Newton the Alchemist

«Following a tradition popularized by the Elizabethan alchemist John Dee and developed further by the Saxon schoolmaster and writer on chymical subjects Andreas Libavius, Newton devised a series of graphic symbols that he used for his own creations in the laboratory.2 Building on the traditional planetary symbols long used by alchemists to depict the respective metals, Newton would attach a small “o” to indicate an ore or mineral of the metal in question.» — los glifos con que Newton anota su laboratorio no son taquigrafía improvisada: continúan la tradición gráfica que popularizó John Dee y desarrolló Andreas Libavius, y sobre los símbolos planetarios de los metales agrega una «o» pequeña para marcar el mineral y no el metal

«The clarity of this system is undercut by the fact that Newton does not restrict the 🜹 symbol to ammonium chloride but employs it from 1680 onward to represent a volatile compound containing sal ammoniac and antimony, which he refers to as “sophic sal ammonic,” “our sal ammoniac,” or even» — el límite del propio sistema: la nitidez se rompe porque Newton no reserva la estrella del sal amoniaco para el cloruro de amonio, sino que desde 1680 la usa también para su «sophic sal ammoniac». Un mismo glifo admite dos lecturas y solo el contexto experimental decide cuál

«my use of the now archaic word “chymistry” is intended to alert the reader to the fact that there was no rigid, commonly accepted distinction between “alchemy” and “chemistry” in the seventeenth century. I need not belabor the point here, for the Oxford English Dictionary has recently affirmed it by recognizing the capacious character of the early modern discipline comprehended under “chymistry.”3 Accordingly, throughout the present book “chymistry” and “alchemy” are synonymous, both having the sense of a field that included the attempt to transmute metals alongside the disciplines that we would today call industrial chemistry and pharmacology.» — declara que en este libro «chymistry» y «alchemy» son sinónimos, y apoya la amplitud del campo en el OED: abarcaba lo que hoy se reparte entre química industrial y farmacología

«I use “adjuvant” to signify something similar to the latter meaning, but in the specific laboratory operation of sublimation, where Newton typically added a more volatile material to a more fixed one in order to induce the latter to sublime. The medieval alchemical author Geber referred to such aids to sublimation as “res iuvantes,” which I have translated elsewhere as “adjuvants” and here employ for Newton as well.» — fija «adjuvant» como término técnico del libro para lo que Newton hacía de continuo en la mesa: agregar a un cuerpo fijo un material más volátil para forzarlo a sublimar. Lo toma del sentido farmacológico moderno y lo empalma con las res iuvantes del Geber medieval — y declara en la misma frase que es convención del historiador, no palabra de Newton

«It is highly likely that Keynes had Frazer in the back of his mind when he unselfconsciously elided the borders between magic and alchemy, two disciplines that Newton for the most part kept rigorously distinct.» — localiza el origen del Newton último de los magos y la maniobra que lo produjo: Keynes leía a Frazer, que agrupaba bajo «magia» toda práctica regida por la simpatía, y con esa categoría borró sin advertirlo la frontera entre magia y alquimia. La objeción no es que despreciara la alquimia, sino que fundió dos campos que el propio Newton mantenía aparte — y él acota con un «for the most part»: la separación es la regla en Newton, no un absoluto

«In the same article, Keynes would add that Newton’s alchemical manuscripts were “wholly magical and wholly devoid of scientific value.» — el veredicto de Keynes en su propia letra, que es la pieza sobre la que descansa la corrección anterior

«Hence the need that Dobbs and others felt to locate Newton’s motives for studying alchemy in extrascientific areas such as soteriology and the quest for a more primitive Christianity has lost its force. We are now free to study Newton’s alchemy on its own terms and to arrive at a much clearer picture of the field’s relationship to his other scientific pursuits. As I show in Newton the Alchemist, the claims that Westfall (and subsequently Dobbs) made for an alchemical origin to Newton’s theory of gravitational attraction are actually quite weak; in reality, the connection between alchemy and Newton’s better known scientific discoveries lies elsewhere, above all in the realm of optics.» — si la química del XVII era parte normal y progresiva de la agenda científica, se cae la necesidad que sintieron Dobbs y otros de explicar la alquimia de Newton por motivos ajenos a la ciencia. Sobre esa base califica de débil la tesis de Westfall que hace nacer la gravitación de la alquimia, y traslada el vínculo real al otro extremo de la obra: la óptica

«To the mind of Newton, the adepts were tricksters, not because they lacked the ability to carry out their marvelous transmutations, but because they veiled their knowledge under a sophisticated language of metaphor, allusion, and outright doublespeak. Not that they spoke in gibberish; to the contrary, the intelligent and properly trained student could penetrate behind their fuliginous tropes, but only if God willed it. It was Newton’s belief that in his case God did so will. But however much divine assistance might contribute to one’s alchemical success, doing alchemy did not contribute to one’s divinity. Newton’s private belief in the infallibility and elect status of the adepts did not entail that he viewed alchemy as a path to religious salvation. In fact, references to the aurific art in the vast corpus that Newton devoted to religious topics, consisting of about four million words, are vanishingly small. And like his chymical forerunner Joan Baptista Van Helmont, Newton thought that success at chymistry must be “bought with sweat,” the unavoidable, and often mundane labor of the laboratory.» — Newton no dudaba del poder de los adeptos: los tenía por embaucadores porque velaban un saber verdadero bajo metáfora y doblez deliberada. El límite que Newman subraya, y que lo separa de Dobbs, es que creer en el estatus electo de los adeptos no equivale a ver la alquimia como camino de salvación — la máxima que Newton hereda de Van Helmont es que el éxito se compra «with sweat»

«Despite a common scholarly view that holds alchemy to have been uniformly vitalistic, the early modern emphasis on the cyclical life and death of metals was not a monolithic feature of the discipline across the whole of its history, but rather a gift of the miners and metallurgists who worked in shafts and galleries that exhibited to them the marvels of the underground world.» — límite fuerte contra la lectura corriente: la alquimia no fue uniformemente vitalista. El hilozoísmo que llega a Newton no baja del gabinete al pozo, sube del pozo al gabinete

«Employing the common early modern practice of hiding one’s identity behind an anagram, Newton created two columns of alternative pseudonyms based on the Latin form of his name, “Isaacus Neuutonus.” One of these, “Venus ac Jason tuus” conjures up both the classical goddess of love and the Argonaut who circled the globe in search of the golden fleece, a common symbol for the alchemical magnum opus.» — los anagramas de «Isaacus Neuutonus» con que firmaba su trabajo sobre el magnum opus, entre ellos «Venus ac Jason tuus» y el vellocino

«Beginning with Newton’s very early interpretations of the Polish alchemist Michael Sendivogius in the manuscripts Babson 925 and Keynes 19, the chapter shows that the brash young Cantabrigian initially thought the secret of chrysopoeia to be attainable by means of two ingredients alone, namely stibnite or crude antimony and lead. Much of his focus on antimony stems from his recent reading of the 1669 text by Philalethes, Secrets Reveal’d, which describes the use of that material in fairly clear terminology. The great significance that Newton idiosyncratically attaches to the metal lead in this early phase, however, has gone unnoticed by previous scholars and adds a hitherto unsuspected dimension to his aurific quest. His subsequent exposure to additional alchemical texts, especially in the extended corpus of Philalethes, soon made him understand that he had oversimplified matters. Other metals were also involved in the processes of Philalethes, especially copper.» — en sus primeras lecturas de Sendivogius, Newton creyó que el secreto de la crisopeya se alcanzaba con dos ingredientes y nada más, estibina y plomo. Newman reclama como aporte propio el papel idiosincrásico del plomo en esa fase, y pone el límite —que además es del propio Newton—: al leer más textos del corpus de Philalethes entendió que había simplificado

«Already as a very young man, even before he had absorbed the chymical knowledge of Boyle, Newton enlisted himself in the school of the adepts. Yet alchemy was not an alternative religion for Newton, nor was it the origin of his theory of gravitation.» — fecha el alistamiento de Newton en la escuela de los adeptos antes de que absorbiera la química de Boyle, y desde ahí niega de un golpe las dos grandes explicaciones que se le han dado a esa adhesión: ni religión alternativa ni origen de la teoría de la gravitación. La afirmación positiva que la reemplaza empieza tras el salto de plana y va citada aparte

«Like many students of chymistry in the early modern period, Newton held an exalted view of the supposed masters of the aurific art, the adepts, or “adeptists” as they were often called in seventeenth-century English. According to a wide variety of sources, these men (for they were almost always men) were thought to hold a privileged position in the world. They made up an elect band of filii doctrinae, or “sons of art,” who had received the philosophers’ stone as a divine dispensation, a donum dei or» — los adeptos como filii doctrinae que reciben la piedra por donum dei — el marco que vuelve infalible al autor y que explica el procedimiento de lectura del pasaje siguiente

«The absolute authority of the adepts was both abetted by their practice of secrecy and diluted thereby. Apparent mistakes or outdated technologies could be written off as misleading Decknamen, a practice that Newton himself employed in his interpretation of Geber’s Summa perfectionis, where he creatively transforms the medieval alchemist’s mineral “marchasita” into bismuth and “magnesia” into antimony.13 While this practice excused the adepts of any potential error or obsolescence, however, it also meant that their original meaning could easily be lost.» — el secreto sostiene la autoridad de los adeptos y a la vez la vacía: como un adepto no puede equivocarse, todo error aparente se relee como Deckname puesto adrede. El límite está en la misma frase y es el precio del procedimiento — blindar al autor contra el error hace que se pierda lo que quiso decir, y eso, dice, es lo que ocurre una y otra vez en las interpretaciones de Newton

«It was once thought by Newton scholars that the “Clavis” (Latin for “Key”) was an original composition by Newton, and that it could therefore serve as an Ariadne’s thread into his laboratory practice.15 Although we now know that to be false, Starkey’s letter to Boyle is tremendously valuable all the same for the clear way in which it decodes the works that he wrote under the sobriquet of Philalethes into replicable chymical practice.» — corrección de atribución: la «Clavis» que se tuvo por composición original de Newton es la traducción latina que copió de una carta de George Starkey a Boyle de 1651. Acota con precisión qué se pierde y qué queda — deja de valer como testimonio de su banco de trabajo, pero conserva su valor porque descodifica en operaciones replicables lo que Starkey escribió como Philalethes

«One of the traditional techniques Philalethes made use of is the twofold expansion and compression of language that I have elsewhere given the Greek names parathesis and syncope. The first of these practices involved stuffing one’s speech with unnecessary synonyms for the same materials or processes, whereas the second consists of the opposite, namely, deliberate suppression of information.» — define parathesis y syncope como las dos técnicas de ocultación que Philalethes hereda

«its hidden sulfur), stibnite, and quicksilver. He has intentionally left the essential ingredient silver, which must be alloyed with the star regulus in order to make the quicksilver amalgamate, out of his description.» — la syncope medida sobre un caso: Philalethes omite la plata a propósito de su descripción

«Echoing the Latin of Geber, the practice of “dispersion of knowledge” came to be known as dispersa intentio. It has even been shown that Newton’s correspondent Robert Boyle, that seemingly modern proponent of open speech, used dispersa intentio when writing about the higher secrets of chymistry such as the sophic mercury and the marvelous dissolvent or alkahest of Paracelsus and Van Helmont.» — la dispersión del saber —partir una receta y repartir sus trozos por capítulos distintos— se practicaba en árabe como tabdīd al-ʿilm en los escritos de Jābir, pasó al latín como dispersa intentio, y Newman mide su alcance donde no se la esperaría: Boyle, aparente campeón del habla abierta, la empleó al escribir sobre los arcana mayores. La ocultación no marcaba un bando; atravesaba también al que la denunciaba

«Since this technique involves repeated use of the same term at different stages in the progress toward the alchemical magnum opus, an appropriate term for it is “graduated iteration.” At an early stage of the operations aiming for the philosophers’ stone, namely, the preparation of the sophic mercury, the terms “Luna” or “Moon,” “Diana’s doves,” and “Venus” have an entirely different sense from the one that they acquire after the sophic mercury has been sealed up with gold for its long digestion in a gentle heat» — «graduated iteration» es el nombre que le pone a una técnica que no cifra sino reutiliza: el mismo término reaparece en etapas sucesivas y su referente cambia con el grado alcanzado. La consecuencia práctica, y el límite de todo desciframiento, es que traducir un Deckname no basta — hay que saber en qué punto del proceso está el texto

«Despite his private acceptance of extravagant “authorities” such as Edwardus Generosus and the author of Manna, Newton remained wedded to the most stringent methods of the “experimental philosophy” and refused to believe that he had succeeded at the aurific art until experiment might tell him otherwise.» — Newton daba entrada en sus cuadernos a autoridades disparatadas sin que eso aflojara el criterio con que juzgaba sus propios resultados. Es el contraste que Newman propone como lo más notable del corpus químico y su acotación contra el Newton crédulo: la credulidad está en la lectura de las fuentes, no en la evaluación de la mesa de trabajo

«Whatever Newton actually said to Conduitt, the testimony of his laboratory notebooks and correspondence shows without any possibility of doubt that he himself sought the philosophers’ stone for well over three decades.» — explica las reservas del Newton anciano por la posición pública del personaje —presidente de la Royal Society y maestro de la Casa de Moneda en unos años 1720 en que la crisopeya caía en descrédito—, y pone su jerarquía de fuentes: dijera lo que dijera a su sobrino político, los cuadernos y la correspondencia muestran que buscó la piedra por más de tres décadas

«Few topics in Newton scholarship have led to more misleading claims than the assertion that he viewed his alchemy as part and parcel of his heterodox, Antitrinitarian Christianity. Largely an artifact of the tendentious Jungian view that alchemy over the longue durée was essentially a form of soteriology, the position that Newton’s alchemy was an appendage to his religion or even an alternate form of it reached its apogee in the 1990s, and has since become a received position in the literature.2 In reality, Newton’s writings on prophecy, biblical history, and the iniquity of orthodox Trinitarian doctrine contain virtually no references to chymistry.3 Despite the fact that alchemical writings frequently contain appeals to divinity, Newton’s extracts, synopses, and notes drawn from chrysopoetic writers seldom expand on religious motifs found in his sources. On the rare occasions when Newton does take up a reference to God in his alchemical notes, he makes it clear that what interests him is the hidden, materialist meaning of the text. Newton did not read alchemical authors as a means of acquiring spiritual truths; rather, he extracted experimental meaning from them even when they employed the idiom of divinity.» — da genealogía a lo que considera el error más extendido de la erudición newtoniana —la alquimia como parte de su cristianismo antitrinitario—: procede de la lectura junguiana que hace de la alquimia una soteriología. Contra ella pone dos hechos de archivo antes que argumentos: los escritos religiosos de Newton casi no mencionan la química, y sus extractos de autores crisopéyicos rara vez desarrollan los motivos religiosos que sí traen las fuentes

«The key thing to bear in mind is that Newton’s decades of chymical reading gave him a sophisticated understanding of the differing uses to which his sources put their symbols. He was well aware of the fact that different authors used their Decknamen to mean different things. There was no single “figurative language” of the adepts as Newton believed there to be for the prophets. Instead, Newton correctly understood chymical language to be polysemic in the strict sense—a single term could be used in many different ways, by different authors and also by the same author.» — Newton usaba dos hermenéuticas distintas, y Newman explica de dónde sale la diferencia: décadas de lectura le habían enseñado que cada autor emplea sus Decknamen a su modo, y que no existía un lenguaje figurado único de los adeptos como el que sí atribuía a los profetas. Por eso trató el lenguaje químico como polisémico y sus compilaciones no buscan la solución sino el inventario

«Relying partly on Natale Conti’s sixteenth-century Mythologiae, Newton discusses the seven pitches of the ancient pipes supposedly invented by Pan and notes that each pitch was assigned to a planet. But then he turns the myth to his own purposes by linking the ancient tradition of musica mundana (celestial harmony) to the principle that gravitational attraction between bodies diminishes in proportion to the square of their distance from one another.» — apoyado en Conti, Newton enlaza las siete notas de las flautas de Pan con el principio de que la atracción disminuye con el cuadrado de la distancia. La operación exige una premisa que adopta expresamente: el error de la fuente es deliberado — sabía que la historia de Pitágoras y los martillos es físicamente falsa, y concluyó que los sapientes la habían falseado para despistar a los indignos. Es material de los «Classical Scholia» proyectados para la segunda edición del Principia, no doctrina publicada

«As Jed Buchwald and Mordechai Feingold correctly point out in their recent Newton and the Origin of Civilization, the euhemerist reading of ancient mythology that permeates the Theologiae gentilis origines philosophicae is at odds with the alchemical reading of myth conveyed by Newton’s sources, in particular Michael Maier.37 Maier rejected the claim that Osiris had really been an Egyptian king or deity, whereas Newton in the Theologiae gentilis origines philosophicae and elsewhere accepted his historicity. It is true that Newton’s Index chemicus paraphrases Maier on the subject of the Egyptian king by saying “Osiris, Isis, and Typhon are a fixed salt, white spirit, and red spirit,” but here Newton is trying to get to the bottom of alchemical processes, not reconstruct ancient history.» — contra la lectura de Dobbs, opone una incompatibilidad interna del propio Newton: el euhemerismo de la Theologiae gentilis origines philosophicae, donde los dioses son héroes históricos, choca con la lectura alquímica del mito que le llega de Maier, que negaba la historicidad de Osiris. Newton parafrasea a Maier en el Index chemicus, pero ahí persigue procesos de laboratorio, no reconstruye historia antigua: son dos proyectos separados

«Osiris could either have meant an actual king to the ancients or a fixed salt: one could not simultaneously follow Maier’s interpretation, which denied the historicity of the Egyptian pantheon in favor of a materialist reading, while also accepting the history» — la disyuntiva que impide leer el mito a la vez en clave cronológica y química

«In practically every case in which Newton read ancient myth alchemically, he was simply interpreting early modern sources such as Maier rather than returning to the antique sources themselves. Hence Newton’s references to classical mythology in an alchemical context almost always derive from other early modern alchemists, not from original ancient authors or even from compilations such as Natale Conti’s Mythologiae.» — cuando Newton lee el mito en clave alquímica casi siempre está interpretando a un alquimista moderno y no volviendo a la fuente antigua. Lo establece por procedencia, y la acotación es lo que da fuerza al dato: no se trata de ignorancia, porque conocía los repertorios mitográficos y los usó en los Classical Scholia — simplemente no hizo ese esfuerzo para entender a los alquimistas

«In a private notebook devoted to chymical and physical topics, he entered the revelation that the globe of the earth resembles a “great animall” or rather an “inanimate vegetable” that breathes in ether for its “refreshment” and the maintenance of its life. When it exhales its subtle, ethereal breath, the material is transformed and condensed, whereupon it must rise up again to be replenished in the higher regions.1 Here Newton paints an unforgettable picture of our planet as a biological organism, inhaling a material ether for its breath and exhaling it continually over the entire course of its lifespan. Although deprived of an animal soul, Newton’s earth is a living being in a far more literal sense than the self-regulating system of modern Gaia hypothesists.» — por los mismos meses en que anunciaba que la luz blanca es mezcla de colores inalterados, Newton anotó que el globo terrestre se parece a un gran animal, o más bien a un vegetal inanimado que inhala éter y lo exhala transformado. Newman insiste en que lo de vivo va en sentido fuerte y marca la distancia con la analogía que el lector moderno tendría a mano: la Tierra de Newton es un ser vivo mucho más literalmente que el sistema autorregulado de los partidarios de Gaia

«This expulsion is due to the fact that at the center of the earth there exist a sol centralis and a luna centralis, another sun and moon, which have a force driving matter outward toward the earth’s surface, just as the celestial sun and moon project their own rays down to the earth.8 Thus the elemental sperm after digestion is driven upward through the pores of the earth in the form of a vapor; there it combines with a philosophical sulfur resident in the soil. Depending on the impurities and the degree of heat encountered there, different metals and minerals are formed: the less impurities, the nobler the metal.» — el mecanismo que Sendivogius pone bajo tierra y que Newton hereda: un sol y una luna centrales cuya fuerza empuja la materia hacia la superficie, donde el esperma de los elementos se une al azufre residente en el suelo. Qué metal resulte depende de las impurezas y del grado de calor, con regla de proporcionalidad inversa

«All of these figures provide evidence that European alchemy underwent a major transformation between the Middle Ages and the early modern period, culminating in the hylozoist picture of a restless chthonic kingdom growing, maturing, evolving, and dying beneath our feet.» — la transformación de la alquimia europea entre el Medievo y la modernidad hacia un reino ctónico hilozoísta bajo nuestros pies

«We should pay attention to the fact that Maier explicitly ascribes the belief that minerals die to miners—metallarii—rather than to alchemists. In the Viatorium, he even gives his precise sources: “Mathesius in his Sarepta and Solea in his Septuriae.» — la creencia de que los minerales mueren bajo tierra Maier la atribuye a los mineros, no a los alquimistas, y da sus fuentes con nombre. Newman apoya en ese detalle de atribución la inversión que sostiene el capítulo: la doctrina hilozoísta que llega a Newton sube del pozo al gabinete

«Under the supposed authorship of Basilius Valentinus, a macaronic pseudonym that literally means “Mighty King” but which may combine the given names of Thölde’s grandfather and brother Valtin or Valentin and his father Bastin, the Frankenhausen Pfannenherr published a number of works in the first decade of the seventeenth century.» — atribución consignada con su propia cautela: «Basilius Valentinus» es seudónimo de Johann Thölde, y el propio Newman lo enuncia en potencial

«What Solea is leading up to, of course, is a comprehensive discussion of mineral exhalations, the Witterungen that fascinated early modern German miners and mineralogists. Such Witterungen or vapors were thought by many to glow and emit light of various colors that depended on the particular metal that was growing beneath the ground; they therefore provided one of the tools that prospectors could use to find ore deposits.» — lo que sostiene la prospección minera centroeuropea son las Witterungen, exhalaciones minerales que se creía brillaban con color distinto según el metal que estuviera creciendo bajo el suelo. Es la bisagra por la que el saber de los Bergleute entra en la literatura alquímica que Newton leerá — con el límite de que Newton conoce a Solea por una versión inglesa de 1657 que Newman señala como a menudo inexacta

«In the meantime, Starkey had managed to establish himself in London as an essential middleman with special access to the New England adept but without having made the overt and perhaps dangerous claim that he could prepare the great transmutational elixir himself.» — la posición que Starkey se construye en Londres es la de intermediario indispensable: acceso privilegiado a un adepto de Nueva Inglaterra que él mismo había inventado, sin haber reclamado nunca el poder de preparar el gran elixir. Newman lee ahí un cálculo de riesgo y generaliza con cautela expresa, como sospecha: cuántos seudónimos de la historia de la alquimia nacieron de esa conveniencia

«The interest of Arnauld, if in fact he was the pseudepigrapher behind the Exposition fostered on Flamel, seems to have resided more in the creation of the Flamel legend than in actual work in the laboratory.» — atribución con su condicional intacto: la Exposition de Flamel sería obra de un pseudoepígrafe interesado en la leyenda y no en el laboratorio

«Although Sendivogius here mentions two subterranean luminaries, the central moon plays practically no part in his further discussion. The central sun, on the other hand, reappears at pp. 39, 40, 42, and elsewhere. Throughout the present book, I rely mainly on Albineus’s edition of Sendivogius rather than the editio princeps, since Newton himself employed Albineus extensively.» — nota de método con dos decisiones: cita a Sendivogius por la edición que Newton usó y no por la editio princeps —la elección textual sigue al lector histórico, no al mejor testimonio filológico—, y acota su propia exposición, porque de los dos luminares subterráneos la luna central casi no vuelve a intervenir. La pareja es simétrica en el enunciado y muy asimétrica en el uso

«As for Newton, Westfall counted an astonishing 302 references to Philalethes and his works in the forty-six longest entries of Keynes 30/1, the largest version of Newton’s Index chemicus. By contrast, he found only 140 references to the next runner-up, Michael Maier, in the same entries.» — la jerarquía de autoridades en la lectura alquímica de Newton se puede contar, y el conteo da un primer lugar aplastante para Philalethes. El dato viene con su límite —está medido sobre las entradas largas de un solo manuscrito— y la atribución es de Westfall, no recuento propio de Newman

«In passing, Stukely points out that Newton lodged “at Mr Clarks house, an apothecary,” but makes little of the fact that this would no doubt have exposed young Isaac to at least some of the paraphernalia and operations of seventeenth-century chymistry. Perhaps this omission stems from Stukely’s own rather low regard for contemporary chymists, and his desire to present the budding scientist as a child prodigy.» — la fuente principal sobre la infancia de Newton menciona de pasada que se alojaba en casa de un boticario y no saca de ahí ninguna consecuencia, pese a que ese domicilio lo habría puesto en contacto con el instrumental de la química del XVII. Newman explica la omisión por el interés del biógrafo, y el límite es que la exposición se infiere del alojamiento: no hay testimonio de que el joven Newton trabajara ahí

«In a later draft of his memoir, Stukely would fall victim to an unwitting irony when he tried to disabuse Newton of any interest in chrysopoeia, saying that chymistry “had need enough of his masterly skill, to rescue it from superstition, from vanity, & imposture; and from the fond inquiry of alchymy» — Stukely queriendo rescatar a Newton de la alquimia y la transmutación — la misma operación de limpieza que Newman rastrea hasta Keynes

Keynes (1936) llamó a Newton «the last of the magicians, the last of the Babylonians and Sumerians» y juzgó sus manuscritos alquímicos «wholly magical and wholly devoid of scientific value».

La tesis historiográfica: los reclamos de un origen alquímico de la gravitación (Westfall, Dobbs) «are actually quite weak»; los escritos alquímicos deben leerse por sí mismos.

Newton tomó de sus fuentes «a veritable language of cover names or Decknamen»; descifrarlo exige filología más replicación experimental.

Como guardián de la Casa de la Moneda usó seudónimos anagramáticos — «Venus ac Jason tuus» — para ocultar su trabajo sobre el magnum opus.

Anciano, confesó a Conduitt que «if he was younger he would have another touch at metals».

Eirenaeus Philalethes fue su autor favorito en la materia; el Secrets Reveal'd es la fuente principal de su uso del antimonio.

Newton advirtió a Oldenburg que el «true Hermetick Philosopher» debe callar, para no causar «immense dammage to ye world».

Elevó el principio activo de la fermentación «to the status of a fundamental force like magnetism and gravitation».

Su regla de lectura: los filósofos equivocan a propósito — «The operations of ye 3 works are analogous so that Philosophers æquivocate often in speaking of one when they seem to speak of ye other».

Su juicio de lector era implacable: anotó «Credo hic nihil adeptus» y «a fals Poem» en obras que juzgó de no-adeptos.

Del florilegio pseudoluliano y de Philalethes sacó el arranque de la práctica: «There are no more than two starting materials: lead and antimony».

Las palomas de Diana descifradas: «the emblems of Diana and the doves of Venus are the same thing»; «ye Doves vanquish ye Lyon by asswaging him».

El hijo de Saturno: «The substance wch we first take in hand is mineral, compound of ☿ & crude sulphur, Saturn's child, sable coloured wth argent veins» — la estibnita.

En sus notas: «Antimonium enim apud veteres dicebatur Aries» — el oro se exalta máximamente en el antimonio como el Sol en Aries.

Su laboratorio de Cambridge corrió durante décadas: «the fire in the Elaboratory scarcely went out»; se acostaba a las 2 o 3, a veces a las 5 o 6.

Newman replica las recetas: la «mantequilla de antimonio» de Newton es tricloruro de antimonio, y su menstruum peracutum se hace vertiendo espíritu de nitro sobre su aceite rectificado.

Newton anotó el Regulus con lenguaje de Basilius: «Thou purgest ye leapers (impure metals by making them regulus's)».

La colaboración con Fatio: un polvo que «amalgams wth ☿ & purges out its feces if shaken together in a glass», y un menstruum que «dissolves all metals and gems».

El Praxis (tardío) integra a Fatio y al florilegio: la red sublimada con sal amónico sófico, el caduceo como «wonder-working staff of Hermes».

En Londres trabajó con el capitán Hylliard (el agua como materia universal, el «clissus Paracelsi») y contrató al destilador Yworth (Cleidophorus Mystagogus) y su Processus mysterii magni.

Un accidente de laboratorio en la vejez: «I was so suffocated & seized all over in my spirits that I thought I should have immediately dropped down dead».

La teoría del azufre-ácido: «by sulphur they mean acid, and by mercury they mean earth»; su actividad «accounts for burning, fermentation, dissolution, precipitation».

Las tablas de afinidad — «graphic representations of selective attractions» — prolongan su química del menstruum.

Con Boyle compartió el proyecto del mercurio sófico («like ice in warm water», el mercurio antimonial que «will grow hot with Gold»), pero desconfió de él.

Ante la multiplicación Newton se reservó, y lo dijo a Locke: «I have forborn to say any» … «thing agt multiplication in general because you seem perswaded of it» —la frase cruza de plana—.

La tradición de advertencias contra los multiplicadores —Norton, Hortulanus Junior, Chaucer, Ripley, el acta de Enrique IV— culmina en Gabriel Plattes, Caveat for Alchemists (1655): «Let men beware of all books and receipts, that teach the multiplication of gold or silver».

El epílogo: Newton se creyó «member, or at least an apprentice, in an exclusive brotherhood», y solo él compiló el Index Chemicus — noventa y ocho folios de Decknamen tradicionales.

La mitología clásica en clave alquímica le llegó de segunda mano: «Newton's references to classical mythology in an alchemical context almost always derive from other early modern alchemists» (Maier incluido).

«Yet a careful examination of the Schaffner manuscript shows that while it conveys many passages that are verbatim identical to those in Don. b. 15, it contains no explicit references to Boyle whatsoever, and the Boylean passages in the Oxford manuscript do not appear there even in unattributed form. In a word, the Schaffner manuscript appears to be an earlier, pre-Boylean version of the same basic text that Newton wrote out in the form of Don. b. 15.» — la pieza que reordena la cronología de la química juvenil: el diccionario del manuscrito Schaffner comparte pasajes literales con el Don. b. 15 de Oxford pero no contiene ninguna referencia a Boyle, de modo que es una versión anterior, pre-boyleana, del mismo texto

«But at the same time, the fact that the Schaffner text is a close adaptation of the anonymous Treatise of Chymistry also means that neither it nor Don. b. 15 tell us anything about Newton’s skill in practical chymistry at this early phase of his career. We can neither assume that Newton’s first interest in chymistry stemmed from his exposure to the mechanical philosophy, nor can we argue that he was an accomplished practitioner in the period before 1669. In short, his knowledge at this period appears to have been mostly bookish, and to have stemmed initially from sources other than Boyle.» — el límite de esa misma pieza, y es lo que impide usarla de más: como el Schaffner es copia de un tratado anónimo, ni él ni el Don. b. 15 dicen nada sobre la destreza práctica de Newton en esa fase — su saber era entonces «mostly bookish»

«If this is so, then the view of Westfall and Dobbs that Newton began with “sober” or “straightforward chemistry” and only later plunged into the “greater profundity” of alchemy seems misleading at best. It may well have been the mysteries of Bate and magic lamps of Wilkins that steered the young undergraduate to immerse himself in the marvels of chymistry, rather than the charms of the mechanical philosophy.» — la consecuencia historiográfica: contra Westfall y Dobbs, el interés químico de Newton no le vino de Boyle ni de los encantos de la filosofía mecánica

«In fact, these experiments provide the earliest definite record of Newton’s experimentation in chymistry: they appear in CU Add. 3975, the same laboratory notebook in which his first full depiction of his new theory of colors is found. Since only the second edition of Boyle’s Essays (1669) describes the mercurial experiments» — fecha el arranque de la práctica de laboratorio con los experimentos mercuriales, que son la evidencia definida más temprana

«follows on the heels of the first; as one might expect of notes taken in the style taught in the bookish atmosphere of seventeenth-century Cambridge, they are entirely focused on the literary decipherment of text and display no evidence of experimental practice on the part of the young Newton.» — los apuntes basilianos son enteramente descifrado literario: no hay rastro de práctica experimental. Lo apoya en dos frentes distintos —la forma de las notas y la datación cruzada— y no en la mera ausencia

«First, the highly formal character of the notes strongly suggests the influence of Newton’s experience as a student at Cambridge. The three successive series of notes on Basilius’s “Twelve Keys,” the two on the “Elucidation,” and especially the numbered list of “Things remarkable” or observations are all redolent of the structured way in which English undergraduates of the seventeenth century were taught to organize their readings.» — la forma de las notas y de dónde viene: las tres series sobre las Twelve Keys reproducen el método de toma de apuntes que se enseñaba a los estudiantes ingleses del XVII

«His method of deciphering the enigmatic texts at his disposal consisted first of decoding their meaning based on a given author’s words alone, which typically meant treating them as purely verbal riddles. Even in his mature notes Newton usually did not overtly employ his general knowledge of chymistry and its laboratory techniques in order to make a first run at understanding an author’s meaning, never mind having recourse to experimental testing. Only after he had made initial sense of the text on its own terms did he turn to the laboratory in order to determine the legitimacy of his interpretation.» — la regla de método de Newton que Newman generaliza a treinta años: primero descifra el texto como acertijo verbal, con las solas palabras del autor, y solo después va al laboratorio a comprobar si su lectura se sostiene

«Because Newton often followed the seventeenth-century pedagogical habit of making “digests” or synopses of individual books or authors, the absence of references to other writers in these notes cannot be taken as evidence that he was unaware of other chrysopoetic writers at the time of his Basilian note» — cautela declarada que acota lo anterior: que un cuaderno sea digest de un solo autor no prueba que Newton ignorara a los demás

«The interpretive problem that Newton faced stems ultimately from the fact that the “Elucidation” presents itself as a commentary by Basilius Valentinus himself on the “Twelve Keys,” though it is actually by another author. The “Twelve Keys,” despite its obscurity on many points, clearly does begin with a process that involves metallic gold. The noble metal is refined and purified with crude antimony according to the best metallurgical practice of the day, and then it is dissolved in the “water of the duelers,” or aqua pugilum mentioned by Boyle, which is a form of aqua regia. By means of reiterate cohobation of the gold in this menstruum, Basilius manages to bring it “over the helm,” that is, distill it. Since these processes are described in a way that is clearly decipherable in the “Twelve Keys,” the author of the “Elucidation” realized that he could not avoid explaining them. The real purpose of his commentary, however, was to steer the reader away from the “Twelve Keys’” work with metallic gold and to substitute a parallel set of processes employing vitriol instead.» — la ambigüedad que Newton hereda no es error suyo, es la estructura del texto: la Elucidation se presenta como comentario del propio Basilius pero es de otro autor, y el comentarista explica los procesos de las Keys y a la vez los desplaza hacia una vía paralela de vitriolo

«Because the “Elucidation” never explicitly says that the antimonial spirit of mercury is a vestige of the gold-based processes found in the “Twelve Keys,” it appeared to Newton that both antimony and the vitriols of copper and iron were all necessary in order to arrive at the philosophers’ stone. The precise way in which these three materials should be used with one another remained a puzzle to him throughout his three decades of laboratory work in chymistry, especially after his intensive study of the Basilius-inspired works of Johann de Monte-Snyders beginning in the 1670s.» — el acertijo que ese texto le dejó plantado —antimonio y vitriolos de cobre y hierro, todos necesarios, sin decir cómo se combinan— siguió sin resolverse a lo largo de tres décadas de laboratorio

«But it is remarkable how little he left in terms of concrete evidence identifying his chymical associates in the million or so words that he wrote on the subject. Whether this is because the alchemical Newton dwelt in an ethereal space occupied only by him and the disembodied riddles of the adepts, or whether it is the product of a deliberate discretion on his part, cannot be known. Identifying the circle of Newton’s alchemical acquaintances at Cambridge and London therefore presents a serious problem to the historian. But it is not an entirely insoluble one. In order to do proper justice to the evidence, I here present the clues left by Newton’s manuscripts and books that strongly implicate particular individuals. Even here, as we will see, there is considerable room for error. We are now in the ghostly realm of the possible and the contingent, even if this domain possesses varying degrees of palpability.» — límite fuerte y honesto sobre sus contactos: en el millón de palabras que Newton escribió sobre química casi no dejó nombres de asociados, y Newman no decide si fue soledad o discreción — declara que entra en el reino fantasmal de lo posible y lo contingente

«None of this seems to have aroused any suspicion on Newton’s part as to the authenticity of Manna: his Index chemicus and other manuscripts cite the text as an authoritative source.» — el dato de recepción sobre Manna: su plagio de Grasseus no despertó sospecha alguna, y Newton lo usó como fuente autorizada

«All of this certainly increases the plausibility of Dobbs’s identification of Foxcroft with the “Mr F.” of 1675, though of course the matter is still not entirely resolved.» — la conjetura de Dobbs identificando a «Mr F.» con Foxcroft queda con su veredicto acotado: la plausibilidad aumenta, pero el asunto no está enteramente resuelto

«source of alchemical manuscripts for Newton, Dobbs was unable to provide convincing evidence in support of her view.66 The examples of Foxcroft and Doyley make it more likely that second-tier members of More’s circle rather than the redoubtable Platonist himself were circulating such texts.» — relee el canal de transmisión: no fue Henry More —Dobbs no logró aportar evidencia convincente— sino los miembros de segunda fila de su círculo los que hacían circular los manuscritos

«Until further knowledge of Slare’s activities in the early 1670s emerges, however, the matter must remain conjectural.» — el límite que hay que citar junto con la propuesta: la identificación de «Mr. Sl.» con Frederic Slare debe seguir siendo conjetural mientras no aparezca más información

«Newton’s 1706 Query 23 borrows the matters of fact elicited from Slare’s dangerous and spectacular experiments without attribution, even employing the same quantities specified by the younger researcher.» — dato duro de préstamo sin atribuir: la Query 23 del Optice toma los hechos de los experimentos de Slare publicados en 1694, sin atribución y con las mismas cantidades

«Contrary to the prevailing scholarly view, it was only after this initial, self-directed exposure to the literature of chymistry that Newton began reading Robert Boyle’s natural philosophy, where contemporary chymical doctrines were integrated with the mechanical philosophy. He was already copying out chymical literature even before his exposure to Boyle’s work in the field.» — contra la visión predominante, el orden de lecturas se invierte: el interés químico de Newton precede a su contacto con la obra de Boyle en el campo

«Throughout his career as an experimental scientist, he would pursue both the practical fruits of chymistry and the implications of the discipline for natural philosophy more broadly; these were two distinct though interrelated projects.» — la distinción de proyectos que conviene consignar entera, porque es la que ordena todo el libro

«As we will now show, the domains of chymistry and optics in mutual combination formed one of the principal tools by which Newton was able to effect that rupture.» — la tesis del capítulo: la combinación de química y óptica fue una de las herramientas principales con que Newton rompió con la filosofía natural escolástica. Va enunciada como anuncio de programa, no como demostración

«Boyle was the direct heir of this lengthy alchemical tradition, especially in his use of the atomistic writings of the Wittenberg medical professor and chymist Daniel Sennert.3 It is well known that the young Newton was heavily influenced by Boyle, but here I argue for a deeper significance to his intellectual debt: there was a direct transfer from Boyle’s work on chymical analysis and synthesis to the optical analyses and syntheses that formed the bases of Newton’s early work with light and colors.» — la deuda concreta que reclama como aporte propio: Boyle heredero directo de la tradición alquímica, sobre todo del atomismo de Sennert, y de ahí una transferencia directa del análisis y la síntesis químicos a los ópticos

«Indeed, alchemical writers were the first to provide matter theories of any sort, including optical theories, based on experimental demonstrations of paired analysis and resynthesis.» — prioridad que adjudica a los alquimistas: fueron los primeros en dar teorías de la materia que emparejaran análisis y resíntesis

«Aristotle himself did not believe that the ingredients of a genuine mixture were incapable of retrieval. At De generatione et corruptione I 10 327b27–29 he argues the contrary, and his ancient followers, especially John Philoponus, spoke of separating mixtures by means of oiled sponges, river lettuce, and the like.8 Boyle was not responding to ancient» — acotación de atribución imprescindible: la doctrina fuerte de la mezcla NO es de Aristóteles sino de los escolásticos medievales y sus herederos modernos. Aristóteles sostiene lo contrario en De gen. et corr.

«To employ a distinction made in many later scholastic treatments of mixture (though not in that of Thomas), one could not get the original ingredients back out again in number (in numero), since they had been destroyed by the very act of mixing. If one could perhaps retrieve fire, air, water, and earth that were the same as the original elements in species (in specie), there was no guarantee that they would return in the same relative quantities in which they had entered the mixture.14 After all, the original fire, air, water, and earth had been destroyed by the process of mixture, and there was no reason to think that the primary qualities would reassemble into exactly the same pairings in proportions identical to those that they originally possessed. Hence the empirical correlation between input and output had been severed—mixture was effectively a black box linking substances with no shared material identity.» — la distinción escolástica in numero / in specie y su consecuencia epistemológica: destruidos los elementos por el acto de mezclar, la mezcla queda como caja negra que enlaza sustancias sin identidad material compartida

«I do not mean to say that Newton found anything approximating this optical theory in his chymical sources, or even that the earliest phases of his discovery owed a significant debt to chymistry. To the contrary, Newton’s early and serendipitous discovery that different colors are produced by rays of different refrangibility owes no obvious debt to chymical theory or practice.» — el límite que el propio Newman le pone a su tesis, y sin el cual la tesis se falsea: el descubrimiento inicial de la refrangibilidad desigual NO debe nada a la química

«What is incontestable, however, is that the earliest descriptions of Newton’s theory occur imbedded among the extensive notes on chymistry taken by him from Boyle’s Experiments Touching Colours, in Certain Philosophical Questions, and in his more developed treatise found in Cambridge University Additional MS 3975, probably from around 1666 or 1667.» — y lo que sí afirma, separado de lo anterior: lo incontestable son las descripciones más tempranas, fechadas hacia 1666 o 1667

«But for the moment I want to focus on Boyle’s assumption that just because the camphor can be retrieved intact, it follows that the camphor was present in unaltered form all along in the sulfuric acid. Nowhere does Boyle explain why this must be the case. Why could the camphor not be regenerated from its ingredients rather than lurking in the mixture all along, in unchanged form?» — señala el hueco lógico en Boyle: que el alcanfor se recupere intacto no implica que estuviera intacto todo el tiempo, podría haberse regenerado — y en ninguna parte explica Boyle por qué tendría que ser así

«Whatever Hooke’s position should have been, the reality is that he did not doubt Boyle’s claims about the persistence of ingredients dissolved in powerful acids. Hooke’s 1665 Micrographia is replete with comments about the particles of metals that he believes to remain intact in acid solutions, even though they are disguised within the liquid until they are precipitated.» — la asimetría medida, que es el hallazgo del capítulo: Hooke NO dudaba de la permanencia de los metales disueltos; la Micrographia de 1665 está llena de eso, y sin embargo se la negó a la luz

«Newton, however, would follow another type of chymical demonstration that inverted this order by starting with analysis and then passing to resynthesis.» — la inversión del orden que hace posible la analogía: descomponer primero y pasar después a la resíntesis

«The experimentum crucis, as Alan Shapiro has pointed out, was intended primarily to demonstrate the unequal refrangibility of the colorfacient rays, not to demonstrate color immutability.» — adjudicación a Alan Shapiro, no a Newman: el experimentum crucis no demostraba la inmutabilidad del color

«There is no halfway house between strict unchangeability and change. Since the spectral rays cannot be altered by any means, they must remain in act within the compound that we perceive as uniform white light.» — no hay término medio entre la inmutabilidad estricta y la luz blanca uniforme — y añade acto seguido que la situación es más complicada de lo que Newton y sus contrincantes imaginaban

«It is noteworthy that neither in his first response nor in this short elaboration did Hooke address the issue of resynthesis. He simply refused ab initio to accept that Newton had provided evidence for the immutability of the colorfacient rays before their initial exposure to a prism, while also ignoring the fact that the rays could be reassembled to form white light. In this fashion Hooke managed to evade the conclusion that would follow from acknowledging that white light had been resynthesized from immutable spectral rays.» — Hooke no respondió a la mitad sintética del argumento: se negó de entrada a conceder la inmutabilidad previa y pasó por alto la recomposición. Newman lo describe como evasión, no como refutación

«Despite the cleverness and demonstrative force of Newton’s color-wheel experiment, he had still not proven that the white light resynthesized from refracted sunlight was identical to white light tout court.» — el límite que hace fichable la idea: la rueda de colores decopla la blancura de la mezcla, pero NO prueba que la luz blanca resintetizada sea idéntica a la luz blanca sin más

«As if to acknowledge this fact, Huygens suggested in 1673 that a light perceived as white might well arise from the combination of blue and yellow alone. Huygens’s suggestion would lead Newton eventually to modify his theory, and to admit that he had not synthesized white light simpliciter, but merely sunlight.» — la concesión posterior: Huygens propone azul más amarillo, y Newton acaba admitiendo que sintetizó luz solar, no blanco simpliciter

«Both in the Lectiones opticae and the Optica, Newton speaks of the sunlight reconstituted from spectral colors as being an albedo redintegrata—quite literally a redintegrated whiteness.» — la evidencia terminológica del puente: Newton llama a la luz blanca recompuesta albedo redintegrata, con la palabra que Boyle usaba para la resíntesis química

«Although one might argue that this agreement of Newton’s terminology with that of Boyle is mere coincidence, there are other clues that Newton had already read about Boyle’s experiments with redintegration before composing either the Lectiones opticae or the Optica. At the same time as Newton’s famous annus mirabilis, 1666, the year in which he claimed to have discovered the heterogeneity of white light, Boyle had published his Origin of Forms and Qualities. Indeed, the very manuscript in which Newton recorded his first experiments with the resynthesis of white light from the spectral colors, CU Add. 3975, also contains extensive notes drawn from Boyle’s Origin of Forms on the redintegration of stibnite and turpentine.» — la coincidencia y su descargo: concede que podría ser casualidad y aporta el dato de archivo que la descarta — el mismo cuaderno donde está la primera resíntesis óptica contiene notas extensas de la redintegración de estibina y trementina del Origin of Forms

«From this we see that Newton’s sources provided him with a twofold goal for studying the generation of metals from an alchemical perspective: on the one hand he had every reason to think that such knowledge was a requirement if one was going to succeed where nature itself had failed to arrive at complete perfection, and on the other, the very meaning of chrysopoetic chymists such as Sendivogius was inaccessible without a deep understanding of nature» — por qué la geoquímica es parte del proyecto alquímico y no un apéndice: sus fuentes le dan dos razones, una práctica —si el arte imita a la naturaleza hay que conocer cómo genera los metales bajo tierra— y una hermenéutica, porque el sentido de Sendivogius es inaccesible sin ese conocimiento

«They are also unique among the million or so words making up Newton’s alchemical corpus in that they consist of original cosmological and geological speculations inspired by alchemy, while most of his manuscripts are aimed at deciphering the practical meaning intentionally buried by chymical authors.» — qué hace únicos a los dos opúsculos entre el millón de palabras del corpus químico: son especulación cosmológica y geológica original, no descifrado

«Hence with the metals continually drawn downwards, never ascending ^so long as they remain metals it would be necessary that in a few years the greatest part would have vanished from the upper earth, unless they are conceded to be generated ^there de novo.» — voz de Newton en Dibner 1031B: si los metales bajan siempre y no vuelven a subir mientras sigan siendo metales, en pocos años la corteza se habría quedado sin ellos, salvo que se admita que se generan allí de nuevo. Es el argumento contrafáctico que sostiene toda la teoría cíclica

«It is important not to misunderstand Newton’s reasoning at this juncture. Although “vulgar chymists” cannot make a menstruum so powerful that it can volatilize a metal and destroy its form, it does not follow that this is impossible for the adepts. To the contrary, paraphrasing a passage from book 6 of the Aeneid, where the Sybil explains that it is easy to descend to Hades but quite another matter to reascend, Newton adds, “hic labor hoc opus est” (this is the labor, this is the work). Like Aeneas’s return from Hades to the land of light, the volatilization of metals that allows them to rise up as spirits is difficult to reproduce in a flask, but not beyond the realm of possibility, at least not for those who are true adepts in alchemy.» — lectura correcta del argumento, marcada expresamente: que los químicos vulgares no puedan hacer un menstruo tan potente NO implica que sea imposible para los adeptos

«It is tempting to think that Newton meant to draw an explicit comparison between the sinking down of metallic solutions and Aeneas’s descent into Hades. One must be cautious here, however, for the Vergilian expression “hic labor hoc opus” appears in the works of other contemporary chymists as well. Newton’s employment of the passage may well stem from contemporary chymists rather than from Vergil himself.» — cautela sobre la cita virgiliana: la fórmula circulaba entre químicos contemporáneos, y Newton pudo tomarla de ellos y no de Virgilio

«nature ever begins with putrefaction or fermentation whereby there is an intimate union & exertion of Spts ^& purgation of impuritys.» — voz de Newton igualando putrefacción y fermentación como arranque de toda operación de la naturaleza

«At this point it becomes entirely clear that Newton is restating Sendivogius’s influential theory that the interior of the earth as well as the atmosphere are permeated by an aerial niter that acts as a principle of life and growth.» — el momento en que queda claro a quién se lo debe: Newton está reformulando el principio de vida y crecimiento de sus fuentes

«That wch is below is like that wch is above & that wch is above is like yt wch is below to do ye miracles of one only thing. And as all things have been & arose from one by ye mediation of one: so all things have their birth from this one thing by adaptation.» — la Tabla Esmeralda en la traducción del propio Newton, premisa de la que sale la regla del ingrediente único

«Medieval and early modern alchemists, intent on modeling their chrysopoetic efforts on the generative processes of nature, would therefore frequently assert that the overall process for making the philosophers’ stone should employ only one essential ingredient, avoiding the addition of heterogeneous materials. Geber’s famous Summa perfectionis, for example, stated that “there is one stone and one medicine in which the magistery consists, to which we neither add anything extraneous nor remove anything.» — el corolario que los alquimistas sacan de esa premisa y su formulación en Geber: no añadir ni quitar nada

«But Newton pushed the idea much further than his sources by making the paired degeneration and regeneration of minerals a cyclical process required in order to explain the presence of metals in the earth’s upper crust.» — dónde va Newton más lejos que sus fuentes

«In the notebooks we see an extreme emphasis on reiterated sublimation and dissolution of materials that is entirely sui generis when compared to the practice of other seventeenth-century chymists.» — lo sui generis de su práctica, medido por comparación: un énfasis extremo en la sublimación reiterada que no se halla en otros químicos del XVII

«In reality, Newton never achieved the goal of freeing the metallic spirit and fermenting it with less mature minerals in order to produce the philosophers’ stone. His laboratory notebooks show that even in the late 1690s he was still at the stage of making preparatory reagents rather than forming “our Embryo,” as Philalethes described the nascent philosophers’ stone gestating in its sealed incubating flask.» — el límite del resultado, que hay que citar siempre con el proyecto: a finales de los 1690 seguía en la fase de preparar reactivos y nunca alcanzó la meta

«The work is emphatically not a critical analysis of alchemical theories of growth and decay, but rather an excursus on those theories that uses their data as starting points for further speculation.» — qué clase de obra es Of Natures obvious laws y por tanto qué se le puede pedir: no es análisis crítico sino un excurso que usa esos datos como punto de partida

«This indiscriminate acceptance of chrysopoetic dicta as fact provides further support for the view that Newton had already enlisted himself among the ranks of the adepts, even if he realized that he was at this point a pupil rather than a master. His private allegiance to the sons of art would prevail throughout his remaining years in Cambridge, and for all we know, he may never have given up the dream of joining their number.» — la inferencia biográfica que saca de esa aceptación indiscriminada, con su «for all we know» intacto

«In accordance with its Latin etymology (from vegetatio), Newton uses “vegetation” primarily to mean “growth” and “animation.” In seventeenth-century English, the term did not have the strict association with the plant world that it typically does today.» — corrige la lectura moderna de «vegetación»: en el siglo XVII el término no significa lo que hoy

«The reason for their alienation from the underlying metallic substance is obvious: they have lost their original subtlety and become thick, material bodies not on account of vegetation, but because of “a gros mechanicall transposition of pts.» — por qué lo deshecho mecánicamente ha de rehacerse mecánicamente, en la letra de Newton

«Despite the practical overtones of Newton’s description, it seems unlikely that he is advising himself first to transform water into earth and then to reverse the process in order to free the hidden metallic spirit. After all, why would he have gone to the trouble of making a generic earth by Boylean means when it is a material found wherever humans make their habitation? More probably, he considered the sequence of operations leading from water to metallic spirit as a lesson in the mutability of matter, as Boyle intended it.» — contención declarada: rechaza leer el pasaje del agua-en-tierra como receta —¿para qué fabricar tierra genérica si la hay bajo los pies?— y lo lee como lección sobre la mutabilidad de la materia

«Here I must stress that the almost obsessive focus on extractions and sublimations followed by dissolutions, precipitations, and yet more sublimations, was not the normal operating procedure of seventeenth-century alchemy, despite the seemingly endless repetition of these processes in Newton’s experimental notebooks. Even a cursory comparison with the laboratory practices of other chymists, especially those of Newton’s favorites Boyle and Starkey, shows that they did not follow this path.» — subraya en primera persona lo que separa la práctica de Newton de la de Boyle y Starkey: ellos no siguieron ese camino

«The fact that the juvenile theory of gravity presented in an alchemical context by Of Natures obvious laws relies on the impact of invisibly small corpuscles rather than employing force at a distance belies the claim of earlier scholars, such as Westfall and Dobbs, that Newton’s concept of gravitational attraction stemmed from his alchemical readings.» — la negativa central del libro en su forma más concreta: la gravedad de Of Natures obvious laws funciona por impacto de corpúsculos, no por acción a distancia, y eso desmiente la tesis de Westfall y Dobbs

«This giant organism is an “inanimate vegetable” rather than an animal, presumably because it lacks the sensitive and motive faculties associated traditionally with animals but retains the nutritive capacity of plants. One must take “inanimate” in its most literal, technical sense here, meaning that which lacks an Aristotelian animal soul. There can be no doubt that Newton means to say that the planetary globe is alive, since it is continually breathing.» — qué significa «inanimate» en la Tierra-organismo de Newton: le falta el alma animal aristotélica, no le falta la vida

«Without question we are witnessing Newton’s hybridization of two distinct traditions—one of them originating in the ancient atomists’ attempts to explain the fall of bodies as a rain of atoms, a school of thought that reached its full maturation under the aegis of the seventeenth-century mechanical philosophy, and the other a distinct alchemical school of thought descending from the cosmic circulatory system described in enigmatic terms by the Emerald Tablet of Hermes and filled out by early modern chymists such as Sendivogius and his followers.» — la tesis del injerto: dos tradiciones, la lluvia de átomos de los atomistas antiguos y el sistema circulatorio cósmico de la Tabla Esmeralda

«Yet Newton was not the first to graft these two traditions into a unified cosmic system. I have already pointed to the influence of Digby’s Two Treatises of Body and the Soul, a work that alludes to the chymists’ theory that there is a central sun within the earth that may “raise up vapours, and boyle an ayre out of them, and divide grosse bodies into atomes.» — y su acotación de prioridad, que impide atribuirle la invención: Digby lo había hecho antes

«But of course Hooke, unlike Sendivogius and Philalethes, was not an adept.» — la diferencia que marca la frase: Hooke, a diferencia de Sendivogius y Philalethes, no era un adepto

«Notwithstanding her careful scholarship, Dobbs’s overall attempt to portray Newton’s alchemy as having a theocentric purpose misled her into thinking that his entry “Of God” was intended to make “room for the nonmechanical laws of vegetation.” Her view is that Newton was “reminding himself of God’s unlimited power to institute any series of causes,” whether mechanical or not, in order to accommodate his alchemical concept of vegetation.49 In the interpretation of Dobbs, this passage belonged to Newton’s overall employment of alchemy to demonstrate “divine activity in the world.” Unfortunately, Dobbs failed to see that Newton’s entry “Of God” is actually not inspired by alchemy, but consists rather of a very specific response to Descartes’s proofs for the existence of the divinity.» — corrección de adjudicación, nominal y con reconocimiento previo: Dobbs leyó la entrada «Of God» como espacio abierto a leyes no mecánicas de la vegetación, y Newman sostiene que no está inspirada en la alquimia sino en las pruebas cartesianas de la existencia de Dios

«We must remind ourselves that Of Natures obvious laws is a commonplace book, albeit fragmentary, organized around topical entries that need not be closely related.» — el límite de género que sostiene toda esa lectura: es un libro de lugares comunes, fragmentario, y sus entradas no tienen que guardar relación estrecha entre sí

«The same scholastic discussion that debated the ability of alchemists to “aid nature” in the laboratory rather than acting in a purely artificial way, typically distinguished in a somewhat rigid fashion between “perfective arts” that helped nature such as medicine and alchemy and those that worked “extrinsically” without engaging the Aristotelian internal principle of change (Aristotle’s archē kineseōs) that allowed natural things to grow and progenerate.56 A paradigm example of such starkly artificial arts lay in the realm of machines, which employed mechanical principles such as the law of the lever to produce effects that were sometimes stupendous, but which did not involve the natural processes of generation, growth, or transmutation.» — de dónde sale la dicotomía mecanismo/vegetabilidad: de la partición escolástica entre artes perfectivas que ayudan a la naturaleza y artes que operan extrínsecamente, cuyo caso ejemplar son las máquinas

«In short, materials that can be analyzed and resynthesized fit Newton’s criterion for mechanical products, whereas substances produced by vegetation are not fit products for resynthesis or, to use the Boylean term, redintegration.» — el criterio operativo, que es lo nuevo: lo que puede analizarse y resintetizarse queda del lado del mecanismo, con el término boyleano de redintegración

«To the Newton of the early 1670s, who had not yet embraced the principle of long-range action at a distance that marked his mature Principia, the phenomena exhibited by falling bodies, melting materials, changes in the atmosphere, and inorganic chemical reactions were all explicable by means of microlevel particles acting mechanically on one another.» — la fecha importa: en los primeros 1670, antes de la acción a distancia del Principia, todo lo fenoménico se explica por corpúsculos que chocan

«It is remarkable that this sweeping claim for the role of vegetation is supported only by the seemingly mundane phenomenon found in Newton’s following comment—“note ye instance of turning Irō into copper. &c.” Here Newton is referring to the cementation process of refining copper out of vitriolate solutions by adding iron to them; this was a standard piece of the empirical evidence many chymists used to support the reality of transmutation.» — el desequilibrio entre la tesis y su apoyo, señalado por Newman: la afirmación de que nada se hace sin vegetación se apoya en un solo caso, la cementación del cobre con hierro

«Despite Newton’s later understanding that this was merely a process of copper plating onto iron that was itself dissolving, his blanket acceptance of the accounts of the philosophers’ stone and transmutation given by Philalethes and Sendivogius suggests that at the time of writing Of Natures obvious laws he probably still accepted Maier’s view that a genuine transmutation had occurred rather than a mere deposition of copper already present in the vitriol.» — la acotación doblemente reservada que va con ese caso: aun entendiendo después que era mera precipitación, probablemente seguía aceptando la lectura de Maier

«Dobbs later backed away somewhat from her claim that alchemy was responsible for Newton’s move to an immaterial gravitational force. See JFG, 15 (for the “Clavis”) and 207–8, where she admits that “the story no longer seems quite so straightforward.» — dato de archivo historiográfico que conviene citar siempre con la disputa: Dobbs se retractó en parte de su propia afirmación

«It has long been known that Newton had a keen interest in antimony, for example, but no historian until now has realized that the young adept-in-training had an equal if not greater fascination with the metal lead.» — reclamo de aporte propio en primera persona historiográfica: se sabía del antimonio, y nadie había advertido que el joven Newton tenía por el plomo una fascinación igual o mayor

«Luna (moon), did not have to refer to its traditional alchemical referent, silver, but might conceal a multiplicity of substances whose true meaning could change in different contexts and whose sense could only be discovered by skillful reading.» — la regla que hace posible su hermenéutica: como sus fuentes son adeptos verdaderos, no usarían los Decknamen de forma rígida, y un mismo término encubre sustancias distintas según el contexto

«Although Sendivogius says nothing about antimony, Saturn, or the seminal metallic seed in the passage that served as Newton’s immediate source, the young chymist has decoded his Polish forebear’s allusive text into a recipe for practice.» — lo que Newton pone y la fuente no dice: Sendivogius no habla de antimonio, y Newton lo lee como receta de práctica

«It is entirely characteristic of Newton to deduce alchemical practice from the putative generation and growth of metals beneath the surface of the earth, in conformity with the principle that art should imitate nature. Hence he concludes from the fact that lead is merely unripe gold whose maturation has been blocked by “impurity,” that the removal of this impurity from the lead will lead to gold.» — el puente teoría-práctica: si el plomo es oro inmaduro bloqueado por impureza, quitarle la impureza da oro. El ars imitatur naturam funcionando como regla de laboratorio

«This level of specificity is manifestly lacking in the Novum lumen chemicum, a text that steers resolutely clear of the details involved in actual laboratory practice. In fact, Newton has imported this sevenfold or ninefold sublimation of the sophic mercury into the alchemy of Sendivogius from a much more explicit source—Philalethes’s Secrets Reveal’d. In making his sophic mercury, Philalethes had recommended “seven or nine” eagles, that is, sublimations.» — la importación medida: la especificidad de las siete o nueve sublimaciones no está en Sendivogius, viene de Secrets Reveal'd

«Thanks to Starkey’s “Key into Antimony,” part of the surviving letter that the young New Englander wrote to Robert Boyle in 1651, we know that the Philalethan process began by smelting stibnite with iron in order to arrive at the star regulus of antimony. Starkey then combined the metallic antimony with two parts of refined silver in order to produce an alloy that would easily amalgamate with quicksilver. After separately purifying his quicksilver with vinegar and salt, Starkey sublimed it multiple times (seven to nine) from the antimony-silver alloy, which eventually resulted in the sophic mercury. As one can see, the two parts of refined silver, which are called “the two doves of Diana” in Secrets Reveal’d, played a key role in the process.» — el referente real de las palomas de Diana, con su fuente: por la carta de George Starkey a Boyle de 1651 se sabe que eran dos partes de plata refinada aleadas con el regulus estrellado. Philalethes es Starkey

«Newton, however, did not have Starkey’s “Key into Antimony” at the time of composing Babson 925 and Keynes 19, although he did acquire a Latin translation of the text (the Clavis) later in his career. But by that time he was wedded to his own, entirely different interpretation of the doves of Diana, which he never entirely abandoned even after acquiring Starkey’s letter.» — la asimetría de evidencia que explica todo el capítulo: Newton no tenía esa carta al escribir sus primeros comentarios, y cuando obtuvo la Clavis ya estaba casado con su propia lectura

«The fluid use of tropes is as much a part of early modern alchemy as it is of seventeenth-century poetry, and to expect a rigid, one-to-one association of alchemical images would only lead us astray.» — la regla de lectura que Newman le pide al lector moderno: esperar correspondencia rígida uno a uno entre imágenes alquímicas descamina

«One might be inclined to call his interpretation “literal,” even to the point of absurdity, but that would entirely miss the point, since the extreme liberties of his interpretation belie the usual sense of the term. There is nothing in d’Espagnet’s Arcanum to make a naive reader think of antimonial slag.» — rechaza el rótulo fácil: llamar «literal» a la lectura de Newton no sirve, porque lo que hay es atención extrema a la palabra exacta y a la sintaxis, no fidelidad al sentido llano

«It is impossible to overstress the fact that Newton’s early interpretation of Sendivogius—although indeed based on Philalethes—represents the young Cantabrigian’s idiosyncratic interpretation of Secrets Reveal’d. We know from Starkey’s 1651 “Key into Antimony,” written for his friend and patron Robert Boyle, that there is actually no lead process lurking behind the extravagant cover names of the Philalethan text. Moreover, Starkey’s process really did employ quicksilver, by which I mean the mercury of the modern periodic table, not a putative “mercury of lead,” along with stibnite, iron, and silver. The iron and stibnite were employed in making the star regulus of antimony, which was then fused with silver to make an alloy that would easily amalgamate with the quicksilver. By reducing the range of ingredients to a mere two—lead and stibnite—Newton was making a drastic oversimplification.» — la simplificación medida contra el proceso real: el de Starkey usaba azogue, estibina, hierro y plata, y reducirlo a plomo y estibina fue una simplificación drástica

«And yet Newton was far from unique in misunderstanding the “American philosopher,” and the pervasive, though not universal, belief that the adepts were all really discussing a single process under their colorful menagerie of doves, lions, dragons, and crows inevitably led to a sort of unintentional homogenization.» — y su razón, que es de la propia tradición: la creencia extendida —aunque no universal— de que todos los adeptos describían un solo proceso llevaba a homogeneizarlo todo

«We know from Starkey’s surviving notebooks that these experiments ultimately resulted in failure, but when he was writing Secrets Reveal’d and the Marrow, he was confident of their success and presented them in positive, albeit obscure, terms.» — dato de atribución del que depende el capítulo: los cuadernos de Starkey muestran que sus experimentos fracasaron y que al escribir los presentaba como logrados. Lo que Newton lee como doctrina de un adepto es trabajo en curso presentado como consumado

«From Newton’s perspective, Philalethes could not simply have changed his mind about the proper way of arriving at the philosophers’ stone. A perfect adept like Philalethes, who claimed in Secrets Reveal’d to have already acquired the philosophers’ stone by the age of twenty-three, could not really be stumbling along and happening on new and better processes (as Starkey actually was doing in the 1650s). If the processes described in Secrets Reveal’d were only work in progress, how could the self-professed adept Philalethes have been speaking honestly? Since Newton had no doubts that Philalethes was a genuine adept, there had to be another answer. In the very early notes composing Var. 259.7, Newton therefore had good reason to overlook the allusions that Starkey made to his new copper process, and to interpret Venus in a rigid sense as antimony alone.» — la razón por la que Newton no podía leerlo como cambio de opinión: un adepto perfecto no puede ir tropezando con métodos mejores, luego la divergencia tenía que ser otra cosa. La premisa de adeptado produce el error, y Newman lo presenta como razonamiento, no como torpeza

«Our examination of Newton’s alchemy from 1669 to the mid-1670s has revealed a significant peregrination on the part of the self-assured, not to say overweening, youthful natural philosopher. Initially confident of his ability to decode Sendivogius and Philalethes with the help of lead and crude antimony alone, Newton soon ran headlong into the evasions of alchemical polysemy. Confronted with the fact that the Philalethes of the Marrow of Alchemy had employed the additional materials of copper and iron, Newton was forced to adjust.» — el balance del capítulo: de la confianza en descifrar con solo plomo y antimonio, al choque con la polisemia

«But with an unshakable confidence similar to the self-assurance that accompanied his critique of Descartes in Certain Philosophical Questions, the budding scientist refused to abandon his earlier interpretation in its entirety. His initial conclusions could not be absolutely wrong, but they must be modified to fit his evolving understanding of the masters.» — la regla de revisión que le atribuye, y es el hallazgo psicológico del libro: no abandona, modifica — sus conclusiones iniciales no pueden estar del todo mal

«If we turn to Keynes 35, a large manuscript of around seventeen thousand words, the terms “antimony” and its Latin equivalent, as well as the symbol “♁,” appear only five times. Comparing this to occurrences of “lead” and its Latin forms, as well as the symbol “♄,” I find that lead and its Latin forms appear thirty-eight times in the same manuscript. This is not conclusive in itself, since expressions like “our lead” could be read as antimony, but it certainly justifies a closer look at Keynes 35.» — argumento cuantitativo con su límite en la misma frase: cinco menciones de antimonio contra treinta y ocho de plomo, y advierte de inmediato que no es concluyente

«Newton’s more or less explicit adoption of the florilegium genre in Keynes 35 marks an important turning point in his alchemical career. He clearly recognized now that the approach of Keynes 19, where one author acted as a key to all the others, as Philalethes had to Sendivogius and d’Espagnet, was too simplistic. Philalethes himself had taught Newton the error of this early approach in the Marrow of Alchemy.» — el giro de método: abandona el modelo de un autor como llave de todos los demás por el florilegio medieval — y quien le enseñó el error fue el propio Philalethes

«In trying to extract the “flowers” of alchemical wisdom from the “thorns” thrown out to delude the unworthy (a prominent title among such florilegia was Lily among Thorns), alchemical compilers tended to submerge their own authorial identity behind the words of other authors.» — el costo del género para el historiador: al extraer las flores de la sabiduría alquímica, la voz propia desaparece bajo las palabras de otros autores

«It would be foolhardy for us to attempt a decipherment of Grasseus’s Decknamen, even though some of his successors had definite ideas about his meaning.» — abstención declarada: sería temerario intentar un desciframiento

«Although the bulk of the extracts support the view that the alchemist should begin with three materials (5r–v, 6r–v, 9r, 11r), there are also passages that insist on two (9r– 10r), four (6r, 13v, 15v, 16r–v), seven (6v), and even one that suggests “all the metals” (6v). Clearly the assiduous chymist had his work cut out for him.» — el recuento que es el resultado del capítulo y es un desacuerdo, no una respuesta: la mayoría de los extractos dice tres materias primeras, otros dicen dos, cuatro, siete, y uno todos los metales

«In the end, Grasseus’s discussion leaves one unsatisfied as to the exact relationship between Gur, plumbum æris, and ordinary galena or lead ore. Were more than one of these required in the making of the philosophers’ stone? And what exactly is the relationship between plumbum æris and copper? Should we read the aes in its name as the red metal, or as a generic ore, knowing that either meaning is possible in Latin? The answers to these questions, were, I believe, as unclear to Newton as they are to us.» — la incógnita declarada sin resolver para las dos partes: la relación entre Gur, plumbum æris y galena queda tan poco clara para Newton como para nosotros

«The reader may be surprised to learn that of the more than ten thousand words in the third chapter of Keynes 35, less than 125 are actually Newton’s own (I count 121). He has rather skillfully extracted the passages that make his authors say what he wants, and culled out the rest; this was ever the way of the florilegium.» — la medida de la voz propia en un florilegio: de más de diez mil palabras del capítulo tercero, menos de 125 son de Newton

«Even in his mature reading notes, however, Newton operated at two levels, the first of which treated the conundrums of the adepts as purely verbal entanglements that required decoding on their own terms before they could form the subject of laboratory experiment. The adepts were consummate tricksters, and a double meaning missed by their would-be interpreter would inevitably lead to failure. Only after the painstaking process of linguistic analysis could the hopeful practitioner pass to the laboratory.» — los dos niveles del método, que es la formulación más limpia del libro

«Although we have no proof that Newton invented this process, and indeed, the symbol used for a retort in the recipe is not characteristically his, the processes described here are close to what one finds in his laboratory notebooks, which we will examine in a later chapter. The multiple sublimations and distillations, as well as the emphasis on ores and “earths” that have not yet been exposed to the refiner’s fire, all resonate strongly with our knowledge of Newton’s laboratory work. It is very plausible that these notes reflect either Newton’s own thoughts or those of an alchemical collaborator.» — atribución expresamente no resuelta: no hay prueba de que la receta sea de Newton, y el símbolo de retorta no es característico suyo

«It is true that Newton failed to divine the full sense of Philalethes’s chrysopoetic allegories, but this takes away nothing from the records of his own remarkable chymical practice, which in turn fed into such influential “public” texts as Query 31 of the Opticks.» — el juicio final con sus dos mitades: no dio con el sentido pleno de las alegorías de Philalethes, y eso no le quita nada al registro de su propia práctica química, que alimentó la Query 31

«The seventeenth century collected accounts of these chrysopoetic performances in “transmutation histories,” often stuffed with dates, names, and places in order to bolster the appearance of authenticity.1 The transmutation histories were a powerful tool in convincing the learned world that chrysopoeia was a genuine phenomenon; Robert Boyle and Benedict Spinoza are just two of the many who followed up on such accounts in order to determine the truth behind them.» — el género de las historias de transmutación y su función: relatos cargados de fechas, nombres y lugares para reforzar la apariencia de autenticidad

«Although he was convinced of the reality of this transmutation, the level-headed historian adds the important caveat that the tincture could only convert as much lead to gold as the gold that was employed in the fabrication of the tincture itself. Hence there was no net gain in this process, and the tincture was only a “particular,” unlike the philosophers’ stone per se, which would have been a “universal.”» — la salvedad del testigo, que convierte el prodigio en dato acotado: Valvasor, convencido de la transmutación, advierte él mismo que la tintura solo convertía tanto plomo como oro llevaba dentro — no hay ganancia neta

«How Snyders managed to perform these tricks remains a matter of conjecture, but for us the important thing is that he was able to convince both assayers and critically minded intellectuals such as Valvasor of his transmutational ability, even if this proved to be his undoing.» — abstención: no dictamina el truco, consigna a quién convenció

«Although I do not claim to have fathomed the depths of his convoluted imagery, there are several early modern accounts—one by an alchemist who claims to have worked with the adept—that have escaped the attention of previous scholars and are worth examining in this chapter.» — segunda abstención, en primera persona: no pretende haber sondeado las profundidades de esa imaginería enrevesada

«The problem is that the concealment far outweighs the revelation. The text, which is divided into chapters with numbered paragraphs, to the modern eye reads like a succession of extended riddles.» — el diagnóstico del texto de Snyders: la ocultación pesa mucho más que lo revelado, y queda una sucesión de acertijos extendidos

«What this consisted of, despite its rather grandiose title, was merely a collection of the most suggestive passages from Snyders brought into an order that Newton thought appropriate, and accompanied by his own halting and tentative interpretations.» — desinfla el título: la «Key to Snyders» no es una clave, es una colección de pasajes reordenados con interpretaciones vacilantes

«It is entirely possible that the author of the Metamorphosis—for the sake of simplicity let us assume that he really is the author who composed the Commentatio—changed his mind about the starting ingredients of the philosophers’ stone after writing the earlier text.» — la cautela de atribución más limpia del lote, y modelo para la ficha: no da por sentado que sea el mismo autor, lo asume «for the sake of simplicity» y lo dice

«Any number of chymical operations and materials could lie hidden behind these lurid fabliaux, but Newton chose his own, distinctive path through the maze. In essence, Newton interprets the rise and fall of each planetary god as its sublimation and precipitation, such as it might undergo those operations in a laboratory.» — la clave de lectura de Newton y el hecho de que es una entre muchas posibles: cualquier número de operaciones podría esconderse ahí, y Newton escogió su propia senda

«In the meantime, it is possible that Newton viewed the last paragraph that we examined as a mere restatement of the introductory one on the second and third fires, but for the moment it is better to suspend our judgment.» — suspensión de juicio explícita, y es la fórmula que cierra el capítulo

«Here Newton has cobbled together snippets from seven pages of Snyders (some widely separated in the original text), giving line numbers after each page. This is a classic example of reassembling a text that one believes to have undergone “dispersion of knowledge” (dispersa intentio) at the hands of the original author» — describe la operación material con que Newton lee a Snyders: junta retazos de siete páginas del original —algunas muy separadas entre sí— y anota el número de línea de cada una. Lo clasifica como caso clásico de reensamblar un texto que el lector supone sometido a dispersión del saber por su propio autor. La premisa hermenéutica es la que autoriza a recomponer, y va nombrada como técnica, no como hallazgo

«In decoding Snyders’s sal ammoniac of the philosophers as antimony (or more likely a mixture or compound of antimony), Newton was finding his own laboratory practice in the text of the master.» — al descifrar el sal amoniaco de los filósofos de Snyders como antimonio —o más probablemente una mezcla o compuesto de antimonio—, Newton encontraba su propia práctica de laboratorio dentro del texto del maestro; el límite va dentro de la frase, la identificación misma es probable y no cierta

«But consulting Snyders’s text reveals that Newton has made one very significant change—in his usual brackets he has added the modifier “[or most High].” For Newton, Venus in her Green Lyon role has become the monarch!» — cotejar el texto revela que Newton introdujo un cambio significativo: agregó entre sus corchetes habituales el modificador «[or most High]», con lo que Venus en su papel de León Verde pasa a ser el monarca. Es interpolación de Newton, no letra de Snyders, y se detecta solo por colación

«His view now is that the metals must be first cast into reguli in order to purify them, and then sublimed. This is another practice that we find described at length in Newton’s laboratory notebooks. In addition, Newton finds a justification here for his view that multiple metals should be fused together into the same regulus before their sublimation.» — la doctrina operativa que Newton extrae: los metales deben fundirse primero en regulus para purificarlos y después sublimarse, y encuentra ahí justificación para fundir varios metales en un mismo regulus antes de la sublimación

«Was Newton’s decoding of the Metamorphosis and the Commentatio a simple matter of transferring allegory and Decknamen into laboratory practice, or was Newton instead justifying his existing protocols by reference to these authoritative texts? The history of alchemy provides abundant examples of both practices. To give but one illustration, Newton’s avatar George Starkey went to great lengths under his Philalethan disguise to find an authoritative pedigree for his antimonial practice in the works of the fifteenth-century alchemist George Ripley.29 But in reality, Ripley’s alchemy used antimony hardly at all, and depended heavily on the use of lead compounds instead, which he hid under the Deckname “sericon.”30 Whether Starkey realized it or not, his use of Ripley was principally one of demonstrating that “Philalethes” belonged to the same lineage as the great masters of the art. On the other hand, Starkey’s laboratory work really was heavily influenced by another chymical writer, the sixteenth-century Paracelsian Alexander von Suchten, whose name and reputation lacked the» — la pregunta de método que gobierna el capítulo, planteada sin resolverla de entrada: si descifrar la Metamorphosis y la Commentatio fue trasladar alegoría y Decknamen a la práctica, o más bien justificar con textos de autoridad protocolos ya establecidos — y la historia de la alquimia ofrece ejemplos abundantes de ambas cosas

«The remarkable detail that Newton extracted out of Snyders and the endless hours that he spent at this endeavor militate against such an interpretation. There are also numerous instances where one can show Newton choosing a particular operational path at a crossroad on the basis of his textual interpretation. Moreover, a large number of his chymical experiments recorded in the two Portsmouth laboratory notebooks (CU Add. 3973 and 3975) are attempts to test processes derived from sources such as Snyders, Philalethes, and Sendivogius. But at the same time, one must admit that the hints and allusions given by these authors would on their own be a poor guide indeed to actual laboratory practice, which had to be learned elsewhere.» — la respuesta con su acotación pegada, que es lo que no debe cortarse: el detalle extraordinario que Newton extrajo de Snyders y las horas invertidas militan contra la lectura de la mera justificación, pero hay que admitir que las pistas y alusiones de esos autores serían por sí solas una guía pobrísima para la práctica real, que hubo de aprenderse en otra parte

«Newton’s laboratory records reveal unequivocally that “volatile vitriol,” “volatile Venus,” and “our Venus,” which all meant the same thing in the end, acquired increasing importance to him as his alchemical project developed. It became, in fact, his favorite tool for subliming metals and other materials—hence his granting of the epithet “most High” to the volatile vitriol in On ye Metamorphosis of ye Planets 4 is no accident.» — «volatile vitriol», «volatile Venus» y «our Venus» acabaron significando lo mismo, y su importancia creció hasta volverse la herramienta favorita de Newton para sublimar metales, de ahí que el epíteto «most High» que le concede no sea casual

«This document, which has received no previous scholarly attention, claims to have been written by an anonymous coworker of Snyders. At the end of the first set of operations, he explicitly says, “I have done this with the author” (sic feci cum authore), a statement that is repeated again in other language later in the text. Such a statement might at first be met with a jaundiced eye, but there is at least one other piece of evidence suggesting that whoever wrote this little tract had firsthand knowledge of Snyders and his work. After he finishes recounting the processes that come from “the author of the Metamorphosis of the Planets,” the composer of the Secret gives another, similar set of operations introduced by the phrase “The Archbishop of Cologne has proceeded thus” (hoc modo procedebat Arch. Col.). Although far from guaranteeing authenticity, this» — acepta el indicio pero no la conclusión: el Arcanum authoris Metamorphosis planetarum dice haber sido escrito por un colaborador anónimo de Snyders y es documento no atendido antes por la erudición, pero la declaración podría mirarse con recelo, y advierte expresamente que el indicio dista de garantizar la autenticidad

«Although there are obvious technical problems with the Secret’s account, the claim that something like its processes lie at the heart of the Metamorphosis is probably not unfounded.» — el veredicto sobre el Secret con su «probably» a la vista: pese a problemas técnicos evidentes en el relato, la pretensión de que algo parecido a sus procesos está en el corazón de la Metamorphosis probablemente no carece de fundamento — sirve para medir cuán idiosincrásica era la lectura de Newton, no para adjudicar la receta

«In short, the operations given in Digby’s Chymical Secrets appear to be a variant form of the same basic scheme related by “The Secret of the Author of the Metamorphosis of the Planets.” Was Newton entirely unaware of this interpretation, with its emphasis on the deflagrating yellow powder made of niter, sulfur, and salt of tartar? In fact he was not, as a fascinating little document in Newton’s hand now kept at Columbia University reveals. The text, titled “Three Mysterious Fires,” was a late product of collaboration between Newton and a circle of London alchemists. I will provide a full study of this document in chapter seventeen, but first it is imperative to show how Newton merged the chrysopoeia of Snyders with that of Philalethes and other authors to arrive at his own distinctive blueprint for the production of the philosophers’ stone. The basic model for practice that Newton had established by the final quarter of the seventeenth century would serve as his exemplar for the remainder of his career as an alchemist.» — la afirmación de fondo es cronológica: las operaciones de los Chymical Secrets de Digby parecen variante del mismo esquema, y el modelo básico de práctica que Newton tenía establecido hacia el último cuarto del siglo XVII le sirvió de dechado el resto de su carrera de alquimista

«Adam Gotlob Berlich, the editor of the 1678 German edition of Snyders’s Commentatio (De medicina universali) states that Snyders seems to have been “of the Reformed religion,” and therefore could not have lived in Catholic Köln. Hence Berlich argues that “Cölln” must mean the Prussian city of Cölln am Spree. But this is a specious argument, since no evidence is given for Snyders’s religious affiliation, and other Reformed chymists, such as Johann Moriän, definitely did live in Köln a few years earlier.» — disputa de localización con editor nombrado: Berlich, editor de la edición alemana de 1678 de la Commentatio, deduce que Snyders no pudo vivir en la Colonia católica por ser «of the Reformed religion». El argumento se declara especioso por dos razones enunciadas — no se ofrece evidencia de esa filiación religiosa, y otros químicos reformados sí vivieron en Köln pocos años antes

«To Newton, no single alchemist had revealed the entire set of processes necessary to acquire the philosophers’ stone. On the alchemical principle that “one book opens another” (liber librum aperit), it was necessary to assemble the full set of stages from multiple authors in order to arrive at success.» — el principio que obliga a Newton a compilar: ningún alquimista por sí solo había revelado el conjunto entero de procesos necesarios para la piedra, y por el axioma «un libro abre otro» había que ensamblar todas las etapas a partir de varios autores

«In his demonstrably early manuscripts such as Keynes 19 and Var. 259.7, Newton refers to Eirenaeus Philalethes simply as “Eyrenæus,” “Eyreneus,” or by other variants of the putative adept’s first name.2 The substitution of “Ey” for the “Ei” diphthong, if not the preference for the adept’s first name, reflects the sources that Newton was using. The earliest Philalethan works available to Newton, such as Secrets Reveal’d, refer to the American chymist as “Eyræneus Philaletha” or even employ the bizarre spelling “Æyrenæus” for his first name.3 Only in works that postdate Newton’s “Lullian turn” at the hands of Dickinson and Mundanus do we find him consistently referring to Eirenaeus Philalethes merely as “Philaletha.”4 Hence the presence of “Philaletha” in Keynes 58 is a clue that the manuscript dates from the mid-1680s at the earliest, and could even be later.» — el argumento de datación por la forma del nombre: en los manuscritos demostrablemente tempranos Newton llama al adepto «Eyrenæus» y variantes, reflejo de sus fuentes impresas, y solo en obras posteriores al giro luliano aparece de forma consistente «Philaletha» a secas — de ahí que su presencia en Keynes 58 sea indicio de que el manuscrito data de mediados de los 1680 lo más temprano. El límite lo pone él mismo: es un terminus a quo y podría ser aún posterior

«The similarity in form might at first suggest that Newton wrote Keynes 58 at a time not far removed from that of Keynes 19, and indeed Dobbs placed the composition of Keynes 58 in the 1670s, tentatively proposing the middle of that decade.1 But there are excellent reasons for doubting such an early date for this manuscript.» — la posición contraria con su autor: la forma a dos columnas de Keynes 58 podría sugerir cercanía a Keynes 19, y en efecto Dobbs situó la composición en los 1670 proponiendo tentativamente mediados de la década

«Dobbs’s dating is based on the following observations—“MS 58 is in the handwriting of the 1670s and may perhaps be dated more precisely around the middle of the decade since some of the symbols for lead are crossed and some are uncrossed.” But her observation about the hand is entirely impressionistic, and by my count the manuscript contains twenty-six occurrences of the crossed Saturn symbol to only two of the uncrossed version. This makes the uncrossed Saturn symbols look like simple slips of the pen rather than indicating a medial period where Newton was moving from one form to the other.» — la objeción medida, y no se la despacha sino que se la cuenta: Dobbs data por la letra y por la coexistencia de símbolos de plomo cruzados y sin cruzar; la objeción es que la observación sobre la mano es enteramente impresionista, y que el conteo propio da veintiséis apariciones del símbolo de Saturno cruzado frente a solo dos del no cruzado, lo que hace parecer las formas sin cruzar simples lapsus de pluma y no un periodo de transición

«The operations that he describes are prescriptive; they are not attempts to describe actual experiments that he has carried out in the laboratory. They belong to the genre that George Starkey called “conjectural processes,” the blueprints for practice that remained to be tested at the bench. For that very reason, they are exceptionally interesting for what they can teach us about the underlying modus operandi represented in Newton’s experimental notebooks, where he actually put such procedures to the test.» — el género del documento, que decide cómo se lee: las operaciones de Keynes 58 son prescriptivas y no descripciones de experimentos hechos — pertenecen a lo que Starkey llamó «conjectural processes», planos de práctica pendientes de probarse en el banco

«On the basis of these hints I propose that “Io” and “Co” are simply abbreviations of “iron ore” and “copper ore.” Newton often abbreviates “ore” as “o,” even incorporating the letter into his proprietary system of alchemical symbols, so that 🜜 means iron ore and 🜠 means copper ore. The appearance of the standard symbols for iron and copper, “♂ & ♀,” in the accompanying note suggests that he is doing much the same thing here. If that is so, then the additional symbol for salt, 🜔, merely means that Newton is saying to take a salt extracted from iron ore and a salt extracted from copper ore, rather than one from the refined metals.» — propuesta en primera persona con su apoyo y su condicional intactos: que «Io» y «Co» abrevian iron ore y copper ore, de donde el símbolo de sal añadido significaría una sal extraída del mineral y no del metal refinado. El «I propose» y el «If that is so» son el límite

«Newton’s laboratory notebooks suggest strongly that for him (as opposed to some of his sources), the Green Lion was a copper compound, though not copper vitriol. What precise copper compound Newton had in mind here is not certain, although we will have opportunity to return to this question later.» — adjudicación con contraste de voces: los cuadernos sugieren con fuerza que para Newton —a diferencia de algunas de sus fuentes— el León Verde era un compuesto de cobre, aunque no vitriolo de cobre; qué compuesto exacto tenía en mente no es cierto

«Remarkably, Newton still maintains that the Philalethan doves of Diana are salts or sublimation products that involve lead, building on the interpretation that he had arrived at years before in his Sendivogian commentary of Keynes 19!» — continuidad medida a lo largo de más de una década: Newton sigue sosteniendo que las palomas de Diana filaléticas son sales o productos de sublimación que involucran plomo, sobre la interpretación a la que había llegado años antes en su comentario sendivogiano

«In a word, the dry water, along with Jove’s various appurtenances, all feed into one of the grand designs of Newton’s chrysopoetic project—the making of Mercury’s caduceus. I will treat this subject at greater length in another chapter» — el destino de toda la cadena: el agua seca junto con los aditamentos de Júpiter desembocan en uno de los grandes designios del proyecto crisopéyico de Newton, la fabricación del caduceo de Mercurio

«The magical staff of Mercury is supposed to have the power of fermenting quicksilver, one of the more advanced stages of Newton’s chrysopoetic endeavor. We can see, then, that these operations held tremendous significance for his chymistry. They were supposed to provide the keys that would unlock the deepest secrets of metals, and probably of matter in general.» — para qué sirve el caduceo y hasta dónde llega la afirmación: la vara mágica de Mercurio debía tener el poder de fermentar el azogue, y esas operaciones debían dar las llaves de los secretos más hondos de los metales — la extensión a la materia en general va acotada con un «probably»

«Additionally, it is quite clear that he was uncertain about many points of detail in his decoding of Snyders, even though he obviously believed himself to be generally on the right track.» — el estado epistémico de Newton: incierto en muchos puntos de detalle de su desciframiento de Snyders, y a la vez convencido de ir por buen camino en lo general

«As one can see from the deleted reference to Juno, Newton was still actively working out the chymical referents of Snyders’s allegorical figures, and had not yet arrived at certainty.» — la prueba material de esa incertidumbre: la referencia a Juno tachada muestra a Newton trabajando activamente los referentes químicos de las figuras alegóricas de Snyders, sin haber llegado aún a certeza

«Here we see Newton explicitly basing the details of an experimental investigation on the words of a myth, albeit one transmitted to him via alchemical sources. He is manifestly not merely fitting the myth to a predetermined experimental practice, he is deriving at least some parts of the practice directly from the myth.» — la afirmación central del capítulo, con sus dos acotaciones dentro y son las que la sostienen: se ve a Newton fundando explícitamente los detalles de una investigación experimental en las palabras de un mito —bien que transmitido por vía alquímica—, y no está meramente ajustando el mito a una práctica ya decidida, sino derivando del mito AL MENOS ALGUNAS PARTES de la práctica

«But this does not mean that Newton’s laboratory practice was a simple transfer of allegory into laboratory practice, as the three numbered queries that follow reveal. All three questions are to be resolved by experimentation, though it is not clear that Newton ever progressed far enough through the elaborate set of procedures that we have already described to test them.» — la contracara inmediata: eso no significa que la práctica fuera traslado simple de la alegoría, como revelan las tres preguntas numeradas que siguen, todas a resolverse por experimentación — con el límite ulterior de que no está claro que Newton llegara nunca lo bastante lejos como para probarlas

«Newton was therefore the heir of an established interpretive school when it came to the story of Jupiter’s ingenious escape from Saturn.» — el linaje interpretativo con las voces separadas: Maier alegoriza en la Atalanta fugiens el mito de Saturno devorando a sus hijos y vomitando la piedra como la fase negra que se supera hacia lo blanco, Philalethes lo reinterpreta en el Marrow of Alchemy, y Newton hereda esa escuela ya establecida

«Although this fact has been noticed by previous historians, it has escaped scholarly attention that Newton is restricting himself to the preparation of what might be called “precursor” materials, which enter into the three versions of his process, drafts α, β, and γ as fully formed substances. What Newton is proposing here is not to carry out the multiple operations that populate the three successive drafts supplied by α, β, and γ; rather, he is searching out the initial ingredients whose preparation is required before he can even begin.» — reclamo de aporte propio con lo que concede a los demás: que los Decknamen caigan y se sustituyan por lenguaje de química vulgar en el memorando final ya lo habían notado historiadores anteriores; lo que se dice escapado a la atención erudita es que Newton se restringe ahí a preparar materiales precursores, sin los cuales no puede ni empezar

«The fact that Newton had not yet attempted even the preliminary procedures for making “Dry Water” reveals strikingly that the subsequent stages, “Saturnia,” “Jove’s Bolt,” and “Jupiter,” must also have been conjectural processes, since they represent later steps in the same series and are dependent on the completion of the earlier operations.» — el corolario, y es una inferencia declarada: si Newton aún no había intentado ni los procedimientos preliminares del «Dry Water», las etapas subsiguientes tuvieron que ser también procesos conjeturales, por ser pasos posteriores de la misma serie

«It is highly unlikely that he actually performed many of the complex operations making up a series of well over thirty stages in Keynes 58 (see figure 2.3).» — el grado de probabilidad que se permite: es altamente improbable que Newton realizara muchas de las operaciones complejas que forman una serie de bastante más de treinta etapas en Keynes 58

«This short agenda reveals that despite his astonishingly detailed lists of interlinked procedures decked out in the colorful language of alchemy, Newton by his own metric had only begun to penetrate the secrets of chrysopoeia in his maturity. As we shall see in due course, his laboratory notebooks also share this characteristic. They consist for the most part of short sequences of operations intended to test particular features of his interpretations of chymical writers, and on the rare occasions where Newton does exultantly announce a discovery, the finding usually consists of the successful decipherment of a particular alchemical reagent rather than a final product.» — el balance de la madurez, con el criterio de medida explícito: pese a las listas asombrosamente detalladas de procedimientos encadenados y vestidos de lenguaje alquímico, Newton apenas había empezado a penetrar los secretos de la crisopeya — y en las raras ocasiones en que anuncia con júbilo un descubrimiento, el hallazgo suele ser el desciframiento de un reactivo, no un producto final

«Such products as “sophic sal ammoniac,” “our Venus,” and “Diana,” all of which appear in CU Add. 3973 and 3975, represent preliminary tools for the making of the philosophers’ stone, not advanced stages in its preparation. Even at the end of his three-decade preoccupation with alchemy, Newton had barely begun his apprenticeship in the shop of the adepts.» — la consecuencia dicha sin rodeos: «sophic sal ammoniac», «our Venus» y «Diana» son herramientas preliminares para hacer la piedra, no etapas avanzadas de su preparación — incluso al cabo de tres décadas de ocupación con la alquimia, Newton apenas había comenzado su aprendizaje en el taller de los adeptos

«Newton then turned to Johann de Monte-Snyders in order to provide further clarification. His Key to Snyders reveals what the German alchemist taught him: both metals were necessary for the alchemical magnum opus, along with antimony and quicksilver. Newton then employed this growing repertoire of ingredients in his interpretation of the Snyderian Metamorphosis of the Planets, where he also found such additional materials as iron, tin, and bismuth.» — la trayectoria documentada manuscrito por manuscrito, hasta que el Key to Snyders le enseña que cobre y plomo hacen falta junto con antimonio y azogue, y la lectura de la Metamorphosis le añade hierro, estaño y bismuto

«At some point in the second half of the 1680s, Newton acquired a compelling interest in the alchemical works attributed to the late medieval Mallorcan philosopher Ramon Lull. His newfound interest in Lull would lead Newton to the belief that the magnum opus consisted of thirty or more subordinate Opera (works), which he would string together to form the links in a fantastic chain of operations.» — el giro luliano fechado, con la atribución marcada como tal: en algún punto de la segunda mitad de los 1680 Newton adquiere un interés apremiante por las obras alquímicas ATRIBUIDAS a Ramon Lull, y ese interés lo lleva a creer que la magna obra consta de treinta o más Opera subordinados, encadenados uno tras otro

«The term “quintessence” had been adopted in the fourteenth century by the alchemical Franciscan Jean de Roquetaillade (otherwise known as John of Rupescissa) as a term for the material that we now call ethanol or ethyl alcohol.5 Although viniculture and brewing had been known since time immemorial, and sophisticated distillation apparatus had been invented by alchemists in the Roman Imperial period if not before, the isolation of ethanol by means of distillation was largely if not wholly unknown before the High Middle Ages. This mysterious “water of life” (aqua vitae) that burned with a blue flame, preserved dead flesh, extracted the active ingredients from numerous plants and minerals, and had the added benefit of imparting pleasure to those who imbibed it, was a surprisingly recent discovery in Roquetaillade’s lifetime. The seeming incorruptibility of this “aqua ardens” (burning water) or aqua vitae made it a logical candidate for its own place alongside the traditional four elements, fire, air, water, and earth, which were consigned to the perennial cycle of corruption and decay that marks our sublunary world; thus Roquetaillade granted it the name “quintessence”—a sort of heavenly, fifth element in its own right.» — genealogía del término con su fechado y su límite: «quintaesencia» la adoptó en el siglo XIV Juan de Rupescissa para lo que hoy llamamos etanol — la viticultura y la destilación eran antiquísimas, pero aislar el etanol por destilación era en gran medida, si no del todo, desconocido antes de la Alta Edad Media, y su aparente incorruptibilidad la volvió candidata a un lugar propio junto a los cuatro elementos sujetos a corrupción

«Roquetaillade’s work was pillaged by the school of late medieval writers who adopted the name of the Mallorcan philosopher Ramon Lull, and under various titles, the most important of which was De secretis naturae seu de quinta essentia (On the Secrets of Nature or the Quintessence), his work on the quintessence acquired a new life as part of the pseudo-Lullian alchemical corpus.6 The fact that this corpus had grown to well over a hundred works on chrysopoetic and medical alchemy by the seventeenth century made it only natural that Dickinson and Mundanus would associate the quintessence with Lull rather than Roquetaillade.» — la pseudoepigrafía consignada como dato y no corregida en boca de quienes la sostuvieron: la escuela de escritores bajomedievales que adoptó el nombre de Ramon Lull saqueó la obra de Roquetaillade, y que ese corpus pasara de cien obras en el XVII hizo natural que Dickinson y Mundanus asociaran la quintaesencia con Lull y no con Roquetaillade

«Newton calls it “The first manual preparation of the grapes” (Uvarum praeparatio prima manuaalis <sic>).2 Since there has been no talk of wine making so far in this book, the reader may be justifiably surprised. But in fact the title tips us off to the source—by the second half of the 1680s, Newton had become fascinated with the work of pseudo-Ramon Lull, the late medieval author(s) whose extensive corpus includes important texts on the distillation of spirit of wine (ethanol).3 Needless to say, the grapes are a Deckname for Newton, whose interpretation of pseudo-Lull’s processes would have been unrecognizable to their original author.» — el título de la primera Opera delata la fuente: por la segunda mitad de los 1680 Newton se había apasionado por el pseudo-Ramon Lull, cuyo corpus incluye textos importantes sobre destilación de espíritu de vino — las uvas son Deckname para él, y su lectura de los procesos pseudolulianos habría resultado irreconocible a su autor original

«The Sendivogian simplicity of nature that drove his earliest, binary understanding of the alchemical work had given way to an almost unbelievably complicated series of operations required to produce and use the philosophers’ stone. One manuscript from his mature period, Yale University Mellon 78, starts by listing thirty numbered operations called Opera (the Latin plural of Opus or “work”) and then passes to explanations of them that end by introducing even more stages.» — el cambio de escala en su comprensión: la simplicidad sendivogiana que regía su entendimiento binario y temprano dio paso a una serie de operaciones casi increíblemente complicada

«About Mundanus, very little is known, although in his letter he indicates that he visited Dickinson twice, in 1662 and in 1678 or 1679; his letter is dated Paris, October 1684, and it is believed that he was French.» — lo que puede y no puede decirse del interlocutor, con la creencia marcada como creencia: de Mundanus se sabe muy poco, su carta indica dos visitas a Dickinson en 1662 y en 1678 o 1679, está fechada en París en octubre de 1684, y se cree que era francés

«The Opera may be dated conservatively to the period between the publication of Dickinson’s Epistola in 1686 and a later stage in Newton’s alchemy, namely, his intense collaboration with Nicolas Fatio de Duillier in the early 1690s.» — la horquilla, declarada conservadora: los Opera pueden datarse entre la publicación de la Epistola de Dickinson en 1686 y la colaboración intensa con Fatio de Duillier a principios de los 1690

«From the second half of the 1680s onward, Newton became increasingly focused on collecting and interpreting the many alchemical treatises ascribed to Lull, a fact that has not escaped previous scholars. It is well known that various lists of Lullian alchemical works and purchasing desiderata for booksellers populate Newton’s notes in the late 1680s and 1690s, though I believe that the important role of Dickinson’s Epistola in this shift of interest has not been noticed previously.» — reparto explícito de créditos: que Newton se volcara a coleccionar e interpretar los tratados atribuidos a Lull no ha escapado a la erudición previa; lo que se reclama como no advertido antes —y se dice con «I believe»— es el papel importante de la Epistola de Dickinson en ese cambio de interés

«At the same time, however, Newton was adding preliminary stages to the operations that he had acquired from Philalethes and Snyders, either because he believed that those authors had left them out, or because he thought they were better described by others. It is sometimes said that Newton believed all alchemists to be saying the same thing in different words, but the Opera show that this is not true. Newton explicitly distinguishes the processes of Snyders from those of other chymists and points to the absence of important Philalethan processes in the German author.» — corrección de una idea recibida, con la prueba en el mismo lugar: a veces se dice que Newton creía que todos los alquimistas decían lo mismo con otras palabras, y los Opera muestran que eso no es cierto, porque distingue explícitamente los procesos de Snyders de los de otros químicos y señala la ausencia en el alemán de procesos filaléticos importantes

«Although it would be rash to argue that Newton acquired no new practical knowledge from the pseudo-Lullian corpus, it is safe to say that his main approach was one of accommodating the quintessence-based, largely medical alchemy of the Lullian De secretis naturae and associated texts to his own, far more metallurgically oriented chymistry. No doubt Newton hoped to extract additional practical secrets from his Lullian sources, but at the same time his Opera, particularly the first four of them, served de facto as assurances to Newton that he had interpreted the traditional secrets of alchemy correctly. Just as his own source Starkey had reinterpreted George Ripley’s “sericon” as antimony, so Newton reinterpreted pseudo-Lull’s alcoholic quintessence as a mineral product.» — la operación de fondo con el paralelo que la explica: sería temerario sostener que no sacara conocimiento práctico nuevo del corpus pseudoluliano, pero puede decirse con seguridad que su aproximación principal fue acomodar la alquimia de la quintaesencia, en gran medida médica, a su propia química mucho más metalúrgica — igual que Starkey reinterpretó el sericon de Ripley como antimonio, Newton reinterpretó la quintaesencia alcohólica del pseudo-Lull como producto mineral

«The best way to think of Newton’s Opera is as a succession of working notes rather than as a finished piece of work. Newton’s goal was not to produce a final draft for dissemination to others but to combine related passages from the same author, from that author’s commentators, and from others who might be saying the same thing in different languages, all for the purpose of arriving at the grand secret of chrysopoeia. His major interpretive techniques therefore lay first in the reassembling of passages that had been separated in accordance with the alchemical “dispersion of knowledge,” then in the collecting of exegetical passages from other authors, and finally in the decipherment of Decknamen.» — el género: los Opera se leen mejor como sucesión de notas de trabajo que como obra terminada, y sus tres técnicas interpretativas son reensamblar lo que la dispersión del saber separó, recolectar pasajes exegéticos de otros autores y descifrar Decknamen

«Unfortunately, Newton’s adoption of the florilegium style as his favored mode of expression means that his own voice can be difficult to discern among these diverse authors, and the additional fact that he was writing only for his own edification removed any need to clarify his thoughts for an audience.» — el obstáculo de método que afecta a toda lectura de estos textos y que es directamente pertinente al problema de las voces: el estilo de florilegio hace difícil discernir la voz propia de Newton entre los autores diversos que copia, y como escribía solo para sí no tenía necesidad alguna de aclarar su pensamiento para un lector

«The most important of these clues lies in a reference to a work by Adrian von Mynsicht, a German chymist of the early seventeenth century whose real surname may have been Seumenich.» — atribución con su reserva: Adrian von Mynsicht, químico alemán de principios del XVII, cuyo apellido real puede haber sido Seumenich

«There is no reason then to think that Mynsicht’s process was implausible ab initio, even if the identity of the volatile component that he claimed to distill out of his mineral cannot at present be identified.» — el juicio de plausibilidad y su límite: no hay razón para tener por implausible ab initio el proceso de Mynsicht sobre la minera auri —existen minerales auríferos, telururos y sulfuros piríticos con oro finamente disperso—, aun cuando la identidad del componente volátil que decía destilar no puede identificarse por ahora

«Additionally, we have no records of Newton trying to obtain gold ores from apothecaries or other purveyers of minerals, even though requests for crude antimony, copper ore, cinnabar and lapis lazuli, as well as the minerals of tin, iron, lead, bismuth, zinc, and cobalt have survived.26 These facts suggest the possibility that Newton was interpreting Mynsicht’s minera auri as a Deckname, which would have been a fairly natural move given the frequency with which alchemists spoke of hidden “gold” latent within other materials.» — argumento de ausencia con la lista que lo hace verificable: no se conservan registros de Newton pidiendo minerales de oro a boticarios, mientras sí sobreviven pedidos de antimonio crudo, mineral de cobre, cinabrio, lapislázuli y minerales de estaño, hierro, plomo, bismuto, zinc y cobalto — de ahí la posibilidad de que leyera la minera auri como Deckname

«This must have been what Newton had in mind when he referred to the feathery alum of Basilius in “Opus quartum,” which provides us with a powerful clue that he thought the initial chaos was stibnite.» — la cadena de indicios, declarada como indicio y no como identificación: al describir que el caos sublimado dará el alumbre plumoso de Basilio Valentino, Newton remite a un pasaje del pseudo-Basilio que él mismo había glosado antes anotando «this is Antimony», y eso es pista poderosa de que tenía por estibina el caos inicial

«It is quite possible that the antimonial “chaos” of Keynes 41 was stibnite that Newton was trying to free from its sulfur by means of “common salt of antimony” and “our volatile vitriol” as a preliminary step toward making the Lullian philosophical wine. The fact that the antimony in these compounds or mixtures would be acting on the antimony in the stibnite was not a redundancy but an advantage, since “one thing” would be acting on itself in accordance with the old alchemical advice to avoid extraneous ingredients. To proceed further into speculation at this point, however, would be rash.» — la hipótesis con su freno declarado en la misma unidad: es bastante posible que el caos antimonial de Keynes 41 fuera estibina que Newton intentaba liberar de su azufre, y que el antimonio obrando sobre antimonio no fuera redundancia sino ventaja conforme al viejo consejo de evitar ingredientes extraños — pero avanzar más en la especulación sería temerario

«Once we understand that Newton wanted to extract the Lullian spirit from a mineral, and probably from stibnite, the rest of the four initial Opera fall into place. The absence of further bracketed comments with clear connections to Newton’s laboratory practice intimates that this textual material, insofar as it extends beyond mere summary of pseudo-Lull and his commentators, consists largely of conjectural processes.» — el criterio con que clasifica el material: la ausencia de comentarios entre corchetes con conexión clara a su práctica indica que ese material, más allá del resumen del pseudo-Lull y sus comentaristas, consiste en gran medida en procesos conjeturales

«Yet Newton is undeterred by the fact that the operations in the Lullian De secretis naturae pertain to real alcohol and real wine; in Opus one he continues to spin out the Lullian processes in even finer detail and reiterates additional stages with minute precision.» — el dato que hace visible la distancia entre fuente y lector: a Newton no lo detiene que las operaciones del De secretis naturae luliano se refieran a alcohol y vino reales, y sigue desplegando los procesos con detalle aún más fino

«In neither of these textual loci does Van Helmont advise that one should make the alkahest by combining volatile salt of tartar and Ignis-Aqua; this is a Newtonian reassembly of texts that have supposedly been dissociated on the principle of “dispersion of knowledge.” Newton’s justification for claiming the necessity of both ingredients stems from his desire to see a concordance here between pseudo-Lull and Van Helmont.» — adjudicación de voz de máxima nitidez: en ninguno de los dos lugares que Newton invoca aconseja Van Helmont hacer el alkahest combinando sal volátil de tártaro con Ignis-Aqua — eso es un reensamblaje newtoniano de textos supuestamente disociados por el principio de dispersión del saber, y nace de su deseo de ver ahí una concordancia entre el pseudo-Lull y Van Helmont

«It was precisely this acknowledged feature of the alkahest that provided its main appeal to the mechanical philosopher Robert Boyle, who saw the marvelous dissolvent as an ideal means of analyzing bodies for the simple reason that it could be cleanly separated from the solutes without producing artifactual compounds.51 But this was not Newton’s goal; instead, he was seeking a menstruum that would not only dissolve bodies but combine with them and impart a generative principle; this is what he means in Opus five when he speaks of the conversion of the alkahest to the sophic mercury.» — dos lectores del mismo rasgo, separados: que el alkahest actúe sine repassione lo hacía atractivo para Boyle como filósofo mecánico, porque permitía analizar cuerpos sin producir compuestos artefactuales; Newton buscaba otra cosa, un menstruo que además de disolver se combinara e impartiera un principio generativo

«Since Newton clearly imputed transmutational powers to pseudo-Lull’s quintessence, the purely dissolutive and reseparable characteristics of the alkahest presented an impediment to their identification as one. Thus he quotes several passages from Philalethes in which “the American philosopher” argues that the alkahest provides nothing to the goal of transmutation and is in fact more difficult to prepare than the precursor to the philosophers’ stone, the sophic mercury.» — el obstáculo doctrinal y quién lo formula: como Newton atribuía poder transmutatorio a la quintaesencia pseudoluliana, el carácter puramente disolutivo y reseparable del alkahest impedía identificarlos, y por eso cita pasajes donde Philalethes sostiene que el alkahest no aporta nada a la transmutación

«Needless to say, this “arsenical sulfur” has nothing to do with the toxic arsenic sulfides commonly called orpiment and realgar. Instead, “arsenic” is a synonym that Newton uses for the “white foliated earth” sublimed from the rectified spirit of “wine” that we discussed earlier, and this in turn is synonymous with the “white sulfur of nature.”» — aviso terminológico: el azufre arsenical de Newton no tiene nada que ver con los sulfuros tóxicos de arsénico —oropimente y rejalgar—, porque «arsénico» es sinónimo suyo de la tierra blanca foliada sublimada del espíritu rectificado de vino

«Newton found this passage on inebriated birds to be so compelling that he even went so far as to collate two variant versions of the Lullian text, concluding correctly that they were both fundamentally the same work.» — el grado de atención filológica, con juicio sobre su acierto: el pasaje del olor de la quintaesencia que atrae hombres y aves le pareció a Newton tan convincente que colacionó dos versiones variantes del texto luliano, concluyendo correctamente que eran fundamentalmente la misma obra

«However, it cannot fail to attract our interest that Newton already discusses this subject in the Opera text, at least a decade and a half before it appeared in Quaestio 23 of his Latin Optice of 1706, the precursor to the 1717 Query 31.» — el dato cronológico que reordena la genealogía: Newton ya discute la afinidad electiva en el texto de los Opera, al menos década y media antes de que apareciera en la Quaestio 23 de la Optice latina de 1706, precursora de la Query 31 de 1717

«Newton is justifiably famous for his comprehensive treatment of elective affinity, the phenomenon that allows one metal to displace another that is already in a solution (often in a mineral acid). Although Newton himself did not employ the term “elective affinity,” the topic and its ramifications form the core of the famous Query 31 of the Opticks in its later editions, and Newton’s treatment served to encourage a massive vogue for the subject in the eighteenth century.» — el reconocimiento con la precisión de atribución que lo acota: Newton es justificadamente célebre por su tratamiento comprehensivo de la afinidad electiva, pero él mismo no empleó el término «elective affinity»

«It is important to note here that Newton himself employs gold rarely if ever in the experimental records of his alchemy that he left in CU Add. 3973 and 3975. Quite possibly, then, his concern with dividing and purifying a variety of other metals in Keynes 41 was an attempt to realize Snyders’s instructions that the elixir be composed from a metallic aggregate after each of the metals had been analyzed into its principles.» — un dato negativo de archivo y la conjetura que apoya, marcada como conjetura: Newton emplea el oro rara vez o nunca en los registros experimentales, y bastante posiblemente su afán por dividir y purificar otros metales buscaba realizar la instrucción de Snyders de componer el elixir con un agregado metálico una vez analizado cada metal en sus principios

«In 1718, Etienne Geoffroy, possibly stimulated by Newton’s Opticks, would publish a famous table of elective affinities or Table des rapports that illustrates the facts of metallic solubility and precipitation in graphic form (figure 13.1).» — la influencia marcada como posible: en 1718 Etienne Geoffroy, posiblemente estimulado por el Opticks, publicó su célebre tabla de afinidades electivas o Table des rapports

«According to Newton’s nonstandard interpretation of Snyders, this “dry solution” actually involves liquid menstrua and is called “dry” because it results in the production of a “dry water” consisting of the purified chymical principles of each metal.» — marca como no estándar la lectura de Newton: en ella la solución seca de Snyders involucra en realidad menstruos líquidos y se llama seca porque produce un agua seca compuesta de los principios químicos purificados de cada metal

«The answer must be sought in the cosmic schema given by Sendivogius. In each of the three pairs of metallic materials, the superior “planet” precipitates the inferior one. Sendivogius matches the outermost, Saturn (lead), to the innermost, Luna (silver, or antimony in Newton’s reading), the next from the firmament, Jupiter (tin), to the second from the earth, Mercury (quicksilver), and the third superior planet, Mars (iron), to the third inferior planet from the earth, Venus (copper). Just as the influence of the planets descends, according to Sendivogius, and does not ascend, so the superior planet-metals precipitate their inferior partners from the solution in which they were dissolved. Hence, rather than thinking in terms of a column of metals ranked in terms of their affinity to an acid at the head of the series, Newton at this point had in mind pairs of affinities corresponding to Sendivogius’s cosmic scheme. There is no escaping the fact that Newton’s early thoughts on the reactivity series are an attempt to justify and build on the cryptic remarks of Sendivogius.» — la forma que toma la afinidad en la cabeza de Newton y de dónde sale: en cada uno de los tres pares metálicos el planeta superior precipita al inferior, porque la influencia planetaria desciende y no asciende — de modo que Newton no pensaba en esta etapa en una columna de metales ordenados por su afinidad hacia un ácido, sino en pares correspondientes al esquema cósmico, y sus primeros pensamientos sobre la serie de reactividad son un intento de justificar y desarrollar los dichos crípticos de Sendivogius

«A close reading of this passage reveals that Newton’s mature understanding of Philalethes, though quite different from the early thoughts that he expressed in Keynes 19 and other documents from the late 1660s or early 1670s, still differed strikingly from what we now know of Starkey’s actual work in the laboratory. At the same time, a consideration of this passage from Keynes 41 displays remarkable parallels with some of the operations in Newton’s laboratory notebooks and therefore sheds a light on the vexed problem of understanding the precise linkage between his reading and his practice at the bench» — distancia medida entre tres cosas distintas: la comprensión madura de Philalethes por parte de Newton difiere bastante de lo que expresó a fines de los 1660 o principios de los 1670, y aun así difiere llamativamente de lo que hoy se sabe del trabajo real de Starkey en el laboratorio

«As we discussed in an earlier chapter, Starkey originally thought that in order to perform the requisite sublimations of quicksilver from star regulus of antimony, one must first alloy the regulus with twice its weight of silver, his “two doves of Diana.” Between 1651 and 1654, however, Starkey had discovered that the sublimation would also work if copper was substituted for the much more expensive silver. He called his purple alloy of copper and star regulus “the net,” in part because of its fine surface of crystals, which had a reticulated appearance, and in part because he associated it with the net that Vulcan used to ensnare the adulterous Mars and Venus in Ovid’s Metamorphoses.» — el origen fechado de la «red»: Starkey pensó primero que había que alear el regulus estrellado con el doble de su peso en plata, sus dos palomas de Diana, y entre 1651 y 1654 descubrió que la sublimación también funcionaba sustituyendo la plata, mucho más cara, por cobre

«he did not accept the interpretation of the birds as simple Decknamen for metallic silver, even though it is highly likely that by now he had read the Latin version of Starkey’s Clavis, the 1651 letter in which the American chymist openly revealed the secret.70 On the other hand, Newton’s experimental records reveal unequivocally that he did have a correct understanding of the net as an alloy of stellate antimonial regulus and copper.» — lo que Newton entendió y lo que no, contrastado contra registro: no aceptó leer las palomas como simple Deckname de la plata metálica, aunque es altamente probable que ya hubiera leído la Clavis de Starkey donde el secreto se revela abiertamente; en cambio sus registros experimentales revelan sin equívoco que sí entendía correctamente la red como aleación de regulus antimonial estrellado y cobre

«Although the Marrow’s real meaning here is far from obvious even if one has read Starkey’s letters and laboratory notebooks, I will hazard an interpretation.» — marca su propia intervención antes de hacerla: el sentido real del Marrow dista de ser obvio incluso para quien ha leído las cartas y cuadernos de Starkey, y se arriesga a una interpretación

«It is therefore not unlikely that Starkey is here engaging in a deliberate mystification by substituting Diana for the regulus. Thus when he says in the Marrow that Venus is “ally’d to Gold, And eke to Mars, also to Dian bright,” he is» — la interpretación arriesgada, con su grado: no es improbable que Starkey esté mistificando deliberadamente al sustituir Diana por el regulus, de modo que la Venus aliada al oro, a Marte y a la brillante Diana sea la red misma

«Characteristically, Newton followed his own distinct path when confronted with these Philalethan obscurities. Immediately after paraphrasing the Marrow’s cryptic remarks that it is Venus’s association that allows Diana to separate the volatile gold from the star regulus of antimony, Newton relates a recipe that is, I believe, original to him» — el reclamo de originalidad marcado en primera persona, y la reserva es del autor: inmediatamente después de parafrasear los dichos crípticos del Marrow, Newton anota una receta que —se dice con un «I believe»— es original suya

«Thus it appears quite likely that Newton’s incorporation of tin, bismuth, and zinc in his recipe was an attempt to combine a modified form of the Diana alloy found in his notebooks with the net. If so, then one can see how this recipe fulfilled the cryptic allocutions of the Marrow. Diana, in the form of the Diana alloy, was supposed to extract the hidden “volatile gold” or martial sulfur from the net, where it had been transported from the initial reduction of the regulus by means of iron. The product, Newton says, will be “our Jove, and the helmet of Mercury,” in other words, a substance to be combined with mercury. Only at this point, in Newton’s interpretation of the “American philosopher,” should the alloy be amalgamated with quicksilver.» — la lectura propuesta y su grado: parece bastante probable que la incorporación de estaño, bismuto y zinc fuera un intento de combinar con la red una forma modificada de la aleación Diana de sus cuadernos, y solo entonces habría que amalgamar con azogue

«Given the transformation that Newton’s chymical practice experienced over time, it is not at all unlikely that Newton’s Diana alloy of 1682 may have undergone a modification by the time of the Opera text’s initial drafts—composed no earlier than the second half of the 1680s—to» — el apoyo cronológico con su medida: no es nada improbable que la aleación Diana de 1682 se modificara hasta incluir zinc para cuando se redactan los primeros borradores de los Opera, y como los primeros experimentos registrados con zinc aparecen solo después de febrero de 1683/84, el metal pudo incluso no estar disponible en 1682

«The first reference to “spelter” in CU Add. 3975 comes at 73v, four full folios after the date “Feb. 29 1683/4.” The first reference to the material in CU Add. 3973 appears at 19r, which is dated “Apr 26t 1686”.» — el dato duro que sostiene esa cronología: la primera mención de «spelter» en CU Add. 3975 está en 73v, cuatro folios enteros después de la fecha «Feb. 29 1683/4», y en CU Add. 3973 en 19r, fechado «Apr 26t 1686»

«itself more likely represents the sophic mercury than it does the regulus of antimony. If so, Philalethes is merely reiterating that the sophic mercury is able to extract the volatile sulfur of Mars from the regulus because of the amalgamation that it can undergo thanks to the help of Venus (copper). Newton believed Philalethes to be a master of polysemy, and in this case he was right.» — el cierre del acertijo y un juicio raro por explícito: si Diana representa aquí la luna en el sentido del mercurio sofístico más que del regulus, Philalethes está reiterando que el mercurio sofístico puede extraer el azufre volátil de Marte del regulus — y Newton creía a Philalethes maestro de la polisemia, y en este caso tenía razón

«is the Aurifontina chymica edited in 1680 by John Frederick Houpreght, and the work itself bears the improbable title Hydropyrographum hermeticum (Hermetic Fire-Water Text). The Hydropyrographum is in some respects similar to Dickinson’s later exchange with Mundanus in that it explicitly models the quest for the philosophers’ stone on the practice of making alcoholic quintessences in the tradition of pseudo-Lull.» — la fuente londinense del regreso a Lull: la Aurifontina chymica editada en 1680 por John Frederick Houpreght, con el Hydropyrographum hermeticum, que modela explícitamente la búsqueda de la piedra sobre la fabricación de quintaesencias alcohólicas en la tradición del pseudo-Lull

«The section is extremely interesting because it shows that Newton was not merely engaging in a process of uncritical heaping up of synonyms and parallels; nor did he believe that all alchemical authors were simply saying the same thing in different language. Here he explicitly underscores Snyders’s ignorance of certain alchemical themes and processes found in Philalethes, Sendivogius, and other authors:» — la prueba interna contra la lectura del amontonador acrítico: la sección muestra que Newton no se limitaba a apilar sinónimos y paralelos ni creía que todos los autores alquímicos dijeran lo mismo con otras palabras, porque ahí subraya explícitamente la ignorancia de Snyders sobre temas y procesos presentes en Philalethes y Sendivogius

«That Snyders himself does not use the term “quintessence” at this point underscores the fact that Newton is still actively embroidering his Lullian tapestry with flowers from another garden.» — voz separada por ausencia de término: que Snyders no use en ese punto la palabra «quintaesencia» subraya que Newton sigue bordando activamente su tapiz luliano con flores de otro jardín — la atribución del término es de Newton, no de la fuente

«The fundamental problem that Newton faced was not a psychiatric disorder but an educational one; like most of his contemporaries, he had a minimal understanding of the history of science and technology. In an age when Copernicus and his early followers could think that Pythagoras upheld the heliocentric system, Newton’s blindness is understandable, and for a person of his gifts, perhaps even inevitable.» — la tesis explicativa y su comparación de época: el problema de fondo de Newton no era un trastorno psiquiátrico sino educativo, porque como la mayoría de sus contemporáneos tenía comprensión mínima de la historia de la ciencia y la tecnología — y en una época en que Copérnico y sus primeros seguidores podían creer que Pitágoras sostenía el heliocentrismo, su ceguera resulta comprensible y quizá hasta inevitable

«For Newton, the adepts could not be wrong, even if, like Snyders, they might take a divergent path to the ultimate goal of the philosophers’ stone. What this perfect comprehension implied is that even ancient or early medieval texts such as the Arabo-Latin Turba philosophorum concealed processes and materials that we now understand to have been unknown until much later times.» — la premisa que produce el anacronismo: para Newton los adeptos no podían equivocarse, aunque tomaran un camino divergente hacia la piedra, y esa comprensión perfecta implicaba que textos antiguos o altomedievales ocultaban procesos y materiales que hoy sabemos desconocidos hasta mucho después

«At the same time, however, we must not overlook the possibility that Newton’s belief in the infallibility of the adepts led him to scientific insights of his own. The discussion of elective affinities buried in Newton’s Opera is a case in point. Would Newton have engaged in his study of affinities at all if he had not been induced to do so by his desire to understand Sendivogius and other chrysopoetic sources?» — la contrapartida, planteada como posibilidad y como pregunta abierta: no debe pasarse por alto que la creencia de Newton en la infalibilidad de los adeptos pudo llevarlo a hallazgos científicos propios, y la discusión de afinidades electivas sepultada en los Opera es el caso — ¿se habría ocupado de las afinidades si no lo hubiera empujado su deseo de entender a Sendivogius?

«It is time now to turn our full attention to these remarkable documents, which reveal unequivocally that Newton the chymist was in all respects the equal in experiment of Newton the physicist.» — la tesis que abre la segunda mitad del libro: los cuadernos revelan sin equívoco que Newton el químico fue en todo aspecto el igual, en experimento, de Newton el físico

«of Chicago Press, 2013), 73, for the legend that Ramon Lull helped the English cause in a Holy War usually said to have involved his coining gold “rose nobles” for Edward III, not Edward I.» — corrección de leyenda con fuente nombrada: remitiendo a Principe, The Secrets of Alchemy, se consigna que la leyenda de Lull ayudando a la causa inglesa suele decirse referida a acuñar rose nobles de oro para Eduardo III y no Eduardo I, que es lo que decía la Epistola de Dickinson

«This is one of several instances where the earlier draft has preserved Newton’s original plan, the footprints of which he has covered over in successive reworkings.» — principio codicológico aplicado a lo largo del capítulo: en varios casos el borrador anterior conserva el plan original de Newton, cuyas huellas él fue cubriendo en las reelaboraciones sucesivas, y por eso el borrador temprano vale más para reconstruir el razonamiento que la versión pulida

«One should also note that Snyders’s text lacks the term “spiritus mundi” here. See Snyders, Commentatio, 25, for the passage that Newton is glossing. Newton explains elsewhere in the text that the “spiritus mundi” that he has added as a parenthetical gloss to Snyders’s text is simply the mercury of Saturn, or a spirit distilled from it.» — adjudicación de un término: el texto de Snyders carece de «spiritus mundi» en el pasaje glosado — es glosa entre paréntesis añadida por Newton, quien explica en otro lugar que ese spiritus mundi es simplemente el mercurio de Saturno, o un espíritu destilado de él

«By this time in his career, Newton was using the 1639 Geneva edition as opposed to the one edited by Nathan Albineus that he made use of in his earlier alchemy. See Harrison, number 1192, for Newton’s copy of the 1639 edition, still found in the British Library.» — acota el alcance de una elección editorial que esta ficha ya registraba sin fecha: para esta altura de su carrera Newton usaba la edición de Ginebra de 1639 de Sendivogius y ya no la de Nathan Albineus, que empleó en su alquimia temprana, y su ejemplar de 1639 sigue en la British Library. La edición de referencia sigue al lector histórico POR ÉPOCA, no de manera uniforme

«In the first four Opera in Keynes 41, I find only nine bracketed comments, of which the first three are the references to sulfur, salt of antimony, and volatile vitriol that we already discussed. The rest consist of textual clarifications rather than references to Newton’s own experimental products.» — conteo propio que sostiene la clasificación como material conjetural: en las cuatro primeras Opera de Keynes 41 halla solo nueve comentarios entre corchetes, y salvo los tres primeros el resto son aclaraciones textuales y no remisiones a productos experimentales propios

«It may seem odd that the “wine” (instead of “grapes”) would have to be putrefied and then distilled, but this conflation is an inevitable consequence of Newton’s collocation of unrelated sources and assumption of mutual identity among them.» — explicación de una incoherencia del texto sin corregirla: que sea el vino y no las uvas lo que deba putrefactarse y luego destilarse resulta extraño, pero es consecuencia inevitable de la colocación newtoniana de fuentes inconexas y de su supuesto de identidad mutua entre ellas

«This claim of Snyders’s ignorance also occurs in Dibner 1070A at the end of 17v. There is a similar statement in Royal Society MS MM/6/5 on 6v.» — confirma la difusión de un dato y con ello su estatuto: la declaración de que Snyders desconocía la purgación del mercurio por la vara reaparece en Dibner 1070A y hay una similar en Royal Society MS MM/6/5, lo que la vuelve posición sostenida y no lapsus de un solo borrador

«The cause of this peculiar absence of personal experimental records in the main bulk of Newton’s chymical Nachlass lies not in inaction on his part but in his rigorous preliminary application of textual decipherment to his sources before taking them into the laboratory. The enigmas of the sages required sustained analysis as verbal puzzles before they could receive testing at the bench.» — explicación de una ausencia documental que podría leerse como ausencia de práctica: que el grueso del Nachlass químico no traiga registros experimentales personales no se debe a inacción, sino a que Newton aplicaba rigurosamente el desciframiento textual a sus fuentes ANTES de llevarlas al laboratorio

«According to the amiable secretary, these were the only apparatus that Newton used on a regular basis, but this claim throws much of Humphrey’s testimony into doubt. By working through Cambridge University Additional manuscripts 3973 and 3975, the principal records of Newton’s alchemical experimentation, Peter Spargo has discovered references to a panoply of specialized chymical apparatus regularly employed by Newton. These include retorts, various mortars and pestles for grinding different sorts of materials, fire shovels, water baths, candles, iron plates, both open and sealed glass flasks, quills acting as small spatulas, crucibles, egg-shaped flasks with long necks, large-mouth glass vessels for catching distillates or sublimates from heating on shovels and the like, cold water baths, receivers, filtering apparatus, and a special earthenware apparatus for performing a sort of fractional sublimation.» — testimonio puesto en duda con evidencia nombrada: Humphrey Newton dice que crisoles y las tres partes del alambique eran el único aparato de uso regular, y esa afirmación pone en duda buena parte de su testimonio, porque Peter Spargo halló en los cuadernos referencias a un despliegue de aparatos especializados empleados con regularidad

«Although a recent archaeological study has thrown doubt on the claim that this small space contained Newton’s laboratory, Loggan’s print gives no additional contender other than the loggia itself, and no chymical apparatus appears there in his print. In a word, the precise location of the laboratory in Newton’s garden remains at present unresolved; one hopes that additional archaeological research will be forthcoming.» — cuestión abierta declarada como abierta: un estudio arqueológico reciente ha puesto en duda que el pequeño cobertizo albergara el laboratorio, pero el grabado de Loggan no ofrece más candidato que la logia misma — la ubicación precisa del laboratorio en el jardín queda por ahora sin resolver

«The word “vitriol,” for example, which normally means a sulfate (usually of iron or copper) in seventeenth-century Britain, usually means something else entirely in Newton’s notebooks; for him, it is generally a complex, crystalline product made by dissolving and then evaporating a metal in a solution of aqua fortis (mostly nitric acid) that has been “sharpened” with ordinary sal ammoniac and in which stibnite, the sulfide ore of antimony, has been dissolved. The linguistic complexity of the notebooks by itself has been enough to mislead several modern researchers seriously, and this is only the beginning of the difficulties that they present.» — el obstáculo de lengua con su consecuencia medida: «vitriol», que en la Britania del XVII significa normalmente un sulfato de hierro o cobre, suele significar otra cosa en los cuadernos de Newton, y la sola complejidad lingüística de esos cuadernos ha bastado para desorientar seriamente a varios investigadores modernos

«In his “Table 1,” between pages 129 and 132, Spargo identifies Newton’s “Vitriol made with ♀” as simple copper sulfate.» — ejemplo nombrado de esos investigadores desorientados: en su Tabla 1, Spargo identifica el «Vitriol made with ♀» de Newton como simple sulfato de cobre

«Unlike George Starkey’s notebooks, to name one example, Newton’s laboratory records never give a transparent history of his past successes and failures; nor do they plot out his future course.» — contraste de géneros documentales: a diferencia de los cuadernos de Starkey, los registros de laboratorio de Newton nunca dan una historia transparente de sus éxitos y fracasos pasados, ni trazan su curso futuro

«And to make things even more difficult for historians, there is the fact that like most recorded chymical experiments and recipes, Newton’s records embody layer upon layer of tacit practices and skills that he did not bother to write down. In many instances we find ourselves in a position like that of a child trying to make an exotic torte from a cookbook without knowing the proper way to crack an egg, never mind having no practical experience with such additional techniques as separating out the yolk, whipping the white, and folding in the flour.» — el problema del saber tácito con el símil que lo explica: como casi toda receta y todo experimento registrado, los apuntes de Newton encierran capas de prácticas y destrezas que no se molestó en escribir, y el historiador queda en la posición del niño que intenta una torta desde el recetario sin saber siquiera romper un huevo

«In addition, Newton makes it clear when he has actually performed a given set of procedures, usually using the first person past tense and sometimes even providing dates; this allows us to distinguish actual experiments from “conjectural processes” (a useful term of Starkey’s) that were only planned out or copied but not necessarily put into practice.» — el criterio que hace utilizable el material: Newton deja claro cuándo ha ejecutado realmente un procedimiento, normalmente con primera persona en pasado y a veces con fecha, lo que permite distinguir experimentos reales de procesos conjeturales solo planeados o copiados

«in the fashion of a traditional historian I will decipher his words and those of his sources, but where necessary I will supplement this material with modern laboratory replication.» — el método combinado, enunciado por su autor: descifrar a la manera del historiador tradicional las palabras de Newton y las de sus fuentes, y suplementar ese material, donde haga falta, con réplica moderna de laboratorio

«our method will often be one of reasoned inference rather than direct translation of Newton’s language into our own. In some cases this means that we will interpret Newton’s laboratory operations and materials in the light of their “standard use” among early modern chymists.» — el límite epistémico declarado por adelantado: como Newton no expresa normalmente sus motivaciones, hay que llegar a ellas por vía indirecta, y a falta de metas de autor enunciadas el método será a menudo de inferencia razonada más que de traducción directa

«Fortunately, one of Newton’s collections of notes, Cambridge University Additional MS 3973, consists of a set of loose sheets arranged in strict chronological order, as shown by the occasional dates that he provides in the text. This means that we have a sequential, if partial, record of Newton’s chymical experimentation, ranging from December 10, 1678, to the last recorded date of February 1696. Hence it is possible, at least in principle, to follow Newton’s projects as they grow and develop over time in CU Add. 3973.» — la base documental con su rango y su acotación: CU Add. 3973 es un conjunto de hojas sueltas en orden cronológico estricto que ofrece un registro secuencial, aunque parcial, desde el 10 de diciembre de 1678 hasta febrero de 1696

«There is also a final source of Newton’s laboratory chymistry, and one that has been largely overlooked by previous scholars. I refer to the dissociated pamphlet made of a single folded sheet and found in the midst of the loose pages making up Boston Medical Library manuscript B MS c41 c, which, although undated, appears to stem from the earliest period of Newton’s recorded alchemical experimentation. This short document will provide important clues to Newton’s operational work as we move forward.» — fuente reclamada como desatendida: el panfleto disociado de una sola hoja plegada entre las páginas sueltas del Boston Medical Library B MS c41 c, que sin fecha parece proceder del periodo más temprano de la experimentación registrada

«Not all early modern chymists followed this path to the fabrication of the philosophers’ stone; it is conspicuously different from the methods favored by Boyle and Starkey (based on the processes of the Clavis or similar ones), and also different from what we know about the operational methods employed by Snyders. We should see Newton’s experimental notebooks as adhering to the lead of his own theory of the subterranean generation of metals, minerals, and salts, as he laid it out in Dibner 1031B.» — adjudicación de una vía propia frente a las de sus maestros: el camino de Newton hacia la piedra difiere notoriamente de los métodos favorecidos por Boyle y Starkey y de lo que se sabe de los de Snyders, y se propone verlo como fiel a su propia teoría de la generación subterránea de metales, minerales y sales

«It is clear that he is not slavishly copying and repeating the experiments of previous alchemists, since that approach would have involved him in a multitude of unrelated processes using the full scope of materials employed in early modern alchemy, which ranged from dung and urine to alcohol and May dew, and terminated with gold itself. In reality, these substances are mostly if not wholly absent from Newton’s experiments.» — argumento por ausencia de materiales: no está copiando servilmente experimentos de alquimistas previos, porque eso lo habría metido en la gama completa de materiales de la alquimia moderna temprana —del estiércol y la orina al alcohol y el rocío de mayo, terminando en el oro—, y esas sustancias están ausentes en su mayoría de sus experimentos

«The interchangeability of these terms and symbols suggests an important and powerful tool that we can employ in deciphering Newton’s laboratory records, namely, Ockham’s razor. As we proceed into the labyrinth of Newton’s chymical nomenclature we should continually ask ourselves if the emergence of an unfamiliar term necessarily implies the existence of a new material, or if, to the contrary, the same substance is reappearing under an altered name. Applied with discretion, the principle of parsimony will sometimes be our most faithful guide.» — herramienta interpretativa con su condición de uso: la intercambiabilidad de términos y símbolos sugiere emplear la navaja de Ockham, preguntándose siempre si un término desconocido implica necesariamente un material nuevo o si la misma sustancia reaparece con otro nombre — aplicado con discreción, el principio de parsimonia será a veces la guía más fiel

«constituents was occurring. As she sees it, the blue or green color would have tipped him off to the fact that copper was simply being dissolved intact by the acid. But in fact Newton does not refer to the blue or green color at all, and it is by no means sure that its presence would have dissuaded him from the view that the mercury of the copper was being separated from the metal. After all, who is to say that the internal mercury or sulfur of copper could not be colored? So what does Newton mean then when he says, “I know not whither yt ☿ come out of ye liquor or of ♀ for ye liquor dissolves ♀”?» — discrepancia historiográfica con su autora nombrada: Dobbs lee que Newton dedujo del cambio de color de la disolución que no ocurría separación del metal en sus constituyentes, y la objeción es doble — Newton no menciona en absoluto el color azul o verde, y no es en modo alguno seguro que su presencia lo hubiera disuadido, porque nada impedía que el mercurio o el azufre internos del cobre fueran coloreados

«Ironically, it is therefore Newton’s own commitment to the mercury-sulfur theory of metallic composition that leads him to question whether the theory has received an ocular demonstration from the experiment with copper.» — la lectura alternativa que se propone en lugar de la de Dobbs: es el propio compromiso de Newton con la teoría mercurio-azufre de la composición metálica lo que lo lleva a dudar de que la teoría haya recibido demostración ocular en el experimento con cobre

«Remarkably, Newton completely disregards Boyle’s rather mundane explanation of the experiment, interpreting it instead as an unequivocal separation of the lead into its mercurial and sulfurous constituents. For Boyle, the white, powdery precipitate was simply the lead in another form, whereas Newton sees it as the quicksilver previously dissolved in the acid solution and now precipitated by the liberated sulfur of the lead (ye ☿ præcipitated by ye 🜍 of ). In his view, the silvery, heavy liquid that also came out of solution was not mere quicksilver, but the mercury of lead, which had been freed from its accompanying sulfur.» — dos lecturas del mismo experimento, separadas por autor: Newton desatiende por completo la explicación mundana de Boyle e interpreta el fenómeno como separación inequívoca del plomo en sus constituyentes mercurial y sulfuroso — para Boyle el precipitado blanco era simplemente el plomo en otra forma

«There is no hint of chrysopoetic intent in Boyle’s description, and a few lines later he is careful to deny that the quicksilver emerging from the reaction is “the true Mercury of Lead.” Nonetheless, his following admission that it is “somewhat differing from common Mercury, and fitter than it for certain Chymical uses” seems to have triggered Newton’s interest.» — la atribución de intención, acotada: en la descripción de Boyle no hay indicio de propósito crisopéyico, y él mismo niega poco después que el azogue resultante sea el verdadero mercurio del plomo — lo que parece haber disparado el interés de Newton es su admisión de que difiere algo del mercurio común

«References in his reading notes suggest that Newton thought of the production of reguli as purging the metal that acted as a reducing agent in the same way that assayers purified gold by means of stibnite.16 This reasoning had in fact provided the major impetus to George Starkey’s procedure for making the sophic mercury, namely, the creating of an ultrapure, subtle form of quicksilver by amalgamating it with metallic antimony and then repeatedly distilling it.» — el sentido que Newton daba a los reguli, sostenido con sus notas de lectura: producirlos era purgar el metal que actuaba como reductor, del mismo modo que los ensayadores purificaban oro con estibina, y ese razonamiento había dado el impulso principal al procedimiento de Starkey para el mercurio sofístico

«Yet it seems that Newton soon grew disappointed with corrosive sublimate as a tool for attaining this end. Apparently unsatisfied with the results of these experiments, Newton abandons them abruptly on folio 53r of CU Add. 3975 and passes to a discussion of other menstrua, such as oil of vitriol or sulfuric acid. His attention would soon shift from this well-known menstruum to a far more obscure one, namely, the substance—for I will argue it is basically one substance—hiding under the terms “liquor of antimony,” “spirit of antimony,” “vinegar of antimony,” and “salt of antimony.”» — el giro de reactivo y la tesis anunciada como argumento por sostener: Newton se desilusiona pronto del sublimado corrosivo como herramienta para abrir los metales y su atención se desplaza a una sustancia mucho más oscura que es básicamente UNA SOLA, escondida bajo «liquor», «spirit», «vinegar» y «salt of antimony»

«He ends the experimental report with a note of oracular excitement —“But of This, having now given you a Hint, I dare here say no more.”19 Such a hint could not miss the sharp eye of Newton, and though he does not explicitly reference the passage in his laboratory notebooks, Boyle’s words appear in slightly altered form in one of Newton’s early chymical dictionaries, Oxford Don. b. 15. Probably composed somewhat before the passages in CU Add. 3975 that we have been discussing, Don. b. 15 recapitulates Boyle thus —“prhaps there may bee Sublimates made (as by subliming common sublimate & Sal Armoniack ^well poudered together) wch besides notable operations on other metalls, may act upon Gold too.» — cómo viaja una pista de Boyle a Newton: Boyle cierra su reporte sobre el nuevo sublimado con una nota de excitación oracular, y aunque Newton no cita el pasaje en sus cuadernos sus palabras reaparecen levemente alteradas en el diccionario químico Oxford Don. b. 15

«Careful reading combined with digital tools such as latent semantic analysis reveal numerous instances in CU Add 3975 and 3973 where Newton seems unconsciously to pass from one term to the other while repeating the same protocols, which suggests that the terms mean the same thing; let us examine one such case here.» — la evidencia con que se prueba la sinonimia y la herramienta que la produjo: lectura cuidadosa combinada con análisis semántico latente revela numerosos casos donde Newton pasa aparentemente sin advertirlo de un término a otro repitiendo los mismos protocolos

«Is this how Newton made his antimonial vinegar? Probably not. Nowhere in the Newtonian alchemical Nachlass have I found Newton commenting on this process, nor is there anything similar to this procedure in his laboratory notebooks. Additionally, modern attempts to replicate the process of Basilius have so far been inconclusive.» — descarte de una candidata con sus tres razones y su límite: probablemente el vinagre antimonial de Newton no se hizo por la receta del Triumphal Chariot del pseudo-Basilio — en ninguna parte del Nachlass se lo halla comentando ese proceso, no hay nada similar en los cuadernos, y los intentos modernos de replicar el proceso de Basilio han resultado hasta ahora inconcluyentes

«In reality, Newton’s liquor of antimony was a material very different from the Basilian vinegar, but in order to demonstrate this fact, it will be necessary to present some documentary evidence that has hitherto been ignored by Newton scholars, namely, the fragment of a laboratory notebook found in the Boston Medical Library, namely, B MS c41 c.» — reclamo de fuente: el licor de Newton era material muy distinto del vinagre basiliano, y para demostrarlo hace falta presentar evidencia documental hasta ahora ignorada por los estudiosos de Newton, el fragmento de cuaderno de la Boston Medical Library

«Arriving at the concrete referent lurking behind “spirit of antimony” is a deeply worthwhile goal if we are to understand Newton’s alchemy, since he employed this material prominently in his experimentation for at least two decades, and probably more.» — por qué importa identificarlo, con la duración medida y su reserva: llegar al referente concreto del espíritu de antimonio vale mucho la pena, porque Newton lo empleó de forma prominente al menos dos décadas, y probablemente más

«Performing these experiments revealed considerable evidence to support the claim that Newton’s liquor of antimony consisted primarily of antimony trichloride dissolved in one or another acid solution. The presence of an acid is important, since butter of antimony, despite being quite hygroscopic, reacts with water to form an insoluble white precipitate of antimony oxychloride, or mercurius vitae as chymists called it, if its acidic solution becomes too weak. Since Newton wanted to use this material as a menstruum, he needed to keep the solution quite acid.» — la identificación con el grado que se le concede: ejecutar los experimentos arrojó evidencia considerable en apoyo de que el licor de antimonio consistía principalmente en tricloruro de antimonio disuelto en una u otra disolución ácida — y como la mantequilla de antimonio reacciona con el agua formando un precipitado insoluble si su disolución ácida se debilita, Newton necesitaba mantenerla bien ácida para usarla de menstruo

«As it happens, Newton’s great exactitude as an experimenter allows one to calculate the concentration of his solution in at least one instance with some degree of precision.31 In the Boston Medical Library manuscript he tells the exact weights of aqua fortis and salt of tartar that were required to neutralize each other and produce eleven grains of saltpeter. One can estimate that Newton’s aqua fortis, at least in that instance, had a concentration of about 32.7% nitric acid. This corresponds very closely to the concentration of aqua fortis produced in modern replications by distilling vitriol and saltpeter, so I have employed a nitric acid of this concentration in my own work.» — una medida derivada de la precisión del propio Newton: sus pesadas exactas de agua fuerte y sal de tártaro permiten estimar una concentración de alrededor de 32.7 % de ácido nítrico, muy cercana a la que dan las réplicas modernas, y esa es la que se empleó en el trabajo de laboratorio propio. El límite va dicho, «at least in that instance»

«The answer stems again from Newton’s reading of Boyle, who influenced him profoundly in many ways. In The Origin of Forms and Qualities, Boyle describes making a menstruum peracutum (very strong menstruum) by pouring strong spirit of niter, that is, nitric acid, on rectified butter of antimony.34 This was a standard way of making a chymical medicament known as bezoarticum minerale, which precipitated when the nitric acid was poured on. Boyle refluxed the acid with the bezoarticum minerale and then distilled off the liquor; he claimed that he managed to transmute gold into silver by means of this menstruum.35 On the strength of the old dictum Facilius est aurum construere, quam destruere (It is easier to make gold than to destroy it), this reverse transmutation served as indirect evidence for the possibility of chrysopoeia.» — la fuente de la inspiración y lo que Boyle mismo declaraba: en The Origin of Forms and Qualities describe hacer un menstruum peracutum vertiendo espíritu de nitro fuerte sobre mantequilla de antimonio rectificada, y afirmaba haber logrado transmutar oro en plata con ese menstruo — por la vieja máxima de que es más fácil construir el oro que destruirlo, esa transmutación inversa servía de evidencia indirecta de la posibilidad de la crisopeya

«The combination of laborious textual analysis, sometimes aided by computational techniques, and the physical replication of Newton’s laboratory products has allowed us to solve one of the preliminary mysteries presented by his experimental notebooks, namely, the identity of the ubiquitous “liquor of antimony.” Loosely inspired by Robert Boyle’s menstruum peracutum, this dissolvent would serve Newton as a sort of standard laboratory reagent over several decades, entering into a remarkably wide variety of experiments that were intended to yield the successive ingredients required to produce the philosophers’ stone.» — el resultado del método declarado: la combinación de análisis textual laborioso, a veces asistido por técnicas computacionales, con la réplica física de los productos permitió resolver uno de los misterios preliminares de los cuadernos, la identidad del ubicuo licor de antimonio

«From Newton’s perspective, Boyle had merely given a plain description of material that was already present in more hidden form beneath the cryptic riddles of the Philalethes corpus. This reinforces a valuable lesson that we have already discussed in other contexts. For Newton, there was no rigid distinction between “vulgar chymistry” and the wisdom of the adepts; the latter was simply a more elevated version of the former, elaborated into the form of complicated verbal conceits for the purpose of deluding the unworthy.» — cómo veía Newton la relación entre las dos literaturas, y no había frontera rígida entre ellas: Boyle no habría hecho más que describir en llano un material ya presente, en forma más oculta, bajo los acertijos del corpus filalético — la sabiduría de los adeptos era simplemente una versión elevada de la química vulgar, elaborada en conceptos verbales complicados para engañar a los indignos

«Newton clearly preferred the stibnite that had been acted on previously by aqua fortis to the untreated crude antimony. This was evidently a case of the fortunate accident in the laboratory leading to positive results. Thus his experiments over the next few folios specify that he began with the previously treated antimony rather than with stibnite fresh from the mine.» — el accidente afortunado consignado como tal: Newton prefirió claramente la estibina previamente tratada con agua fuerte a la cruda, y fue un caso de accidente afortunado de laboratorio que condujo a resultados positivos

«Although Dobbs must be referring to the shed rather than the loggia, since she says that it was located “at the Chapel end of the garden,” she incorrectly states that the structure consisted of “two stories.” This error descends from J. M. Keynes, who uses the same expression in his “Newton the Man.” See Dobbs, FNA, 98n9, where she references the relevant passage from Keynes.» — corrección de un error con su cadena de transmisión: Dobbs debe referirse al cobertizo y no a la logia, pero afirma incorrectamente que la estructura tenía dos pisos — el error desciende de J. M. Keynes, que usa la misma expresión en «Newton the Man», y la propia Dobbs remite ahí en su nota

«In general, Newton’s term “antimoniate” means a salt of a metal and antimony. This fact emerges clearly from a passage in CU Add. 3973, where Newton is discussing lead antimoniate. He describes a sublimation that began with “100gr of ♄ ♁iate (wch well dried might perhaps have weighed 95 gr.).” The fact that Newton’s lead antimoniate contained 5% water points unequivocally to a hygroscopic salt, not a metallic alloy.» — definición del vocabulario propio de Newton apoyada en una medida: «antimoniate» significa en él una sal de un metal y antimonio, y lo prueba un pasaje donde el 5 % de agua apunta inequívocamente a una sal higroscópica y no a una aleación metálica

«My discovery of parallel passages in the Newton corpus has been facilitated by using the latent semantic analysis tool developed by Wallace Hooper for CIN.» — crédito instrumental: el hallazgo de pasajes paralelos en el corpus se facilitó con la herramienta de análisis semántico latente desarrollada por Wallace Hooper para el proyecto Chymistry of Isaac Newton

«I have tried this experiment both using nitric acid and substituting Newton’s ammoniac aqua regia for it while making the “antimony once acted on by aqua fortis.” The nitric acid produces a white residue, while the aqua regia yields a much yellower one.» — réplica declarada con sus dos brazos y el resultado observable: se probó el experimento tanto con ácido nítrico como sustituyéndolo por el agua regia amoniacal de Newton, y el nítrico produce residuo blanco mientras el agua regia uno mucho más amarillo

«The “net,” or “Vulcan’s net,” is a purple alloy of copper and metallic antimony. The alloy seems to have been invented by the American alchemist George Starkey (who authored most of the texts attributed to Eirenaeus Philalethes). Starkey was impressed by its fine, crystalline surface, which reminded him of network. He based the name “net” on the mythical net» — la red es aleación púrpura de cobre y antimonio metálico, y parece haber sido inventada por el alquimista americano George Starkey, quien escribió la mayoría de los textos atribuidos a Eirenaeus Philalethes; el nombre viene de su superficie fina y cristalina y de la red mítica de bronce con que Vulcano atrapó a Marte y Venus. El «seems to have been» es la reserva

«Yet the heavy role that the English “naturalist” played in Newton’s development should not blind us to the important and hitherto unnoticed use that Newton made of other chymists who were also published in contemporary scientific journals. One overlooked figure of particular significance emerges from the material immediately following the earliest chymical experiments in CU Add. 3975, which Newton probably entered in or soon after 1674.» — reclamo de aporte con lo que concede: el papel pesado de Boyle en el desarrollo de Newton no debe cegarnos ante el uso importante y hasta ahora no advertido que Newton hizo de otros químicos publicados en las revistas científicas contemporáneas

«I refer to the Epistola ad Langellotum of David von der Becke, a physician of Minden, Germany. About von der Becke very little is known, but his Epistola belongs to a cluster of responses by various authors to Joel Langelot, physician to the Duke of Holstein-Gottorp, whose own Epistola ad praecellentissimos Naturae Curiosos de quibusdam in chymia praetermissis had been published in 1672. Langelot’s letter had itself been epitomized in the January 1672/3 issue of the Philosophical Transactions, which no doubt served as a pretext for the subsequent appearance of von der Becke’s abstract.» — la cadena editorial reconstruida, con lo que se sabe y lo que no de sus autores: la Epistola ad Langellotum de David von der Becke, médico de Minden del que muy poco se sabe, pertenece a un racimo de respuestas a Joel Langelot, cuya propia Epistola de 1672 fue epitomizada en las Philosophical Transactions

«The reason for the excitement about Langelot’s Epistola lay in its description of “volatile salt of tartar,” one of the highly sought-for arcana majora described by Joan Baptista Van Helmont in his immensely influential works on chymistry.» — por qué el revuelo: la Epistola de Langelot describía la sal volátil de tártaro, uno de los arcana majora más buscados descritos por Joan Baptista Van Helmont

«In full accord with the Helmontian tradition, von der Becke sees this displacement reaction in terms of a corpuscular schema governed by elective affinities. The particles of “acid salt” in the sal ammoniac have a greater affinity for salt of tartar than they do for the “urinous salt” in the sal ammoniac; hence, they dissociate from their urinous salt when placed in a solution of tartareous salt and form a bond with the latter.» — el esquema explicativo y a quién pertenece: en plena consonancia con la tradición helmontiana, von der Becke ve la reacción de desplazamiento en términos de un esquema corpuscular gobernado por afinidades electivas

«Newton’s (and von der Becke’s) explanation is based on the correct observation that sal ammoniac is composed of “an acid & urinous salt both wch are severally volatile enough but together they fix one another,” or as we» — un acierto adjudicado a los dos, con el equivalente moderno declarado como nuestro: la explicación se apoya en la observación correcta de que el sal amoniaco se compone de una sal ácida y una urinosa, ambas bastante volátiles por separado pero que se fijan mutuamente al combinarse

«More than this, von der Becke’s account gives us an exemplary window into the fundamental understanding that dominates Newton’s approach to chymistry.» — el valor que se le asigna al texto: la exposición de von der Becke ofrece una ventana ejemplar a la comprensión fundamental que domina la aproximación de Newton a la química

«Newton may have spotted this weakness in von der Becke’s explanation, for when he arrives at the final part of von der Becke’s account, where the German suggests “ye addition of new Salt of Tartar,” Newton adds the parenthetical qualification “(perhaps after it hath been sublimed).” In other words, Newton was suggesting that the final addition of salt of tartar required that the material receive some additional treatment in order to allow it to attract the acid particles away from their alkaline partners.» — una enmienda de Newton leída como enmienda, con el modal a la vista: puede que detectara la debilidad del esquema, porque al llegar al paso final añade la calificación entre paréntesis «(perhaps after it hath been sublimed)», sugiriendo que la sal de tártaro final necesitaba tratamiento adicional

«This “promoting” of the fermentation by means of sal ammoniac is an addition to the process by Newton. It may be that he believed von der Becke to have hidden some of his recipe under talk of sal ammoniac as a model substance when it actually had to participate directly in the volatilization of the salt of tartar, or it may be that Newton believed himself to have advanced the process further than his source. At any rate, the addition of sal ammoniac would at least have led to a chemical reaction in the release of ammonia and carbon dioxide, so Newton’s instructions were not vain from an empirical perspective.» — adjudicación de una adición y sus dos explicaciones alternativas, sin elegir entre ellas: promover la fermentación con sal amoniaco es añadidura de Newton — pudo creer que von der Becke ocultaba parte de la receta, o pudo creerse él mismo más adelantado que su fuente; y en todo caso la adición habría producido reacción real, de modo que las instrucciones no eran vanas empíricamente

«provide the first datable evidence in Newton’s experimental notebooks of an interest in “fermentation,” a process that would acquire increasing importance as his chymical work progressed.» — el dato cronológico que fija un origen: estos experimentos ofrecen la primera evidencia datable de un interés por la fermentación, proceso que ganaría importancia creciente conforme avanzaba su trabajo químico

«Without further evidence one would not wish to push these points, but we can at least say that both texts reveal a newfound emphasis on fermentation that is largely absent from Newton’s early attempts to follow the lead of Robert Boyle.» — freno explícito ante una serie de conexiones tentadoras: sin más evidencia no conviene apretar esos puntos, pero al menos puede decirse que ambos textos revelan un énfasis nuevo en la fermentación, en gran medida ausente de los primeros intentos de Newton por seguir a Boyle

«Although Newton’s experiment resulted in disappointment, it reveals unequivocally that his goal, once again, was the extraction of a volatile component from the refractory salt of tartar that he tried to loosen up or “open” with an initial fermentation and then sublime or distill at very high temperature.» — lo que un fracaso deja establecido: aunque el experimento con polvo de ladrillo resultó decepcionante, revela sin equívoco que su meta era extraer un componente volátil de la refractaria sal de tártaro, aflojándola con una fermentación inicial

«But these three successive projects will allow us a way to follow the course of Newton’s research and to show how it formed a continuous line of development rather than resolving into a desultory mass of aimless trials.» — lo que la periodización pretende mostrar, con lo que reconoce que deja fuera: la discusión de los tres proyectos no agota los muchos conjuntos paralelos de experimentación, pero permite seguir el curso de la investigación y mostrar que formó una línea continua de desarrollo y no una masa deslavazada de pruebas sin rumbo

«But Newton modified the practice of earlier alchemists in one crucial respect. Instead of employing sal ammoniac alone as an adjuvant to sublimation, Newton learned that he could increase its volatilizing power by mixing it with stibnite, the sulfide ore of antimony (which Newton referred to simply as “antimony”). This is not surprising if one considers that antimony, sulfur, ammonia, and hydrogen chloride gas could all react with one another during the sublimation of stibnite with sal ammoniac to produce a variety of volatile compounds.» — la innovación adjudicada con su explicación química: en vez de usar el sal amoniaco solo como coadyuvante de sublimación, Newton aprendió que podía aumentar su poder volatilizante mezclándolo con estibina

«already made it the object of considerable interest among the Arabic alchemists, whose works were known to Newton through Latin translations and through the works of pseudepigraphers such as pseudo-Rhazes.» — linaje del reactivo con la pseudoepigrafía consignada: la capacidad del sal amoniaco de volatilizar metales ya lo había hecho objeto de interés considerable entre los alquimistas árabes, cuyas obras Newton conocía por traducciones latinas y por obras de pseudoepígrafos como el pseudo-Rhazes

«Clearly impressed by these results, he concludes this set of operations by saying, “Whence I knew it to be ye shadow of a noble expt.» — el pasaje del que sale el título del capítulo: impresionado por los resultados, Newton cierra el conjunto de operaciones diciendo que supo que aquello era la sombra de un experimento noble

«The quantitative character of these tests is striking and serves as an excellent example of Newton’s methodology. His estimate that “about 7 or 8 grains” of antimonial salt remained in solution is not self-evident, as it is a figure derived from the use of the principle of mass balance.» — el rasgo de método que se destaca: el carácter cuantitativo de esas pruebas es llamativo y ejemplifica bien la metodología de Newton, porque su estimación no es evidente por sí sola sino cifra derivada del principio de balance de masas

«In other words, the “dirty” sublimate made from crude antimony gave a considerably better yield of between 48 and 50% compared to the 33% of product carried up by the “clean” precipitate.» — el resultado medido que contradice el objetivo de Newton: el sublimado sucio hecho con antimonio crudo daba un rendimiento considerablemente mejor, entre 48 y 50 %, frente al 33 % del producto que elevaba el precipitado limpio

«Newton summarized these findings with additional measurements in a new set of experiments beginning in February 1679/80. As he baldly puts it, “Sublimate of crude ♁ volatises sensibly more then sublimate of white precipitate.» — el resumen en la propia letra de Newton, con la variante entre manuscritos: donde un pasaje dice «sensibly more», el paralelo de CU Add. 3975 dice «much more»

«But Newton finds that the opposite is the case—“the volatizing virtue is thereby diminished.” Moreover, if the initial addition of oil of vitriol is not followed by heating and digestion to remove sulfur, there is still a diminishment of the “volatizing virtue” despite the fact that no sulfur has been eliminated from the precipitate. From all this, Newton concludes, “tis not ye loss of ye sulphur but ye action of ye oyle of 🜖 on ye ♁ wch destroys the volatising virtue.» — un experimento de control que refuta la hipótesis de su autor: si el azufre fuera la causa de la virtud volatilizante, añadir azufre debería aumentarla, y Newton halla lo contrario — de todo ello concluye que no es la pérdida del azufre sino la acción del aceite de vitriolo sobre el antimonio lo que la destruye

«Here and elsewhere we see Newton using an experimentally acquired knowledge of affinities in the attempt to get chemicals to dissociate from one another by combining with a third party. For the moment, however, his attempts were blocked by the fact that cleansing his sublimate of crude antimony and sal ammoniac meant the loss of its volatilizing virtue.» — el modus operandi y el muro: se ve a Newton usando un conocimiento de afinidades adquirido experimentalmente para que unas sustancias se disocien de otras combinándose con un tercero, y por el momento sus intentos quedaban bloqueados porque limpiar el sublimado significaba perder su virtud volatilizante

«The excited tone of the comments, as well as their studied vagueness in describing the starting point of the processes, convey the sense of great importance that he attributed to his discovery of the sophic sal ammoniac. Newton is clearly in the grip of a “eureka moment.” He begins by saying, “1 July 10. I saw the philosophical sal ammoniac. This is not precipitated by salt of tartar.» — cómo se lee el estado de ánimo desde el documento: el tono excitado de los comentarios y su estudiada vaguedad al describir el punto de partida transmiten la importancia que Newton atribuyó al descubrimiento, y está claramente preso de un momento eureka

«The passage is therefore ambiguous to the modern reader (though not to Newton), and hence less helpful than one might hope for determining the character of his sophic sal ammoniac.» — límite declarado sobre lo que ese pasaje puede rendir: es ambiguo para el lector moderno —aunque no lo fuera para Newton— y por tanto menos útil de lo que uno querría para determinar el carácter del sal amoniaco sófico

«At this point, we must employ Ockham’s razor on the assumption that Newton is not making an abrupt saltation to some hitherto untried material, but is developing his practice out of preexisting protocols carried out on familiar substances. Given his dogged repetition of similar experiments with varying of proportions and the occasional isolation of variables by adding or subtracting an ingredient, development out of preexisting methods and materials seems distinctly the more probable course.» — el principio interpretativo aplicado con su justificación: hay que emplear la navaja de Ockham suponiendo que Newton no da un salto abrupto a un material inédito, sino que desarrolla su práctica desde protocolos preexistentes sobre sustancias familiares

«solid residue that has come out from a state of dissolution in a liquid. As he puts it there: Præcipitation of a body out of ye dissolvent into a Calx either done by abstracting <illeg.>(i.e. Evaporating or distilling off) ye Solvent water, & thus ^solutions of Mettalls ^yeild Vitriolls, & saline liquors their salts are turned to Vitriolls &c, or by putting in some body for ye dissolved matter to sattle upon (as ♀ plates into a solution of ☽ in aqua fortis ^weakened by addition of much water , or ☿ into a solution of ☉ in Aqua Regis) Or by pouring in some other liquor of a contrary nature.32 This dictionary entry tells us that a calx is formed either when solid material is left in the vessel after boiling off a solvent or when a finely dissolved material precipitates onto another body with which it has an affinity, or even when a precipitate is released from solution by pouring in a liquor of opposed nature (for example, salt of tartar added to an acid menstruum). In other words, the term “calx” can mean any powdery or particulate material that emerges from a solution, in addition to its more obvious sense as the product of calcination by heat.» — la definición de «calx» tomada del propio diccionario químico de Newton y su consecuencia: puede significar cualquier material pulverulento salido de una disolución, además de su sentido más obvio de producto de calcinación

«All seven of these candidates for Newton’s calx albus share a common feature—they are all produced either by dissolving stibnite in aqua fortis or aqua regia made with sal ammoniac or by subliming the same crude antimony, again with sal ammoniac, and then washing with water to produce a precipitate. The early portions of CU Add. 3975 add only one further candidate, the washing of butter of antimony to arrive at a white precipitate (primarily antimony oxychloride or “mercurius vitae”).35 Hence stibnite and sal ammoniac feature prominently in seven of the eight cases where a white calx is mentioned; the last example drops the sal ammoniac but keeps the antimony ore.» — la búsqueda exhaustiva y su resultado: los siete candidatos comparten un rasgo — proceden de disolver estibina en agua fuerte o en agua regia hecha con sal amoniaco, o de sublimar ese mismo antimonio crudo con sal amoniaco y después lavar con agua

«This process was later described by Newton’s younger contemporary Herman Boerhaave as a method for removing the sulfur from stibnite. As Boerhaave pointed out, the metallic antimony is gradually dissolved by the aqua regia, leaving a material that he identifies as sulfur behind.» — corroboración por un contemporáneo más joven, con su atribución: Herman Boerhaave describió después ese mismo proceso como método para retirar el azufre de la estibina, señalando que el agua regia disuelve gradualmente el antimonio metálico

«All of this evidence points to the likely conclusion that Newton’s calx albus, from which he produced the sophic sal ammoniac, was a mixture of white antimony compounds possibly containing a certain amount of ordinary ammonium chloride. The sophic sal ammoniac would then have been a sublimate of this white calx, as Newton himself indicated on 13r of CU Add. 3973, when he said, “The white calx distilled per se emitted 20 grains of 🜹 from 400 grains of calx.” Our preliminary conclusion in fact receives strong and direct support from a later passage in the same manuscript where Newton performs a quantitative analysis on the sophic sal ammoniac.39 He starts this experiment with 6 1/4 ounces of “Our 🜹 freed from ♁.”40 “Our sal ammoniac” is simply another name for the sophic sal ammoniac, and the fact that it had to be “freed” from an excess of antimony, no doubt by washing and precipitation, reveals that the sophic sal ammoniac already contained that material, at least as a precursor.» — la conclusión con su grado explícito: la evidencia apunta a que el calx albus del que Newton produjo el sal amoniaco sófico era una mezcla de compuestos blancos de antimonio, posiblemente con algo de cloruro de amonio ordinario

«Since 4 grains or one-third of the 12 grains that sublimed from the lead ore was vulgar sal ammoniac, the 8 grains that were left must have consisted of 6 grains of undivided sophic sal ammoniac and 2 grains of impurities or “fæx.” Newton’s figure of 1/7 part fæx instead of 1/6 is probably intended to allow for water contained in the residue. From all of this he concludes: “So then ye  destroys ye sophic 🜹 as well as ye vulgar though not so much.» — el análisis cuantitativo con la reconstrucción del reparto, y la conclusión de Newton: el agua fuerte destruye el sal amoniaco sófico igual que el vulgar, aunque no tanto

«It seems inescapable that Newton is using the term “sophic sal ammoniac” in two ways—first, as a mixture of a certain antimony compound with ordinary sal ammoniac to improve its volatility, and second, as the antimony compound itself.» — ambigüedad terminológica adjudicada como inevitable: Newton usa «sophic sal ammoniac» en dos sentidos, primero como mezcla de cierto compuesto de antimonio con sal amoniaco ordinario para mejorar su volatilidad, y segundo como el compuesto de antimonio mismo

«Although it is too early to identify the chemical composition of Newton’s sophic sal ammoniac, the foregoing examination leads to the conclusion that the material was simply a variation on the antimonial sublimates that he was making with stibnite and sal ammoniac as early as December 1678 (and probably earlier). As we know, his main goal in the improvement of his antimonial sublimate was that of removing its “dirtiness” while retaining its power to act as an adjuvant in subliming other metallic materials. He seems to have met that goal, at least partly, in July 1680, a fact that led him to the breathless excitement of his “eureka moment.” Later accounts of the sophic sal ammoniac confirm that it was less “foul” than the simple sublimate of stibnite and vulgar sal ammoniac, even if it may not have improved on its volatilizing power. Newton had therefore met one of the principal goals of his early chymistry—the preparation of a subliming agent that could be used to volatilize metals and their compounds without polluting them by the addition of an excessively “impure 🜍.” Armed with this new analytical tool, he could now proceed to additional projects.» — el balance del programa con tres acotaciones dentro: aún es pronto para identificar la composición química, pero el material era simplemente una variación de los sublimados antimoniales que ya hacía desde diciembre de 1678 y probablemente antes, y su meta de quitarle la suciedad sin perder poder coadyuvante parece haberla alcanzado, al menos en parte, en julio de 1680

«Newton’s cancellation of his hasty comment provides a rare example of self-doubt in his chymical experimentation and prompts an even rarer case of a carefully described apparatus. In order to determine definitely “whether unmelted minera of ♁ makes ye matter more fluxible & volatile then melted ♁,” Newton designs and builds (or has built) a special sublimatory made of earthenware in three sections.» — una rareza documental y lo que produce: la tachadura de un comentario apresurado da un ejemplo raro de duda de sí mismo en la experimentación química de Newton, y provoca un caso aún más raro de aparato descrito con cuidado, un sublimatorio de barro en tres secciones

«Alchemists had known since the Middle Ages that different sublimates would collect in their aludels or sublimation vessels at different heights, leaving variously colored bands on the inside of the apparatus that could be collected separately (figure 15.5).49 And early modern chymists such as Nicolas Lemery had already devised multipot sublimatories for separating the different fractions of antimonial sublimates: Lemery’s Course of Chymistry or some similar text may well have served as Newton’s inspiration.» — precedentes del aparato con su reserva: desde la Edad Media se sabía que distintos sublimados se recogen a distintas alturas del aludel, y el Course of Chymistry de Lemery o algún texto similar bien pudo ser la inspiración de Newton

«But it was probably Newton’s overriding preference for natural ores and minerals fresh from the mine that led him to apply this sort of apparatus to the comparison of refined and unrefined stibnite. He had observed that his unrefined antimony ore contained “spar,” which could denote anything from quartz to calcite, and it would be understandable for him to have wished for a purer form of stibnite.51 From a modern perspective, such a choice would have seemed more than obvious. But in addition to his general preference for native minerals, there may have been another reason for him to have hesitated here before opting for the purified version of the ore. Other remarks in Newton’s notebooks make it likely that the spar or some other impurity was acting as a flux in his stibnite; hence it would have been a natural move for him to have wondered whether the property of greater fusibility in the native stibnite might carry over to its sublimed products.52 His three-pot sublimatory was probably a means of deciding between the two competing goals of greater fusibility and removal of obvious gangue. Given Newton’s general preference for unrefined minerals, it is no surprise that the native ore won the day.» — la explicación conjetural, marcada como tal, de por qué se tomó ese trabajo: probablemente fue su preferencia dominante por minerales frescos de mina lo que lo llevó a comparar estibina refinada y sin refinar con ese aparato, y dada esa preferencia general no sorprende que ganara el mineral nativo

«threefold process remains constant throughout the thirty or more years of his alchemical experimentation, even though the notebooks display new ideas and fresh discoveries as one pages through them. For the modern reader, the main challenge to understanding Newton’s laboratory records lies in the fact that he often neglects to specify the overall significance of the tests or to place them in the context of his evolving strategy.» — la constante del método —interpretación textual, ingeniería inversa del producto cuya identidad cree haber extraído, y prueba— se mantiene a lo largo de los treinta y tantos años de experimentación, y el obstáculo para el lector moderno queda dicho: Newton suele omitir el significado global de las pruebas y no las sitúa en su estrategia en evolución

«Newton’s very early decision to subject antimony to the subliming action of sal ammoniac descends neither from Boyle nor from von der Becke, however. In CU Add. 3975, it follows extensive experiments involving various reguli of antimony whose ultimate source lies in the work of Eirenaeus Philalethes.53 It is likely that Newton’s initial choice of crude antimony as the best material to combine with sal ammoniac in the quest for a subliming agent stemmed from his understanding of Philalethes as well.» — reparto de deudas por exclusión: la decisión muy temprana de someter el antimonio a la acción sublimante del sal amoniaco no desciende ni de Boyle ni de von der Becke, sino que sigue a experimentos con reguli cuya fuente última está en Eirenaeus Philalethes

«Even if the seeds of Newton’s interest in this substance were already planted by Boyle, the generation-long fascination that sal ammoniac exercised on the younger scientist was heavily fertilized by his exposure to the Epistola ad Langellotum of David von der Becke. It was von der Becke’s Epistola that provided Newton with an understanding of the composition of sal ammoniac from an acid and a “urinous” salt, and the German chymist’s work inspired him to explore the ability of the substance to “promote the fermentation” of salt of tartar. Moreover, von der Becke viewed this “fermentation” as the action of microlevel corpuscles that associated and dissociated from one another as a result of their relative affinities; depending on the particular chymical combination of particles, one produced a compound that was either fixed or volatile.» — lo que sí aportó von der Becke, deslindado de Boyle: aunque Boyle plantara las semillas, de von der Becke viene la comprensión de la composición del sal amoniaco a partir de una sal ácida y una urinosa, y de él el impulso a explorar su capacidad de promover la fermentación de la sal de tártaro

«ammoniac seems to have undergone a degree of cooling. Thus we find him continuing to employ antimony regulus and even stibnite in combination with sal ammoniac as subliming adjuvants throughout his career as a chymist.» — el enfriamiento del entusiasmo, medido por lo que siguió usando: tras la euforia inicial el entusiasmo por «our» sal amoniaco parece haberse enfriado en cierto grado, y se le encuentra empleando regulus de antimonio e incluso estibina con sal amoniaco como coadyuvantes durante toda su carrera de químico

«Sheets 4 and 5 have been ordered incorrectly by the keepers of the Portsmouth Collection at Cambridge University Library. The editors of the Chymistry of Isaac Newton project have kept the library’s numbering of the sheets, since this reflects their physical position in the repository; the foliation of the edited text has been changed to reflect its correct ordering.» — corrección archivística con la decisión editorial que la acompaña: las hojas 4 y 5 fueron ordenadas incorrectamente por los custodios de la Portsmouth Collection, y los editores del proyecto Chymistry of Isaac Newton conservaron la numeración de la biblioteca porque refleja la posición física en el repositorio, cambiando en cambio la foliación del texto editado

«even occasionally uses the Helmontian term “gas” for the latter. See his Hypothesis of Light, in Newton, Corr., 1: 368.» — precisión terminológica sobre el propio Newton: distinguía vapores de gases y ocasionalmente usa el término helmontiano «gas» para los segundos, como en su Hypothesis of Light

«Another strange feature lies in his use of the unicum symbol “” for the sublimate of antimonial copper vitriol. I have not found this symbol elsewhere in the corpus of Newton’s alchemy. It probably represents an early form of “🜧” if not a slip of the pen.» — un unicum declarado como tal, con sus dos hipótesis abiertas: el símbolo que Newton usa ahí para el sublimado de vitriolo antimonial de cobre no se ha hallado en ningún otro lugar del corpus alquímico newtoniano, y probablemente sea forma temprana de otro signo, si no un lapsus de pluma

«here Newton attempts to fuse “artificial ♁” (mineral stibnite that he had purified) with iron ore in order to induce a “fermentation.” He notes that the “artificial” version of the mineral, which would lack the impurities imparted by the gangue of the mineral stibnite, is much harder to fuse with the iron ore.» — el apoyo experimental de la conjetura del fundente: Newton intenta fundir estibina mineral que él había purificado con mineral de hierro para inducir una fermentación, y anota que la versión artificial, carente de las impurezas de la ganga, es mucho más difícil de fundir

«Unfortunately, a serious interpretive problem lies in wait for us, namely, the fact that Newton, like his Helmontian contemporaries (particularly Starkey), used the term “salt” in both senses. Nor does the fact that Newton speaks of “extracting” his salt of copper solve the problem. “Extraction” did not» — dónde nace la ambigüedad y con quién la comparte Newton: usa «salt» en los dos sentidos —el moderno de compuesto y el alquímico tradicional de sal constitutiva liberada al descomponerse el metal—, igual que sus contemporáneos helmontianos y particularmente Starkey

«There is no easy way out of this inherently ambiguous situation. One thing, however, is clear. Following the pathways of Newton’s remarkably careful analytic procedure reveals that he was intent on “extracting our Venus,” a volatile material that had to be denuded of superficial, saline accretions. Whether “our Venus” meant an internal constituent of the metal copper, or rather a compound of the metal, Newton spent years of effort trying to arrive at the substance in pure form.» — declara irresoluble una ambigüedad y dice qué queda en pie pese a ella: no hay salida fácil, pero seguir el procedimiento analítico cuidadosísimo de Newton revela que se proponía extraer «nuestra Venus», un material volátil que debía despojarse de acreciones salinas superficiales — y sea que eso significara un constituyente interno del cobre o un compuesto del metal, Newton pasó años intentando obtener la sustancia en forma pura

«It was in all likelihood identical to the “volatile vitriol” that Newton thought he found in the work of Snyders, as we discussed in chapter eleven.» — la identificación entre el reactivo del laboratorio y el Deckname del texto, con su grado: con toda probabilidad la Venus volátil era idéntica al vitriolo volátil que Newton creía haber hallado en la obra de Snyders

«This is one of the precious examples in his chymical notebooks where Newton gives a plenary explanation of his motives for carrying out an experiment, so I will quote it in full:» — rareza documental señalada: es uno de los ejemplos preciosos en que Newton da explicación plenaria de sus motivos para hacer un experimento

«knowledge of elective affinities in the goal of segregating one substance from another that is associated with it. By adding a material that he suspects of having a greater affinity with the adulterant than with the desired substance, he hopes to separate and dispose of the adulterant. We have already seen this approach in the letter of David von der Becke that Newton carefully excerpted, where the decomposition of sal ammoniac by potassium carbonate was used as a model for arriving at a volatile salt of tartar. This is the same approach that would come to its full fruition in Query 31 of the 1717 Opticks, which served as a clarion call to the compilers of elective affinity tables in the eighteenth century.» — el modus operandi nombrado y su continuidad hacia la obra publicada: Newton explota su conocimiento de afinidades electivas para segregar una sustancia de otra, añadiendo un material que sospecha con mayor afinidad por el adulterante que por lo deseado — el mismo enfoque estaba en la carta de von der Becke que copió, y es el que llegaría a plena fruición en la Query 31 del Opticks de 1717

«The problem in this experiment is that the salt of tartar, like the spar, combines with and “holds down” the very salt of copper that Newton wants to liberate. What Newton needed was a material that would combine with one of the two constituents in the sal ammoniac without at the same time reacting with the salt of copper.» — la estructura del problema, formulada como especificación: la sal de tártaro, igual que el spar, se combina con la misma sal de cobre que Newton quiere liberar y la retiene — lo que hacía falta era un material que se combinara con uno de los dos constituyentes del sal amoniaco sin reaccionar a la vez con la sal de cobre

«Unfortunately, our record of his experimentation is incomplete, so we may never know exactly what led to his final bout of efforts to arrive at a pure form of volatile Venus, free from sal ammoniac (sophic or otherwise). At any rate, almost a full decade after the foregoing experiment, we find Newton, around February 1695/6, performing an analysis of his volatile Venus» — hueco documental declarado: el registro de la experimentación está incompleto, de modo que quizá nunca se sepa qué llevó exactamente a Newton a su última tanda de esfuerzos por obtener Venus volátil libre de sal amoniaco

«Newton specifies that 7/20 of the sublimate by weight consisted of unreacted sal ammoniac (presumably vulgar). The remainder was split between 3/10 “antimony” (it is not clear which compound or compounds of elemental antimony are meant here) and 7/20 🜦, meaning the antimonial salt of copper itself.» — el análisis con lo que queda sin identificar: 7/20 del sublimado en peso era sal amoniaco sin reaccionar, y el resto se repartía entre 3/10 de «antimonio» —sin que esté claro qué compuesto o compuestos se entienden ahí— y 7/20 de la sal antimonial de cobre propiamente dicha

«His sudden realization that the heavy salt produced by these operations reduced the volatile Venus’s usefulness as a subliming adjuvant must have been a rude shock. Once again, Newton had hit a roadblock.» — el descubrimiento que echa abajo el propio método: caer en cuenta de que la sal pesada producida por esas operaciones reducía la utilidad de la Venus volátil como coadyuvante de sublimación debió de ser un golpe fuerte, porque esas mismas operaciones eran las que usaba para destruir el sal amoniaco

«Newton decides that the material is impure, and therefore comes to the following conclusion: “So then the expt succeeds not wth ♆ or any white metal but must be done wth Reg ♁ or wth ♀.”24 Not only bismuth but the other “white metals” as well have been ruled out, leaving the regulus of antimony and the red metal copper as alternatives.» — exclusión por prueba, en la letra de Newton: al hallar impuro el material concluye que el experimento no sale con bismuto ni con ningún metal blanco, dejando el regulus de antimonio y el cobre como alternativas

«X-ray diffraction analysis of the lower band indicated the presence of about 50% ammonium chloride. The remaining compounds consisted mainly of metallic double salts including ammonium tetrachlorocuprate and ammonium heptachlorooxodiantimonate; additionally, triammonium hydrogen disulfate (letovicite) and a small amount of unidentified material were detected.33 Exotic chemicals indeed to be synthesizing and refining in the seventeenth century! Further replication and analysis are required before we can be certain of the precise compound that Newton identified as “volatile Venus.” But we can be sure of one thing. His years of labor at extracting “our Venus,” directed at producing this material and isolating it from its accompanying sal ammoniac and other impurities, were producing interesting results.» — el resultado de la réplica y su límite dicho en la misma frase: la difracción de rayos X indicó cerca de 50 % de cloruro de amonio y el resto sales dobles metálicas, químicos exóticos para sintetizar y refinar en el siglo XVII — y hacen falta más réplicas y análisis antes de poder estar seguros del compuesto preciso que Newton llamaba Venus volátil. Lo que sí da por firme es que sus años de trabajo estaban produciendo resultados interesantes

«At this point we must leave Newton’s decades-long attempt to “extract” the volatile salt of Venus, for the available records break off at this point. What was he actually trying to do in terms of post-Lavoisian chemistry?» — el corte impuesto por la fuente: hay que abandonar aquí el intento de décadas por extraer la sal volátil de Venus, porque los registros disponibles se interrumpen en ese punto

«This examination will certify a claim that I have already made several times: Newton’s choice of materials and techniques was often a result of his attempt to reverse-engineer the creations of earlier chymists, based on the allusive descriptions of their appearance and properties found in the literature of chrysopoeia.» — la tesis que el caso de la red viene a certificar: la elección de materiales y técnicas de Newton fue a menudo resultado de su intento de reconstruir por ingeniería inversa las creaciones de químicos anteriores, a partir de las descripciones alusivas de su apariencia y propiedades en la literatura crisopéyica

«Some of Newton’s earliest surviving chymical laboratory notes, probably dating from the early to mid-1670s, describe experiments for making an alloy of regulus martis and copper that “gave a substance wth a pit hemisphericall and wrought like a net wth hollow work as twere cut in.”34 After four trials with different amounts of regulus martis and copper, Newton decides that the proportion of 4 parts copper to 8 1/2 or 9 of regulus gives the best results.» — el dato con su proporción: las notas de laboratorio más tempranas que se conservan describen la fabricación de una aleación de regulus martis y cobre, y tras cuatro pruebas con distintas cantidades Newton decide que 4 partes de cobre por 8½ o 9 de regulus da el mejor resultado

«Playing on the traditional alchemical referents of Mars, Venus, and Vulcan —iron, copper, and fire—Philalethes decoded the myth as a recipe for an alloy consisting of regulus martis (made by reducing stibnite with iron) and copper fused at a high temperature. As he pointed out elsewhere in the Marrow of Alchemy, the product was “Infolded just as in a Net,” that is, it had a crystalline surface that looked, as Newton would later say, “like a net wth hollow work as twere cut in.”37 The attractive, purple alloy has been reproduced in a modern laboratory in the proportions recommended by Newton (figure 16.1).» — el desciframiento adjudicado a Philalethes y su verificación material: jugando con los referentes tradicionales de Marte, Venus y Vulcano, Philalethes leyó el mito como receta de una aleación de regulus martis y cobre fundidos a alta temperatura, y la aleación púrpura ha sido reproducida en laboratorio moderno en las proporciones que recomienda Newton

«In The Marrow of Alchemy, Philalethes makes it quite clear that for him, Cadmus refers to iron and the dragon to stibnite; as for the oak on which the dragon is pinned, at least one of Philalethes’s followers interpreted it as an alchemical furnace.39 In short, the myth is an encoded telling of the process for reducing crude antimony to its metallic form. The eating of the companions of Cadmus (and of Cadmus himself in Philalethes’s retelling of the myth) again refers to the incorporation of iron nails in the molten regulus in order to reduce the metallic regulus; if this is allowed to cool slowly under a thick slag, it can crystallize into the famous star regulus of antimony.» — la lectura de Philalethes, deslindada de la de Newton y con su aparato: para él Cadmo es el hierro y el dragón la estibina, y el mito es un relato cifrado del proceso de reducir el antimonio crudo a su forma metálica

«Thus for Newton the focus of the story shifted from the killing of the dragon or serpent by Cadmus to the fixing of the serpent on the oak. Instead of referring simply to the production of the star regulus by means of iron, as in Philalethes’s account, for Newton the passage alluded to a process that should be performed on the oak itself. Misleadingly using the same language that he had employed earlier for the making of the star regulus, Newton’s Philalethes was now advising the alchemist to transform the oak of Ovid’s story by means of a serpent.» — el desplazamiento de lectura, con las dos voces separadas: para Newton el foco del relato pasó de la muerte del dragón por Cadmo a la fijación de la serpiente sobre el roble, de modo que el pasaje aludía a una operación que debía hacerse sobre el roble mismo — y usando engañosamente el mismo lenguaje que antes había empleado para el regulus, el Philalethes de Newton aconsejaba ahora transformar el roble mediante una serpiente

«Clear as this language may have been, its obvious sense was entirely too simple for Newton. Although he certainly understood the allusions to stibnite and regulus martis, since he refers to these materials in his own recipe for the net, Newton thought these passages from The Marrow of Alchemy contained a deeper meaning as well. If we return to the passage where Philalethes describes Vulcan’s making of the net, this is followed immediately by another allusion to Cadmus in the next stanza. It is again necessary to quote Philalethes here (stanza 61): Nor may this seem a Fable; first observe How Cadmus is by our fierce Beast devour’d, Whom after piercing stoutly doth deserve A Champions name, for (by might overpower’d,) This serpent (‘gainst an Oke) with deadly spear Transfixeth, whom erst every one did fear.41 Since this passage came immediately after Philalethes’s description of Vulcan’s net, and for that matter after the alchemist’s straightforward description of mineral antimony and its reduction by iron, Newton evidently felt that it must contain additional information about the process that would eventually lead to the philosophers’ stone rather than serving as mere idle repetition.» — la premisa hermenéutica que produce el desvío: por claro que fuera el lenguaje, su sentido obvio resultaba demasiado simple para Newton — como la estrofa sobre Cadmo venía inmediatamente después de la de la red, sintió evidentemente que debía contener información adicional en vez de ser mera repetición ociosa

«The net or oak and the serpent “transfixed” on it therefore provide a rare and precious case where Newton unambiguously identifies the material referents into which he translated the Decknamen of previous authors. If we proceed further into his notebooks, we can build on these solid data to expand our knowledge. Doing so reveals that the oak played a central part in Newton’s alchemical practice.» — el valor probatorio del caso: la red-roble y la serpiente clavada en ella ofrecen un caso raro y precioso en que Newton identifica sin ambigüedad los referentes materiales a los que tradujo los Decknamen de autores anteriores

«What we now observe is Newton extending his reverse-engineering in order to determine the proper use to which the oak should be put. In order to do this, he repeats the experiment multiple times while removing variables and observing the results.» — el diseño experimental descrito: Newton extiende la ingeniería inversa para determinar el uso propio del roble, repitiendo el experimento varias veces mientras retira variables y observa los resultados

«There is one final element of the Cadmus myth that requires comment, for it reveals the striking literalness with which Newton approached the task of interpreting alchemical enigmata. A section from CU Add. 3973 that must have been composed during or after February 1695/96 records a succession of experiments where Newton sublimes the oak, an unspecified vitriol, and sophic sal ammoniac in varying proportions.46 Strewn among Newton’s usual observations about fusibility, volatility, color, and taste, one finds the following remarkable comment—“And in all these ye matter sublimed like Dragons teeth.” In the context of the oak, this can only be an allusion to the myth of the soldiers born from the teeth of the dragon killed by Cadmus. Apparently Newton viewed the spiky appearance of his sublimation product as a clue that he was correct in his interpretation of the dicta of the masters. For him, the sublimed material, usually described as “flowers,” becomes the dragon’s teeth of Cadmus’s companions, the mythical founders of Thebes. This provided further confirmation that Newton’s interpretation of the net was the correct one and that he was indeed on the path of the adepts.» — el caso que muestra hasta dónde llegaba la literalidad: entre anotaciones sobre fusibilidad, volatilidad, color y sabor aparece que la materia sublimó como dientes de dragón, lo que en el contexto del roble solo puede aludir al mito de los soldados nacidos de esos dientes — aparentemente Newton veía en el aspecto espinoso de su sublimado una señal de haber interpretado bien los dichos de los maestros. El «apparently» es la reserva

«Although I have at times referred to these techniques as belonging to the early modern domain of “vulgar chymistry,” it would obviously be a serious mistake to erect a rigid boundary between that field and “hermetic philosophy,” as some previous historians have done. After all, it was techniques such as dissolution in acids, sublimation with sal ammoniac, and a host of other operations with a long history in alchemy ranging from dry processes such as calcination and trituration to the wet operations of imbibition, distillation, cohobation, and precipitation that formed the backbone of Newton’s experimental procedure. As we have just seen in Newton’s experimentation with the net, these techniques provided the practical basis to his decipherment of such chrysopoetic classics as the Philalethan Marrow of Alchemy. The fact that Newton employed such operations and more in his quest for the philosophers’ stone shows that it would be chimerical to view these and similar processes as something radically distinct from alchemy.» — objeción a una frontera historiográfica: aunque a veces se llame «vulgar chymistry» a estas técnicas, sería error serio erigir una frontera rígida entre ese campo y la filosofía hermética, como han hecho algunos historiadores anteriores — porque disolución en ácidos, sublimación con sal amoniaco, calcinación, destilación y precipitación, todas con larga historia alquímica, forman el espinazo del procedimiento experimental de Newton

«Van Helmont and his followers, particularly George Starkey and to a lesser extent Robert Boyle, had already adopted an explicit reliance on mass balance as a means of tracking the course and progress of reactions.47 The emphasis on precise weighing of ingredients and products that we see in Newton’s experimentation is a logical development of this Helmontian emphasis, although Newton carried his quantification to a level of precision to which few other researchers in chymistry or any other scientific field chose to adhere.» — linaje del balance de masas y grado de deuda repartido: Van Helmont y sus seguidores, sobre todo Starkey y en menor medida Boyle, ya habían adoptado un uso explícito del balance de masas, y el énfasis de Newton en pesar con precisión es desarrollo lógico de ese énfasis helmontiano aunque llevara la cuantificación a un nivel al que pocos quisieron atenerse

«Von der Becke’s chymical atomism is not merely the product of reading Robert Boyle or other midcentury mechanical philosophers. It descends instead from the qualitative corpuscular theories of medieval alchemy, refined and further developed by previous chymical atomists such as Van Helmont, Daniel Sennert, and the important but understudied figure Angelus Sala.» — corrección de genealogía: el atomismo químico de von der Becke no es mero producto de leer a Boyle u otros filósofos mecánicos de mediados de siglo, sino que desciende de las teorías corpusculares cualitativas de la alquimia medieval, refinadas por atomistas químicos previos como Van Helmont, Daniel Sennert y Angelus Sala

«Rather than thinking in terms of a total metamorphosis of one material into another, Newton focuses his attempts on the separation of preexisting substances from each other and their reassociation in differing combinations, as governed by their mutual affinities. This is the method that we see employed time and time again in Newton’s attempts to arrive at such desiderata as the sophic sal ammoniac and “our Venus.”» — qué clase de operación buscaba Newton, dicho por contraste: en vez de pensar en metamorfosis total de un material en otro, concentra sus intentos en separar sustancias preexistentes unas de otras y reasociarlas en combinaciones distintas según sus afinidades mutuas

«Even though Newton was far from being an acolyte of Van Helmont himself, his main laboratory notebook, CU Add. 3975, contains at least twenty pages of extracts from the major English-speaking Helmontian spokesman of the seventeenth century, George Starkey.51 These passages, which are taken from Starkey’s iatrochemical work Pyrotechny Asserted and Illustrated, merge seamlessly with additional notes that Newton took from the New England alchemist’s chrysopoetic texts written under the name of Philalethes.» — la deuda medida en folios, con su acotación: aunque Newton distaba de ser acólito de Van Helmont, CU Add. 3975 contiene al menos veinte páginas de extractos de George Starkey, y esos pasajes iatroquímicos se funden sin costura con las notas que Newton tomó de los textos crisopéyicos que el mismo alquimista escribió bajo el nombre de Philalethes

«where many authors, Boyle and Newton included, distinguished between the elementary operations described in contemporary chymical textbooks from a more advanced knowledge that they hoped would lead to greater secrets— arcana majora—such as the volatile salt of tartar that captivated Newton in the 1670s. It is no accident that this marvelous substance, one of the many desiderata that Helmontian chymistry erected as research projects, appears in his notebooks. Newton’s own laboratory records are marked in several ways by the influence of Helmontian chymistry, even though the “noble Bruxellian” is seldom explicitly mentioned in his notes.» — la distinción que sí existía y el rasgo que hace difícil rastrear la deuda: muchos autores, Boyle y Newton incluidos, distinguían entre las operaciones elementales de los manuales y un saber más avanzado que esperaban condujera a los arcana majora — y los registros de laboratorio de Newton llevan marcas de la química helmontiana aunque el noble bruselense rara vez se mencione explícitamente

«Folios 41v–43r employ the unbarred Saturn symbol () characteristic of Newton’s early notes. The ink is also darker than the study of sal ammoniac beginning on 43r and continuing for several folios that relies heavily on David von der Becke’s Epistola ad Ioelem Langelottum, which was published in Latin in 1672 and synopsized in the Philosophical Transactions of 1673/74, as we discussed in the previous chapter.» — criterio de datación codicológica declarado con sus dos indicios: los folios 41v–43r usan el símbolo de Saturno sin barra, característico de las notas tempranas, y la tinta es además más oscura que la del estudio del sal amoniaco que empieza en 43r

«The notes from Starkey’s Pyrotechny in CU Add. 3975 end on 113r, and a succession of chrysopoetic headings beginning with “Gross Ingredients” starts after several blank pages on 115r. Similar headings continue for some folios, and on 123r, Newton fills out the entry “Of ye work wth common ☉” with notes largely taken from Philalethes.» — la costura entre lo médico y lo crisopéyico, localizada en folios: las notas de la Pyrotechny de Starkey terminan en 113r y, tras varias páginas en blanco, arranca en 115r una sucesión de encabezados crisopéyicos

«It is striking that Newton claims to have rejected Boyle’s overtures, which evidently concerned chrysopoeia, and that he attributed his chariness to Boyle’s being “too open & too desirous of fame.” Newton had been in personal contact with Boyle since approximately 1673, and some correspondence between the two survives from the late 1670s and 1680s.4 But Newton may well have resisted open discussion of his alchemical secrets with Boyle, for we know from another source that he had long been disturbed by the loose talk of his older compatriot.» — un rechazo consignado en la letra de Newton, con su fecha y su reserva: resulta llamativo que diga haber rechazado los ofrecimientos de Boyle —evidentemente sobre crisopeya— y que atribuya su recelo a que Boyle era demasiado abierto y demasiado deseoso de fama; hubo contacto personal desde alrededor de 1673, pero Newton bien pudo resistirse a discutir abiertamente sus secretos

«adepts to help him probe its secrets further.5 Although Newton provides a detailed explanation to Oldenburg of his reasons for doubting the effectiveness of Boyle’s animated mercury, which we will examine later, he is nonetheless clearly worried by Boyle’s eagerness to publish. Thus he concludes his letter with a thinly veiled admonition, saying, “I question not but that ye great wisdom of ye noble Authour will sway him to high silence.» — la otra fuente y su contenido, con las voces separadas: la erudición moderna ha mostrado que el mercurio animado de Boyle era una versión del mercurio sofístico de Starkey y que probablemente publicó sus hallazgos con la esperanza de atraer adeptos que lo ayudaran; Newton explica a Oldenburg sus razones para dudar de ese mercurio y cierra con una advertencia apenas velada sobre el silencio

«Although Newton’s concern for Fatio has been seen as evidence of an infatuation on his part, the strong feeling that emerges from his letters may stem as much from the two men’s mutual attraction for the “the noble virgin alchymia” as for each other.» — réplica a una lectura corriente, formulada como alternativa y no como refutación, y el límite no debe endurecerse: la solicitud de Newton por Fatio se ha visto como evidencia de enamoramiento, pero el sentimiento fuerte que asoma en sus cartas puede provenir tanto de la atracción mutua de ambos hombres por la noble virgen alquimia como de la que sintieran el uno por el otro

«A subsequent letter reveals that the books consisted of the “French Ch: Biblioth,” that is, the two-volume Bibliothèque des philosophes chymiques published in 1672–78 and attributed to “Le Sieur S. D. E. M.» — el vector francés con la atribución consignada: los dos libros químicos eran la Bibliothèque des philosophes chymiques en dos volúmenes, publicada en 1672-78 y atribuida a «Le Sieur S. D. E. M.»

«It has been argued persuasively that Fatio was helping Newton to improve his command of French during this period for the purpose of reading alchemical texts in that language, and the two may even have studied the Bibliothèque des philosophes chymiques together.» — el grado del argumento, avalado sin hacerlo propio: se ha argumentado persuasivamente que Fatio ayudaba a Newton a mejorar su francés en ese periodo para leer textos alquímicos en esa lengua, y que los dos pudieron incluso estudiar juntos la Bibliothèque

«The chymical collaboration between Newton and Fatio took on a new momentum in the spring of 1693, as reflected in several well-known letters as well as some that have received no scholarly attention until the present.» — reclamo documental fechado: la colaboración química cobra impulso nuevo en la primavera de 1693, reflejada en varias cartas bien conocidas y en algunas que no habían recibido atención erudita hasta ahora

«One can speculate that it may not have been stibnite, as in Starkey’s process, but lead, and thus “f. of L.” might refer to filings or even flowers of that metal.» — especulación declarada como especulación: puede especularse que el mineral de la receta no fuera estibina, como en el proceso de Starkey, sino plomo

«These techniques reemerge in Newton’s famous Praxis florilegium found in Babson MS 420, where he explicitly credits them to Fatio. “This pouder,” by which Newton presumably means the initial mineral rather than the black excrescence emitted during the quicksilver’s purification, “amalgams wth ☿ & purges out its feces if shaken together in a glass [Epist. N. Fatij].” In another draft of Praxis, Newton explicitly refers to the powder as a “black fire” and equates it with the sympathetic fire of Snyders.» — crédito explícito dentro de la fuente: las técnicas de purificación del azogue reaparecen en el florilegio Praxis, donde Newton las acredita a Fatio por su nombre, y en otro borrador llama a ese polvo un fuego negro equiparándolo al fuego simpático de Snyders

«Interestingly, Newton has canceled the passage, which he may well have done after it ultimately failed to lead to the philosophers’ stone:» — una tachadura leída con reserva: Newton canceló el pasaje sobre el polvo negro en su cuaderno mayor, cosa que bien pudo hacer después de que el procedimiento no condujera a la piedra

«From all of this it appears likely that Fatio was embellishing the original story as time went by, either orally or in letters that we no longer possess. If we now pass to another passage in the same letter, the identical pattern will be seen to» — adjudicación de un cambio a su autor, con su grado: dado que la versión del cuaderno añade un humo blanco fétido y una semana de duración ausentes de la carta del 4 de mayo, parece probable que Fatio fuera adornando el relato original con el tiempo

«The initial simplicity of Fatio’s account, whereby the entire success of the process depended on the grinding of the mercury and the friction that he interpreted as the “Philosophers fire,” would give way to a byzantine panoply of operations in which one can only barely make out the basic procedures outlined in the May letter. The anonymous adept, or perhaps Fatio himself, would elaborate this chrysopoetic project over the next few months until it acquired a Rabelaisian girth.» — la trayectoria del proceso y quién pudo hacerla crecer, con la disyuntiva abierta: la simplicidad inicial del relato de Fatio dio paso a un despliegue bizantino de operaciones en el que apenas se distinguen los procedimientos de la carta de mayo — el adepto anónimo, o quizá Fatio mismo, elaboró el proyecto hasta darle una corpulencia rabelesiana

«First, it provides the only instance known to me in which there is evidence that the tight-lipped Newton willingly revealed his chymical secrets to another party. Suddenly, we find Newton not only receiving information secondhand from Fatio’s friend but also actually imparting his own hard-won knowledge through Fatio to the adept. Nor was this pedestrian material that Newton chose to release. It was in fact a close variant of the very set of processes that he had developed in Keynes 58, the manuscript that builds a chymical practice on the work of Snyders, as we discussed in chapter twelve.» — el hallazgo con su alcance acotado a lo que el autor conoce: la carta de agosto de 1693 ofrece el único caso conocido en que hay evidencia de que el hermético Newton revelara voluntariamente sus secretos químicos a otro — y no era material pedestre, sino una variante cercana del conjunto de procesos que había desarrollado en Keynes 58

«It is likely that Newton was presenting Fatio’s unnamed friend with a simplified version of his process for making the caduceus of mercury in order to get the adept’s opinion on the various stages» — Newman propone que Newton dio al amigo de Fatio una versión simplificada de su proceso del caduceo para pedirle opinión sobre las etapas; el verbo del original es de probabilidad, no de hallazgo

«In short, the ingredients given in the letter are succedanea, to use a term employed by George Starkey and other early modern writers on pharmacopoeia» — adjudica la categoría de los succedanea a George Starkey y a otros escritores de farmacopea, no a Newton

«A succedaneum was a cheaper or more easily available substance that could be substituted for its rarer counterpart» — la definición del succedáneo, en voz de Newman

«The green copper mineral that Newton has in mind is hard to determine with precision, although malachite, chrysocolla, and even botallackite are all obvious candidates» — abstención expresa sobre el mineral verde de cobre: malaquita, crisocola y botallackita quedan como candidatos, no como identificación

«Moreover, the term viride æris is not mentioned in his laboratory notebooks at all» — búsqueda negativa del propio Newman: el término no aparece en los cuadernos de laboratorio de Newton

«I have in fact prepared “vitriols” from each of these materials (figure 17.1). But the use of succedanea does not exhaust Newton’s caginess, a fact to which the adept’s bewilderment testifies. FIGURE 17.1. Crystal of “verdigris vitriol” about one-quarter inch across, made by reacting malachite with Newton’s liquor of antimony, then filtering and crystallizing the solution. Prepared by the author in the laboratory» — Newman declara réplica de laboratorio propia del preparado, hecha con Cathrine Reck en la Universidad de Indiana

«It is virtually certain that Newton composed Keynes 58 before the spring of 1693, since there is no mention of Fatio in that document despite its conceptual relationship with the material in the August letter» — data Keynes 58 antes de la primavera de 1693, y el argumento es la ausencia de Fatio en el documento

«By putting all of this together we may arrive at the hypothesis that Newton probably intended the vitriol made in the first part of Fatio’s letter to be» — la hipótesis se enuncia como hipótesis, con el adverbio de probabilidad dentro; citarla sin él la falsea

«My hypothesis that Newton intended the lead compound and the vitriol to be combined is unequivocally borne out by another source» — y la contraparte: Newman señala que la hipótesis queda respaldada sin equívoco por la carta sin fecha de la Correspondence. Las dos mitades van juntas

«Interestingly, modern replication has revealed that Newton’s methods as decribed in Fatio’s August letter are indeed an effective means of subliming certain compounds of lead» — la réplica moderna revela que el método sí sublima ciertos compuestos de plomo; es de las pocas veces en el tramo en que Newman usa un verbo fuerte, y lo usa sobre un experimento propio

«An experimental record from June 1693 found in CU Add. 3973 shows that Newton was carrying out exactly this sort of process less than two months before Fatio’s August letter» — el registro experimental de junio de 1693 sitúa la práctica menos de dos meses antes de la carta de agosto

«Whether Newton was subliming the vitriol before carrying out the fermentation as in Fatio’s letter is not specified by his report, though it is far from impossible» — abstención: el informe de Newton no especifica si sublimaba el vitriolo o solo lo mezclaba

«In his typical fashion, Newton initially left out critical material, above all the crucial fact that the vitriol and the lead-based rod had to be combined and also the method whereby that combination was to be effected» — consigna como hábito la práctica de Newton de reservarse el dato crítico

«The obvious answer is that he was a Protestant serving in one of the Huguenot regiments in the England of William III. Fatio himself was a Protestant, so it is no surprise that his French-speaking friend would be of the same persuasion» — la identificación del amigo anónimo de Fatio como protestante hugonote

«Hence Captain de Tegny could well be Fatio’s anonymous friend. But this raises a further interesting point. Despite the fact that muster lists and other records of Cambon’s regiment survive, there seems to be no record of a M. de Tegny among his officers» — la propuesta trae su propia objeción pegada: el capitán de Tegny podría ser el amigo anónimo, pero no hay registro de ningún de Tegny entre sus oficiales

«Nor for that matter have I been able to find a locality called “Tegny” in the former province of Poitou. Even accounting for variant spellings, Fatio surely cannot have meant Teigny in the modern-day department of Nièvre, or Treigny in the department of Yonne, since both of these principalities are found in Bourgogne-Franche-Comté, nowhere near» — segunda búsqueda negativa: tampoco aparece una localidad Tegny en Poitou, y Teigny y Treigny quedan descartadas por geografía

«All of this raises the possibility that Fatio was taken in by a trickster, or that Fatio himself created the mysterious captain as a ruse for beguiling» — dos hipótesis alternativas y ninguna adjudicada: o a Fatio lo engañó un impostor, o Fatio mismo inventó al capitán para embaucar a Newton

«On the other hand, the records are sufficiently incomplete to countenance the possibility that there was a Captain named Tegny among the ranks of Huguenot soldiers in Britain during the early 1690s» — y el contrapeso: los registros están lo bastante incompletos como para admitir que el capitán existiera

«What we can say with certainty is that the collaboration between Fatio and Newton continued on for a considerable time after the letter of August 1, and that the alchemical project in which they were engaged took on an ever more labyrinthine aspect as time progressed» — lo único que Newman afirma con certeza del episodio: la colaboración siguió y el proyecto se volvió más laberíntico

«Fatio’s report from November 14 was thus partly based on a conversation with a gentleman who had his own ideas about the proper material on which to begin the work of making the sophic mercury» — la carta del 14 de noviembre de 1693, que fija el terminus ante quem del tratado

«The Columbia University Newton manuscript, “Three Mysterious Fires,” receives its modern title from the opening words of the document, “The first thing wch must be understood are the three mysterious fires» — dato de atribución: el título del manuscrito de Columbia es moderno y viene de las primeras palabras del documento

«From the content it is clear that these are the three fires of Johann de Monte-Snyders’s Commentatio de pharmaco catholico, a text that we considered earlier in this book» — identifica los tres fuegos con los de la Commentatio de pharmaco catholico de Snyders

«Even without taking additional evidence into account, it is obvious that Newton did not compose the English text. The assertive and cocksure tone of the author sounds completely different from Newton’s own laboratory notes and expositions of difficult authors such as Snyders» — argumento de estilo, no de mano: el tono del texto inglés no es el de Newton

«In short, we are safe to regard this English text as the product of someone other than Newton» — la adjudicación negativa que de ahí se sigue

«Nor does it resemble anything written by Fatio, either during his exchanges with Newton or even in his own extensive alchemical notes found today in Geneva» — tampoco lo adjudica a Fatio; Newman declara haber examinado sus manuscritos alquímicos en la Bibliothèque de Genève

«But there is every reason to see them as a collaborative effort shared by Newton, Fatio, and the adept who may have been M. de Tegny» — la propuesta positiva: esfuerzo colaborativo, y uno de los participantes pudo ser M. de Tegny

«The author equates Snyders’s fusory fire and cold, metallic fire with regulus of antimony, and the sympathetic fire with the deflagrating “yellow powder” consisting of niter, sulfur, and salt of tartar» — la lectura estándar de Snyders que el comentarista anglófono sostiene

«Yet in CU Add. 3975, Newton explicitly states that the niter and sulfur of Snyders’s yellow powder are themselves Decknamen for the doves of Diana» — el cuaderno de laboratorio contradice al tratado: para Newton el niter y el azufre de Snyders son Decknamen de las palomas de Diana, no fuegos literales

«His laboratory notebooks are the most authoritative part of his corpus overall, since they definitely reflect his own experimental work, and CU Add. 3975 was his “master repository” where he recopied earlier experimental» — regla de jerarquía documental declarada por Newman: los cuadernos de laboratorio son la parte más autoritativa del corpus

«They display several features that are characteristic of Newton’s idiosyncratic alchemy, such as his symbols for iron ore and copper ore, 🜜 and 🜠, which I have encountered in no other author» — sobre los símbolos que Newton usa para las menas de hierro y de cobre, Newman declara no haberlos hallado en ningún otro autor

«The difference is that between May 18 and the unspecified date of “Three Mysterious Fires,” the seemingly simple seed planted by Fatio’s letter has hypertrophied and ramified into a tangled tree» — la metáfora del crecimiento entre la carta del 18 de mayo y el tratado

«The first few lines of this passage probably represent a reworking and integration of Newton’s Latin instructions found in Fatio’s letter of August 1, since they rely on the same materials—mineral viride æris (copper ore), lead, though in the form of the metal most characteristic of Newton’s laboratory notebooks, namely, lead ore, rather than the ceruse of the August letter» — propuesta de derivación de las primeras líneas, marcada con adverbio de probabilidad

«These reiterated sublimations are extremely reminiscent of Newton’s experimental notebooks, even though he had largely abandoned the use of corrosive sublimate by the late 1670s» — y su límite: Newton había abandonado el sublimado corrosivo a fines de los años setenta

«Its reemergence here is probably a contribution of his coworkers» — la reaparición del reactivo se adjudica a los colaboradores, con reserva

«The extremely fine detail of this account should not delude the reader into thinking that anyone actually performed the entire experiment, even if individual parts of it may have been carried out» — advertencia expresa al lector: el detalle fino del relato no prueba que el experimento se hiciera

«Unlike Newton’s laboratory notebooks, the language here is unremittingly prescriptive, and the putative results of the operations all fall into the future tense» — el criterio que Newman aplica: lenguaje prescriptivo y tiempo futuro, frente al descriptivo de los cuadernos

«Another feature supporting August 1 as a terminus post quem lies in the fact that Snyders does not appear in that letter (or in Fatio’s previous correspondence); it was probably Newton who brought the elusive German into the discussion, given his long-standing fascination with Snyders’s work» — segundo apoyo del terminus post quem: Snyders no aparece en la correspondencia previa de Fatio

«As for a final date by which “Three Mysterious Fires” might have been composed, one can suggest the date of Fatio’s letter on Terra Lemnia and Terra Sigillata—November 14, 1693» — el terminus ante quem, fijado por la carta de la Terra Lemnia

«Had the Frenchman been called away to join his regiment in Flanders by that time? We have no way to know, but one suspects that by November the project had run its course» — abstención expresa sobre por qué se interrumpió el proyecto

«Newton’s strange behavior led to widespread reports that he was suffering from what the physicist Jean Baptiste Biot would later call a “derangement of the intellect,” or nervous breakdown» — adjudica la expresión sobre el trastorno del intelecto a Jean Baptiste Biot, no a los contemporáneos de Newton

«Newton’s laboratory notebooks do in fact reveal six and a half pages of densely written reports describing experiments carried out in December 1692 and January 1693, so it would be no surprise if he took to falling asleep at his chymical furnaces» — los cuadernos registran seis páginas y media de experimentos entre diciembre de 1692 y enero de 1693

«Although modern attempts have been made to diagnose Newton’s ailment as mercury poisoning, he was well aware of the risks associated with ingesting or inhaling the metal and its compounds, and even copied out a passage from Boyle about its danger to “ye genus nervosum (i.e., compages of ye» — objeción a la tesis del envenenamiento por mercurio: Newton conocía el riesgo y había copiado a Boyle sobre el daño al sistema nervioso

«It seems odd that he would not have recognized the symptoms of mercury poisoning, such as tremors, excessive salivation, and loosening of teeth, if they had presented themselves» — el argumento que la sostiene: habría reconocido temblores, salivación y aflojamiento de dientes

«continued at least throughout the summer supports some degree of linkage to the “derangement” of September, though probably rather on account of exhaustion than heavy metal poisoning» — la posición de fondo, con su límite dentro: sí habría vínculo entre la actividad química intensa y el trastorno, pero por agotamiento antes que por envenenamiento con metales pesados. Citar la primera mitad sin la segunda invierte la tesis

«Westfall speaks of an abrupt rupture between the two men probably occurring before the end of September; we now know that this was not the case, as they were still discussing alchemy on November» — objeción nominal a Westfall: no hubo ruptura abrupta antes de fin de septiembre, y el 14 de noviembre seguían tratando de alquimia

«Thus any attempt to link Newton’s “derangement” to a precipitous break with Fatio around the time of the letters to Pepys and Locke can no longer be countenanced» — la consecuencia que Newman saca de ahí

«In fact, one cannot avoid the suspicion that previous writers on Newton may have overdramatized both his reaction to Fatio and his strange behavior of 1693» — acusación de sobredramatización a escritores previos, sin nombrarlos todavía

«A similar charge of hyperbole can also be leveled at Westfall’s treatment of Praxis, the late alchemical treatise in which Newton actually refers to Fatio’s letter of May 4, where the Genevois spoke of the wonderful powder that could purify quicksilver merely by being shaken with it in a bottle» — y ahí sí los nombra: Westfall, por su tratamiento de Praxis

«For the sake of simplicity, I will henceforth refer to the various pseudonymous writers found in the Last Will and Testament collectively as “Basilius Valentinus” or simply “Basilius.” After all, this is how Newton and his contemporaries referred to them» — decisión de nomenclatura declarada, y su justificación es histórica: Newman llamará colectivamente Basilius Valentinus a los escritores pseudónimos porque así los llamaban Newton y sus contemporáneos

«I am not the first person to notice this fact. In an unpublished paper that he has kindly allowed me to peruse, John Young comes to the same conclusion about the English part of the letter» — cede la prioridad a John Young, por su nombre, sobre la no autoría newtoniana del texto inglés

«Newton’s use of the term “epidemical” is perplexing. One might be tempted to think that he meant that the aforementioned insomnia had become chronic except that “epidemical” was not synonymous with “chronic” even in the seventeenth century; Newton seems rather to be saying that the distemper from which he suffered was widespread among the populace» — filología del término epidemical, que en el XVII no era sinónimo del crónico

«The most sustained argument that Newton was suffering from heavy metal poisoning appears in P. E. Spargo and C. A. Pounds, “Newton’s ‘Derangement of the Intellect’: New Light» — nombra el artículo que más sostiene la tesis del envenenamiento: P. E. Spargo y C. A. Pounds, 1979

«The two authors performed analyses on three locks of hair that are claimed to have come from Newton. Even if the hair is authentic, however, it may well have been collected on his death in 1727, as the authors admit» — el análisis se hizo sobre tres mechones de los que se dice que vinieron de Newton

«This means that some thirty-four years would have elapsed since his experiments of 1693, making the likelihood that the hair samples reflect Newton’s physical constitution at the time of his “derangement” unreliable at best» — la objeción, con su aritmética: treinta y cuatro años entre los experimentos y la muerte hacen las muestras poco fiables

«It is possible, of course, that the Anglophone commentator was not physically part of the group behind “Three Mysterious Fires.” His participation may only have been secondhand, through a transcript of his work made by Newton» — abstención: el comentarista anglófono pudo no haber estado físicamente en el grupo

«The correcting and adding hand does look like Newton’s, but there is too little of it to be conclusive, in my opinion» — sobre la mano correctora de un manuscrito, Newman se abstiene por falta de materia: hay demasiado poco para concluir

«Previous writers on Newton have described the manuscript Praxis as his most important alchemical text, possibly related to the nervous collapse of his “Black Year.”» — la posición ajena, enunciada en tercera persona: escritores previos describieron Praxis como el desvarío del Black Year

«This claim is particularly pronounced in the work of Westfall, who sees the treatise as marking the climactic culmination of Newton’s long alchemical career» — y a quién la adjudica sobre todo: a Westfall

«He argues that Newton composed the text in the spring and summer of 1693, “a time of great emotional stress,” and that Newton’s temporary loss of judgment may have led to the “extravagant claim” of chrysopoetic success found in the document» — resume a Westfall entrecomillando sus propios términos

«For Westfall, the ultimate failure of the processes described in the treatise led to a permanent disillusionment with alchemy on Newton’s part» — la lectura de Westfall sobre el fracaso de los procesos

«In short, Praxis could have been composed at a considerably later date than Westfall thinks, perhaps even after Newton’s removal to London» — segunda pata de la objeción: Praxis pudo escribirse después de la mudanza a Londres

«Second, we now know from the careful work of Karin Figala and Ulrich Petzoldt that Newton did in fact continue his alchemical research in London after becoming warden of the Mint. He even took on another collaborator, the interesting immigrant from Rotterdam, William Yworth» — tercera pata, apoyada en Figala y Petzoldt por su nombre: la colaboración con Yworth

«Finally, the text of Praxis is by no means as extravagant as Westfall makes it out to be. The statements that he takes to be claims of alchemical success are actually conjectural processes rather than affirmations of experiments that were carried out» — cuarta pata: lo que Westfall lee como reclamos de éxito son procesos conjeturales

«If the reader approaches Praxis with a working knowledge of the other Newtonian alchemical notes and florilegia that we have analyzed up to this point, the text appears no less rational than they» — el criterio de lectura que Newman propone al lector

«Indeed, a compelling way to think of Praxis is as a sort of continuation to the operations described in Keynes 58» — la propuesta positiva: Praxis como continuación de Keynes 58

«Despite these seemingly clear divisions, a preliminary reading of the text quickly leads one to sympathize with Westfall’s claim that it reflects a disordered state of mind» — concesión: una lectura preliminar sí lleva a simpatizar con Westfall

«reassembling the disparate parts of a great puzzle distributed piecemeal among the diverse sons of art. As we will now see, the very materials that figured in Newton’s laboratory notebooks, in his interpretations of Snyders (especially Keynes 58), and in his instructions to Fatio can be found in Praxis, though locating them may require a bit of digging» — y el contrapeso: no es desvarío sino la técnica de recomponer un rompecabezas repartido entre los hijos del arte

«In fact, Newton did have a reason, and it is no surprise that the answer to our question can be found in the tradition of Basilius Valentinus, the muse of Snyders» — Basilius Valentinus llamado la musa de Snyders

«It was not difficult, then, for Newton to see a primordial role for these “spermatic” materials, as they contained the seed of gold in a particularly rich, if undeveloped, condition» — el papel primordial que Newton pudo ver en el mineral

«Several powerful clues point to the conclusion that Newton was thinking of crude antimony, that is, the mineral stibnite, which Philalethes had explicitly equated with the first matter of the metals» — la materia prima del capítulo dos identificada con la estibnita, que Philalethes equipara con la primera materia de los metales

«Of course thanks to Philalethes’s occasional use of graduated iteration, the passage could in principle refer both to stibnite and to some material appearing at a later stage in the alchemical process» — el límite: por la iteración graduada, el pasaje podría referirse también a un material posterior

«This gloss reveals without equivocation that the sun is the hidden sulfur within Mars or iron and the virgin earth is either stibnite or the regulus “hidden” within it» — la glosa de Newton que Newman lee sin equívoco

«The goal of this operation, as he had already deduced while a student at Trinity College, was to extract the “spirit of mercury” from crude antimony that had been previously prepared by a process that is not described in Basilius’s text» — el silencio de la fuente se consigna: la preparación previa de la estibnita no está descrita en Basilius

«Similarly, the sublimate is a “virgin earth” and also the “virginal, foliated earth” (terra virginea foliata), whose chaste status stems from the fact that the stibnite has never been subjected to the reducing action of iron, which would yield the regulus of antimony» — la etimología del término virgen: la estibnita nunca ha sufrido la acción reductora del hierro

«The explicit reference to the production of the star regulus means that the chalybs here can only be iron, or rather the putative sulfurous component within iron that is “eaten” by the magnes (stibnite), resulting in the reduction of metallic antimony» — la referencia expresa a la producción del régulo estrellado

«Since Aries was one of the two zodiacal houses in which the planet Mars was traditionally thought to exercise its maximum power, all of these Decknamen were intended by Philalethes to conjure up the metal iron, as Newton correctly understood» — la astrología usada como clave de lectura, y Newman dice que Newton la entendió bien

«But at the point where chapter three descends to practice, the obvious part quickly terminates. Beginning a new paragraph with the caveat, “Now this Sulphur must be also prepared,” Newton launches into a somewhat obscure series of operations» — el patrón que Newman le atribuye al texto: claro en la exégesis, oscuro en cuanto desciende a la práctica

«Newton’s comments reveal that he interpreted these words as an allusive instruction to combine the “immature substances” or ores of iron, lead, and antimony, but for the moment he does not reveal the method by which this combination is effected» — con su límite: la interpretación de Newton no revela el método por el que se efectúa la combinación

«He then goes on to identify the product, for which he uses the Philalethan Deckname “ye menstruum of or sordid whore,” with another alchemical cover name, the mythical echeneis fish or remora that could supposedly arrest the passage of ships at sea» — la identificación del producto con el echeneis o rémora

«This tells us a great deal. We know what spirit of antimony meant to Newton from other sources; this was the same material that he described in Fatio’s letter of August 1, 1693, and the same substance that appears countless times in Newton’s laboratory notebooks, namely, the solution produced by reacting stibnite with aqua regia. Newton is simply telling us here that this spirit or liquor of antimony should be used to dissolve iron ore, then distilled and solidified» — el espíritu de antimonio leído como estibnita tratada con agua regia

«There is no contradiction with chapter one, where the two serpents on the caduceus were either the vitriols of iron and copper or a single mixed vitriol of both, since in chapter three Newton is speaking of the hidden sulfur within iron, which according to his interpretation would also be found in the vitriol made from the metal» — coexistencia justificada expresamente: no hay contradicción con el capítulo uno, porque el azufre marcial está dentro del vitriolo hecho del metal

«The association with Saturn and Mars, or lead and iron, suggests that Newton is interpreting Herod and his sword as another expression for Saturn and his scythe» — la asociación de Saturno y Marte, con verbo de sugerencia

«Newton also said in chapter three that this ferrous salt needed to be drawn from iron ore rather than from the refined metal, and that an extract of lead ore should also be made, again by using antimony. This extract, I propose, is “our Saturn” and King Herod in Newton’s interpretation of Flamel» — la identificación en primera persona y con verbo de proponer, dentro del ancla

«It would be rash to jump to a modern chemical identification of this material, although nitrates and chlorides of lead can indeed taste sweet» — abstención expresa con la fórmula característica del libro, y aun así consigna que nitratos y cloruros de plomo saben dulce

«That Newton meant his proprietary version of “sugar of lead” when he referred to “our Saturn” in chapter four seems fairly well established» — el grado de certeza que Newman se concede sobre la versión propietaria del azúcar de plomo

«One thing stands out beyond the remarkable proliferation of atomized operations in chapter five, and that is the striking role that Fatio de Duillier plays in them. Other scholars have noticed the reference to Fatio’s letter of May 4, 1693, but the astonishing degree of importance that Newton grants it» — reclamo de novedad acotado: otros vieron la referencia a la carta del 4 de mayo, pero el grado de importancia que Newton le da no se había señalado

«It would be a fool’s errand to attempt a detailed explication of this material given the present state of our knowledge, especially since the many steps in the dry and wet ways employ the principle of graduated iteration» — abstención expresa, con su razón: la iteración graduada y el estado del conocimiento hacen inútil la explicación detallada

«Since the Philalethan “rotten” black powder occupied a key position both in Keynes 58 and in the dry and wet ways of Praxis, the contribution of Fatio’s French-speaking adept became a centerpiece of Newton’s plan for acquiring the philosophers’ stone» — el lugar clave que el polvo negro filaletano ocupaba en el camino a la piedra

«To summarize, in the Newtonian reading, Fatio’s ground mineral first became the rotten black powder of Philalethes, and then, with Newton’s insertion of the rabid, reguline child into the discussion, both the powder and the regulus receive the treatment that Philalethes in Secrets Reveal’d had used on quicksilver for making the sophic mercury» — la cadena completa de asimilaciones en la lectura newtoniana

«To conclude this chapter, Praxis should be seen neither as the product of a deranged intellect nor as the culminating denouement of Newton’s alchemical career, but rather as the final product of his collaboration with Fatio de Duillier» — la posición del capítulo, en forma de doble negación: ni producto de un intelecto trastornado ni desenlace culminante, sino producto final de la colaboración con Fatio

«From a modern perspective the image of an alchemist in charge of the coin of the realm may seem utterly incongruous, but one must not forget that chrysopoeia was still an integral part of chymistry even in the final decade of the seventeenth century, taken seriously by the bulk of chymists including Newton’s friends Boyle and Locke» — advertencia contra el anacronismo: la crisopeya seguía siendo parte integral de la química en la última década del XVII

«Since Newton was warden of the Mint only for the span of years beginning in spring of 1696 and ending when he became master of the same institution in December 1699, it is likely that this Captain Hylliard transmitted his paper to the celebrated scientist during that period» — datación por el cargo: Newton fue guardián de la Casa de Moneda de la primavera de 1696 a diciembre de 1699

«What did Newton make of Hylliard’s revelation that the slime deposited by stagnant water contains a great and hidden mystery? We cannot say with certainty, but one thing is sure: he did not reject Hylliard’s gift outright, for a recently discovered Newton manuscript transcribes the captain’s paper verbatim» — abstención con contrapeso factual: no se puede decir con certeza qué pensó Newton, pero no rechazó el papel de Hylliard de plano

«Although Newton makes no comment about Hylliard’s ideas, the fact that he sandwiched the captain’s paper between authors whom we know he favored, namely, pseudo-Ramon Lull and the colorful cast of philosophers in the Turba philosophorum, means that there is every reason to think that he too was intrigued by the “Snake in ye: grasse» — el argumento es de vecindad codicológica: Newton intercaló el papel entre el pseudo-Lull y la Turba

«Royal Society MM/6/5, a late manuscript that lay buried unnoticed in the archives of the Society until 2004, contains a transcript in Newton’s hand of Hylliard’s paper» — el manuscrito estuvo sin advertir en los archivos de la Royal Society hasta 2004

«It is very likely that the manuscript epitomized by Jones contained heterogeneous information, and that only some of the names mentioned actually associated with one another in life» — el límite de la inferencia prosopográfica: aparecer en el mismo manuscrito no prueba trato

«Yet Jones’s notes provide solid evidence that a few of these figures, including the mysterious Captain Hylliard, knew and worked with one another» — y el contrapeso: de algunos de ellos sí hay prueba sólida de que trabajaron juntos

«Evidently then, Captain Hylliard was familiar with the work of Bryant and the justice and probably with the men themselves» — sobre el conocimiento que Hylliard tenía del grupo, con adverbios de probabilidad

«One of these was the “justice” who had an insipid liquor that would quietly dissolve gold, thereby fulfilling one of the traditional desiderata of the sophic mercury, namely, the ability to melt the precious metal like ice in warm water» — el licor insípido que disolvía oro sin ruido cumple uno de los desiderata tradicionales del mercurio sófico

«Instead, both men were arriving at the same practical conclusion by drawing out the logical consequences of the Sendivogian theory of the aerial niter» — la alternativa que Newman propone frente al préstamo: convergencia desde la teoría sendivogiana

«Although it may be tempting to think that Newton, whose experimental research in alchemy focused heavily on processes involving antimony and a host of other metallic materials, had no interest in these attempts to extract the aerial niter from substances that were not metalliferous in the modern sense, this would not be entirely correct» — ataja la tentación de separar a Newton de esta gente

«Although we have no record of Newton performing experiments of that sort, it is not unlikely that Hylliard’s brief paper resonated, even in Newton’s maturity, with a view that he had once vigorously held and perhaps still not altogether abandoned» — abstención con estimación: no hay registro, pero no sería improbable que el papel resonara con una idea que quizá no había abandonado del todo

«Already by the late 1660s Newton had deciphered this correctly as a reference to stibnite, which was often viewed as having its descent from Saturn» — Newton ya había descifrado el pasaje correctamente a fines de los años sesenta

«Like Basilius, Yworth considered this Saturnine substance to be the origin of metals and minerals, and hence a logical place to look for a universal dissolvent that could act “without ebullition” just as “mercury penetrates metals in amalgamation» — lo que Yworth, como Basilius, consideraba de esa sustancia saturnina

«Given the late appearance of the stibnite distillation process in Yworth’s corpus, it is far from impossible that it was Newton who directed the Dutch distiller to that procedure» — la formulación cauta de la conclusión: no es en absoluto imposible que fuera Newton quien dirigiera al destilador holandés

«We know from an independent source that Newton had experienced difficulties in making the operation succeed» — el fracaso documentado en el cuaderno de laboratorio

«Nonetheless, Yworth differs strikingly from Newton in his relative lack of interest in pseudo-Lull. The name does not appear in Keynes 66, nor is it prominent in any of the printed works by Yworth that I have consulted» — búsqueda negativa doble: el pseudo-Lull no aparece en Keynes 66 ni es prominente en ningún impreso de Yworth que Newman consultó

«It is clear that even though Yworth was receiving an “allowance,” both he and Fatio (along with the latter’s anonymous friend) were active research participants, not mere laboratory technicians» — la posición sobre la colaboración: Yworth y Fatio eran participantes de investigación, no meros técnicos de laboratorio

«Newton’s research into the higher arcana of chymistry was not the lone pursuit that Westfall and some other scholars have depicted» — objeción nominal a Westfall y a otros estudiosos sobre el Newton erudito solitario

«Adding this to the material that we have unearthed about the alchemical friend for whom Fatio was the intermediary, the project with Yworth, the “Londoner” who visited Newton in March 1695/6, and the interaction with Captain Hylliard, it emerges that the famous savant was interacting eagerly with a wide range of London chymists on the subject of the philosophers’ stone» — el censo completo de interlocutores alquímicos de Newton

«The bifurcation to be drawn here is not one» — la tesis central del capítulo, y va contra un colectivo sin nombrar: la bifurcación no es entre un mundo animista de la alquimia y un reino seco de la química práctica

«Rather, it is a distinction between chymical projects that were thought to have potentially dangerous consequences, thereby making it imperative to keep them private, and other realms of chymistry that were deemed safe and even salubrious for public consumption» — la propuesta positiva: lo peligroso queda privado, lo salubre se hace público

«We need to avoid falling into the old habit of drawing a hard line between “alchemy” and “chemistry” when placing Newton’s private chrysopoetic ventures into juxtaposition with his public chymistry» — el hábito viejo que Newman pide evitar

«As we have already seen, Newton’s personal laboratory notebooks are filled with themes and goals taken from writers on chrysopoeia, and yet they also employ the published work of the Baconian “naturalist” Robert Boyle at great length, and even make use of David von der Becke’s writings on the chymical affinities at work in sal ammoniac and salt of tartar to advance Newton’s aurific project» — la prueba: los cuadernos personales usan a Boyle y a David von der Becke para adelantar el proyecto áurico

«Newton’s fears have nothing to do with a spiritual or “mystical” dimension of alchemy, but focus solely on the “immense dammage to ye world” that could result from a widespread dispersion of the secrets of the art» — negativa expresa: los miedos de Newton no son místicos, son de daño

«As we have learned from the foregoing chapters of this book, he was willing to entertain the most extravagant assertions of chymical writers, including the claims of Edwardus Generosus that the philosophers’ stone in its lunar form could project deadly, freezing rays, while the solar stone could serve as a source of intense and dangerous heat» — y lo que sí temía, según los reclamos de Edwardus Generosus

«What other powers Newton imputed to these alchemical products we can only imagine, but his point remains clear: although Boyle’s publications on subjects such as the redintegration of niter and the color changes wrought by acids and alkalis were laudable and welcome, he should forego future discussion of arcana majora such as the sophic mercury and hold himself to “high silence» — abstención sobre los demás poderes que Newton imputaba a esos productos

«As we shall see in the next three chapters, there is a steady leakage from the seemingly watertight privacy of Newton’s chrysopoetic projects into his public chymistry» — la metáfora de la filtración constante entre la química privada y la pública

«Important areas of overlap include Newton’s study of the ether, other subtle media, combustion, the microstructure of matter, the causes of fermentation and putrefaction, and the all-important subject of elective affinity» — el programa de los tres capítulos siguientes

«Waxing eloquent on the subject of the ether, Newton called it “Natures universall agent, her secret fire,” and “ye sole onely ferment & principle of ^all vegetation» — el éter descrito como agente universal de la naturaleza y su fuego secreto

«The echoes of Sendivogius’s Novum lumen chemicum are particularly clear when Newton goes on to say that the ether may provide the vehicle for an even more subtle spirit that is in turn “ye body of light,” for the Polish alchemist had claimed that all matter contains a hidden “spark” (scintilla) that is a guiding semen or seminal principle» — el eco de Sendivogius, con la scintilla del polaco

«Probably written between 1673 and 1675, this incomplete treatise of two chapters may well be a précis of a longer work that Newton was planning to write on the subject» — datación con adverbio de probabilidad, y la relación entre los dos textos enunciada como conjetura

«The juvenile status of the work reveals itself, among other ways, from Newton’s treatment of capillary action; he erroneously states that the rising of water in thin glass tubes does not occur “in an exhausted glass vessel» — error de Newton consignado como error: dijo que la capilaridad cesa en vaso exhausto, y no cesa

«Neither the emphasis on repulsion nor the clear, tripartite division into permanent air, exhalations, and vapors is found in Of Natures obvious laws» — la comparación entre los dos textos usada como prueba de evolución

«What is the meaning and significance of this rejection? The reasons for Newton’s dismissal of the volatile niter in the Hypothesis of Light are neither straightforward nor simple, but as we shall see, they expose the inadequacy of facile claims that Newton continued to adhere to an» — la formulación del problema: qué partes de la teoría química conservó Newton

«We know it as a fact that Newton was aware of Hooke’s theory of combustion, for the former’s early notes on Micrographia survive, and they contain extracts to the effect that the air contains a volatile saltpeter responsible for burning as well as respiration» — el único hecho que Newman da por establecido en el tramo, apoyado en las notas de Newton sobre la Micrographia

«Although Hall’s explanation has its attractions, as does the supposition that Newton originally inserted the dismissive passage in the Hypothesis to belittle Hooke, both approaches are ultimately unsatisfactory» — las dos explicaciones disponibles se declaran insatisfactorias, y el límite va dentro del ancla

«The first unequivocal evidence that Newton was developing his own theory of combustion appears in the unfinished “Conclusio” that he wrote for the 1687 edition of the Principia but then suppressed» — la Conclusio inacabada y suprimida de la primera Principia como primera evidencia

«There is no mention of the aerial niter in this discussion of combustion. Instead, Newton argues that the incandescence of red-hot coals is maintained by a “sulphureous spirit» — búsqueda negativa hecha por el propio Newman dentro de la Conclusio: no hay mención del niter aéreo

«Newton goes so far here as to suggest, in a variant on “the solary fewell & materiall Principle of Light” that he had already introduced in the Hypothesis, that the sun itself must have a sulfurous atmosphere in order for its heat and light to continue unabated» — la propuesta del sol con atmósfera sulfurosa

«In particular, what is the relationship of the sulfur resident in combustible bodies to the sulfurous spirit in the air that is required for burning to take place? The earlier passage spoke of a “sulphureous vapor” emitted by bodies such as alcohol and hot wax; is this what the acidic spirit in air is supposed to act on» — el problema queda abierto en la Conclusio, y Newman lo deja abierto

«With the following words, Newton unambiguously substitutes sulfur for the aerial niter as the component in the atmosphere responsible for combustion and respiration» — el texto de marzo de 1691/2, escrito en parte de puño de Newton para Archibald Pitcairne

«In other words, the combustion is due to a chymical affinity between the acid spirit in the sulfur and inflammable particles in the coal. The same principle of chymical affinity is at work when the sulfurous, acidic particles in atmospheric air combine with heated material bodies to produce combustion more generally» — la reducción de la combustión a afinidad química

«In order to reveal this fact, he even constructs a table relating the refractive powers and densities of twenty-two different materials, thus deriving the refractive power of each substance “in respect of its density» — la tabla de materiales que Newton construye para mostrarlo

«His point is that there is chymical affinity between light and the sulfur principle that causes a mutual attraction between the two. Although he does not use the term “affinity,” his meaning is clear: the tiny material corpuscles making up light are attracted by the sulfur in bodies» — con el límite dentro: Newton no usa el término afinidad, y Newman dice que su sentido es claro de todos modos

«This point has been made with great clarity by the historian Alan Shapiro, whose words are well worth quoting here» — cede el punto a Alan Shapiro por su nombre

«Pace Westfall (NAR, 374), it would beggar belief to think that Newton could have upheld his erroneous view as late as 1679, when he was in deep communication with Boyle about the nature of matter» — objeción nominal con la fórmula pace Westfall

«This raises an interesting question: was Newton himself influenced by the phlogiston theory? Although I have found no evidence that Newton read the work of Stahl, he was acquainted with a number of continental chymists who were writing at the period when the Paracelsian sulfur as an inflammable component of metals was gradually metamorphosing into phlogiston» — búsqueda negativa declarada: Newman no ha hallado evidencia de que Newton leyera a Stahl

«It is entirely possible that Boyle held these views early in his career, for the General History of the Air is a pastiche of notes compiled over a period of decades, as Michael Hunter and Edward Davis have shown» — la datación se apoya en Michael Hunter y Edward Davis: la General History of the Air es un pastiche de décadas

«Hence if Newton had an opportunity to discuss the aerial niter with Boyle before his rejection of it in the Hypothesis, he would not have received a rosy endorsement of the theory» — contrafáctico controlado sobre lo que Newton habría oído de Boyle

«Lemery’s theory of subterranean heat caused by sulfur would resurface almost verbatim in Query 23 of Newton’s 1706 Optice and again in Query 31 of the 1717 Opticks, as recently shown by Lawrence Principe» — cede la prioridad a Lawrence Principe, que mostró la reaparición casi literal de la teoría de Lemery en las queries

«Something like this claim possibly underlay Newton’s own theory that the spirit of sulfur per campanam was the agency leading to combustion in general, even if his immediate source was not Lemery» — la propuesta trae su propia reserva: pudo subyacer a la teoría de Newton aunque su fuente inmediata no fuera Lemery

«identity of spirit of sulfur per campanam and oil or spirit of vitriol, and like them he believed this acid substance to be a component of sulfur» — el deslinde exacto: Newton acepta con sus pares la identidad del espíritu de azufre y el aceite de vitriolo

«But Newton differed from them in explicitly locating the inflammable power of sulfur in its acid» — y en qué difiere de ellos: localiza el poder inflamable del azufre en su ácido

«As in the case of Slare’s work, Newton reprised Lemery without attribution, to which he added some observations showing how he managed to adapt the French chymist’s comments to his own theory of combustion and respiration» — segundo préstamo sin atribución, esta vez de Lemery, y Newman lo nombra como tal

«Significantly, the “subtle niter” that produces a gunpowder-like explosion with sulfurous winds in Lemery’s version becomes “nitrous Acids” in Newton’s reworking, thus removing any possible echoes of the aerial niter» — la sustitución medida: el niter sutil de Lemery se vuelve ácidos nitrosos en Newton

«Instead of modeling thunder and lightning directly on gunpowder as Lemery had done, Newton presents what he considers a more fundamental explanation based on the intense heat generated by mixing sulfuric and nitric acids, the “sulphureous Steams” and “nitrous acids” of his account» — y el efecto de la sustitución, leído como decisión

«In short, Newton’s sulfurous theory of combustion was actually an acid theory of combustion, owing at least as much to the Hookean and Boylean notion of the air as a menstruum as it borrowed from the growing emphasis on sulfur promoted by the proto-phlogiston chymists» — la reformulación de fondo, con su genealogía doble: la teoría sulfurosa de la combustión era en realidad una teoría ácida

«The school of Isma’īlī alchemists associated with the semifabulous Persian Jābir ibn Ḥayyān had already laid the foundations, albeit quite vaguely, for thinking of matter in corpuscular terms where a given portion of matter was said to have an external, “manifest” part and an internal, “occult” or hidden part» — el linaje se enuncia con su reserva dentro: los cimientos los puso, aunque vagamente, la escuela en torno a Jābir ibn Ḥayyān

«These ideas became an integral part of medieval and early modern Western alchemy and were importantly reworked by the Flemish chymist Joan Baptista Van Helmont in the early seventeenth century» — y esas ideas fueron retrabajadas de manera importante por Van Helmont

«Van Helmont explicitly treated water and other materials as consisting of structured atoms with sulfur and mercury layers that could be inverted on occasion to produce radically different properties, such as the conversion of a liquid to a vapor (or as Van Helmont says, “gas» — los átomos estructurados con capas de azufre y mercurio invertibles

«The chrysopoetic echoes in this famous passage are obvious. The idea of a universal transmutability of matter induced by a menstruum that makes gold ferment cannot help but suggest the opening words of Secrets Reveal’d, where Philalethes asserts that “our Gold-making POWDER (which we call our Stone)” consists of nothing but “Gold digested unto the highest degree.” In Secrets Reveal’d the gold is first dissolved by a menstruum in the form of the sophic mercury, whereupon it undergoes subsequent putrefaction and fermentation» — el eco crisopéyico del pasaje famoso

«Newton even reproduces the precise quantities of materials given by Slare and passes on the caveat that the turpentine must be thickened with balsam of sulfur, all without the slightest mention of Slare or his publication» — dato de atribución sobre el propio Newton: reproduce las cantidades exactas de Slare sin la menor mención de Slare ni de su publicación

«But one of Hauksbee’s achievements had been to show that electricity can not only attract small bodies but also repel them, and this observation allowed Newton to assimilate the experimental curator’s work to his own concept of a fundamental, short-range repulsive force active in matter» — la repulsión eléctrica de Hauksbee asimilada a la fuerza repulsiva de corto alcance

«Fermentation, then, is a process that precedes putrefaction proper; the latter, when carried to completion, results in a total loss of form making it impossible for the body to be returned» — la relación de orden que Newman establece: la fermentación precede a la putrefacción propiamente dicha

«This is a key feature of fermentation in his mind, as it helps to explain how a small quantity of an active material can effect great changes on another substance by something akin to a chain reaction» — la reacción en cadena como explicación de por qué basta poca materia activa

«Newton himself had pursued this topic in his experimental notebooks: two pages of CU Add. 3973 dating from 1692 and early 1693 discuss the action of barm, the agent of fermentation in beer making; this discussion falls squarely in the midst of Newton’s notes on making volatile Venus, Neptune, and other chrysopoetic desiderata» — el dato codicológico que enlaza los dos mundos: las notas sobre la levadura de cerveza caen en medio de las notas del proyecto áurico

«Evidence of the role that chrysopoetic transmutation continued to play in Newton’s thoughts on processes of decay and transformation can be seen in some additional comments from his draft of Query 25 in CU Add. 3970 that probably stem from his reading of the Philalethes corpus» — la evidencia de que la transmutación crisopéyica seguía operando en el corpus filaletano

«Although much has been written on the “active principles” that Newton believed to be the origins of observable phenomena such as the falling of bodies, insufficient notice has been given by scholars to the equal billing that Newton grants to the causes of fermentation» — objeción a un colectivo sin nombrar: se ha escrito mucho de los principios activos y poco del papel igual que Newton da a las causas de la fermentación

«Other comments in Query 31 make it clear that for Newton the term “fermentation” did not necessarily imply continued activity. If provided with sufficient material on which to act, at least some ferments can continue their action indefinitely, but there are also fermentations of short duration» — el límite: no toda fermentación es autosostenida

«What can be said with certainty is that he became the patron saint of chymical attraction as the century progressed» — lo que sí puede decirse con certeza: Newton fue el santo patrono de la atracción química conforme avanzaba el siglo

«Newton could easily have described this phenomenon in terms of elective affinity; the “secret principle” of sociability between the water and the salt of tartar would thus be greater than that between the spirit of wine and the water» — Newman señala lo que Newton pudo decir y no dijo, y el adverbio carga el argumento

«The chymical affinities described by such staunch Newtonians as Cullen and» — la frase-remate del capítulo, cortada por el salto de plana; la segunda mitad se cita aparte

«Eighteenth-century affinity charts agree with Philalethes about the series so far as the solution of iron, copper, and silver go, though lead and tin are more problematic» — la comprobación contra las tablas del XVIII, con su reserva sobre plomo y estaño

«Newton’s discovery of elective affinity in chrysopoetic writers once again points to the arbitrary character of modern divisions between early modern chemistry and alchemy» — la moraleja metodológica del libro: el carácter arbitrario de las divisiones modernas entre química y alquimia

«Newton does not, to my knowledge, use the actual term “elective affinity,” which achieved popularity in the second half of the eighteenth century. Nonetheless, he employs the principle of relative interactivity between different substances, which is the essential characteristic of affinity theory. This was widely recognized by eighteenth-century writers on affinity tables who read Query 23 of the Latin Optice or Query 31 of the 1717 Opticks. Hence I employ the term “elective affinity” advisedly» — declaración de método: Newton no usa el término afinidad electiva, y Newman lo emplea a sabiendas porque Newton sí emplea el principio

«Clericuzio overgeneralizes, however, when he says on page 277 that “Most alchemists maintained that the philosophers’ stone transmuted metals by means of fermentation» — acusación de sobregeneralización a Antonio Clericuzio, por su nombre y con página

«An exception is J. E. McGuire, “Force, Active Principles, and Newton’s Invisible Realm,” Ambix 15 (1968): 154–208, though in McGuire’s complicated treatment it is easy to lose sight of the fundamental distinction that Newton means to draw between observable phenomena such as the weight and tendency of bodies to fall (their gravity) and the invisible cause of their weight and falling (the active principle responsible for gravity» — excepción concedida a J. E. McGuire, con reserva sobre lo intrincado de su tratamiento

«Unfortunately, however, Klein links her useful spadework to inflated claims about Geoffroy’s significance in the history of chemistry over the longue durée, based on a misunderstanding of previous chymical theory» — objeción a Ursula Klein por su nombre: el trabajo de campo es útil, los reclamos sobre Geoffroy descansan en un malentendido de la teoría química previa

«Newton was concerned that Boyle, whom he described to Nicolas Fatio de Duillier in 1689 as “too open & too desirous of fame,” had provided an indirect path for the vulgar that might lead to a dangerous dispersion of alchemical secrets» — el primer motivo de Newton para no colaborar con Boyle, en palabras del propio Newton dentro del ancla

«As he also said to Fatio, Boyle had at “divers times offered to communicate & correspond wth me in these matters but I ever declined it,” again because of Boyle’s excessive openness» — y la oferta que Newton dice haber declinado siempre

«habitual horror of popularizing the arcana majora. Newton thought that Boyle was on the wrong path to alchemical success, and the material that we covered in the previous chapters allows us to see why» — el otro motivo, y Newman lo tiene por el importante: Newton pensaba que Boyle iba por mal camino

«It is now known that Boyle’s incalescent mercury was actually a version of Starkey’s sophic mercury, which the young New Englander had taught Boyle to make in the early 1650s» — lo que hoy se sabe y Newton no: el mercurio incalescente de Boyle era el mercurio sófico de Starkey

«certainly have recognized that Boyle’s antimonial mercury was based on an interpretation of Philalethes, even if that interpretation did not square with Newton’s own idiosyncratic understanding of the American adept» — lo que Newton casi con certeza habría reconocido, aunque no cuadrara con su propia lectura

«Newton was not prevaricating when he denied any “great excellence in such a ☿ either for medical or Chymical operations.” Just as he explained to Oldenburg, the incalescent quicksilver was a pseudosophic mercury that could penetrate no farther than ordinary corrosives did into the corpuscular microstructure of gold» — el veredicto sobre la sinceridad de Newton: no estaba mintiendo

«Although he was quite wrong in identifying the two, since in 1676 Boyle was thinking of Starkey’s sophic mercury, the presence of incalescence was enough for Newton to mark Rothmaler’s product as a mere sophistication rather than a true means of making gold putrefy and vegetate» — Newman consigna que Newton se equivocó al identificar los dos mercurios

«It is therefore not unlikely that Newton was using the term in this derogatory sense when he expressed his doubts to Locke about multiplication in general» — la propuesta, con doble negación cautelosa

«The impression that Newton carefully tries to convey is one of a delicate game where the possessor of the secret was the cat and Newton a reluctant mouse» — y el aviso de que se trata de una impresión buscada, no necesariamente de un hecho

«The affable Locke must have been reminded of Odysseus tied to the mast at his own request so that he could not succumb to the song of the Sirens» — la comparación que Newman propone para la posición de Locke

«The self-confidence that allowed Newton to overturn two millennia of optical theory and to dismantle Cartesian physics with the Principia was the same awareness of his special status as a novitiate in the fraternity of the adepts» — la identificación de las dos seguridades: la que le permitió derribar dos milenios de teoría óptica es la misma que su conciencia de novicio entre los adeptos

«Nor can we argue that Newton’s attempts to decipher the enigmas of the adepts were anything but rational. Never does he appeal to the evidence of his own dreams, for example, despite the fact that some, like Starkey and his hero Van Helmont, occasionally relied on an oneiric epistemology to account for the fact that God could reveal alchemical knowledge in the form of nocturnal visions» — la racionalidad de Newton establecida por una ausencia: nunca apela a sus propios sueños, a diferencia de Starkey y Van Helmont

«Yet by no means should we see Newton’s private, chrysopoetic project as a mere quest for the production of effects. To the contrary, as the queries to the Opticks make clear, there was a seamless boundary between Newton’s public thoughts about the deep structure of matter and his attempts to put the relative affinities governing corpuscles to work in the privacy of his laboratory» — el contrapeso, y es el corazón del libro: el proyecto crisopéyico no es mera búsqueda de efectos

«Can we see something of his reclusive, aloof character, his reliance on a brilliant, innate acumen to the exclusion of any personal warmth, and above all his belief that he stood above the herd of common intellects, fully justified by his scientific discoveries, as stemming from his early and ongoing idealization of the adepts» — la última abstención del libro, sobre si modeló su carácter según los adeptos

«Did he model himself on the unerring and inaccessible sons of art? No certain answer can be given, but Newton may well have felt himself an alchemist in the most essential part of his nature even if his long pursuit of the philosophers’ stone did not yield the results that he had hoped for when, as a callow youth, he set his aim at “somthing beyond ye Reach of humane Art & Industry» — y lo que aun así se permite proponer, con adverbio de probabilidad

«Terra damnata” was a standard technical term for any residue left behind after a calcination, yet on Schaffner 1v, Newton has misread the expression» — la prueba decisiva es un error de lectura, no de estilo: terra damnata malleído dos veces

«There is no evading the fact that the chymical novitiate mistook a trivial term of art intended to refer to leached calcination products in general for a specific type of fixed salt, whether the error originated with him or derived from copying a defective manuscript» — y lo que Newman concluye de ese tipo de error

«I have retained Newton’s erratic hyphenation at line breaks throughout the transcription» — decisión editorial declarada: conserva la partición errática de Newton en los saltos de línea

«I have not examined the manuscript in situ but have made the following transcription from a photocopy found in the papers of Richard Westfall at Indiana University» — declaración de límite de la fuente: no examinó el manuscrito, transcribe de una fotocopia hallada en los papeles de Richard Westfall

«The preliminary English section is written in an assertive and cocksure tone that is alien to the cautious approach found in Newton’s other alchemical manuscripts of the period. This is unlikely to be his own composition» — el argumento de tono sobre la sección inglesa

«The authorship of the Latin text is more ambiguous, since it employs Newton’s idiosyncratic symbols for the ores of various metals, and it displays other Newtonian characteristics such as his emphasis on repeated sublimations with differing proportions of ingredients» — la sección latina sí trae rasgos newtonianos

«Nonetheless, formal considerations make it highly unlikely that the Latin section as we have it represents an original composition by Newton alone» — pero las consideraciones formales hacen muy improbable que sea composición original de Newton solo

«text contains a six-word passage of alternate readings in curly brackets, suggesting that Newton was copying something in a hand that he could not make out fully» — la primera prueba formal: seis palabras entre llaves con lecturas alternativas, señal de que copiaba de una mano que no descifraba

«This impression is corroborated by the five clear lacunas in the Latin section, where Newton again could not make sense of the script that he was copying. The fourth of these lacunas even retains the superscript inflectional suffix “mam,” meant to go at the end of a Latin word that Newton obviously could not read» — la segunda: cinco lagunas, y en una queda colgado el sufijo de una palabra latina que no pudo leer

«I have chosen passages that highlight Yworth’s characteristic chymical terminology. Although the individual Decknamen employed are of course not unique to him, their aggregate is nonetheless indicative of his idiosyncratic interpretation of the terms» — el criterio de prueba viene con su límite: los Decknamen individuales no son exclusivos de Yworth, lo indicativo es el agregado

«The fact that Newton’s questions and Yworth’s answers are interspersed among four lines of comments drawn from an unidentified book dealing with classical mythology is probably an artifact of their being an apograph rather than the original transcript» — el argumento de que es apógrafo y no el original

«As for the possible objection that Yworth has changed his meaning by deleting “Green Lyon” and replacing it with “Fiery Dragon,” this is vitiated by the fact that a few lines later the Processus adds that the green lion is a foul and heterogeneous component of the fiery dragon that must be separated from it» — objeción anticipada y contestada con el propio texto: el cambio de nombre no cambia el sentido

«At various points in Query 31, he refers to fermentation as though it is an independent phenomenon on an equal footing with electricity, magnetism, and gravity, in other words, something akin to what we would today call a fundamental force» — la afirmación de fondo del libro sobre la física de Newton: en Query 31 la fermentación aparece a la par de la electricidad, el magnetismo y la gravedad

«The 1675 Hypothesis of Light develops the idea of a hidden principle of activity further, referring to a “secret principle of unsociablenes” between different substances» — el principio secreto de insociabilidad como estadio intermedio entre la asociación temprana y la afinidad electiva de Query 31

«But Newton, who neither knew that Starkey was the real author of the Philalethes writings nor that the Clavis was taken from Starkey’s 1651 letter to Boyle, never accepted the validity of the process described there» — la respuesta descansa en una doble ignorancia de Newton, y en que nunca aceptó la validez del proceso

«The term “multiplication,” which appears in various forms three times in Newton’s letter, could be used as a blanket term for all alchemical transmutation, but it did not necessarily have such a wide meaning in every case» — la propuesta filológica que sostiene la lectura: multiplicación podía ser término genérico para toda transmutación, pero no necesariamente

«Although the passage is long and intricate, no other writing by Newton captures so well the guarded character of chymical exchanges in the seventeenth century» — reclamo de singularidad documental: ningún otro escrito de Newton captura igual el carácter guardado de los intercambios químicos del XVII

«Newton believed himself to be a member, or at least an apprentice, in an exclusive brotherhood, the school of Sendivogius, Philalethes, Snyders, and the other inaccessible intellects whom he thought to have attained the higher reaches of the hermetic art» — la tesis del epílogo: Newton se creía miembro, o al menos aprendiz, de una hermandad exclusiva

«The evidence is strong, then, for the “Treatise of Chymistry” stemming from another author rather than from the pen of Newton» — adjudicación negativa de autoría: la evidencia apunta a que el Treatise of Chymistry no salió de la pluma de Newton

«A comparison of Royal Society manuscript MM/6/5 and Newton’s partial transcript of William Yworth’s Processus mysterii magni in Keynes 66 provides convincing evidence that MM/6/5 contains the product of an oral interview held between Newton and Yworth» — la tesis única del apéndice: el manuscrito de la Royal Society contiene el producto de una entrevista oral

«It is therefore likely that Newton’s own chrysopoetic research and experimentation, coupled with his wide chymical reading, led him to compile the lists of solutions and displacements that characterize Query 31» — la conclusión del capítulo, y es una tesis de origen: la investigación crisopéyica propia de Newton probablemente lo llevó a compilar las listas de Query 31

León verde (leo viridis) — En las notas de Newton: «the green lion is antimony, the crudest of all minerals»; también «every material brought back to its crudity».

Mercurio de los filósofos (Mercurius) — El proyecto central: el mercurio sófico (antimonio digerido con plomo, las águilas como sublimaciones) compartido con Boyle.

Piedra filosofal (lapis philosophorum) — La chrysopoeia como programa de vida: del anónimo Treatise of Chymistry juvenil al Praxis tardío y la red londinense.