studies in the natural philosophy of sir kenelm digby part ii. digby and alchemy

STUDms IN THE NATURAL PHILOSOPHY OFsm KENELMbIGBY

PART II. DIGBY AND ALCHEMYBy BETTYJo DOBBs*

SIR Kenelm Digby (I603-I66s)-virtuoso, "compleat Gendeman", alchemist,. student of life processes, and mechanical phllosopher-:-lS a figure who in his

own person demonstrates a great many of the currents at work in the pre-Newtonian period of natural science. Grounded in Aristotle and also in theParacelsian principles of sympathetic medicine, Digby all his life acceptedas true certain tenets of these older sciences. Yet he also sought mechanicalexplanations for his received facts and, furthermore, he attempted to utilizeempirical criteria in his natural philosophical work and writings.l

Digby's efforts met with mingled acclain1 and disparagement even inthe seventeenth century and his work was soon superseded and forgotten.His attitudes and ideas are significant, however, in illuminating the complexcurrents and crosscurrents in the development of seventeenth-century naturalphilosophy. This is particulary true in the field of alchemy-chemistry, withwhich the second and third parts of these Digby "Studies" will be concerned.2

Digby did not make a large contribution to positive chemical knowledge.Nevertheless his profound empiricism acted upon the study of alchemy insuch a way that that branch of the occult became in his hands much less esotericand much more a part of rational natural philosophy.

Interest in alchemy was large in the seventeenth century and Digby cameinto contact with a number of men who held beliefS similar to his regardingtransmutation. With them he shared his secrets and in turn collected theirs.Such a cooperative intellectual endeavour presupposes communication.Whereas the language of the older alchemy had been made deliberately vague,in the hands of Digby and some of his contemporaries it became clearer andrnore rational and was made to describe precise chemical events. Thus duringDigby's lifetime and for approximately half a century after his death, alchemywas enabled to provide a broad paradigm for chemical research, a paradigmwhich ~as a fruitful alternative to iatrochemistry at a time when chemistrywas still far from being a unified and independent field.

* 306 Spruce Street, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27514, U.S.A.I Betty Jo Dobbs, "Studies in the Natural Philosophy of Sir Kenelm Digby. Part I", Ambix,

18, 1-25, 1971. Hereinafter referred to as Dobbs, "Digby. Part I."2 The series of Digby "Studies" by the present writer was originally projected in three parts,

with Digby's biological work comprising the third. The alchemical material having proved to betoo extensive for inclusion in a single article, however, the series has been expanded and the bio-logical study postponed to a subsequent fourth part.

AMBIX Vol. XX Part 3 November 1973

144 BETI"Y JO DOBBS

The advent of mechanical philosophies in the seventeenth century isusually supposed to have sounded the death knell of alchemy. FollowingMetzger's pioneer work in the area,3 that thesis has been rather generallyaccepted. Yet a number of the giants of mechanical philosophy-notablyBoyle, Newton, and Boerhaave-never completely disavowed the possibilityof transmutation. Rather, each of these men seems to have held to some sortof general alchemical theory which he translated into mechanical terms.4

Rather than the prevailing tendency toward mechanism, it is suggestedhere that it was the accumulation of negative evidence which finally causeda significant decline in the popularity of the concept of transmutability andthat the process of the rejection of the claims of the old alchemists took placein two stages.

The first of these was what may be called the clarification and chemi-calization of alchemical thought and practice. This step served to provide abody of literature which offered examples of transmutations in rational ter-minology, examples which were in fact presented operationally. The secondstage, which continued into the eighteenth century, occurred when such opera-tions came to oe attempted again and new generations of experimentalistsfound the earlier reports of transmutations to be inaccurate.

Digby entered into the process of rejection at the first stage. He was asthoroughly convinced of the "fact" of metallic transmutation as of the generalcorrectness of Aristotle and of the possibility of sympathetic medical treatments;but in -his work he rationalized the language of alchemy and simplified theprocesses. His own favourite recipe was fully operational; for the most part thosehe collected from others were also. Many of them may even be translated intotwentieth-century terminology and in Part III of these Digby "Studies" some

3 Helene Metzger, Les doctrines chimiques en France du dibut du XVIIe a lafin du XVIIIe siecle, Paris,1923, esp. 229-77 and 421-68.

4 It is beyond the scope of the present article to consider the alchemical ideas of Boyle, Newton,and Boerhaave. The interested reader may find some of the following references useful, however.On Boyle, two older articles are still important: (I) Louis Trenchard More, "Boyle as Alchemist",Journal of the His/or] of Ideas, 2, 61-76, 1941; (2) AaronJ. Ihde, "Alchemy in Reverse: Robert Boyleon the Degradation of Gold", Chymia g, 47-57 1964. Some of Newton's ideas on transmutation havebeen approached by studies on the change from Hypothesis III of the first edition of the Principia toRule III of the second and subsequent editions: (I) Alexandre Koyre, "Newton's 'Regulae Philoso-phandi''', in Newtonian Studies, Cambrid~e, Mass., 1965., 26I-7~.ij2)J..~cGuire, "Transmuta-tion and Immutability: Newton's Doctrine of Physical Qualities", Ambix, 14, 69-g5, 1967 ;J. E.McGuire, "The Origin of Newton's Doctrine of Essential Qualities", Centaurus, 12, 233-60,I9btl.Boerhaave presented the principles of alchemy in systematic form in his chemical lectures. SeeHerman Boerhaave, A New Method of Chemistry, trans. by P. Shaw and E. Chambers, London, 1727,99-104.

THE NATURAL PHILOSOPHY OF SIR KENELM DIGBY

representative ones from his book Secrets5 will be so presented with their seven.teenth- and twentieth-century descriptions in. parallel.

The present article will concentrate on presenting the historical contextof Digby's alchemical studies, utilizing as Ill:uch as possible relevant infor-mation about his known alchemical associates. The format will be largelychronological and it is hoped that t1)is approach will demonstrate Digby'sown development and also something of the changes taking place in alchemyduring his lifetime.

DIGBY'S ALCHEMICAL ACTIVITIES AND AsSOCIATES

Sir Kenelm Digby was in many respects a late product of RenaissanceHermeticism,6 which had in England been grafted onto the native alchemicaltradition of men like Roger Bacon, Thomas Norton, and Sir George Ripley.Renaissance Hermeticism had come to England during the Elizabethanperi~d with John Dee7 and the Northumberland Circle.8 The person whowas later to be Digby's tutor at Oxford, one Thomas Allen, was fully withinthat Hermetic movement, sharing with the others interests in astrology, al-chemy, and Cabalism, as well as mathematics, history, astronomy, and phil-osophy.9 Allen had "succeeded", as Fuller put it, "to the skill and scandal ofFrier Bacon", 10 and had in his rooms at Gloucester Hall "a great many math-ematicall instruments and gl~sses".ll Into those.rooms in 1618 catp.e the youngKenelm Digby. It was the beginning of a warm relationship which lasteduntil Allen's death. Allen called Digby "the Mirandula of his age" after thegreat Pico12 and left him his burning glass and a quantity of extremely valuable

5 Sir Kenelm Digby, A Choice Collection of Rare Secrets and Experiments in Philosophy. AsAlso Rareand unheard-of Medicines, Menstruums, and Alkahest1; with the True Secret of Volatilizing the fixt Salt ofTartar. Collected And Experimented by the Honourable and trury Learned Sir Kenelm Digby, Kt. Chancellourto Her Majesry the Queen-Mother. Hitherto kept Secret since his Decease, but now Published for the good andbenefit of the Publick;, By George Hartman~ London: Printed for the Author, and are to be Sold by WilliamCooper, at the Pelican in Little Britain; and Henry Faithorne and John Kersey, at the Rose in St. Paul'sChurch-yard, 1682. Hereinafter referred to as Digby, Secrets. Additional details on the publicationof this posthumous work of Digby'.:i will also appear in Part III of these "Studies".

6 On Renaissance Hermeticism, see Frances A. Yates, Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition,Chicago, London, and Toronto, 196.4. Hereinafter referred to as Yates, Bruno.

7 Charlotte Fell Smith)John Dee (1527-1608) London, 1909, hereinafter referred to as Smith,Dee; Frances A. Yates, Theatre of the World, Chicago, 1969, I-4 I.

8 Robert Hugh Kargon, Atomism in Englandfrom Hariot to Newton, Oxford, 1966, 5-17.9 Mark H. Curtis, Oxford and Cambridge in Transition, 1528-1642. An Essay on Changing Relations

between the English Universities and English Society;, Oxford, 1965, 236.10 Thomas Fuller, The History of the Worthies of England: Endeavoured by Thomas Fuller, D. D. First

printed in 1662, A New Edition, 2 vols., London, 181 I, 11,310.11 John Aubrey, "Brief LivesH

• Chiefly of Contemporaries;, set down by John Aubrey, between the Years1669 fit 1696, ed. by Andrew Clark, 2 vols., Oxford, 1898, I, 27. Hereinafter referred to as Aubrey,Lives.

12 Ibid., I, 22.,.

BETIY JO DOBBS

manuscripts, which manuscripts were later to form the core of Sir Kenelm'scontribution to the Bodleian Library.13

Nothing is known of any experimental work Digby and Allen may havedone together and, so far as is known, Digby had no occasion for alchemicalor chemical experiments after he left Oxford until the death of his wife in1633 caused him to withdraw from public affairs for about two years. Thenhe "diverted himselfe with his chymistry, and the professors' good conver-sation"14 at Gresham College. He was later to say that he had there a "fairand large Laboratory ... erected under the Lodgings of the Divinity-Reader"and that while there his own lodgings were "at the end of your great Gal-lery".15

13 W. D. Macray, Annals qf the Bodleian Library, Oxford; with a Notice of the Earlier Library qf theUniversity, 2nd ed., Oxford, 18go, 78-81. The manuscripts are described in Catalogi codicum manu-scriptorumbibliothecaeBoaleianae, Pars Nona, Codicesa Vire Clarissime Kenelm Digby, Eq. Aur., anno 1634donatos, complectans, confecit G. D. Macray, O'conii, 1883.

14 Aubrey, Lives, I, 226.15 Sir Kenelm Digby: Of Bodies, and Of Mans Soul. To Discover the Immortality qf ReasonableSovls.

With two Discourses Of the Powder qf Sympathy, and ~f the Vegetationqf Plants, London: Printed by S.G.and B.G. for John Williams, and are to be sold in Little Britain over against St. Butto/phs-Church,1669. In this edition of Digby's major works, Of Bodies has a separate pagination and OJ .'vIalls Soul,Of the Powder of Sympathy, and Of the Vegetationqf Plants have a different but continuous pagination.Digby's reference to his early chemical work at Gresham College occurred in his discourse Of Ihe

Vegetationqf Plants, which occupies pp. ~09-31 of the present volume, quotation on p. 226 [incor-rectly paginated as 216]' This discourse, which Digby delivered to the new Royal Society assembledat Gresham College, on 23 January 1660, is hereinafter referred to as Digby, V(Jgelalimz, and pagereferences are to the edition given here. Reference to Digby's other essays are by individual' nameand similarly to this edition.

Ronald Sterne Wilkinson discovered an inventory, dated Aug. I, 1648, among the papers ofSamuel Hartlib, which have been deposited at Sheffield University by their owner, Lord Delamere(Hartlib Papers XVI, 3). It is entitled "In Sr Ken: Digby his Laboratoire at Gresham Colledge".Presumably it refers tothe laboratory "under the Lodg!ngs of the Divinity-Reader". T.~invent0Q:follows as kindly supplied by Wilkinson from his own transcript, with notes. The relailons ofDigby ~th the Hartlib circle will be further explored below.

In ye first Roome

A Great Glasse Casse wth severall great GlasesAn Anatomy Board wth drawers

In the Next Roome

A Driving [drying?] OvenAn Oven wth Iron retortsA deliquum stone & CellarA Closet and Litell Lodging Roome, A Table and formes

In the great Roome

A Reverberating Calcining OvenA Balneum Marlae rwa ter bathJ ..


During ihose two years Digby devoted much of his time to experimentson palingenesis, in which he attempted to revivify or resurrect plants andanimals from their calcined ashes. One set 'of resurrected plants described byQuercetanus, physician to. Henry IV of France, Digby said he was totallyunable to duplicate, although he was able to follow a recipe given to himby Athanaslus Kircherus at. 'Rome which employed nettles. -But his greatestsuccess came with calcined crayfishes. With them Digby was able not onlyto revive the "Idaea" or form of the animals after they had been first bojledand then ro~sted in a reverberatory furnace and their "Salt" extracted, h~was able also to produce the living animals again. Then, feeding them with"Ox-blood", he was able to "bring them on to what bigness you please".16His recipe for the revivification of crayfishes was apparently among his papers

, 3 Sand Retort furnacesA furnace for Retorts in open fireAn Ashanor or digest Furnace20 Limbeck .[alembic] bodyes of sev.erall fires [s~zes?]2 Glasse basons6 Glasse Funnels and some Galley GlasesA paire of Tongs 2 supporters for Recipients13 Iron Trevetts [trivets]Severall peeces of earthen VessellsA water Cistern Cock and SinkSeverall old materiallsA Large Table, dresser board, shelves & drawers8 small Iron GrateA choping planckSeverall Glasse bottles of severall Sizes2 Grinding stones of speckled marble

In the other Roome

A great skrew PresseA stone morter and wooden Pestell2 Grinding stonesA search [sieve]A Great Balneum Mariae3 Vaporatoryes2 V esicae [copper stills] cum Refrigaratoris2 Sand furnacesA Balneum Roris [waterQr steam.bath]: or for sand4 Stooles to Set RecipientsPeeces of lead fur the Balneum MariaeA Great Iron Plate

16 Digby, Vegetation, 225-8.

BETTY 10 DOBBS

at his death and is included in the posthumous book of Secrets.17 It will' bediscussed in more detail in Part III of these Digby "Studies", when that wholework -is considered.

The concept of palingenesis has recently been explored by Marx.Is Atthis point .it is sufficient to note that the idea of palingenesis was intimatelyrelated to the Christian dogma of the Resurrection of the Body in Digby's mindand that he was doubtless drawn to these studies because of the recent deathof his beloved wife, Venetia.

While at Gresham COllege in the 1630's Digby probably also took upalchemical studies, as he employed the Hungarian operator Hans Hunneades.19

Hunneades was a favourite among gentlemen alchemists in the years between1632, when he arrived in England, and 1646 or 1649, when he died. BesidesDigby, John Webster, of Webster-Ward debate fame20 and the later authorof Metallographia,21 studied with him (in 1632-3)22 and John Dee's son Arthur(1579-1651) later attempted to employ him for alchemical work.23 The as-trologer William Lilly dedicated his Anglicus, Peace, or no Peace (London, 1645)to Hunneades. In addition the Hungarian seems to have become a professorat Gresham College, where his pursuits were alchemy and mathematics.Evidence for his appointment to that official position comes from an inscriptionon the base of a portrait of him: Johannes Banfi HuniadesRivuliensis Ungarus~olim apud Anglos in Illu: Coll: Londino-Greskamensi Hermeticae Disciplinae Sectator

; et philomathematicus.24 However, no record of Digby's --al~hemicai work f~om, his Gresham period has survived unless it be some of the undated items in hisbook of Secrets. One of those items, an alchemical process couched in Aris-

11 Digby, Secrets, 131-2•

18 Jacques Mar;[,"Alchimie et Palingenesie", Isis, 62, 225:-:-8..9z .1..911._19 Digby, Vegetatzon, 220 lmcorrect1y paginated as 216]'20 Allen G. Debus, Scienceand Education in the SeventeenthCentury: the Webster-Ward Dehate>London,

New York, 1970. Hereinafter referred to as Debus, Science and Education.21 John Webster, Metallographia: or, An History of Metals. Wherein is declared the signs of Ores and

Minerals both before and after digging>the causes and manner of their generations, their kinds, sorts, and dif-ferences... , London, 167 I. Webster's work was intended to be a comprehensive natural history ofmetals and minerals; in it he argues at length (pp. 356-88) for metallic transmutation on the groundsof experience, theory, and authority, and includes an unusual argument based on petrifaction, whichhe takes to be a form of transmutation.

22 DNB, XX, 1036-7; Debus, Science and Education, 37-43.23 Sir Thomas Browne, The Works of Sir Thomas Browne, ed. by Geoffrey Keynes, 4 vols., Chicago,

London, and Toronto, 1964, IV, 296-7. On Arthur Dee, see N.A. iFigurovski, "'The Alchemist andPhysician Arthur Dee (Artemii Ivanovich Dii)", Ambix, 13, 35-51, 1965. •

24 F. Sherwood Taylor and C.H. Josten, "Johannes BanfiHu~ya_des 1576-1650", Ambix, 5,44-52,1953; F. Sherwood Taylor and C. H. Josten, "Johannes Banfi Hunyades. A SupplementaryNote", Ambix, S, I IS, 1956.

THE NATURAL PHILOSOPHY OF SIR KENELM DIGBY 149

totelian language,25 will be presented in Part III of the present series of"Studies", together wit!l the reasons for believing that it does date from earlyin Digby's career.

There is evidence that by 1636 Digby had begun to examine some ofthe earlier literature with a critical eye. About that time he received from acorrespondent a list of twenty medical and chemical books, with a requestfor comments on their value. His reply indicates something of his thinkingabout a number of works.

Crollius teacheth the preparation and vse of Chimike medicines. Agrippahath curious learning, but meddleth not wth. Alchimy. his booke devanitate scientarum is a wittie one; but the other de occulta Philosophia,is the birth of an vnsettled though learned braine. Villanoua treatethonely ofPhysicke after Gallens way. Millius and Mayerus are two moderneauthors that j va (lue] not very much; yet they haue some pretty (edgetorn). Jsaaci Hollandi opa. mineralia is a braue worke [ ... ]. Paracelsusaymes at all learning, but writt [so ... ] when he was drunke; yet his workesgenerally a( re] ,vorthy ones.26

Digby's reading of Croll and Paracelsus has already been noted withrespect to sympathetic medicine.27 Although he fully accepted the techniqueof the weapon-salve, he rejected the invocation by Croll and Paracelsus ofastral influence as the active agent involved in fts effectiveness and, at leastby 1644 when he published his Two Treatises, Digby offered a mechanicalexplanation for his own sympathetic powder.

Digby's critical remarks on Agrippa are of interest also. Cornelius Agrippa'sDe occulta philosophia (1533) had been very important in the developmentof Hermetic philosophy in the latter half of the sixteenth century. Yates hasshown that Agrippa developed and systematized the thoughts of earlier writerson magic and occult forces,28 whileJohn Dee, the father ofEn~lish Hermeticism,once spoke of keeping Agrippa's books open on his window ledge.29 Agrippa'sdisciples joined with those of Ficino, Pico della Mirandola, Reuchlin, Trith-emius and Paracelsus in the strong mystical movement of late sixteenth-centuryGermany.30 Yet Digby, who probably cut his intellectual teeth on this verywork or on similar ones when he studied under Thomas Allen, notes now

25 Digby, Secrets, 1-4.

26 State Papers 16/342/63, quoted in E. W. Bligh, Sir Kenelm Digby and his Venetia, London,1932, 212. Brackets supplied by Bligh.

27 Dobbs, "Digby. Part 1",5-13.28 Yates, Bruno, r 30-43.29 Smith, Dee, 245-6.:w Arthur Edward \'\Taite, The Real HistoT)' of the Rosicrucians, Founded on Their Own Manifestoes,

and on Facts and Documents Collected from the Writings of Initiated Brethren, London, 1887, 27-33.

BETTY JO DOBBS

that the work was "the birth of an vnsettled though learned braine". A newspirit was beginning to make itself felt in alchemical and Hermetic circles.

The next surviving- information on Dighy's chemical activities dates from1642 and indicates a noteworthy practical interest in laborat~ry equipment.After leaving Gresham in 1635 Digby had been caught up again in courtlife, in travel, and in rising religious tensions. In 1642 Parliament had himimprisoned-he was both Catholic and Royalist-but with privileges com-mensurable with his social standing. His place of imprisonment was WinchesterHouse, the former episcopal palace of Lancelot Andrewes. There he establisheda laboratory for himself and hired a worker from a nearby glass factorY,.JohnColnett, to be his operator. The fruit of this association was an improvedmethod for manufacturing glass bottles, the facts of which only came to lightin 1662 when Colnett applied for a patent on the process and was opposedby other workers in the glass trade who knew the process to have beenDigby's. 31 Available glassware of the period was of very poor quality andthe defects of it negated many experimental results, even when the glassesdid not break at a crucial point. Dighy's intC'rC'stshowed a ,"ery practical eflortto improve operational standards and possibilities, as did his later interestin furnaces, to be discussed below.

Influential friends having petitioned for his release, Parliament allowedDigby to go into exi·le. He then lived principally in France until the Restora-tion in 1660. While there he cultivated relationships with the mechanical philo-sophers, published the Two Treatises in Paris, and spoke at Montpellier onthe sympathetic powder. But he did not neglect alchemical and chemicalstudies either. The flavour of his work in these areas has been preserved bythe diarist John Evelyn.

Evelyn was a man whose interests were similar to those of many othersin the rising scientific movement, as he was concerned with husbandry, utopianestablishments, and chemistry, with the dissemination of useful knowledgeand with atomism. He dedicated one book to Robert Boyle and also publisheda translation of part of Lucretius' De ·rerum natura with a commentary based

31 R. T. Petersson, Sir Kenelm Digby, The Ornament of England, 1603-1665, London, 1956, 163and 340, n.89; T. L. [Thomas Longueville], The Life of Sir Kenelm Digby by One of his Descendants,London, New York, and Bombay, 1896, 255-6. Hereinafter referred to as Longueville, Life. Thepresentation here of Digby's activities at Winchester House follows that of Longueville, but on theface of his evidence, Digby's glassmaking probably took place at Gresham College in the 1630's: thepetitioners against Colnett's patent in 1662 had convinced the Attorney-General that "Sir Kenlemfirst invented glass bottles nearly thirty years since, and employed Col nett and others to make themfor him", Simplc subtraction placcs the activity in 1633-5 rather than in 1642-4.

THE NATURAL PHILOSO.PHY OF SIR KENELM DIGBY

on the work of Gassendi and others.32 In November 1651 he visited Digbyin Paris.

I visited with Sir Kenholm Digby with whom I had much discourseof chymical matters. I shew'd him a particular way of extracting oyleof ~ [sulphur] & he gave me a certaine powder with which he affirm'dhe had fixed ~ [mercury] before the late King, which he advised meto try and digest a litHe better, & gave me a Water, which he said wasandy raine water of the Autumnal aequinox exceedingly rectified, veryvolatile, it had a tast of a strong vitriolique, and smelt like aqua jortis,he intended it for a disolvant of 0 [gold].33

Several items of interest appear in Evelyn's brief paragraph. One which shouldespecially be noted is the free exchange of information and chemicals. Evelynshowed Digby a certain process; Digby .gave Evelyn two chemical prepara-tions.

Another crucial point is that although the chemical theory underlyingtheir exchange is archaic and alchemical, yet they are talking about chemicals,not states of psyche or soul as was apparently often the case in pre-seventeenth-century alchemy. The terminology used by Evelyn is rational and refers tospecific physical substances.

It is apparent also that experimental trials on the fixation of mercury,one form of alchemical procedure, had already been made by Digby. Digby'sbook of Secrets contains a procedure for the preparation and use of a powder"To fix ~ of 0 [antimony], or the Common ~ ",34 which is quitepossibly the same powder shown to Evelyn and used to "fix mercury" beforethe "late King", Charles I. Its specifications will be presented in Digby

"Studies", Part III.In 1654 Digby returned temporarily to England and while there became

involved in one of the pansophic schemes of Samuel Hartlib, for a "generalchemical council" and a "universal laboratory". Samuel Hartlib (c. 1600-62)was primarily interested in educational and religiou~ reform hut was perhapsmore socially and prc:ctically oriented than many reformers. Leaving muchof the effort at religious reform to his co-worker John Dury, an ecumenicalPresbyterian from Scotland working for church reunion, Hartlib concentratedon building up patronage and Parliamentary support for projects on educationand the gathering of knowledge. On his own initiative he undertook to be asort of communications centre for the collection and dissemination of inform-

32 E. S. de Beer, "John Evelyn, F.R.S. (1620-1706)", in The Royal Society: its Origins and Founders,ed. by Sir Harold Hartley, London, 1960, 23 I -8.

33 John Evelyn, Diary, ed. by E. S. de Beer, 6 vols., Oxford, 1955, 111,48. Hereinafter referredto as Evelyn, Diary.

34 Digby, Secrets, 44-5.

B~TTY.JO DOBBS

ation of aU- sorts. He was later to attempt to institutionalize this enormouscorrespondence of his into a state-supported Office of i\ddress, but he failedto obtain funds for it and the correspondence for scientific matters passedafter his death into the hands of John Dury's son-in-law. Henry Oldenburg.Oldenburg, as Secretary for the new Royal Society, personally maintainedit until in 1665 he converted it into the more public format of the PhilosophicalTransactions. 35

HartIib's circles of acquaintance and correspondence had grown c\"crwider from the time he first entered England as a student in 1625 and hadcome to include men of e\"ery possible intellectual persuasion. Among hismanifold interests he included alchemy, chemistry, and chemical medicine,as evidenced by a daybook which he kept from 1634 until the approach of hisfinal illness in 1660, his "Ephemerides". Chemical references begin as earlyas 1640 and continue to the end. By the mid-1640'S, when Hartlib first metRobert Boyle and began to influence him, Hartlib was recording many itemsof chemical interest. Wandering alchemists and chemists of all sorts visitedhim and Hartlib kept in touch with developments in Holland through cor-respondence with the chemist-divine Johann Morian.36

Until the mid-1650's Hartlib and his circle pinned their hopes for theadvancement of chemical and alchemical knowledge largely upon RobertBoyle and George Starkey, a Bermudan who had arri,"ed in London in 1650and was quite active experimentally for a number of years. But Boyle 'wasgenerally located away from London and was spending a great deal of energyon other prqjects. And after a while Hartlib began to ha\T less faith in GeorgeStarkey. By about the end of 1653 Hartlib had gi\'en up all hope that Starkeywould make a great break-through either in chemical medicine or in alchemy.Hartlib wrote to Boyle:

... Dr. Stirk ... is altogether degenerated. and hath, in a manner, undonehimself and his family. I know not directly how many weeks he hath lain

35 An excellent recent discussion of Hartlib and his group may be found in Samuel Hartlib andthe Advancement of Learning, ed., with introd., by Charles Weoster (Cambridge Texts and Studies inthe History of Education), Cambridge, 1970. Webster provides a discussion of, and an introductioninto, much of the older literature on Hartlib and his predecessors and associates. Hercinafter rc-ferred to as Webster, Hartlib. See also Charles Webster, "English Medical Reformers of the PuritanRevolution: A Background to the 'Society of Chymical Physitians' ", Ambix, 14, 16-41, 1967 forbiographical details about the associates of Hartlib and about their interests in medical rcform.

36 Ronald Sterne Wilkinson, "The Hartlib Papers and Seventeenth Century Chemistry. Part I",Ambix, 15, 54-69, 1968, and Ronald Sterne Wilkinson. "The Hartlib Papers and Seventeenth Cen-tury Chemistry. Part II. George Starkey", Ambix, 17,85-110, 1970. See alsoJohnJ. O'Brien, "SamuelHartlib's Influence on Robert Boyle's Scientific Development. Part 1. The Stalbridge Period",Ann. Sci., 21, 1-14, 1965 andJohnJ. O'Brien, "Samuel Hartlib's Influence on Robert Boyle's Scien--tific Development. Part II. Boyle in Oxford", Ann. Sci., 21, 257-76, 1965.

THE. NATURAL PHILOSOPHY OF SIR KENELM DIGB)" 153

in prison for debt; but after he hath been delivered the second time, hehath secretly abandoned his house in London, and is now living obscu-rely .... When God hath brought you over again [from Ireland], weshall leave him altogether to your test, to try whether yet any good metalbe left in him or not. But the best is, that he stands more in need of us,than we of him.37

The reason Hartlib was so easy in his mind about giving up Starkey wasthat in 1651 or 1652 a new experimenter had appeared on the scene, Fred-erick Clodius. His standing with Hartlib rose as Starkey's declined. Clodiushad settled in London and had become intimate with the group thef(\ sharingopinions and research on alchemy, iatrochemistr.y, and husbandry with Boyle,Starkey, Hartlib, and others. He then married Hartlib's daughter and set uphis laboratory in Hartlib's back-kitchen. Hartlib told Boyle about the newlaboratory in the same letter which carried news of Starkey's "degeneration".

As for us, poor earthworms, we are crawling in my house about our quon-dam back-kitchen, whereof my son hath made a goodly laboratory; yea.such a one, as men (who have had the favour and privilege to see, or tobe admitted into it) affirm, they ha\'e ne\"er seen the like, for its severaladvantages and commodiousnesses. It hath been employed days andnights with no small success, God be praised, these many weeks together.But what particulars it hath hitherto produced, and what greater. medi-cines he is taking in hand this week and the next, I suppose this my ob-edient and verv chemical son will be ahk better to relate unto vou. thanmyself. 38 • •

!Not much is known about Glodius' chemical aims, but more should appearas the Hartlib papers are examrnerl more closely. E\"e11at"::"t-hepresent writing.however, it seems clear that he pro\"ided the Hartlih circle \vith a rC"nc\,'C"demphasis on alchemical experimentation. And in this he was soon to rccciycthe strong backing of Sir Kenelm Digby.

Digby had had numerous earlier contacts \"ith the Hartlib grollpa~1 butit wiII be recaIIed that he had been in exile since 1644. Thus during his temporaryreturn to England in 1654 he apparentlymC"t Clodius for the first time andcame immediately to share Hartlib's enthusiasm for him. HartIib told Boylethat Digby

protested seriously unto me. that in all his t[(l\·ds and con\"crscs \\"ith thcchoicest \-",its, both in Italv and France, he hath not met so much of theor-etical solidity and practIcal dexterity hoth together, as he finds in my

37 Samuel Hartlib to Robert Boyle, 28 Feb. 1653/54, in Robert Boyle, The Works of the Honourabl~Robert Boyle. To which is prefixed The Life of the Author, 6 vols., London, 1772, VI, 79-80. Hereinafterreferred to as Boyle, Works.

38 Ibid, 79.39 There are hundreds of references to Digby in the Hartlib papers. Private communication

from R. S. Wilkinson.

154 BETTY JO DOBBS

chemical son; and therefore is resolved to improve that prize accordingly,which providence hath brought to his hands.40Digby pressed Clodius to accept from him a complete provision for him-

self and his family for two years which was to include the furnishing- of a labo-ratory.41 The laboratory was to be a "uniyrrsal" one, in line with the otherpansophic plans of the Hartlibians, and Digby was to contribute £600-700to it as soon as he again recei"ed possession of his sequestered proprrties. Inthe meantime a "g-eneral chemical council" had been constituted to \\'hichDigby had already contributed plans for nrw types of furnaces. drawn from aFrench correspondent of his. Hartlib noted that they wrrr to be "erected erelong amongst ourseh·es. to prosecute really philosophical studies". In hisexuberance Digby had also freely shared his secrets with Clodius, probably'many of the very ones later to be published in Digby's book of Secrets. Hartlibsaid:

He [Digby J hath many excellent secrets and experiments of all sorts, yea,some arcana of the highest nature, which he hath already freely (yet subfide silentii) imparted into his [Clodius'J breast; and is purposing to sendfor all his papers out of France, that he may put them into his custody andmanagement. Both their judgments and experiences agree mightily to-gether, to the very amazement of each other. And there wants nothingto the perfecting of the grand design, but that you [Boyle J are not presentwith them, without whose interest we have no mind that it should beconsummated.42Evidence on the outcome of the grand plans of 1654 is scanty but the

general trend of events is clear enough. Boyle did not join Digby and Clodiusin London; rather, as is well known, he went to Oxford about 1655. Digbyreturned to France, probably in 1656. Correspondence maintained contactamong the three while building plans went forward in London under Clodius'sporadic guidance with at least an occasional visit from Boyle and probablysome financial support from him. Clodius may have become increasingly un-stable and gone into some sort of decline; in any event alchemical activitiesseem to have been centred on Digby's house and laboratory after he returnedto London in 1660, rather than at Clodius' establishment.

While Digby was still in London in 1654-5, both he and Clodius maintaineda chemical correspondence with Boyle, as did others of Hartlib's circle suchas Starkey. Evidence for this correspondence rests in the unpublished Boylepapers at the Royal Society, especially in Boyle's "PhilosophicaU Diary" for

40 Samuel Hartlib to Robert Boyle, 8 May 1654, in Boyle, 'Works, VI, 87.41 Samuel Hartlib to Robert Boyle, IS May 1654, ibid., YI, 8g.42 Samuel Hartlib to Robert Boyle, 8 May 1654, ibid., VI, 86-7.


1654/5 and his "Promiscuous Observations" of September-December 1655.43After Digby returned to France he also wrote to Clodius, sending him "ob-servables". In May 1658, Hartlib told Boyle,

My son Clodius hath also received a letter from Sir K. Digby, with manyobservable things in it. He tells me that Sir K. hath also published of latethe treatise of the sympathetical powder; and, if I be not mistaken, thathe hath gotten, or is shortly to get a copy of it.44Later the same year Hartlib made an extended reference to Clodius'

"chemical college or laboratory" in a letter to Boyle. Although the publishedmaterial gives no inkling of what Boyle's fears in the matter were, yet it is clearthat plans for the laboratory were still in hand and Boyle still had considerableinterest in the laboratory and in Clodius also.

My son Clodius is under new trials, his wife being brought to bed thisnight of a child that died soon after, the mother re.maining weak. Hewrote to you last Saturday. His chemical college or laboratory will not beso much prostituted as you fear; but there was an absolute necessityto resolve upon such a course amongst a few confiding friends. Thereare near three furnaces finished, but five more must be added unto them;and having these, they shall be able to command any kind of operationwhatsoever. I know not how he will be able to dispose of his business,so as to give you now a visit at Oxford: but I suppose that some occasionor other in these changes of public affairs, may invite y~u to London sooner,

it may be, than you had resolved.45Probably Boyle did visit the laboratory at some time in 1658 or there-

abouts, for ten years later Agricola wrote to Boyle that he had had occasionto see him there: "It is almost ten years ago sin'ce I went out of England, andas I dwelt with Mr. Frederic Clodius, I had the happiness and honour to seeyour nobleness, and to wait upon you in our laboratory .... "46 Probablyalso Boyle gave money to Clodius during the period of the late 1650's, for in1663 Clodius wrote to Boyle asking for more "financial assistance.47.

In that same letter Clodius claimed that thefts and misfortunes were allconspiring to his ruin. He had still been translating treatises on the philosopher'sstone in 1659,48 but what exactly happened to him or to his laboratory afterthat time remains unknown. Not even the date of his death has been recorded,

43 Boyle Papers VIII, fI 140, et seq., and Boyle Papers XXV, respectively, cited in R. E. W.Maddison, The Life of the Honourable Robert Boyle F.R.S., London, New York, Ig6g, 85-6. Hereinafterreferred to as Maddison, Boyle.

44 Samuel Hartlib to Robert Boyle, 25 May, 1658, Boyle, Works, VI, 109.45 Samuel Hartlib to Robert Boyle, 14 Sept. 1618, ibid., VI, 114.46 G. Agricola to Robert Boyle, 6 April 1668, ibid., VI, 650.

47 F. Clodius to Robert Boyle, 12 Dec., 1663, unpublished Boyle Letters at the Royal Society(B. L. II, 17), cited in Maddison, Boyle, 87.

48 Samuel Hartlib to Robert Boyle, 17 May 1659, in Boyle, Works, VI, 125.

BETTY JO DOBBS'

but it is clear that he passed from prominence in the chemical circles of Londonat least by .the early 1660'S.

In the meantime Sir Kenelm w~ following up his chemical-alchemicalinterests in France with his usual verve. He had alrea~y_~~_J~Eeyre'scourse of chemistry when it first opened in 1651, along with Evelyn.49 Digbyafterwards probably kept up a relationship with Ie Fevre and his chemicalcircle in Paris. In MarCh ot 1059/bu Uldenburg, then in Paris, met Digbyat the "house of a Chymist" who was very likely Ie Fevre or one of his adherents,as Oldenburg had himself met Ie Fevre a few months earlier.50 The topic forthe evening's discussion was distinctly Ie Fevrian, being a -speculative dis-cussion on the "universal spirit" as a dissolven t for gold, and Sir KenelmDigby was the moderator.

... [VJe question was agitated about ye dissolvent of gold, whether yeuniversal spirit of ye world in its undetermined nature, or as it is specifiedand contracted to a minerall, be ye menstruum of yt noble metal? Thediscussion hereof being rather made by authority, yn reason, gave smallsatisfaction to ye auditors .... 51

Le Fevre's "Universal Spirit", it will be recalled, was non-corporeal in "itsundetermined nature" but was corporealized as it "specificated" in variouspossible individnalized matrices.52 The participants in this particular chemicaldiscussion seemed to be agreed on the existence of the "Universal Spirit" butwished to determine its most appropriate form for use in the dissolution ofgold.

Digby had alredy been searching for a good menstruum for gold in 1°51when Evelyn visited him; at the time he was experimenting with "raine waterof t~e Autumnal aequinox". The rationale behind Digby's choice of that ratherunlikely liquor for a dissolvent for gold may be deduced from the Ie Fevriandiscussion here reported by Oldenburg.

It was a strictly Neoplatonic one. The "Universal Spirit" was everywherepresent in the air, according to that philosophical position, but the watery

, vapours also present in the air were thought to have a strong attraction forit and to incorporate it with themselves and to bring it down to earth whenthey descended as rain or dew, etc. These ideas were clearly expressed byJean d'Espagnet in his work on Neoplatonic physical ~heory, Enchyridion

49 Evelyn, Diary, III, 49.50 Henry Oldenburg to Saporta, 26 April 1659, in The Correspondence of Henry Oldenburg, ed. and

trans. by A. Rupert Hall and Marie Boas Hall, Madison and Milwaukee,' 1965, I, 227. Hereinafterreferred to as Oldenburg, Correspondence.

51 Henry Oldenburg to Robert Boyle, 10 March 1659/60, ibid., I, 363.52 Dobbs, '"Digby. Part I". 22-4.


Physicae Restituae~53 which will be treated more fully in Part III of theseStudies".

In addition to that generalized Neoplatonic notion, however, the IeFevrian chemists apparently identified gold very closely with the "UniversalSpirit". Digby himself was later to say that "Gold is of the same Nature asthis aethereal Spirit [the "Universal Spirit"]; or rather, it is nothing but it,first corporify'd in a pure place, and then baked to a perfect Fixation .... "Then following the ancient but still useful rule that "like dissolves like" headded,

I t [gold] is of it self too firmly composed, for any Agent upon Earth todissolve it. But peradventure the Mother [the "Universal Spirit"] thatbore it, may re-incrudate and reduce it back into its first volatile prin-ciples.54

From this statement it is clear that Digby thought the "Universal Spirit"would possibly dissolve gold since it was so closely related to it. He must havehoped that he had captured sufficient "Universal Spirit" in his rain water, the"Spirit" having been absorbed in the atmosphere and brought down to earthwith. the water, that he would be able to dissolve gold with it.

To be fully understood, however, Digby's search for a dissolvent for goldin this Neoplatonic context must be read in conjunction with his earlier remarksin his treatise Of Bodies, for he clearly knew in 1644 that aqua regia would "dis-solve" gold. Indeed that chemical fact had been common knowledge .forhundreds of years. But Digby did not think that aqua regia really dissolvedgold into the parts that composed its "essence". Aqua regia, he thought, onlydivided gold into parts which were tiny replicas of the whole bulk, much asfiling or grinding did. To divide it into parts which were the true componentsof it') nature, some other agent would be required.55

At the time Digby wrote his Two Treatises, of which Of Bodies was onc,he had probably not yet been introduced to the Neoplatonism of Ie Fevreand his circle. When he was, he evidently did not revise his earlier views;rather he superimposed the Neoplatonic views on them. By that process h.ecame to believe that the "Universal Spirit" might be the agent which wouldreduce gold into its true components or "its first volatile principles".

As Digby was still looking for that agent for the dissolution of gold inhis Vegetation of Plants, pre"en ted to the. Royal Society in I660 and the lastpaper he published himself, it clearly remained a continuing .concern of his.

I63 [Jean d'Espagnet], Enchyridion Physicae Restitutae; or, The Summary of Physicks Recovered.

Wherein the true Harmony of Nature is explained, and many ErrOUTSof the Ancient Philosophers, byCanons, and certain Demonstrations, are clearly evidenced and evinced, London, I6!)!.

54 Digby, Vegetation, 225.

55 Dobbs, "Digby. Part I", 20-1.

BETTY JO DOBBS

The context does not allow a decision on wheth~r his search was for strictlyai(;hemical purposes or whether he had a pharmaceutical aim. Conceivablyit might have been the latter as "potable gold" was thought to have greatmedicinal value, and aqua regia was hardly a suitable menstruum for anythingwhich was to be imbibed.

Nevertheless Digby's search for a suitable menstruum for gold was prob-ably more alchemical than pharmaceutical and was undertaken, perhaps,in Il?-uch the same spirit that a modern chemist evinces when faced with aproblem in synthesis. The modern chemist would take a'sample of the compoundto be synthesized, analyse it into its component parts, and then proceed tocombine the newly discovered constituents in quantities adequate to makewhatever amount of the compound he desired. Many alchemists attemptedto destroy gold, apparently undertaking their "analyses" to provide them-selves with just such a rational means of synthesis as the modern chemist uses.But of course all their effort were foredoomed, and Boyle a little later expressedtheir frustration with the problem when he quoted the alchemical maxim,jaciliusest aurum construere, quam destruere: it is easier to make gold than to destroy it.56

Boyle thought he had done it with his Menstruum peracutum and that his successproved the possibility of transmutation/i7 while Newton agreed with Boylethat the dissolution of gold would prove the possibility of transmutation al-though he did not think a generation later that it had ever been done ade-quately. In a manuscript written in the r690's, he offered his own corpus-cularian restatement of the problem, which has since become very famous.

All Bodies have Particles which do mutually attract one another:The Summs of the least of which may be called Particles of the first Compo-sition, and the Collections or Aggregates arising from the, [sic] PrimarySumms; or the Summs of these Summs may be call'd Particles of thesecond Composition, &c.

Mercury and Aqua Regis can pervade those Pores of Gold or Tin,which lie between the Particles of its last Composition ~ but they can't getany further into it; for if any Menstruum could do that, or if the Particlesof the first, or perhaps of the second Composition of Gold could be sepa-rated; that Metal might be made to become a Fluid, or at least moresoft. And if Gold could be brought once to ferment and putrefie, it mightbe turn'd into any other Body whatsoever.

And so of Tin. or any other Bodies; as common Nourishment isturn'd into the Bodies of AnImals and Vegetables. 58

56 Robert Boyle, The Origine of Formes and Qualities, Oxford, 16Q.§, 363:,57 Ibid., 349-78.58 Isaac Newton, "Some Thoughts about the Nature of Acids", in John Harris, Lexicon Tech-

nicum or an Universal Dictionary of Arts and Sciences, facsimile reprints of the London ed. of 1704 and1710; 2 vols., The Sources of Science, No. 28, New York and London, 1966, II, sig. b4v.


But, returning to the events of that memorable chemical evening in Parisin March 1659/60, it should be noted that Oldenburg went on to tell Boylethat Digby had interlaced "ye discourses of others with several considerablerelations, whereof two did ravish ye hearers to admiration".

The one was of a king's house in England, wch having stood covered wthlead for 5. or 6. ages, and being sold after yt time, was found to containe3/4 of silver in ye lead thereof. The other was of a fixed salt, drawn out ofa certain potters earth here in France at a place called Arcueil; wch saltbeing for some time exposed to ye Sun-beams became saltpeter, yn vi-triol, yn lead, tin, copper, silver, and, at ye end of 14. months, gold, wchhe assured to have experienced himselfe and another able naturalist be-sides him.59

Oldenburg's account is not full enough to determine precisely Digby's intentin introducing these remarkable stories into the discussion, but in view of thegeneral context it seems likely that Digby intended to give examples of theaction of the "Universal Spirit" upon certain materials exposed to its influ-ence in its unspecificated form in the open air or in watery precipitations.Oldenburg drew back a little from these examples of Digby's, remarkingthat he "would rather see this, yn believe it, though ye author be a very au-thentique gentleman. "60

With the Restoration of 1660 Digby returned to London and Ie Fevrecame too, apparently at the request of that royal experimenter who was aboutto receive his crown. By 15 November Charles II had made Ie Fevre his "pro-fessor of chemistry" and by 31 December also apothecary in ordinary to theroyal household. Ie Fevre was also put in charge of Charles' laboratory atSt. James' Palace and in 1663 was elected Fellow of the Royal Society.61 Theobject of Charles' and Ie Fevre's experiments in the royal laboratory is notknown with any certainty, but some speculations on Charles' desire to "fix"mercury and on his possible death by mercury poisoning will be consideredin Part III of the present "Studies".

Probably the alchemical activities of the Hartlib circle centred on Digby'shouse after his final return to London in 1660, in continuation of the planfor a "general chemical council" or a "universal laboratory". He had takenup residence "in the last faire house westward in the north portico of Conventgarden"62 and again established his laboratory. Dropping out of court and

59 Henry Oldenburg to Robert Royle, 10 March 1659/60, in Oldenburg, Correspondence, I, 363.60 Ibid.

• 61 DNB, XI, 840; J.R. Partington, A History of Chemistry, London, New York, 1962~ III, 17-24·

62-Aubrey, Lives, I, 227.

160 BETTY JO DOBBS

politicailife. he established a salon of the French type whIch "became a rendez-vous of mathematicians, chemists, philosophers, and authors" .63

Balthazar de Monconys (1611-65), a French virtuoso who travelledwidely and gathered up all he could of the "New Learning" wherever hewent, was in London in 1663. "Ch~ualier d'Igby" is much in evidence inMonconys' journal of that visit, advising Monconys on a good microscopemaker and discussing the "Touching for the King's Evil" with him. Monconysvisited Digby'-s laboratory and talked with his operator, whom he thoughtto be unusually honest.

De 1(\ ie fus au Laboratoire de M. d'Igby, OU son Artiste me sembla vndes plus honestes hommes de cette profession, en me confessant qu'iln'auout rien appris dans tout Ie temps de sa vie qu'il auoit employee a

. cette s~ience, si non qu'il n'y s<;auoit rien.64

This honest artist may have been George Hartman who was steward andlaboratory assistant to Digby at the time of his death and who was later togather togather Digby's collection of alchemical recipes and publish them asDigby's Secrets in 1682.

Many of the materials upon which Hartman drew for that book seemto have been collected by Digby in the last ten years of his life, as those itemswhich are dated are from the late 1650's and early 1660'S. Some of the recipesderive from Digby's last trip into the Germanies in 1659, several are Ie Fevrianin nature, one came from Frederick Clodius. Several came from French cor-respondents of Digby's about whom nothing is known, others are clearlyDigby's own or were developed in his laboratories. A few items are not recipesat ali but are notes comparing terms from older alchemists and interpreting.them. Recipes for cosmetics (another of Digby's many interests) and for medi-cines (among them Starkey's pills and Digby's own sympathetic powder)are included.

Almost every selection in the work is given in fully operational termsand the book as a whole offers an interesting example of the experimentalexamination of alchemical procedures and also of their rational descriptionwhich seems to have been current during Digby"s lifetime. Probably Digby'sSecrets should be considered as representative of much of the later chemicalactivity of the whole Hartlib circle, at least until a fuller exploration of theHartlib papers proves otherwise.

63 Longueville, Life, 290-1. Longueville added a footnote to "See Appendix F," apparentlyintending to add details on Sir Kenelm's final establishment. One wishes that he had done so; sincehe had access to family documents for his biography, some significant new information might haveemerged. But Appendix F seems never to have been printed; the book ends with Appendix E inthe middle of the last page.

64 Balthazer de Monconys, Journal des Voyages, 3 vols., Lyons, 1665-6, I I, 57·


Such organization as was present in the group, however, diminished inthe later 1660'S. Hartlib died in 1662, Digby and Starkey in 1665, Ie FevreIn 1669, and the Royal Society furnished a new focus for activities.

CONCLUSION

The twentieth-century analytical psychologist, C. G. Jung, in applyinghis psychological insights to the study of alchemy, has provided the historianof science with a promising approach to the historical problems of alchemicalthought. 65 Jung's general viewpoint is that the older alchemy never was, andnever was intended to be, solely a study of matter for its own sake. For the trueadept alchemy was a way of life and a way of salvation, a great work which ab-sorbed all his mental and material resources, but it was never a rational branchof natural philosophy.

Until the seventeenth century alchemy had always been composed oftwo inextricable parts: (I) a secret knowledge or understanding and (2) thelabour at the furnace. According to Jung, these two sides of alchemy reallywere inextricable, for the secret knowledge about transformation was in re-ality an unconcious or semi-concious understanding of certain psychologicalchanges internal to the adept. Since he was unaware of their true nature, how-ever, the alchemist projected the process of change upon matter, projected,that is, in the psychological sense, which means that he "saw" the processtaking place externally. Now this sort of psychological projection presupposesa certain lack of self-awareness and also an amorphous, ambiguous, externalmedium which the psyche can act upon and structure in its own image. Arational and too-detailed knowledge of matter precludes its use for this pur-pose as then matter has its own siructure, so to speak, and cannot have oneshaped for it by the alchemist. Nevertheless, the use of matter as the externalmedium for projection, as well as the acts actually performed in the labora-tory, were absolutely essential for the functioning of alchemy. It was onlythat the knowledge of matter had to be kept vague. Tnus the alchemist neces-sarily used obscure: symbolic, and irrational terminology for his materials:the "Greene Lyon", the "Son of the Sun", the "philosophical infant", "'our'earth", "Diana's Doves", etc.

65 Carl Gustav Jung, Thet:ollected Works ofC. G. Jung, ed. by Herbert Read, Michael Fordham,and Gerhard Adler, trans. by R. ~. C. Hull, 17 vols. in 18, continuing; Bollingen Series XX; NewYork: Pantheon Books, 1953-. The volumes most important for the study ofJung's views on alchemyare: Vol. 9, Pt. 2, Aion: Researches into the Phenomenology of the Self; Vol. 12, Ps...vcholog)'and Alclzem.,l';Vol. 13, Alchemical Studies; Vol. 14, Mysterium coniunctionis: An Inquiry into the Separation and s,.rnthesisof Psychic Opposites in Alchemy. Not in the Collected Works but prepared as a companion work to Vol. 14is Aurora consurgens: A Document Attributed to Thomas Aquinas on the Problem of Opposites in AleheTn)',ed., with commentary, by Marie-Louis von Franz and trans. by R. F. C. Hull and A. S. B. Glover,Bollingen Series LXXVII, New York, 1966. A convenient introduction to Jung's psychology isFrieda Fordham, An Introduction to Jung's Psychology, Harmondsworth, 1956.

BETTY JO DOBBS

Equally important was the lack of self-awareness. Too much insight intohis own psyche would impair the alchemist's projection of his psychologicalprocesses upon matter. An overemphasis on either its material or its psycholo-~ical side would have seriously impaired the vitality of the older alchemy .

.Historically speaking, it seems that alternative overemphasison firstone side and then the other side of alchemy occurred about the beginning ofthe seventeenth century. The result was an irreversible disintegration of theolder alchemy. The overemphasis on the psychological side probably occurredfirst and in part resulted in the Rosicrucian movement. The reaction of morerationally minded intellects to the overemphasis on the psychological aspectsof alchemy then resulted in an overemphasis on the material aspects of it.In the sequence the intertwined halves were split apart and the psycholo-gical side, loosened from its firm mooring-s in the laboratory, degeneratedinto theosophy and the so-called spiritual chemistry. Conversely, the labora-tory side was released from the exigencies of a psychological progression and,joining itself to the burgeoning scientific movement, it became a tationalstudy of matter for its own sake.

The movement away from the esoteric in alchemy was much broaderthan Digby's personal activities indicate, but his studies do seem to be tho-roughly representative of the whole trend. In the course of his life he read theolder, more mystical literature, but he brought his strong empirical tendenciesand also some critical sense to bear upon it. Moving away from the individua-listic, the mystic, and the deliberately occult, he attempted various processesin his laboratories and, when he was satisfied that they worked, he recordedthe results in common chemical terminology.

The increasingly broad social base for alchemical studies which developedin Digby's lifetime is apparent also. Whereas the earlier adept had been anisolated figure, probably pouring over the old manuscripts and tending hisfires alone, by the end of Digby's life he had had innumerable alchemicalcontacts. Introduced to alchemy in Thomas Allen's private laboratory atOxford, Digby had moved on to work at Gresham College where his operatorlater apparently became a semi-public instructor in the art. In the 1650'sDigby himself enjoyed the benefit of a public course of instruction ~t the JardinRoyal under Ie Fevre, along with many others.

Groups of interested workers coalesced on both sides of the Channel inDigby's later years and as interest in the communication of alchemical secretsgrew, the language of the older alchemy was increasingly rationalized andchemicalized. That was excellent for chemistry, whiCh was thereby enabled toincorporate a rational alchemical paradigm, but it was deadly for the olderalchemy. It is probably fair to say that the older alchemy was dying or dead


by the time of Digby's death. I t had been too thoroughly chemicalized tocarry out its older functions of a religious and psychological nature, for tho~efunctions required a considerable ignorance about the substances ~'ith whichthe alchemist worked. From that time on the intert\vined hal\"es or the olderalchemy were irrevocably separated.

After Digby's death the decline of alchemy entered the second stage sug-gested in the introductory section of the present paper. Digby and his con-temporaries had with their chemiealization of alchemy enacted the first step.After them came the experimenters ,,,,-hoslo\vly chipped away at the processesof chemical alchemy, proving them unverifiable, until finally nothing \vaslef~ but nostalgia and a wistful hopc. Part III of the present "Studies'" onDigby's book of Secrets, offers examples of the type of material \\lith which the'later experimenters began their work.