|
Showing 1 - 5 of
5 matches in All Departments
Both the quest for natural knowledge and the aspiration to
alchemical wisdom played crucial roles in the Scientific
Revolution, as William R. Newman demonstrates in this fascinating
book about George Starkey (1628-1665), America's first famous
scientist. Beginning with Starkey's unusual education in colonial
New England, Newman traces out his many interconnected careers -
natural philosopher, alchemist, chemist, medical practitioner,
economic projector, and creator of the fabulous adept, "Eirenaeus
Philalethes." Newman reveals the profound impact Starkey had on the
work of Isaac Newton, Robert Boyle, Samuel Hartlib, and other key
thinkers in the realm of early modern science.
Reputed to have performed miraculous feats in New England-restoring
the hair and teeth to an aged lady, bringing a withered peach tree
to fruit-Eirenaeus Philalethes was also rumored to be an adept
possessor of the alchemical philosophers' stone. That the man was
merely a mythical creation didn't diminish his reputation a
whit-his writings were spectacularly successful, read by Leibniz,
esteemed by Newton and Boyle, voraciously consumed by countless
readers. Gehennical Fire is the story of the man behind the myth,
George Starkey. Though virtually unknown today and little noted in
history, Starkey was America's most widely read and celebrated
scientist before Benjamin Franklin. Born in Bermuda, he received
his A.B. from Harvard in 1646 and four years later emigrated to
London, where he quickly gained prominence as a "chymist." Thanks
in large part to the scholarly detective work of William Newman, we
now know that this is only a small part of an extraordinary story,
that in fact George Starkey led two lives. Not content simply to
publish his alchemical works under the name Eirenaeus Philalethes,
"A Peaceful Lover of Truth," Starkey spread elaborate tales about
his alter ego, in effect giving him a life of his own.
What actually took place in the private laboratory of a
mid-seventeenth century alchemist? How did he direct his quest
after the secrets of Nature? What instruments and theoretical
principles did he employ?
Using, as their guide, the previously misunderstood interactions
between Robert Boyle, widely known as "the father of chemistry,"
and George Starkey, an alchemist and the most prominent American
scientific writer before Benjamin Franklin as their guide, Newman
and Principe reveal the hitherto hidden laboratory operations of a
famous alchemist and argue that many of the principles and
practices characteristic of modern chemistry derive from alchemy.
By analyzing Starkey's extraordinary laboratory notebooks, the
authors show how this American "chymist" translated the wildly
figurative writings of traditional alchemy into quantitative,
carefully reasoned laboratory practice--and then encoded his own
work in allegorical, secretive treatises under the name of
Eirenaeus Philalethes. The intriguing "mystic" Joan Baptista Van
Helmont--a favorite of Starkey, Boyle, and even of
Lavoisier--emerges from this study as a surprisingly central figure
in seventeenth-century "chymistry." A common emphasis on
quantification, material production, and analysis/synthesis, the
authors argue, illustrates a continuity of goals and practices from
late medieval alchemy down to and beyond the Chemical Revolution.
For anyone who wants to understand how alchemy was actually
practiced during the Scientific Revolution and what it contributed
to the development of modern chemistry, "Alchemy Tried in the Fire"
will be a veritable philosopher's stone.
In an age when the nature of reality is complicated daily by
advances in bioengineering, cloning, and artificial intelligence,
it is easy to forget that the ever-evolving boundary between nature
and technology has long been a source of ethical and scientific
concern: modern anxieties about the possibility of artificial life
and the dangers of tinkering with nature more generally were shared
by opponents of alchemy long before genetic science delivered us a
cloned sheep named Dolly.
In "Promethean Ambitions," William R. Newman ambitiously uses
alchemy to investigate the thinning boundary between the natural
and the artificial. Focusing primarily on the period between 1200
and 1700, Newman examines the labors of pioneering alchemists and
the impassioned--and often negative--responses to their efforts. By
the thirteenth century, Newman argues, alchemy had become a
benchmark for determining the abilities of both men and demons,
representing the epitome of creative power in the natural world.
Newman frames the art-nature debate by contrasting the supposed
transmutational power of alchemy with the merely representational
abilities of the pictorial and plastic arts--a dispute which found
artists such as Leonardo da Vinci and Bernard Palissy attacking
alchemy as an irreligious fraud. The later assertion by the
Paracelsian school that one could make an artificial human
being--the homunculus--led to further disparagement of alchemy, but
as Newman shows, the immense power over nature promised by the
field contributed directly to the technological apologetics of
Francis Bacon and his followers. By the mid-seventeenth century,
the famous "father of modern chemistry," Robert Boyle, was
employingthe arguments of medieval alchemists to support the
identity of naturally occurring substances with those manufactured
by "chymical" means.
In using history to highlight the art-nature debate, Newman here
shows that alchemy was not an unformed and capricious precursor to
chemistry; it was an art founded on coherent philosophical and
empirical principles, with vocal supporters and even louder
critics, that attracted individuals of first-rate intellect. The
historical relationship that Newman charts between human creation
and nature has innumerable implications today, and he ably links
contemporary issues to alchemical debates on the natural versus the
artificial.
Winner of the 2005 Pfizer Prize from the History of Science
Society.
What actually took place in the private laboratory of a
mid-seventeenth century alchemist? How did he direct his quest
after the secrets of Nature? What instruments and theoretical
principles did he employ?
Using, as their guide, the previously misunderstood interactions
between Robert Boyle, widely known as "the father of chemistry,"
and George Starkey, an alchemist and the most prominent American
scientific writer before Benjamin Franklin as their guide, Newman
and Principe reveal the hitherto hidden laboratory operations of a
famous alchemist and argue that many of the principles and
practices characteristic of modern chemistry derive from alchemy.
By analyzing Starkey's extraordinary laboratory notebooks, the
authors show how this American "chymist" translated the wildly
figurative writings of traditional alchemy into quantitative,
carefully reasoned laboratory practice--and then encoded his own
work in allegorical, secretive treatises under the name of
Eirenaeus Philalethes. The intriguing "mystic" Joan Baptista Van
Helmont--a favorite of Starkey, Boyle, and even of
Lavoisier--emerges from this study as a surprisingly central figure
in seventeenth-century "chymistry." A common emphasis on
quantification, material production, and analysis/synthesis, the
authors argue, illustrates a continuity of goals and practices from
late medieval alchemy down to and beyond the Chemical Revolution.
For anyone who wants to understand how alchemy was actually
practiced during the Scientific Revolution and what it contributed
to the development of modern chemistry, "Alchemy Tried in the Fire"
will be a veritable philosopher's stone.
|
|