Post-modernism is well-known for denying the existence of absolute values, limiting the scope of human rationality, rejecting meta- narratives, and insisting on the social construction of truth. In terms of the history of science, post-modern scholarship has had the effect of discrediting the grand narrative prevailing up to the 1960s that described the Scientific Revolution as a bee-line from Copernicus to Newton via Kepler and Galileo. During the past forty years astronomy, physics, and mathematics have been demoted from their primary position as Aristotelianism was brought back into the fold by Charles Schmitt and non-canonical subjects like alchemy, magic, Neoplatonism, natural history, and antiquarianism were added by a long list of scholars beginning in the anglophone world with Frances Yates. As a consequence, a very new picture of the Scientific Revolution has emerged. Historians have increasingly stressed the fact that not only was early modern "natural philosophy" much broader than modern science because it included theological issues involving creation, providence, the immortality of the soul, and the effect of the fall on human rationality, but that in certain instances these theological issues fostered scientific development. Consequently it is impossible to distinguish between religion, magic, and science in the early modern period or to argue that the so-called "mechanical philosophy" became the predominant paradigm. Vitalism did not disappear, and "spiritual" forces appear in even the most seemingly mechanical of worldviews. Some post-modern scholars have gone even farther than this, however, and deny that there was such a thing as the Scientific Revolution, arguing, on the one hand, that change was gradual (Golinski, Dobbs), or, more radically, that the entire idea of a Scientific Revolution was a cleverly devised human construct emanating primarily from the laboratory of Robert Boyle (Shapin and Schaffer).
In Distilling Knowledge: Alchemy, Chemistry, and the Scientific Revolution , Bruce Moran dives head first into this maelstrom of conflicting views by arguing that not only was there a Scientific Revolution but that alchemy played a significant role in it. Moran draws on the work of many scholars to argue that alchemy was not irrational but based on procedures that could be replicated and taught. It was an intensely empirical discipline, dedicated to a kind of experimental research characteristic of some branches of modern science, and it succeeded in producing many things from medicines to industrial products that improved the quality and enjoyment of human life. Furthermore, alchemy was a key factor in promoting the idea that human beings had the intelligence and agency to improve the world. Alchemists tipped the scales in favor of art over nature and in so doing fostered the belief in progress that became the hallmark of modern science. Drawing on the work of Betty Dobbs, Moran contends that alchemists were concerned with the same problem as physicists and astronomers as to what sort of "active principles" existed to account for the attractions and affinities between bodies. For all these reasons alchemy deserves a recognized place in the history of the Scientific Revolution. None of these ideas originate with Moran, but he has assembled them in a short, succinct, and readable book that should appeal to general readers as well as to students in the history of science.
In the first two chapters Moran presents a survey of the different kinds of alchemy practiced in the early modern period, the major authors available, and the different theories offered to explain alchemical reactions. Moran stresses the fact that science is not just a "cognitive realm" but an "existential one" (65). He follows recent scholars out of libraries and into new places: courts, artisan workshops, pharmacies, botanical gardens, local scientific societies, and even kitchens. Alchemy was practiced in all these places, and while gold-making was a constant feature, there were other important branches concerned with the distillation of medicines, metallurgy, the investigation of chemical processes, and the manufacture of useful products such as dyes, inks, artificial gems, gums, resins, acids, and cosmetics, to name a few. What bound all these activities together was their common attempt to transform physical substances into something better than what they naturally were. In this sense, alchemists were like bakers who transformed flour into bread or vintners who turned grapes into wine; they improved on nature. Although alchemical texts could be obscure, Moran contends that for the most part they describe procedures in a comprehensible manner and in this way added significantly to the accumulated store of chemical knowledge. Distillation techniques were primarily used for making medicines, and while these may not have always been effective, the distillation of substances like Benedictine (and other sorts of acqua vitae ) helped (and still helps) to dull the pain. The discovery of new things is what makes alchemy "such an important feature of the Scientific Revolution" (42). Books like Agricola's De re metallica (1556) and Biringuccio's Concerning the Making of Things by Fire (1540) presented readers with the technical details involved in mining and metallurgy and a host of procedures to make such things as steel and glass, distill mercury, and purify saltpeter, salt, and vitriol through crystallization. The techniques presented in these works contributed to economic developments in the early modern period and account for the fact that alchemists and artisans were welcome at many European courts. Princes were eager to enhance their finances and reputations, and they were willing to pay and, in some cases, kidnap alchemists to do just this (Moran, Smith). In addition to technical manuals, there was a genre of literature know as Books of Secrets, which presented readers with recipes for removing stains, soldering, etching, coloring metals, making artificial gems, dyes, shoe polish, and even cream to whiten the skin and remove wrinkles. One of the most popular of these was The Secret of Lady Isabella Cortese (1561). Whether this was actually written by a woman or not, historians are slowly uncovering the role that women played in alchemy. Since their domain was the kitchen and caring for the health of family members a priority, women's involvement in alchemy is understandable. Books of Secrets marked the beginning of the kind of scientific and technical encyclopedias that are so prevalent in the "How-to" sections of stores to this day. Moran emphasizes their importance, for as individuals searched for secrets, they discovered new things and gained the experience, confidence, and ability to produce new things and challenge accepted wisdom, all characteristics of the Scientific Revolution as well as modern science.
There were many different theories available to explain chemical reactions in the early modern period. Vitalistic and corpuscular theories coexisted and in some cases merged. Moran devotes a chapter to Paracelsus and his followers, emphasizing the impossibility of separating religion, science, and magic in their works: "Magic and empiricism, while strange bedfellows in the house of modernity, got along quite well in the "enchanted garden" of the early modern estate" (69). In the medieval and early modern periods all investigations of nature were inherently devotional because all involved reading The Book of Nature , itself a theological text. Like many scholars (Pagel, Osler, Popkin, Force) Moran illustrates the way religious beliefs influenced scientific theories. Because Paracelsus and his followers believed the fall had diminished human reason, they rejected philosophy and philosophical systems, insisting that knowledge had to come through a combination of grace, revelation, and careful empirical observation. In this way religion fostered the kind of experimental approach characteristic of some branches of modern science. The Paracelsians were important in turning alchemy away from gold-making and integrating it into medicine. Rejecting Galen and his theory that disease resulted from an imbalance of the four humors, Paracelsians insisted that diseases were specific entities that attacked specific organs. The only way to cure a disease was to study the organ involved and the effect the disease had on it, and this involved close observation. Paracelsians introduced chemical medicines into the early modern pharmacopoeia on the grounds that the best medicines were those produced from minerals and metals after the useful components had been separated from harmful ones by various alchemical procedures. Although there was considerable animosity between Paracelsians and Galenic physicians, in actuality Paracelsians tried to bridge the gap between the two camps. In doing this, they presented a variety of medical theories and procedures, which stimulated further research and testing. Moran describes the Scientific Revolution as "a process of rethinking older experience" (99). He offers the example of Galen and Harvey. Both men dissected animals and observed their heart, veins, and arteries. But only Harvey envisioned the heart as a pump and described its workings in mechanical terms: "Harvey reevaluated the ancient experience of dissection, and living in a world of water pumps and other machines helped him to find the appropriate metaphors to do so" (99). The upshot of this is that the Scientific Revolution occurred in the early modern period because that was when instruments were created that forced nature into new and unprecedented situations. Air pumps allowed the testing of all kinds of hypotheses about the nature of air, admittedly at the expense of the mice, birds, cats, and dogs that expired in their chambers. The idea that nature must be "constrained" appears in Bacon's Novum Organon , where he argues that nature had to be subjected to the "rack" so that truth could be wrung out of her. But in many respects, alchemists had anticipated Bacon by advocating the manipulation and transformation of natural compounds through alchemical processes (Newman). In this sense, alchemists were instrumental in undermining the unbridgeable gulf between nature and art postulated by Aristotle. According to Aristotle no artificial thing could provide insight into the structure of nature because natural things possessed innate principles (forms) responsible for movement and change, while artificial things do not. Through the development of mechanical models in the seventeenth century nature and art were brought together in fruitful ways that allowed natural philosophers like Harvey and Newton, along with alchemists and chemists like John Friend, Etienne Geoffry, and Hermann Boerhaave, to investigate how parts were related to wholes and to try to discover the forces that kept bodies together, whether in the heavens, on earth, or in an alchemical alembics. In this way alchemists were on the same page as astronomers and physicists. As Moran points out, in the Opticks Newton proposed "to find in specific attractions the explanations for all the reactions studied in chemistry" (122). Chemical forces were therefore special instances of universal forces.
In his conclusion Moran reiterates his warning that it is a mistake to see the Scientific Revolution as the triumph of good science over bad pseudoscience. In his view, the Scientific Revolution simply was the mix of conflicting ideas and ideologies that existed in the early modern period. It was this concoction of incompatibilities that stimulated the discoveries associated with the emergence of modern science: "...the Scientific Revolution...has much to do with the presence of impurities of various sorts--sometimes inharmonious intellectual and social mixture of learned and artisan, of occult, spiritual, and mechanical. This is the concoction that woke things up and produced a cultural reaction" (187). Chemistry had always been a part of alchemy in the sense that alchemists concerned themselves with experimenting and trying to understand chemical processes. Modern chemistry emerged from this strand of the much broader speculative field of alchemy: "In a disciplinary sense, chemistry is an extract, a derivative from alchemy" (185).
While Moran does not break any new ground in this book, he offers an accessible introduction to alchemy based on the most recent scholarship, and he makes a persuasive case for its inclusion in the history of the Scientific Revolution. And in doing so, he argues for the continued usefulness of the concept of the Scientific Revolution itself.
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