Newman W.R. Atoms and Alchemy: Chymistry and the Experimental Origins of the Scientific Revolution

University of Chicago Press, 2006. — 250 pp.Since the Enlightenment, alchemy has been viewed as a sort of antiscience, disparaged by many historians as a form of lunacy that impeded the development of rational chemistry. But in Atoms and Alchemy, William R. Newman—a historian widely credited for reviving recent interest in alchemy—exposes the speciousness of these views and challenges widely held beliefs about the origins of the Scientific Revolution.
Tracing the alchemical roots of Robert Boyle’s famous mechanical philosophy, Newman shows that alchemy contributed to the mechanization of nature, a movement that lay at the very heart of scientific discovery. Boyle and his predecessors—figures like the mysterious medieval Geber or the Lutheran professor Daniel Sennert—provided convincing experimental proof that matter is made up of enduring particles at the microlevel. At the same time, Newman argues that alchemists created the operational criterion of an atomic element as the last point of analysis, thereby contributing a key feature to the development of later chemistry. Atoms and Alchemy thus provokes a refreshing debate about the origins of modern science and will be welcomed—and deliberated—by all who are interested in the development of scientific theory and practice.Introduction: The Problematic Position of Alchemy in the Scientific Revolution.
The Mise en Scène before Sennert
The Medieval Tradition of Alchemical Corpuscular Theory.
Erastus and the Critique of Chymical Analysis.
Aristotelian Corpuscular Theory and Andreas Libavius.
Daniel Sennert's Atomism and the Reform of Aristotelian Matter Theory
The Corpuscular Theory of Daniel Sennert and Its Sources.
The Interplay of Structure and Essence in Sennert's Corpuscular Theory.
Robert Boyle's Matter Theory
Boyle, Sennert, and the Mechanical Philosophy.
Boyle's Use of Chymical Corpuscles and the Reduction to the Pristine State to Demonstrate the Mechanical Origin of Qualities.