Corpuscular chemistry

We have seen that Boyles mechanical explanations were ultimately sterile, although they had their supporters, as did other versions of corpuscular chemistry. These supporters, especially in France and England, argued, as Boyle had done, for providing what were essentially physical explanations for chemical phenomena, based on the shape, size, motion, and arrangement of atoms and groups of atoms. 

The stark distinction that Clericuzio and Chalmers draw between Boyle s corpuscular chemistry and his mechanical philosophy cannot hold, however. One will certainly agree that Boyle was deeply interested in chymistry for its own sake as also for its Baconian (and Helmontian) usefulness—he was, after all, an aspirant to such chymi-cal Arcana Maiora as the philosophers stone and the alkahest. It is also true that Boyle does not generally try to impose a strict reductionism on chymical phenomena by leading them back to the catholic affections of... 

According to Newton, atoms were solid, heavy, hard, impenetrable and mobile particles that God made at the Beginning, but he did not accept the idea that atoms were characterized only by the force of inertia - a passive principle in virtue of which bodies remain in movement or at rest meaning that there would be neither destruction nor generation (as with life). Such a corpuscular chemistry as a site of conceptual experimentation on the sequence of atomism, assumed that the constituent elements did not continue to exist potentially in a compound but composed it actually. Chemical transformation had to be thought of in terms of the separation and combination of particles, which were thus assumed invariant and incorruptible, existing prior to combinations and remaining themselves in mixts . 

Fig. 2.3 The structure of Dominant Sehool Chemistry consists of a combination of a specific substantive substructure based on corpuscular theory, a specific philosophical substructure educational positivism, and a specific pedagogical substructure intended to provide the initiatory and preparatory training of future chemists...

It is important to imderstand why confusing messages occur. When, for example, the philosophical and pedagogical snbstracture change without reconsidering the content or at least the focns on corpuscular theory, an inconsistency between the snbstractmes of school chemistry occurs. To quote Schwab again (Schwab, 1978, p. 242),... 

Boyle (1661) attempted to provide a more definite concept and attributed the sour taste of acids to sharp-edged acid particles. Lemery, another supporter of the corpuscular theory of chemistry, had similar views and considered that acid-base reactions were the result of the penetration of sharp acid particles into porous bases (Walden, 1929 Finston Rychtman, 1982). However, the first widely accepted theory was that of Lavoisier who in 1 111 pronounced that oxygen was the universal acidifying principle (Crosland, 1973 Walden, 1929 Day Selbin, 1969 Finston Rychtman, 1982). An acid was defined as a compound of oxygen with a non-metal. 

Clericuzio, Antonio. A redefinition of Boyle s chemistry and corpuscular philosophy. Ann Sci 47 (1990) 561-589. 

Newman, William Royall. "The corpuscular transmutational theory of Eirenaeus Philalethes." In Alchemy and chemistry in 16th and 17th century, eds. Plyo Rattansi and Antonio Clericuzio, 161-182. Dordrecht Kluwer, 1994. 

Ether chemistry was not unheard of in the nineteenth century, and it provided a palatable escape for those uncomfortable with simple corpuscular theories. Thus, Berthelot s chemical mechanics was consistent with ether mechanics ... 

Boyles criticism of those who write no less than an entire body of physiology and his own reluctance to offer one of his own in spite of his vast exploration of mechanical and corpuscular models, testifies to the uncertain theoretical state of chemistry in the late seventeenth century. In the absence of a clear body of universally accepted paradigms of chemical thought, every chemist felt free to write his own system. More than a century later, the situation had hardly changed, for according to Joseph Priestley men still created systems for their own vanity. 

Our insights into Boyles chemical attitudes have been recently enlarged by the following careful studies Antonio Clericuzio, A Redefinition of Boyle s Chemistry and Corpuscular Philosophy, Ann. Sci. 47 (1990) 561-589 and Michael Hunter, ed. Robert Boyle Reconsidered (Cambridge New York Cambridge University Press, 1994), 10. 

Dalton s theory of the atom is generally considered to be what made the atom a scientifically fruitful concept in chemistry. To be sme, by Dalton s time the atom had already had a two-millenium history as a philosophical idea, and corpuscular thought had long been viable in natmal philosophy (that is, in what we would today call physics). 

William B. Jensen begins the volume with an overview of scientific atomic theories from the 17 through 20 centuries. He mentions ancient atomism, but he begins in earnest analyzing corpuscular theories of matter proposed or entertained by natural philosophers in the 17 century. He describes the dominant flavors of atomic notions over fom centuries, from the mechanical through the dynamical, gravimetric, and kinetic, to the electrical. Jensen is Oesper Professor of Chemical Education and History of Chemistry at the University of Cincirmati and was the foimding editor of the Bulletin for the History of Chemistry. 

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