Du Clos and the Mechanization of Chemical Philosophy
That year, Mr. Du Clos continued the examination that he had begun of Mr. Boyle’s Essays of Chemistry. This English scholar had undertaken to explain all the chemical phenomena by way of corpuscular philosophy, that is, through the motion and the configur
- PDF / 216,831 Bytes
- 17 Pages / 439.37 x 666.14 pts Page_size
- 69 Downloads / 202 Views
Du Clos and the Mechanization of Chemical Philosophy Rémi Franckowiak
12.1
Du Clos, Boyle and Fontenelle
That year, Mr. Du Clos continued the examination that he had begun of Mr. Boyle’s Essays of Chemistry. This English scholar had undertaken to explain all the chemical phenomena by way of corpuscular philosophy, that is, through the motion and the configurations of small bodies alone. Mr. Du Clos, as great a chemist as Mr. Boyle, but being perhaps more chemistry minded, did not think this science could or even needed to be reduced to such clear principles as shapes and motions, and he readily accepted a certain specious obscurity, which is quite well established …. [C]hemistry, by visible operations, resolves bodies into certain coarse and tangible principles, salts, sulphur, etc. But physics, through delicate speculations, acts on these principles, as chemistry does on bodies, and resolves them into other even simpler principles, to small moving bodies with an endless number of shapes: here is the main difference between physics and chemistry, and almost the same as that which lay between Mr. Boyle and Mr. Du Clos. The spirit of chemistry is more confused, more veiled; resembles more the mixed bodies, where the principles are mixed up with one another, while the spirit of physics is more distinct, clearer; finally it identifies the first origins, and the other does not go through to completion.1
1
Fontenelle, Histoire de l’Académie Royale des Sciences, vol. I, pp. 79–81: “M. du Clos continua cette année l’examen qu’il avoit commencé des Essais de Chimie de M. Boyle. Ce savant Anglois avoit entrepris de rendre raison de tous les Phénomenes Chimiques par la Philosophie corpusculaire, c’est-à-dire, par les seuls mouvemens & les seules configurations des petits corps. M. du Clos, grand Chimiste, aussi-bien que M. Boyle, mais ayant peut-être un tour d’esprit plus Chimiste, ne trouvoit pas qu’il fût nécessaire, ni même possible, de reduire cette Science à des principes aussi clairs que les figures & les mouvemens, & il s’accomodoit sans peine d’une certaine obscurité spécieuse qui s’y est assés établie. […] La Chimie par des operations visibles résout les corps en certains principes grossiers & palpables, sels, souffres, &c. Mais la Phisique par des spéculations délicates agit sur ces principes, comme la Chimie a fait sur les corps, elle les résout eux-mêmes en d’autres principes encore plus simples, en petits corps mus & figurés d’une infinité de façons: voilà la principale différence de la Phisique & de la Chimie, & presque la même qui étoit entre
R. Franckowiak (*) Université Lille I, Villeneuve d’Ascq, France e-mail: [email protected] D. Garber and S. Roux (eds.), The Mechanization of Natural Philosophy, Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science 300, DOI 10.1007/978-94-007-4345-8_12, © Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2013
285
286
R. Franckowiak
It is in these terms that in 1733, Bernard le Bouvier de Fontenelle, the permanent secretary of the Royal Academy of Science in Paris, summa
Data Loading...
