Hostname: page-component-7b7567c8c-2n9c9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-11-15T07:02:22.515Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Changes in Chemical Concepts and Language in the Seventeenth Century

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2008

Maurice Crosland
Maurice Crosland
Affiliation:
Unit for the History of Science University of Kent at Canterbury
Get accessRights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The relation between alchemy and early chemistry is still open to debate. How did what is now often dismissed as a pseudo-science contribute to the emerging science of chemistry, a subject that by the late eighteenth century, was often held up as a model for other sciences? Alchemy may have bequeathed to chemistry some processes and apparatus; more fundamental, however, was a transformation in mentality. It was in the seventeenth century that much of this transformation took place.

A study that was deeply anthropomorphic, making constant use of allegories and symbolism, and with a language rejoicing in mystery and concealment, gradually became depersonalized, much more objective, and more open. Poetic descriptions, a moral dimension, and a hierarchical view of matter all disappeared. Practical considerations required a concern for greater purity of materials, necessary for the successful replication of experiments. A study of the series of seventeenth-century French textbooks of chemistry from Beguin to Lemery reveals a growing desire for practical results and plain speaking. Robert Boyle was particularly influential in urging the necessity of plain language. The creation of a suitable language to denote and differentiate among different chemical species was a crucial step in the development of early chemistry, thus preparing the way for the systematic names introduced in the following century and the full organization of the science on rational lines.

Information

Type
Article
Information
Science in Context , Volume 9 , Issue 3 , Autumn 1996, pp. 225 - 240
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1996

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Agricol, G. [1556] 1950. De re metallica. Book7. Translated by Hoover, H. C. and Hoover, L. H.. New York:CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beguin, Jean. 1615. Elëmens de chymie. Paris.Google Scholar
Beretta, Marco. 1993. The Enlightenment of Matter. Canton, Mass.:Google Scholar
Bergman, T. 1788. Physical and Chemical Essays.London.Google Scholar
Borehaave, Hermann. 1735. Elements of Chemistry. Translated by Dallowe 2. London.Google Scholar
Boyle, Robert. 1744a. “Essay … Concerning the Unsuccessfulness of Experiments”. In Works, edited by Birth, T., 5. London.Google Scholar
Boyle, Robert. 1744b. “Of the Produceableness of Spirits”. In Works, edited by Birch, T.. 5. London.Google Scholar
Boyle, . [1661] 1911. Seeptical Chymist. London: Everyman edition.Google Scholar
Boyle, . 1774c. “Reflections upon the Hypothesis of Alcali and Acidum”. In Works, edited by Birch, T.. London.Google Scholar
Bucquet, J. B. M. 1771. Introduction ä lëtude du rëtude minëral. Paris.Google Scholar
Caldin, E. F. 1961. “Review of History of Technology by Charles Singer et al.” Proceedings of the Chemical Socity, 6:233–35.Google Scholar
Crosland, M. 1959. “The Use of Diagrams as Chemical ‘Equations’ in the Lecture Notes of William Cullen and Joseph Black”. Annals of Science 15:75–90.Google Scholar
Crosland, M. 1978. “Colour Symbolism”. In Historical Studies in the Language of Chemistry, 2nd ed. New York:Google Scholar
Crosland, M. 1994.In the shadow of Lavoisier: The “Annales de Chimie” and the Establishment of a New Science. Faringdon, Oxon.: British Society for the History of Science.Google Scholar
Crosland, M., and Brooke, J. 1970 1980. In Dictionary of Scientific Biography, s.v. –Gerhardt, Charles”.Google Scholar
Duncan, Alistair. 1981 “Styles of Language and Orders of Chemical Thought”. Ambix 28:82–107.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fontenelle, B.le.B. 1825. oeuvres. 5. Paris.Google Scholar
Frängsmyr, T. (ed). 1990. Solomon's House Revisited. Canton. Mass.:Google Scholar
Geaoffroy, E. F. 1718. Mémoirrs de l'Academie des Sciences. Paris.Google Scholar
Glaser, Christophe. [1663] 1670. Traité de la chymie. 3rd ed.Lyon.Google Scholar
Glauber, R. 1689a. “Of the nature of salts”. In Works, trans. Packe, C.London.Google Scholar
Glauber, R. 1689b. “A Treatise on the Signatuers of Salts, Metals and Plants”. In Works, translated by Packe, C. London.Google Scholar
Grew, Nehemiah. 1697. A Teeatise on the Nature and Use of the Bitter Putging salt Contained in Epsom and Such Other Waters. London.Google Scholar
Hannaway, O. 1975. The Chemist and the Word. the Didactic Origins of Chemistry. Baltimore.Google Scholar
Jung, C. G. 1968. Psychology and Alchemy. 2nd ed. London.Google Scholar
Klein, Ursula. 1994. Verbindung und Affinität. Basel.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
de Lavoisier, A. L. 1776 Mémoires de l'Academie Royale des Sciences. Paris.Google Scholar
de Lavoisier, A. L. 1788. Mémoires de l'Academie des Sciences. Paris.Google Scholar
de Lavoisier, A. L. 1789. Traité élémentaire de chimie. Paris.Google Scholar
LaWall, C. H. 1927. Four thousand Years of Pharmacy. Philadelphia.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Le, . 1664. A compendious Body of Chymistry. London.Google Scholar
Lemery, Nicolas. 1675. Cours de chymie. Paris.Google Scholar
Lemery, Nicolas. [1675] 1720. A Course of Chemistry. 4th ed London.Google Scholar
Multhaut, Robert. 1971. “The French Crash Programme for Saltpeter Production, 1776–94”, Technology and Culture 12:163–81.Google Scholar
partington, J. R. 1948. A Short History of Chemistry. 2nd ed. London.Google Scholar
Partington, J. R. 1961. A History of Chemistry. 2. London.Google Scholar
Patterson, T. S. 1937. “Jean Beguin and his Tyrocinium Chymicum”. Annals of Science 2: 243–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Priestley, Joseph. 1775. Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air. 2. London.Google Scholar
Principe, L. M. 1992. “Robert Boyle's Alchemical Secrecy: Codes, Ciphers and Concealments”. Ambix 39:63–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sala, Angelo. 1617. Anatomia vitriolo. 3rd ed. Leiden.Google Scholar
Venel, G. F. 1773. In Encyclopedie, edited by Denis Diderot, 3rd ed., s.v. “Chymie”.Google Scholar
Vickers, Brian. 1984. “Analogy versus Identity: The Rejection of Occult Symbolism, 1580–1680”. In Occult and Scientific Mentalities in the Renaissance, edited by Vickers, B., 95–163. Cambridge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vickers, Brian, ed. 1987. English Science: Bacon to Newton. Cambridge.Google Scholar