Reif, Mary

Reif, Mary Richard. Natural Philosophy in Some Early Seventeenth Century Scholastic Textbooks. Ph.D. diss., Saint Louis University, 1962. 

Newman, Promethean Ambitions chapter 2, and Technology and Alchemical Debate, pp. 423-445. The centrality of alchemy in such discussion even in the seventeenth century is acknowledged by Sister Mary Richard Reif, Natural Philosophy in Some Early Seventeenth Century Scholastic Textbooks (Ph.D. diss., St. Louis University, 1962), p. 238 One final question briefly touched upon by several authors concerns the possibility of producing a truly natural product by means of human skill. TTie question is usually posed in this way Can art effect certain works of nature The specific problem which they almost always have in mind is the transmutation of baser metals through the art of alchemy. ... 

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