine arte/Cuius scire est pars cum parte/Medium est strenue mentiri/Finis mendicatum iri." The phrase about the gallows is Rolfinck's addi- tion.

69 Libavius, Singularium, (Frankfurt, 1599), 125-6; "Sed Moresinus iterum: Chymia non est scientia ... est obsoleta nequitia quam subinde interpolant." Libavius is quoting from Thomas Moresinus, Liber novus de metallorum causis et transsubstantiatione, (Frankfurt, 1593), 116 and 127.

70 Libavius, Singularium, 125-6; "Parum hoc abest a faceto illo & ludicro car- mine quod memini me in impostores fabrefactum alicubi legere: Alchymia est scientia sine arte/ Cuius scire est pars cum parte,/Medium est strenue mentiri,/ Finis mendicatum ire." We owe the discovery of the location of the verse in Liba- vius' interminable corpus to the expertise of Prof. Bruce Moran.


... the reader will note spagirus and spagyrus. The former is compounded of

span kai ageirein, that is, to dissolve and to coagulate, which are the two chief

operations in the magistery of the Stone. But the latter is a word of ill

omen-agyrm6 is akin to the mob and to lying, for agyrismos or agyrmos is out-

cry and lying, and spa6 is I attract, wherefore, Paracelsian alchymia is an art without art whose end is to go a-begging.71

Libavius recognizes the usual derivation of "spagirus" but fanci-

fully draws another for "spagyrus" from "I attract lying," and then uses this derivation to condemn Paracelsianism. Note that he ex-

plicitly distinguishes this latter from operations for making the

Philosophers' Stone. Thus we see that the same verse was em-

ployed to condemn different subjects able to be denominated at the time as either alchymia or chymia-metallic transmutation and chemical medicine. If this kind of confused usage was common-

place in the seventeenth-century, how much more careful must modern historians be when dealing with the period?

In spite of Rolfinck's violent words against transmutation, his

rigorous insistence on the identical meanings of "alchemy" and

"chemistry" demonstrates that he does not mean to divide the two terms, but rather only to assail chrysopoeia viewed as a part of the

larger discipline able to be denominated as either chimia or alchimia. It turns out that Rolfinck is, however, an important con- tributor to the eventual divorce of alchemy and chemistry by virtue of his influence on later text-book writers. This influence sit- uates Rolfinck firmly in the lineage of seventeenth-century textbook writers, although historians have largely omitted him by (perhaps parochially) concentrating on French writers.

71 Libavius, "De igne naturae," 33, in Syntagmatis Arcanorum, vol. 2, (Frankfurt, 1613). "Libavius non vult dici Spagyrus eo usu vocis, quo Ambaldus & alii improbi Paracelsici delectantur. Alias saniore sensu non negat extractoriam, &

coagulatoriam artem isto vocabulo comprehendi, de quo nos inferius. Notabit lec- tor Spagirus, & Spagyrus. Illud componunt ex span kai ageirein, quod est solvere, &

coagulare, quae duo sunt praecipua in magisterio lapidis: hoc mali ominis est. Nam agyrm6 turbae, & mendicitati cognatum, agyrismos enim aut agyrmos strepitus est, & mendicitas: spao, traho: iuxta illud: Paracelsica alchymia est ars sine arte, cuius

finis mendicatum ire." On Libavius see Bruce Moran, "Libavius the Paracelsian? Monstruous Novelities, Institutions, and the Norms of Social Virtue," in Reading the Book of Nature: The Other Side of the Scientific Revolution, ed. Allen G. Debus and Michael Walton, (Kirksville, MO, 1998); "Medicine, Alchemy, and the Control of Language: Andreas Libavius vs. the Neoparacelsians," in Paracelsus: The Man and His Reputation, His Ideas and Their Transformation, ed. Ole Peter Grell, forthcoming.


Nicaise Le Febvre

Returning to the other side of the Rhine, we encounter Nicaise Le Febvre (1610-1669), who was chemist at the Jardin du Roi in Paris before coming to London as Charles II's "Royal professor of chymistry and Apothecary in Ordinary." Le Febvre published his own Traicte de la Chymie in 1660, wherein he defines his subject in terms again reminiscent of Beguin and Ruland.

This science, like so many others, has received several names according to its diverse effects. The most ordinary is that of chymie, which draws its etymology, they say, from a Greek word meaning juice, humor, or liquor, because the reduction of the most solid bodies into liquor is learned by means of chemical operations. The name alchymie is also given to it, in imitation of the Arabs, who add the particle al, which signifies "God" and "great," when they want to express the excellence of something ... Of ... these names, we will use only chymie, it being the more common.72

Le Febvre's definition is remarkable only for its surprising linguistic naivete. Not content to rest with the earlier erroneous notion that al is a signification of excellence, Le Febvre proceeds tacitly to conflate the Arabic definite article with the Hebrew term for God, El or Al, often combined with a prefix or suffix in theopho- ric words.73 To Le Febvre, it seems, alchemy has acquired the status of divinity itself, and might well figure with Gabriel and the Elohim. Yet there is no distinction between alchemy and chemistry in Nicaise Le Febvre, a fact that is underscored by his confes- sion that he prefers the term chymie only because it is the more widely used.

Christophle Glaser

Among the French textbook writers, it is only with Le Febvre's successor at the Jardin du Roi, Christophle Glaser, that we encounter a genuine attempt to restrict the term "alchemy" to the

72 Nicaise Le Febvre, Traicte de la chymie, (Paris, 1660), 5-6; "Cette science, comme aussi beaucoup d'autres, a receu plusieurs noms selon ses divers effets. Le plus ordinaire, est celuy de Chymie, qui tire son 6tymologie,

' ce qu'on dit, d'un mot Grec, qui signifie suc, humeur ou liqueur; parce qu'on apprend a r6duire en liqueur les corps les plus solides, par les operations Chymiques. On luy donne aussi le nom d'Alchymie, A l'imitation des Arabes qui ajoutent la particule, Al, qui signifie Dieu & grand, lors qu'ils veulent exprimer l'excellence de quelque chose... De ... ces noms, nous ne nous servirons que de celuy de Chymie, comme estant le plus commun."

73 Ernest Klein, A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the Hebrew Language for Readers of English (Jerusalem, 1987), 28.


transmutation of metals, and even here it is not a case of the author wishing to ban chrysopoeia from the province of chymistry.74 Glaser published a Traite de la chymie in 1663, the interesting preface to which divides the devotees of chymie into several classes. First are those who have applied themselves to "high chemistry" (la haute Chymie), and who have penetrated into its highest myster- ies. They are content with knowledge itself, and having no need to communicate their findings, they write so obscurely that the reader may receive thorns rather than fruit. Then there are others who have "not flown so high," but who nonetheless have made valuable discoveries. Unfortunately, they too enjoy the game of

throwing their readers into a labyrinth. Third, Glaser lists those who are still less capable, but who possess "little lights" that allow them to make an occasional valuable discovery. These men are

dangerous, however, for they know less than they profess, and often lead the reader astray owing to their own ignorance. Finally, Glaser mentions a fourth class, "who do not deserve to have the name of chymistes, but rather of ignorant puffers." These are the charlatans who merely copy recipes, and delude the vulgar with vain promises of transmutation.75

74 On Glaser see Roy G. Neville, "Christophle Glaser and the Traiti de la chymie, 1663," Chymia 10 (1965), 25-52.

75 Christophle Glaser, Traiti de la Chymie, (Paris, 1663), sigs. ai-aii: "[1.] Ceux qui se sont appliquez a la haute Chymie, & qui ont penetr6 dans ses plus grands mystires, se sont contentez d'en avoir la connoissance; Et quoy qu'ils ayent voulu paroistre communicatifs, ils ont pourtant escrits si obscurement, que l'on a sujet de douter s'ils ont debiti des realitez, & s'ils n'ont pas donn6 des fantosmes pour des corps, & des espines pour des fruicts. [2.] D'autres qui n'ont pas vol6 si haut, ont eu pourtant des belles connoissances, & mesmes ont descouvert des pr6parations, lesquelles les rendent considerables a la posterit6; mais ils ont aussi cerchi [!] de se satisfaire eux-mesmes, & ont pris plaisir d'embarrasser les esprits, & lesjetter dans les labyrinthes, sans leur donner des moyens pour s'en tirer. [3.] D'autres bien moins capables, ont eu pourtant quelques petites lumieres; mais n'ayans pas tout sceu, ou essayi eux-mesme tout ce qu'ils ont dit, & desirants pourtant passer pour habiles dans un Art, qu'ils ne possedoient qu' -demy, ont fait passer leurs imaginations pour des veritez constantes, dont la pratique a souuent descouuert la fausset6 & leur insuffisance. [4.] D'autres en fin, qui ne meritent pas d'avoir le nom de Chymistes; mais plutost de souffleurs ignorants, travaillant sur des receptes copiies ou desrob6es, lesquelles ils prennent souvent a contresens, & ayans consume leur temps & leur argent, ou celuy des autres, dans un travail ridicule, ont fait plusieurs compagnons de fortune, en engageants le vulgaire, sous des promesses de les enrichir, dans la practique de choses, qui font passer le meilleur metal en fumee; a moins qu'ils n'en fassent passer quelque partie dans leurs mains, ce qui n'est pas la moindre de leurs operations."


Were it not for Glaser's two opening groups of chymists, it would be tempting to think that his rejection of the puffers was a

rejection of chrysopoeia. But it is hard to imagine that Glaser could mean any but the traditional alchemical adepts-the possessors of arcana such as the Philosophers' Stone and the alkahest-when he refers to the veiled language of "high chemistry." He says that these exalted artists have written so obscurely that some have wondered whether they proffer phantoms in the place of bodies. But he himself does not share this view, for he states that even the somewhat lesser chymists of the second group have made valuable contributions to posterity, despite their slightly fallen status. The same distinction between orders of chymists oc- curs in other contemporaneous works. The most notable example is Robert Boyle's Sceptical Chymist (1661) which has recently been

reinterpreted on the new recognition of Boyle's discrimination between "those Chymists that are either Cheats, or but Laborants, and the true Adepti." In distinguishing "the vulgar Chymists from

Chymical Philosophers" Boyle clearly describes the latter as being "of a much higher order" whose members "live conceal'd in the world" and are "able to transmute baser Metalls into perfect ones."76 What is important to note here is that with Boyle, Glaser, and others who accept the reality of chrysopoeia, the "alchemical

adepti" or chrysopoeians, as possessors of rare arcana, are placed at the top of the hierarchy of chymists.

While Glaser remains positive about the traditional domain of

alchemy, he does distinguish it from chymiatrie. Others have called [la chymie] alchymie, but this title belongs principally to that [part of chymie] which teaches the transmutation or augmentation of metals, to which it is not our design to apply ourselves, but rather to chymiatrie, that is la Medecine chymique ...77

Among the authors we have examined, Glaser is the first clearly to advocate the restriction of the term alchemy to metallic transmutation. But it does not follow from this that he viewed alchemy as a

76 See Principe, Aspiring Adept, 31-35; Robert Boyle, The Sceptical Chymist, (Lon- don, 1661), preface; The Producibleness of Chymical Principles, (appendix to the second edition of the Sceptical Chymist), (London, 1680), preface.

77 Glaser, Traiti de la chymie, 5-6; "D'autres l'ont appellee Alchimie, mais ce ti- tre convient principalement a celle, qui enseigne la transmutation ou augmentation des metaux; 'a quoy nostre dessain n'est pas de nous appliquer, mais bien a la Chymiatrie, c'est a dire a la Medecine Chymique ...."


discipline outside of chymistry; to the contrary, Glaser states that both chymiatrie and alchymie are subdisciplines included within the

overarching category of chymie, just as his predecessor Arnaud had done. The crucial difference here is that now Glaser attaches the word "alchemy" specifically to chrysopoeia, a topic that Arnaud (and Rolfinck) included under "particular chymistry." As we shall now see, Glaser's most famous pupil was to build on the foundation provided by his master, and provide the immediate ammuni- tion that allowed the eighteenth-century banishment of alchemy from chemistry.

Nicolas Lemery and his Influence

Nicolas Lemery, the most celebrated of the seventeenth-century chemical text-book writers after Beguin, was briefly a student of Glaser's. Metzger drew particular attention to his Cours de chimie, first published in 1675, both because of its presentation of a cor-

puscular theory of chemical change, and because of its vehement attack on the transmutation of metals. But if we consult the first edition of Lemery's work, an interesting observation can be made.

Lemery's 1675 Cours contains neither a clear distinction between chimie and alchimie, nor a critique of chrysopoeia. It is only in the third and later editions of this constantly expanding text that one encounters an assault on the gold-making part of chymistry. The reasons for Lemery's change of thought remain unclear at

present, and it would be a project outside the scope of this paper to determine why his particular attack on chrysopoeia met with a

degree of success unmatched by earlier writers. Let us begin then with Lemery's etymology of alchemy in the editio princeps.

Chymists have added the Arabic particle al to the word chymie, when they have wished to express that which is the most sublime [part of chymie], such as that which teaches the transmutation of metals, although alchymie signifies nothing other than chymie.78

This statement, rather confusing on its own, becomes comprehen- sible only in the context of Lemery's sources. He means to say first that Arabic authors have added the definite article to chymie in order to connote excellence; in this he is merely following the tradi-

78 Nicolas Lemery, Cours de Chymie, (Paris, 1675), 2: "Les Chymistes ont ajouste la Particule Arabe Al, au mot de Chymie, quand ils ont voulu exprimer la plus sublime, comme celle qui enseigne la Transmutation des Metaux, quoy qu'Alchymie ne signifie autre chose que la Chymie."


tion established by Ruland and Beguin. When he adds that this excellence refers above all to the transmutation of metals, however, the influence of Glaser's hierarchy of chymists and his argument in favor of restricting alchimie to chrysopoeia are probably at work. Lemery studied briefly with Glaser and was probably familiar with the latter's thoughts on this matter. Lemery, nonetheless, continues to assert the synonymity of alchemy and chemistry, saying that "alchymie signifies nothing other than chymie." In all of this, then, Lemery is quite unremarkable, and rather pacific towards the transmuters of metals.

If we proceed to the third edition of his text, printed in 1679, Lemery's eirenic facade drops away. Here Lemery adds seven new

paragraphs in which he bitterly attacks metallic transmutation as a

misguided delusion. These insertions belong to Lemery's general chapter on gold, for it is the vain and covetous desire to produce that metal which forms the basis of his critique. Lemery gives an

interesting recitation of various theories of transmutation. Some deluded souls seek to mix various metals with purifying agents, and to burn out the "grosser parts" of the base metals with great fires, while others attempt to corrupt them into their first matter with "spirituous liquors." Others try to find the seed of gold in

gold itself, while yet others search in various minerals or vegeta- bles. And finally there are those who seek for the seed of gold in dew, or in sunlight.79

In all of this Lemery focuses on the hasty opinions of the transmuters-driven by greed-which have led them into ruin. He is

particularly assiduous in describing the sad case of Bernard Penotus, who was supposedly reduced to poverty by his devotion to the chimera of metallic transmutation. Like Rolfinck, Lemery cites Penotus' warning to would-be seekers for the Stone.

Penotus will serve as an example for us, among infinite others. He died at ninety-eight, in the Hospital of Yverdon in Switzerland, and he said at the end of his life, which he had spent in the quest of the Great Work, that if he had a powerful enemy whom he did not dare attack openly, he would advise him to give himself wholly to the study and practice of alchymie.80

79 Lemery, Cours de chymie, (Paris, 1679), 57-58. 80 Lemery, Cours, (1679), 59-60: "Penote nous servira d'exemple, entre une

infinit6 d'autres, il mourut age de quatre-vingt dix-huit ans a l'Hospital d'Yverdon en Suisse, & il dit a la fin de sa vie qu'il avoit passee a la recherche du grand oeuvre, que s'il avoit quelque ennemy puissant qu'il n'osast pas ouvertement attaquer, il luy conseilleroit de s'adonner tout entier A l'estude & ' la pratique de l'Alchymie."


The dubious tale of Penotus' recantation, which harkens back to a rumor circulated in the early seventeenth century, ends with

Lemery's conclusion that Penotus rejected alchymie, by which he

clearly means the transmutation of metals.81 Here again we see the probable influence of Glaser, who had used "alchemy" in pre- cisely that restrictive sense. But Lemery is not content with a mere

recapitulation of Penotus' discontent, for he then offers a slightly rephrased version of the same mocking "definition" of alchemy given by Rolfinck and taken by Hall from Libavius.

Thus to work at making gold is to work in shadows, and I find that alchymie has been defined very well [as follows]: Ars sine arte, cujus principium mentiri, medium laborare, &finis mendicare, an Art without art, whose beginning is lying, whose middle is labour, and whose end is beggary.82

Lemery's inclusion of the warning attributed to Penotus, the "definition" of Hall and Libavius, and the strident rejection of transmutation, all suggest a possible influence from Rolfinck, who used the very same weapons against chrysopoeia.

In subsequent editions of his Cours de chymie, Lemery chose to focus ever more on the lying of alchemical impostors, and less on the beggary of their victims. The English translation of 1686, based on the fifth French edition, contains some fourteen addi- tional anti-transmutational paragraphs, of which ten concern cheats, such as cupels with false bottoms and hollow stirring rods used by frauds to give the appearance of having made gold.83 These paragraphs are remarkably similar in tone and content to

Geoffroy's Supercheries of 1722, and given that Lemery was Geof-

froy's elder colleague in the Acad6mie Royale des Sciences until 1715, it is not unlikely that the author of the Cours de chymie may have served as Geoffroy's stimulus. Furthermore, there is direct evidence that Lemery had a formative influence on the severing of the terms "alchemy" and "chemistry" in English. The important Lexicon Technicum of John Harris, first printed in 1704, has separate entries for alchymist and chymistry. The entry for alchymist is

manifestly borrowed from Lemery.

81 Eugene Olivier, "Bernard G. Penot (Du Port), medecin et alchimiste, 1519- 1617," (unpublished), 72-79. We owe this reference to the kindess of M. Didier Kahn.

82 Lemery, Cours, (1679), 60-61: "ainsi c'est proprement travailler en tenebres, que de travailler a faire de l'or, & je trouve qu'on a fort bien defini l'Alchymie, Ars sine arte, cujus principium mentiri, medium laborari &finis mendicare."

83 Lemery, A Course of Chymistry, trans. by Walter Harris, (London, 1686), 52- 56.


ALCHYMIST, is one that studies Alchymy; that is, the Sublimer Part of Chymistry which teaches the Transmutation of Metals and the Philosopher's Stone; according to the Cant of the Adeptists, who amuse the Ignorant and Unthinking with hard Words and Non-sense: For were it not for the Arabick Particle Al, which they will needs have to be of wonderful vertue here, the word would signifie no more than Chymistry. Whose Derivation see under that Word. This Study of Alchymy hath been rightly defined to be, Ars sine Arte, cuius principium est mentire, medium laborare, &finis mendicare: That is, an Art without an Art, which begins with Lying, is continued with Toil and La- bour, and at last ends in Beggery. And so poor Penotus found it, who after he had spent his whole Life and Fortune in this vain Study, died at last in an Alms-House at Yverdon in Switzerland; and used to say, he would recom- mend the Study of Alchymy to a mortal Enemy, whom he did not dare openly to attack.84

As in Lemery, we find Harris restricting alchemy to the "sublimer"

part of chymistry, by virtue of Beguin's error concerning the "dignifying" Arabic al. Also as in Lemery, we find "alchemy" defined

by the sarcastic Latin phrase and the accompanying history of

poor Penotus. Under the definition of "chymistry," on the other hand, Harris says that this is the art which allows us "to separate usefully the Purer Parts of any mix'd Body from the more Gross and Impure." He then goes on, recapitulating Lemery, to say that

chymistry is derived from chymos (Greek, juice), and that it is sometimes called "the Spagyrick, Hermetick, and Pyrotechnick Art, and also by some Alchymy."85

It is fair to say that with Harris we have come very close to the modern dissociation of alchemy from chemistry, where the former represents only a misguided attempt to transmute base metals into precious ones, and is a distinct domain outside of

chemistry. It began with the innocuous interpretation of the Ara- bic definite article as an honorific to the entire discipline of

chemistry, made by Martin Ruland and Jean Beguin. This etymological mistake was propagated through the seventeenth century, finding frequent repetition in popular textbooks, even though the terms "alchemy" and "chemistry" continued to be considered

synonymous. When supporters of chrysopoeia constructed a hier-

archy of chymists with the chrysopoetic adepti at the top, these "sublimer chymists" were easily coupled with a "sublimer

chymistry," namely, that part of it supposedly dignified by the Ara- bic al. Thus Glaser, for example, assumed that this honorific sta-

84 John Harris, Lexicon Technicum: or an Universal English Dictionary of Arts and Sciences (London, 1704), sub voce.

85 Harris, Lexicon, sub voce.


tus belonged only to the part of chymistry that concerned the transmutation of metals. When the link between sublimer practi- tioners and a sublimer chymistry was combined with an anti-transmutational outlook, as in the case of Lemery, it became possible then to exclude alchemy from the domain of chymistry on the basis of the former's erstwhile "sublimity." The result of this progres- sion manifests itself in the differing definitions given to "alchemy" and "chemistry" by eighteenth-century technical writers such as Harris and the encyclopedistes.

The written record thus leads us to view the spurious interpretation of the Arabic al as a chief cause behind the reassignment of the term alchemy to denote chrysopoeia specifically. This transformation of referents may have been assisted by some level of "vul-

gar," unlearned restriction of alchemy to gold-making-which Gui- bert, Beguin, and Rolfinck seem briefly to allude to but reject- yet we have found no clear, written, contemporaneous expression of any such linkage. Moreover, such a "vulgar" tradition would not suffice on its own to explain the divorce of alchemy and chemis-

try, for there is no hint of an equivalent vulgar tradition freeing chemistry-the name retained for the purified discipline-from its own longstanding chrysopoetic content. Of course, the seques- tration of chrysopoeia as "alchemy," separate from the "purified" eighteenth-century chemistry, is intimately bound up with at-

tempts to legitimize the rapidly developing field of chemistry by purging it of its gold-making connections which had become re- nowned chiefly for fraud (as Lemery and Fontenelle describe). In fact, a similar desire may well have been replayed in the retrospec- tive division of alchemy from chemistry by historians-such a division has little to do with the realities of the early modern period, but may relate partially to efforts by modern historians to "legitimize" their own field of enquiry. Certainly, further attention to the social dimensions and connotations of the two words would

provide another facet to the division of chymistry outlined in this

paper.

IV. Conclusions

Several historical conclusions can be drawn from this inquiry. First, the terms "alchemy" and "chemistry" were synonymous until at least the last two decades of the seventeenth century. This is


true of French, German, and English sources, and for both believers and deniers of the reality of metallic transmutation. Second, early writers recognized the actual distinctions of activities within

chymistry, but used now largely discarded terminology (chrysopoeia, chemiatria, etc.) to refer to them; they did not use alchemy specifically to refer to topics of metallic transmutation in contradistinction to chymistry. Glaser's attempt to restrict the term "al-

chemy" to the sense of metallic transmutation should be seen as

yet another attempt to specify the various provinces of chymistry. Third, the eventual distancing of alchemy from chemistry arose from an etymological mistake by Ruland and Beguin which almost

eighty years later allowed the anti-chrysopoeian Lemery to seques- ter transmutation from the rest of chymistry and assign the previ- ously synonymous, though perhaps less common, term "alchemy" to it specifically. Lemery's discrimination was then codified in the

early eighteenth century by some technical writers, by his younger colleague at the Acad6mie royale des sciences Fontenelle, and later, by the encyclopidistes. Fourth, we cannot view the textbook writers in general as actively developing "chemistry" at the ex-

pense of "alchemy." Many (Libavius, Beguin, Arnaud, Le Febvre, and Glaser) were at least believers and in some instances defend- ers of "traditional alchemy" or chrysopoeia, and some of them ac-

tively pursued the Philosophers' Stone. These conclusions allow for the drawing of certain caveats or

programmatic suggestions for present-day writers on the early his-

tory of chemistry. First, the assumption that "alchemy" and "chem-

istry" refer to separate disciplines prior to the very late seventeenth century is misleading, and attempts to separate them are futile. It is preferable to use the inclusive term chymistry when dis-

cussing the general development of the discipline, or, when writ-

ing specifically of transmutational pursuits, to use instead of "al-

chemy" the more rigorous and less connotatively-loaded term

chrysopoeia. Other specific pre-eighteenth century terms like chemiatria, iatrochemistry, and spagyria should be used for

greater clarity whenever possible. Thus questions regarding the

"replacement of alchemy by chemistry" or the "development of al-

chemy into chemistry" in the early modern period are neither

helpful nor meaningful, for they are inherently skewed by the in- corporation of the historiographical mistake which we have pointed out. We can, however, continue to probe the develop-


ment, influence, and eventual abandonment of chrysopoeia, and other trends within early modern chymistry.

ABSTRACT

The parallel usage of the two terms "alchemy" and "chemistry" by seventeenth- century writers has engendered considerable confusion among historians of science. Many historians have succumbed to the temptation of assuming that the early modern term "chemistry" referred to something like the modern discipline, while supposing that "alchemy" pertained to a different set of practices and beliefs, predominantly the art of transmuting base metals into gold. This paper provides the first exhaustive analysis of the two terms and their interlinguistic cognates in the seventeenth century. It demonstrates that the intentional partition of the two terms with the restriction of alchemy to the the sense of metallic transmutation was not widely accepted until the end of the seventeenth century, if even then. The major figure in the restriction of meaning, Nicolas Lemery, built on a spurious interpretation of the Arabic definite article al, which he inherited from earlier sources in the chemical textbook tradition. In order to curtail the tradition of anachronism and distortion engendered by the selective use of the terms "alchemy" and "chemistry" by historians, the authors conclude by suggesting a re- turn to seventeenth-century terminology for discussing the different aspects of the early modern discipline "chymistry."

alchemy vs. chemistry, the etymological origins of a historiographic mistake

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