Matter and Method in the Long Chemical Revolution: Laws of Another Order

283 Pages·2016·3.42 MB·English

by  Victor D. Boantza

Matter and Method in the
Long Chemical Revolution
Laws of Another order
victor D. Boantza
Matter and Method in the
Long CheMiCaL revoLution
Science, technology and Culture,
1700–1945
Series Editors
David M. Knight
university of durham
and
Trevor Levere
university of toronto
Science, Technology and Culture, 1700–1945 focuses on the social, cultural, industrial
and economic contexts of science and technology from the ‘scientific revolution’ up
to the Second World War. It explores the agricultural and industrial revolutions of
the eighteenth century, the coffee-house culture of the Enlightenment, the spread of
museums, botanic gardens and expositions in the nineteenth century, to the Franco-
Prussian war of 1870, seen as a victory for german science. it also addresses the
dependence of society on science and technology in the twentieth century.
Science, Technology and Culture, 1700–1945 addresses issues of the interaction of
science, technology and culture in the period from 1700 to 1945, at the same time
as including new research within the field of the history of science.
also in the series
Meeting Places: Scientific Congresses and Urban Identity in Victorian Britain
Louise Miskell
Matthew Boulton
Enterprising Industrialist of the Enlightenment
edited by Kenneth Quickenden, Sally Baggott and Malcolm dick
Sir James Dewar, 1842–1923
A Ruthless Chemist
J.S. rowlinson
Matter and Method in the
Long Chemical revolution
Laws of another order
viCtor d. Boantza
University of Minnesota, USA
© victor d. Boantza 2013
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher.
Victor D. Boantza has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act,
1988, to be identified as the author of this work.
Published by
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Boantza, victor d.
Matter and method in the long chemical revolution : laws of another
order. – (Science, technology and culture, 1700–1945)
1. Chemistry – history. 2. Chemistry – early works to 1800. 3. Chemistry –
Historiography. 4. Science – History – 17th century.
i. title ii. Series
540.9–dc23
The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:
Boantza, victor d.
Matter and method in the long chemical revolution : laws of another order / by victor
d. Boantza.
pages cm. – (Science, technology and culture, 1700–1945)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978–1–4094–1867–2 (hardcover : alk. paper) – ISBN 978–1–4094–1868–9
(ebook) – ISBN 978–1–4724–0398–8 (epub)
1. Chemistry – history – 18th century. 2. Science, renaissance.
i. title.
Qd14.B63 2013
540.9’033–dc23 12049676
iSBn 9781409418672 (hbk)
ISBN 9781409418689 (ebk – PDF)
iSBn 9781472403988 (ebk – ePuB)
V
It is with great difficulty that I have to confess my discontent with your
refutation of my principles, or rather with the development of yours,
in your notes to my Essay on Phlogiston. I cherish collaboration,
especially with you [Lavoisier et al], your taste being so close to mine,
but I would really like to connect in one system most if not all chemical
phenomena and your theory cuts short all such hopes. It seems to me like
a microscope that shows clearly certain aspects of objects close to us but
leaves the more remote ones in complete darkness. The phlogistic system
on the other hand resembles the natural view, showing the closer objects
well enough while also encompassing the very distant ones.
richard Kirwan in a letter to guyton de Morveau (november 1788)
This page has been left blank intentionally
Contents
Series Editor’s Preface ix
List of Figures and Tables xi
Acknowledgments xiii
Abbreviations xv
Introduction 1
Historiography 1
Scientific Revolutions and Crises 6
Structure and themes 10
PART I: ChyMIsTRy In The sCIenTIfIC RevoLuTIon
Duclos and Chymistry at the early Académie des sciences
1 Duclos Reads Boyle 27
The Crisis of Chymical Principles 30
The Origin and Form of Sweet Qualities 35
Duclos’s Principles 44
Particles of Saltpeter: Mechanism and Chymical Causality 48
On Boyle’s Unsuccessful Experiments 56
Conclusion 62
2 fire, Alkahest, and elements 67
Duclos’s Chymical Natural History of Plants 69
Dodart Enters the Arena: Natural History by Fire 76
radical analysis and the inner Life of Matter 83
Conclusion 91
3 from Cohesion to Gravity 93
the Causes of gravity 95
Forces, Big and Small: The Newtonian Context 99
The Causes of Coagulation: Chymical Operations and
Mechanical Speculations 103
Conclusion 111
4 Interlude: The Crisis of Inter-Revolutionary Chemistry 115
viii Matter and Method in the Long Chemical Revolution
PART II: CheMIsTRy In The CheMICAL RevoLuTIon
5 Priestley’s Quest for Airs and Ideas 145
Priestley’s Chemical Practice and Writing(s) 149
Experimental Commitments: The Case of Nitrous Air 153
Method, Text, and Epistemology 161
Conclusion 167
6 Pneumatic Metaphysics: scheele, Crawford, and Kirwan 171
Kirwan’s Work and Writings on Phlogiston 172
Phlogistic Transmutations and Pneumatic Metaphysics 179
the Phlogistic Constitution and role of heat 187
Kirwan enters the arena: innovations and renovations 195
Conclusion 205
7 operational uniformity and a “false shew of simplicity” 207
From Vapors to Facts 214
From Proportions to Quantities 223
The Force of Affinity and Affinity as a Force 227
From Uniformity to Simplicity 232
Conclusion 235
“Laws of Another order”: Concluding Remarks 237
Bibliography 241
Index 261
Series Editor’s Preface
Most accounts of the history of chemistry, especially those written by chemists,
have looked at the winners: and thus devoted much attention to Boyle, hailed as the
founder of the science with his mechanical ideal and atomic (or corpuscular) basis;
and Lavoisier, whose revolution brought a new understanding of combustion and
a new terminology. victor Boantza, following an old maxim among historians,
focuses upon the losers: Duclos, the critic of Boyle; Venel, who in Diderot’s
great Encyclopédie promoted the idea that chemistry and physics were separate
spheres; Kirwan, who became a convert to Lavoisier’s views; and Priestley,
who isolated what Lavoisier and we call oxygen, but refused to give up belief in
phlogiston. None of them were ignorant fuddy-duddies, and all had interesting
things to say that illuminate how science works. Boantza as a result of his research
has interesting things to say about revolutions, crises, and arguments in science;
about the autonomy of sciences; and about the attempt to reduce one to another,
supposedly more fundamental.
duclos, a founder-member of the Paris académie des Sciences, saw Boyle as
a physicist, ignorant of chemical traditions and practices, seeking to impose an
oversimplified and useless program upon those who knew more about matter and
its particularities than he did. Chemical processes like the coagulation of milk into
cheese were wholly distinct from congelation, freezing, which was a physical and
more superficial process. Chemists relied upon their senses, thought with their
fingers, and gradually built up and generalized data: they did not need a revolution
from above.
Venel similarly saw the by-then-triumphant Anglo-Dutch Newtonians of the
early eighteenth century in much the same light. the attractive forces of gravity
and chemical affinity were completely different; and heat had both chemical
and physical roles. Priestley was not simply a serendipitous discoverer of gases,
but followed a systematic course of experimental discovery, each step opening
new doors. He had little time for the barren elegance of Lavoisier’s algebraic
deductive vision, his sophisticated apparatus, and his new terms: that was not
what chemistry was about. Because Lavoisier’s terms prevailed, this study faces
the difficult task of expounding the phlogiston theory in its various forms as new
discoveries came in, and its defence by Kirwan and others for whom weights
were not the be-all and end-all of chemistry, and who were well aware of the
complexities of the material world.
Phlogiston indeed took a long time to die because it still seemed to express an
aspect of chemistry close to what we might anachronistically call chemical energy.