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Sun and Salt, 1500-1700

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 April 2024

Hillel Schwartz*
Affiliation:
San Diego State University
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Extract

During the Renaissance, the su was regarded primarily as a source of light which gave form to all things*; during the Enlightenment, paradoxically, the sun was regarded primarily as a source of heat. Paracelsian chemistry of the 1500s introduced salt as a third principle which embodied the other two, mercury and sulphur; salt was that universal mediating presence which represented earth. By the late 1700s salt was no longer a metaphysical principle but an acid-base compound, and volatile salts aroused most interest. These changes in scientific perceptions of sun and salt ran parallel to one another: beginning as transcendent sources of form, sun and salt came to be considered manipulable sources of energy. Our r-;odern approach to energy derives from a period during which Europeans gradually lost their belief in the creative agency of two essentials to human life.

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Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © 1982 Fédération Internationale des Sociétés de Philosophie / International Federation of Philosophical Societies (FISP)

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