Alchemy: The Philosopher's Stone by Allison Coudert

Review by: William Eamon

Isis, Vol. 72, No. 3 (Sep., 1981), pp. 511-512
Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of The History of Science Society
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 BOOK REVIEWS-ISIS, 72: 3: 263 511

steelmaking techniques across the Atlantic, Buchanan provides a good discussion of

where Holley played a pivotal role. He not the engineers of the British canal era and
only served as an advocate and promoter appends a valuable table of ninety-seven
but was the stubborn and resourceful prac- canals and their engineers. The only article
tical engineer who could make the new that confronts a specific incident of inter-
methods work in a different environment. action between technology and society is by
CHARLES K. HYDE Svante Lindqvist, who details the history of
the conflicting water supply demands of the
Gota Canal and Forsviks Bruk, an adjacent
Per Sorbom (Editor). Transport Tech-
industrial site. David Hounshell's discus-
nology and Social Change. (Tekniska
sion of the rise of bicycle manufacturing in
Museet Symposia, 2.) 296 pp., illus., bibl.
the United States is insightful and leaves
Stockholm: Tekniska Museet, 1980. SKr
one looking forward to more from him on
110, $25 (paper).
the same subject. The foremost historian of
This volume consists of the proceedings tunneling, Gosta E. Sandstr6m, provides a
of the second symposium in the history of rambling and enjoyable discussion of the
technology at the Tekniska Museet at difficulties of Alpine transit from Hanni-
Stockholm in Sweden. (The text is in Eng- bal's crossing to the drilling of the modern
lish.) It is recommended for university motor vehicle tunnel, Fr6jus II.
libraries. The majority of its articles are The book is marred by a few entries
lucid, written by scholars in the field, and that may have been entertaining as papers
have footnotes or bibliographic references. but do not deserve appearing in print.
The summary nature of most of the contri- There are numerous illustrations of ade-
butions will make them useful for under- quate quality but no list of them in the front
graduate students and their teachers. matter. The book also lacks an index.
The subject area of the symposium was DARWIN H. STAPLETON
broad, but the symposium organizers
called for papers dealing with five topics:
prehistoric migration, canals, the tech- * Alchemy
nology of navigation, the bicycle, and ex-
treme transports. These topics tend to be Allison Coudert. Alchemy: The Philoso-
emphasized at the expense of the general
pher's Stone. 239 pp., illus., bibl., index.
subject of technology and social change, Boulder, Colo.: Shambhala Publications,
putting this volume more in the internalist
1980. $9.95 (paper).
stream of the history of science and tech-
nology than its title suggests. The thesis of this attractive and enter-
For historians of science the most im- taining book is that alchemy was a philoso-
portant segment of the book might well be phy of life expressed in chemical terms,
three articles dealing with the development an art that addressed the eternal human
of navigational instruments and means of concerns of life, death, and the transforma-
calculating latitude and longitude in the tion of the soul. In illustrating this view,
sixteenth to eighteenth centuries. John W. Coudert, an art historian, draws upon a
Shirley's article emphasizes the role of wide range of subject matter, including
Elizabethan mathematicians in providing folklore and mythology, psychology, an-
English navigators with the aids that thropology, religion, iconography, and the
allowed them to sail confidently to the New alchemical literature of China and the
World or around the globe. Deborah Jean West. Necessarily she has relied heavily on
Warner traces the creation of lunar tables secondary sources, but the result of her
and Hadley's quadrant and examines their research is a highly readable survey of the
interrelationship and increasing sophisti- alchemical tradition that will serve under-
cation. David W. Waters's paper has graduate audiences very well; the book
greater breadth, considering the entire will, no doubt, find its way into courses on
problem of accurate long-distance naviga- the history of chemistry and on the history
tion in the modern era, but he does focus of relations between science and the occult.
on the role of the British Board of Longi- Stylistically as well as in terms of con-
tude in stimulating the development of an tent, the book is nicely suited for such
accurate chronometer. readers. The language is simple and non-
Other notable contributions are more in technical, and the book is richly illustrated
the realm of history of technology. R. A. with reproductions drawn mainly from

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512 BOOK REVIEWS-ISIS,
sixteenth- and seventeenth-century al-
chemical texts and emblem books. No
specific argument is sustained; rather, the
book treats in a general fashion such
themes as ancient alchemical theory, al-
chemical riddles, goldmaking alchemy, al-
chemy and psychology, and the search for
the elixir of the soul. What emerges is a
somewhat romanticized picture of the al-
chemist as a reverent mystic, in contrast
to the "passionless, pragmatic" modern
chemist. Little attention is given to the
operational aspects of alchemy, nor are
we told much about the process whereby
alchemy became chemistry, although
Coudert maintains that it did. Although I
fully agree with the idea presented here
that alchemy was fundamentally a spiritual
endeavor, I do not think that we can arrive
at a balanced picture of the art by ignoring
the workshop, where many of the alche-
mists' spiritual exercises were undoubtedly
undertaken.
On the whole the book is handsomely
printed, but there are serious typographical
flaws on pages 76 and 78, where entire por-
tions of paragraphs apparently are missing.
WILLIAM EAMON
Alan Pritchard. Alchemy: A Bibliography
of English-Language Writings. vii + 439
pp., app., bibls., index. London/Boston/
Henley: Routledge & Kegan Paul, with the
Library Association, 1980. $75.
Undoubtedly the most useful bibliog-
raphy of alchemy and related subjects ever
to be compiled for the English-language
reader, this book belongs in all research
libraries. It makes accessible to the novice
a very wide range of materials not usually
noted in standard bibliographies, and even
the experienced laborer in the occult vine-
yard will discover new terraces to cultivate.
One major section comprises references
to alchemical texts. Only those available in
English are offered, but the list is analyzed
by the country or general area of origin, as
a consequence of which the reader of this
section incidentally learns much about the
relative influence of different regions upon
the English alchemical tradition. Six pages
suffice for French entries, for example, and
seven for Greek and Hermetic ones, but
Germany requires thirty-seven pages. Two
other sections list secondary works about
alchemy. One of these relates the entries to
the country or area of the primary focus of
discussion; the other presents works in
This content downloaded from 62.122.79.23 on Fri, 9 May 2014 16:27:12 PM
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
72: 3: 263
which alchemy is treated in a general way
or in which alchemy is related to other
subjects of potential interest. In this last
section the broad cultural impact of al-
chemy makes itself felt, with subsections on
all the variegated aspects of the occult but
also on psychology, medicine, chemistry,
science in general, art, music, and litera-
ture. Other subsections deal with symbol-
ism and with religious sects.
Pritchard wisely did not aim at a full
coverage of all editions of his materials,
which would surely have forced him to
publish in many volumes, nor did he at-
tempt to record much manuscript material.
The reader should be aware of the vast
alchemical literature in other languages
and of the many alchemical tracts that have
circulated extensively without ever reach-
ing print. Nevertheless, there are few if
any gaps in this bibliography that might
hinder or prevent ready entrance into a
study of any facet of alchemy. Pritchard is
to be congratulated on a difficult job well
done.
B. J. T. DOBBS
* Middle Ages
Marshall Clagett. Studies in Medieval
Physics and Mathematics. (Collected
Studies Series, CS 103.) v + 366 pp., figs.,
index. London: Variorum Reprints, 1979.
?22.
This volume contains reprints of thirteen
articles originally published between 1948
and 1978. Although the articles are unre-
vised and the need in some cases to con-
dense a larger original to a smaller page
has sometimes resulted in quite small print,
the physical characteristics of the volume
are good, and the presence of an index
compiled by Peter Marshall is a definite
advantage.
The first seven articles concern medieval
physics. For medieval specialists, the most
useful of these articles may well be those
that contain Latin texts of the Tractatus
bonus de uniformi et difformi and of Fran-
cesco of Ferrara's Questio de proportion-
ibus motuum, the second of which has a
sixteen-page index verborum. Both of these
texts were originally published in Florence
and may not have been readily accessible.
For the nonspecialist there are two articles
that survey medieval physics: the first,
originally published in Isis in 1948, reveal-