The Aspiring Adept: Robert Boyle and His Alchemical Quest

«I labored on deciphering the allegorical emblems and enigmas contained i n Valentine's first-published w o r k Ein kurtz Summarischer Tractat, better k n o w n as Die Zwölff Schlüssel or The Twelve Keys» — Principe relata el origen del proyecto: descifraba los emblemas del primer impreso de Basil Valentine

«I was fairly confident that one of these figures portrayed the volatilization of gold, a process that fit well w i t h the universal alchemical dictum "to make the fixed volatile" in order to prepare the Philosophers' Stone» — la conjetura de partida, sobre la volatilización del oro y el dictum de hacer volátil lo fijo

«One label we can attach to both is chymistry—where the archaic orthography signals that we mean the sum total of alchemical/chemical topics as understood in the seventeenth century» — la propuesta terminológica: «chymistry», con la ortografía arcaica como señal

«I do not think, however, that chymistry alone is a complete solution» — y su límite, en la misma página: Principe no da el término por suficiente

«I understand M r . Boyle communicated his process about the red earth and mercury to you as well as to me» — Newton escribe a Locke menos de un mes después de la muerte de Boyle, sobre la «red earth»

«An Historical Account of a Degradation of Gold made by an Anti-Elixir (published anonymously in 1678» — el tracto del Anti-Elixir, que Principe cuenta entre los recordatorios de la actividad alquímica de Boyle

«The first of these epitomes, four volumes published by Richard Boulton in 1699-1700, already begins to skew Boyle's works away from chymistry» — sobre el primer epítome, el de Richard Boulton

«reduces them from the original 700 pages to only about 150» — la medida de esa reducción, sobre el Sceptical Chymist y el Producibleness

«A second epitome, and one much more widely used, was produced by the chemist Peter Shaw in 1725» — el segundo epítome, de mayor circulación

«Shaw's introduction contains a passionate four-page defense of Boyle from the "imputation of credulity» — Principe señala el registro apologético de Shaw

«The most important of these is the Turba philosophorum, a text cast as a meeting of adepti to discuss the Stone» — adjudica a la Turba el lugar de precedente dialógico del Dialogue on Transmutation

«saw neer 100 of M r . Boyles high Dutch Chymicall bookes ly exposed in Moorfeilds on the railes» — Robert Hooke, el 21 de marzo de 1693, según lo transcribe Principe

«H o w many of these w o u l d fall into the category of chrysopoeia is open to some question» — y el límite que Principe pone a ese testimonio en la misma página

«a laboratory notebook of George Starkey's that records some of his labors to make the Stone and the alkahest» — entre los siete volúmenes manuscritos redescubiertos en la Royal Society en 1994

«Boyle almost always masks chrysopoetic and spagyric material w i t h a profusion of codes» — sobre el cifrado sistemático de los papeles

«It was this persistent use of codes that prevented John Locke, Daniel Coxe, and Edmund Dickinson from sorting Boyle's chymical papers after his death» — adjudica a los códigos el fracaso de los tres albaceas

«the key or keys of the Chemical terms, w i t h o u t which they could order n o t h i n g» — la queja de los albaceas al ejecutor John Warr, Jr., citada por Principe

«w o n t to melt as it were naturally . . . w i t h o u t Ebullition (almost like Ice in luke-warm w a t e r» — es BOYLE quien escribe el símil, describiendo la disolución del oro en menstruum peracutum

«Classical descriptions of the preparation of the Stone repeatedly use this very simile of dissolving "naturally like ice in w a r m water" quite specifically in order to describe the action of Philosophical Mercury on gold» — y Principe señala que el símil es fórmula canónica, no ocurrencia de Boyle

«But Boyle much more often adhered to the "Mercurialist" method» — la adscripción de Boyle según Principe

«The Mercurialist school follows the via sicca, or "dry way," maintaining that the Philosophical Mercury is a metallic solvent prepared from common mercury, "the water which does not wet the hands» — la doctrina de esa escuela, por la vía seca

«this experiment was performed i n the hands of Henry Oldenburg and L o r d Brouncker, president of the Royal Society» — los testigos del mercurio incandescente

«N e w t o n commends Boyle's secrecy, saying that he "does prudently in being reserved» — Newton a Oldenburg, carta del 26 de abril de 1676

«the fingers of many w i l l itch" to learn the preparation» — de la misma carta

«N e w t o n declares that he does not believe that there is any "great excellence" in Boyle's product» — y de la misma carta, el juicio desfavorable de Newton sobre el producto

«Miles seems to have destroyed this valuable item along w i t h another valuable part of the correspondence from Herigo mentioned below» — sobre el «Mandate» de 1678 llegado desde Caen

«the rest of the Pierre correspondence seems to have survived thanks only to Miles's ignorance of foreign languages» — el alcance de esa pérdida, acotado por Principe

«a fragment of a remarkable dialogue that may be part of Boyle's " O f the supernatural arcana pretended by some Chymists" listed in his ca. 1680 inventory of alchemical w r i t i n g s» — sobre el fragmento que Principe edita como apéndice 3

«That there is great danger of and i n mistaking an evill spirit for a good one» — de los «Arguments for the Negative» del diálogo, transcrito en el apéndice 3

«That most of the stories o w n of witches and apparitions are fictitious or unfitt to be credited» — del mismo lado negativo

«That tis not difficult for the Adepti to discriminate good spirits from evill ones» — y de los «Arguments for the affirmative», en la página siguiente del manuscrito

«I H A V E consistently used the seventeenth-century editions of all of Boyle's works, as I find them preferable to the eighteenth-century Birch editions for a number of reasons.» — Principe declara su criterio de edición: usa siempre las ediciones del siglo XVII de Boyle porque las prefiere a las dieciochescas de Birch

«Additionally, all translations and transcriptions are mine unless otherwise noted.» — y advierte que todas las traducciones y transcripciones del volumen son suyas, salvo aviso

«Robert Boyle (1627-1691) is undoubtedly one of the most influential and fascinating characters of the seventeenth century.» — el punto de partida: Boyle como uno de los personajes más influyentes del siglo XVII

«M a n y science textbooks also routinely refer to Boyle as the "Father of M o d e r n Chemistry," citing h i m as the man w h o broke once and for all from the irrational, misguided alchemy that preceded h i m .» — el rótulo escolar que la monografía se propone discutir: Boyle como padre de la química moderna que rompió con la alquimia irracional

«While it is the task of this volume to refute the double error of that last assertion, there is no denying Robert Boyle's profound impact on the development of experimental science, scientific method, and scientific culture that has earned h i m an enduring place in history.» — Principe anuncia la tarea del volumen frente a ese rótulo, sin negar el peso de Boyle en la ciencia experimental: lo llama un doble error

«Lingering prejudices against what has been seen for the past t w o centuries primarily as irrational and misguided—at worst mere charlatanry and at best pseudoscientific—still persist in some quarters.» — sobre el prejuicio de dos siglos que sigue leyendo la alquimia como irracional o como charlatanería

«Alchemy also makes a very convenient (and simplistic) foil against which to set off modern science.» — y sobre la comodidad historiográfica de usarla como contraste del que se recorta la ciencia moderna

«Further, much published literature on alchemy is simply bad—pitiful translations of primary sources, ahistorical caricatures masquerading as history, and a parade of modern esoterica and assorted fluff presented as if they were directly connected to historical alchemy.» — no exime a la literatura sobre alquimia: traducciones malas, caricaturas ahistóricas y esoterismo moderno presentados como historia

«We must acknowledge, however, that much of that previous horror was based upon a very poor notion of what alchemy was.» — el diagnóstico de Principe sobre el horror previo a la alquimia: descansaba en una noción muy pobre de qué era