The ArgumentMost historians of science share the conviction that the incorporation of the corpuscular theory into seventeenth-century chemistry was the beginning of modern chemistry. My thesis in this paper is that modern chemisty started with the concept of the chemicl compound, which emerged at the end of the seventeenth and the beginning of the eighteenth century, without any signifivant influence of the corpuscular theory. Rather the historical reconstruction of the emergence of this concept shows that it resulted from the reflection (...) on the chemical operations in the sixteenth-century metallurgy and seventeenth-century pharmacy. I argue that the reversibility of these operations and their understanding as crafts (metallurgy) or chemical arts (pharmacy) were decisive factors for the emergence of the first ideas about chemical compounds in the seventeenth-century pharmaceutical works written by pharmaceutically trained authors, influenced by the Paracelsian image of nature. There is a direct line of descent from these authors to E.F.Geoffroy (1675–1742), who integrated the first scattered ideas of chemical compound into a general concept comprising chemical artefacts as well as natural bodies. (shrink)

The ArgumentThe overall portrayal of early modern experimentation as a new method of securing assent within a philosophical discourse sketched in many of the recent studies on the historical origin of experimentation is questioned by the analysis of the experimental practice of chemistry at the Paris Academy. Chemical experimentation at the Paris Academy in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century originated in a different tradition than the philosophical. It continued and developed the material culture of the chemical work shops (...) of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and explored epistemic objects which had rather loose connections to philosophy. On the other hand, I argue against the classical dichotomy between the work of the mind that of the hand, and for an epistemology of experimentation that acknowledges that experimental manipulation goes hand in hand with reflexion. In particuler, I argue against the view that chemists at the Paris Academy were “pragmatists” who merely gathered experimental facts and classified substances and operations without perplexing themselves over general conceptions. I claim that the chemists at the Paris Academy constructed a general conception framework which shaped the significance of their experiments. This conception that I call conception of the chemical combination, compound and reaction was rather quickly reified into an experimental fact. Despite its generality it was a genuine chemical conception rather independent of philosophy. (shrink)

In trying to understand why a chemist thought as he did, and drew one set of conclusions rather than another, probably the most important thing we need to know is what picture he had in mind of the way in which chemical reactions take place. There are, of course, many other things we need to know. For example, we need to know his social, economic and cultural circumstances, how he was educated and his ideas of the social function of science (...) and in particular of chemistry; we need to know what scientific societies and institutions he belonged to and how they influenced him; and we need to know what he hoped to get out of his work in chemistry—fame or a living or personal satisfaction or a combination of two or three of those results. Indeed, it has become fashionable in recent years to consider those aspects rather than the nature of his actual chemical thought. Yet in the end, his mental picture of chemical change is surely the most important factor in determining what the chemist's results will be, and is therefore the most important factor for historians to understand. (shrink)

The ArgumentEtienn-François Geoffroy' Table des Rapports is generally regarded as a landmark in the evolution of chemistry during the eighteenth century. Issues have arisen among historians concerning the significance and originality of the Table that require fuller attention to the immediate context of chemical research in the Academie des sciences during the two decades that preceded its appearance. The present paper argues that, despite the transition from communal to individual research projects that marked the reorganization of the Academy in 1699, (...) chemists continued to pursue shared problems within a communal ethos. The interactions between Wilhelm Homberg, Etienne-François Geoffroy, and Louis Lemery were particularly prominent. The paper traces one example of this interaction, involving the sulfur principle and its influence on one entry in Geoffroy's Table. Further such studies are needed to elucidate the relation between the concepts of chemical composition and reactions implied in Geoffroy's table and the concepts embodied in the previous work of Geoffroy and his associates in the Academy. (shrink)