Essay Review: Alchemy and the Historian of Science: Elias Ashmole

Elias Ashmole, ed. Josten C. H. , i, 3.

Ibid., 22.

Ibid., 59.

Ibid., 63–8, 76–92 passim.

Nature, ccxiv (1967) 49.

Debus A. G. , The English Paracelsians (London, 1965); Theatrum chemicum Britannicum, collected by Elias Ashmole with a new introduction by Allen G. Debus (New York, 1967). I have discussed the general state of the history of chemistry in “The significance of the history of early chemistry”, Cahiers d'histoire mondiale, ix (1965) 39–58.

Yates Frances A. , Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic tradition (Chicago, 1964).

From an extremely extensive list of publications we might choose his Paracelsus. An Introduction to Philosophical Medicine in the Era of the Renaissance (New York/Basel, 1958), Das Medizinische Weltbild des Paracelsus: Seine Zusammenhānge mit Neuplatonismus und Gnosis (Wiesbaden, 1962), van Helmont J. B. , Einführung in die philosophische Medizin des Barock (Berlin, 1930), “Religious motives in the medical biology of the XVIIth century”, Bulletin of the Institute of the History of Medicine, iii (1935) 97–128, 213–31, 265–312.

Pagel Walter , William Harvey's biological ideas: Selected aspects and historical background (Basel/New York, 1967), 337.

McGuire J. E. Rattansi P. M. , “Newton and the ‘Pipes of Pan’”, Notes and records of the Royal Society of London, xxi (1966) 108–43.

Gouhier Henri , Les premières pensées de Descartes (Paris, 1958), ch. 5: “Descartes et les Rose-Croix”.

The chemists proposed new educational programs which emphasized chemistry as the basis for knowledge in natural philosophy since they were unable to accept the Aristotelian–Galenic programs of the Universities. I discussed these programs in a lecture on 2 June 1967 at Churchill College, Cambridge (The chemical dream of the Renaissance, Cambridge, 1968), and I related them to the general goals of the chemical philosophy in an address to the British Society for the History of Science (8 May 1967) titled “The Paracelsians and the Scientific Renaissance”. The mathematical implications of these programs are discussed in my paper on “Mathematics and Nature in the chemical texts of the Renaissance”, Ambix, xv (1968) 1–28.

One aspect of the chemists' reaction against the Universities may be seen in their proposed Society of Chemical Physicians. This has been discussed by Thomas Henry Sir , “The Society of Chymical Physitians: An echo of the Great Plague of London —1665”, in Science, medicine and history, ed. Underwood E. A. (2 vols., London, 1953). 56–71; Rattansi P. M. , “The Helmontian–Galenist controversy in Restoration England”, Ambix, xii (1964) 1–23; Webster C. , “English medical reformers of the Puritan Revolution: A background to the ‘Society of Chymical Physitians’”, Ambix, xiv (1967) 16–41.

The influence of the chemical reformers on the seventeenth-century utopias has been touched on by Armytage W. H. G. , “The early Utopists and science in England”, Annals of science, xii (1956) 247–54. F. E. Held has discussed the relation of Andreae's Christianopolis on Francis Bacon's New Atlantis and on the founders of the Royal Society in Andreae J. V. , Christianopolis. An Ideal State of the seventeenth century, trans, with an historical introduction by Held Felix Emil (New York, 1916), 100–25. The Christianopolis shows a strong chemical influence (ibid., passim, and especially pp. 196–8). Considerable attention is paid to the Christianopolis by Purver Margery , The Royal Society: Concept and creation (London, 1967).

Debus A. G. , “Fire analysis and the elements in the sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries”. Annals of science (in press).

Debus A. G. , “The Paracelsian aerial niter”, Isis, lv (1964) 43–61.

It is perhaps more common to proceed in the history of science with George Sarton's definition of science as ‘systematized positive knowledge’, Introduction to the history of science, i (Washington, 1927), 3.

Bacon Francis , The works of Francis Bacon, ed. Spedding J. Ellis R. L. Heath D. D. , new ed. (7 vols., London, 1870), iii, 605; from the Cogitata et visa.

Mersenne P. Marin , La vérité des sciences contre les Septiques ou Pyrrhoniens (Paris, 1625). The problem has been discussed in detail by Lenoble Robert , Mersenne ou la naissance du mécanisme (Paris, 1943).

Gassendi Pierre , Epistolica exercitatio in qua principia philosophiae Roberti Fluddi, medici, reteguntur, et ad recentes illius libros adversus R. P. F. Marinum Mersennum … respondetur (Paris, 1630). In addition to Lenoble, Luca Cafiero has recently discussed this debate: “Robert Fludd e la polemica con Gassendi”, Rivista critica di storia della filosofia, xix (1964) 367–410, xx (1965) 3–15.

Pauli W. , “The influence of archetypal ideas on the scientific theories of Kepler”, trans. Silz Priscilla , in Jung C. G. Pauli W. , The interpretation of nature and the psyche (London, 1955), 205.

Elias Ashmole, i, 59.

C. H. Josten—review of Debus A. G. , The English Paracelsians in The British journal for the history of science, iii (1967) 296–7. “A Martian journalist who alighted on earth to report on its inhabitants could not contribute anything to a real understanding of their nature by his fellow Martians, unless he succeeded first in establishing a mode of communication that made sense in Martian as well as in human terminology.”

Ibid.

Ibid.

As I have done in “Robert Fludd and the use of Gilbert's De magnete in the weapon-salve controversy”, Journal of the history of medicine and allied sciences, xix (1964) 389–417.

Josten , op. cit. (n. 21). He has discussed Fludd's meaning of experiment in more detail in his “Robert Fludd's ‘Philosophicall Key’ and his alchemical experiment on wheat”, Ambix, xi (1963) 1–23, especially pp. 13–14. I have gone into this matter in more detail in “Robert Fludd and the use of Gilbert's De magnete”, especially p. 394.

I have discussed this in “Robert Fludd and the circulation of the blood”, Journal of the history of medicine and allied sciences, 16 (1961) 374–93. Walter Pagel has discussed the problem in detail in Harvey's biological ideas, pp. 113–19.

See Gassendi's Epistolica (1630), cited above (n. 18). Fludd's reply may be found in his Clavis philosophiae et alchymiae Fluddanae, sive Roberti Fluddi Armigeri, et Medicinae Doctoris, ad epistolicam Petri Gassendi Theologi exercitationem responsum (Frankfort, 1633).

Josten C. H. , “A translation of John Dee's Monas Hieroglyphica (Antwerp, 1564)”, Ambix, xii (1964) 84–221, p. 104.

Ibid., 105.

Ibid., 111.

In addition to references already cited above (n. 12), I have discussed this in “Renaissance chemistry and the work of Robert Fludd”, included in Alchemy and chemistry in the seventeenth century (Los Angeles, 1966) 3–29. A slightly revised version of this paper appears in Ambix, xiv (1967) 42–59.

In addition to Elias Ashmole, i, 76–8, see Josten's “William Backhouse of Swallow-field”, Ambix, iv (1949) 1–33.

Elias Ashmole, i, 136.

Debus A. G. , The English Paracelsians, 18–22. See also “Renaissance chemistry and the work of Robert Fludd” cited above (n. 29).

Josten , op. cit. (n. 21).

Elias Ashmole, i, 68.

I have illustrated this in my lecture at Churchill College (cited above, n. 12). Robert Fludd's proposals were perhaps somewhat more influential than has been recognized, but surely the most important suggestions came from the widely read van Helmont See van Helmont J. B. , Oriatrike or physick refined, trans. Chandler John (London, 1662), 45.

French John , The art of distillation (4th ed., London, 1667), sig. A3 recto. From the dedication to Tobias Garband dated London, Nov. 25, 1650.

Josten , op. cit. (n. 21).

Towers Bernard , “Medical scientists and the view that history is bunk”, Perspectives in biology and medicine, x (1966) 44–55, p. 55.

Elias Ashmole, i, 302.