Macquer on the Composition of Metals and the Artificial Production of Gold and Silver
1966; University of Pennsylvania; Volume: 11; Linguagem: Inglês
10.2307/27757260
ISSN2327-7386
Autores Tópico(s)History and advancements in chemistry
ResumoTHE Biblioth?que Nationale, Paris, possesses many manu scripts of P. J. Macquer (1718-84), the distinguished French chemist. Among these is an essay of sixteen pages, entirely in Macquer's hand, entitled Sur la pierre philosophale.,, 1 It seems never to have been published, and it is undated, but it was written after the publication of Maupertuis' Lettres in 1753 and probably before the appearance in 1766 of Macquer's own Dictionnaire de Chymie. After a little homily on the evils that can arise from the love of gold, Macquer discussed the ambitions and claims of the alchemists, some of whom were motivated by the desire to find the truth about nature, others merely by the desire for wealth. There were many cir cumstantial accounts of transmutations, but he was unable to accept them; his doubts would be resolved only when a properly controlled public experiment was performed. However, wrote Macquer, although experimental evidence was lacking, it was permissible to discuss the theoretical possibility of transmutation according to sound principles. Here we may digress to consider some eighteenth-century views on the nature of matter. Most chemists were atomists, and agreed that matter is composed of a limited number of elements, or primitive and simple, or perfectly unmingled bodies as Boyle had called them in the Sceptical Chymist, but there was no general agreement about the number or nature of these elements. Boyle had criticized the Aristotelian view that there were four elements?fire, air, water, earth ?and the Paracelsian doctrine of three principles?salt, sulphur, mer
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