The Aspiring Adept

by Principe, Lawrence M.; Boyle, Robert

• ISBN13: 9780691016788
• ISBN10: 069101678X
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1998-06-01
• Publisher: Princeton Univ Pr

Summary

The Aspiring Adept presents a provocative new view of Robert Boyle (1627-1691), one of the leading figures of the Scientific Revolution, by revealing for the first time his avid and lifelong pursuit of alchemy. Boyle has traditionally been considered, along with Newton, a founder of modern science because of his mechanical philosophy and his experimentation with the air-pump and other early scientific apparatus. However, Lawrence Principe shows that his alchemical quest--hidden first by Boyle's own codes and secrecy, and later suppressed or ignored--positions him more accurately in the intellectual and cultural crossroads of the seventeenth century.Principe radically reinterprets Boyle's most famous work, The Sceptical Chymist, to show that it criticizes not alchemists, as has been thought, but "unphilosophical" pharmacists and textbook writers. He then shows Boyle's unambiguous enthusiasm for alchemy in his "lost" Dialogue on the Transmutation and Melioration of Metals, now reconstructed from scattered fragments and presented here in full for the first time. Intriguingly, Boyle believed that the goal of his quest, the Philosopher's Stone, could not only transmute base metals into gold, but could also attract angels. Alchemy could thus act both as a source of knowledge and as a defense against the growing tide of atheism that tormented him. In seeking to integrate the seemingly contradictory facets of Boyle's work, Principe also illuminates how alchemy and other "unscientific" pursuits had a far greater impact on early modern science than has previously been thought.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	ix
Note on Primary Sources	xi
Abbreviations	xiii
Introduction	3	(5)
Alchemy and Chemistry
A Crucial Note on Terminology and Categories	8	(3)
Boyle Spagyricized	11	(16)
Skeptical of the Sceptical Chymist	27	(36)
Textual Confusion in the Sceptical Chymist	28	(2)
Chymists High and Low	30	(5)
Boyle's Arguments and Their Targets	35	(17)
Evolution of Boyle's Chymical Thought 1661-1680	52	(6)
Summary and Ramifications	58	(5)
The Dialogue on Transmutation, Kinds of Transmutations, and Boyle's Beliefs	63	(28)
Synopsis of the Dialogue	65	(3)
The Setting	68	(5)
The Characters	73	(3)
Boyle and Varieties of Transmutation	76	(10)
Boyle and the Diffident Explanation: The Dangers of Picking and Choosing	86	(3)
Conclusion	89	(2)
Adepti, Aspirants, and Cheats	91	(47)
Transmutation Histories	93	(5)
Boyle's Witness of Projection	98	(13)
Alchemical Contacts	111	(2)
Alchemical Pretenders	113	(23)
Conclusion	136	(2)
Boyle and Alchemical Practice	138	(43)
Reading Alchemy	139	(4)
Writing Secrets	143	(6)
Experimental Chrysopoeia	149	(30)
Conclusion	179	(2)
Motivations: Truth, Medicine, and Religion	181	(138)
Service to Natural Philosophy	181	(5)
``Extraodinary and Noble Medicines''	186	(2)
Spiritual Alchemy	188	(20)
Alchemy as a Middle-Term	208	(4)
Conclusion	212	(2)
Epilogue
A New Boyle and a New Alchemy	214	(9)
Appendix 1
Robert Boyle's Dialogue on the Transmutation and Melioration of Metals	223	(73)
Introduction	223	(8)
Editorial Remarks and Conventions	231	(2)
Robert Boyle's Dialogue on the Transmutation and Melioration of Metals	233	(2)
Text of the Dialogue	235	(55)
Textual Notes	290	(6)
Appendix 2
Interview Accounts of Transmutation and Prefaces to Boyle's Other Chrysopoetic Writings	296	(14)
Interview Accounts	296	(4)
Prefaces to Chrysopoetic Processes	300	(7)
Textual Notes	307	(3)
Appendix 3
Dialogue on the Converse with Angels Aided by the Philosophers' Stone	310	(9)
Textual Notes	317	(2)
Works Cited	319	(16)
Index	335