42 ALLEN G.

DEBUS

RENAISSANCE CHEMISTRY AND

THE WORK OF ROBERT FLUDD
By ALLEN G. DEBUS·

IF we glance at the scientific literature of the seventeenth century in a cursory

fashion, we are left with the impression that the scholars of the second half of
the century had a far different outlook toward nature than did those of the
period before 1650. We find that a high percent~ge of the works written in the
early seventeenth century are loaded with a mysticism and occultism which
seem to be the very antithesis of modem science. Yet, if we look at the closing
decades of that century, we are bombarded with a host of names with whom we
identify the foundation of modern science: this is the time of Robert Boyle, of
Isaac Newton, of Leibnitz, of Huygens; it is the time of the founding of the
greatest of the scientific societies and of the first really important scientific
journals. The mid-seventeenth century has been termed one of the great
watersheds of history, and the word would seem to be an apt one for the history
of science as well as for other fields, for the man of the twentieth century can
often identify himself and sympathize with the aims and approach of the late-
seventeenth-century scientists even though works dating from the early part of
that century often seem to be little more than the decayed remnants of medieval
mysticism and magic. And if we would not trust our own judgement in this
estimate, we need seemingly only tum to the most commonly read scientific
classics of the first half of the century. In the Dialogue on the Great World
Systems of 1632 and the Discourses and Demonstrations Concerning Two New
Sciences of 1638, Galileo as Salviati repeatedly overturns the arguments of his
conservative adversary Simplicio. This would appear to be the herald of the
forthcoming triumph of modern mechanics over moribund mysticism and
antiquity-and it is understandable, I think, that these texts have profoundly
coloured recent interpretations of the rise of modern science.
If we tum specifically to the development of chemistry in this crucial century,
we seem still to see the same dichotomy. After 1660 there appeared the
numerous publications of Robert Boyle-The Sceptical Chymist, The Origin of
Forms and Qualities-and these and other works seem to give a new direction to
the science by demolishing the arguments of the alchemists and establishing.
chemistry as one of the firm experimental pillars of the new mechanical philo-
sophy. In this field perhaps more than in other branches of science, we find

• Associate Professor of the History of Science, The University of Chicago, Chicago,

Illinois 60637. (By courtesy of the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, University
of California, Los Angeles, this is a slightly revised version of a paper read at a Clark Library
seminar held on 12 March, 1966.)
 RENAISSANCE CHEMISTRY AND THE WORK OF ROBERT FLUDD 43

ourselves at a loss to understand the earlier literature. Chemistry before Boyle

and the general acceptance of corpuscularity seems mired in an abyss of
mystical alchemy with wondrous stories-of Paracelsus and his homunculus or
his secret powder stashed away in the pommel of his sword, of powders of life
which enabled the owners to live past the age of one thousand years, and of the
inevitable tales of transmutation which caused burghers and princes alike to
waste their resources. This is the view of pre-Boylean chemistry which is
prevalent in the minds of those who regard the rise of atomism as the beginning
of modem chemistry.
Because of this, I think it is not surprising that, for the most part, historians
of chemistry have sought solid achievement, as measured in modern scientific
terms, in the early texts rather than attempted to unravel the mystical symbols,
dreams, and allegories in which they abound. As a result, some of our most
valuable contributions to the field in recent years have been attempts to extract
chemical processes from tracts on the philosopher's stone, plus examinations of
early medical and chemical works from the viewpoint of pharmaceutical
chemistry, and careful studies of the metallurgical works of the Renaissance.
Typical is the statement of Cyril Stanley Smith and R. J. Forbes that "the
assayer excelled the alchemist in all but the desire for a systematized philo-
sophy".! Yet this very statement grants to the alchemists considerable
importance, for surely the desire for a systematized philosophy is a basic
requisite for the advance of science. One cannot deny that a careful analysis
of the alchemical texts, pharmaceutical works, and metallurgical treatises of the
Renaissance for their actual chemical content is of profound importance for our
knowledge of the growth of the science as we know it, but I feel that the blanket
dismissal of other supposedly "nonscientific" aspects of early chemistry to the
realm of occultism, mysticism, and magical hocus-pocus does nothing to add to
our knowledge of the birth of modern science. The widespread appeal of the
mystical Renaissance universe as interpreted by the iatrochemists in the period
from the death of Paracelsus to, say, 1670 makes it a subject of special concern
for historians of science and historians of medicine, and it deserves more
attention than it has customarily received.
To understand this, we might begin by looking at works written during the
Renaissance to see what the authors meant when they spoke of chemistry or
alchemy. For the most part, the aims of these chemists, as expressed in their
definitions, are not unexpected. Chemistry is the spagyric art, the art of
separating the pure from the impure; again, it is the art of perfecting the

1 C. S. Smith and R. J. Forbes. "Metallurgy and Assaying", in A History of Technology,

ed. C. Singer. E. J. Holmyard, A. R. Hall, and T. I. Williams, New York and London, 1957,
III, 59. Similarly see A. C. Crombie, "Quantification in Medieval Physics", Isis, LII
(1961), 143-60, p. 158•
 ALLEN G. DEBUS

imperfect in nature, that is, the art of transmuting impure metals to gold and
silver. And, as the alchemist is concerned with curing the sick in inanimate
nature, so is he concerned with the preparation of medicines for the ills of
mankind.
These were the most common definitions-practical ones which offer alchemy
as an art. Yet there was a broader definition as well. Writing in the tradition
of the iatrochemical text-book authors in 1660, Nicholas Le Fevre divided the
study of chemistry into three main branches. One of these was pharmaceutical
chemistry, the actual preparation of those chemical remedies which had been
prescribed by the chemical physician. On a higher level was the work of the
iatrochemist himself, who utilized theory in conjunction with practical knowledge
to prescribe the chemical medicine which could cure his patient. Above these
divisions, however, Le Fevre placed philosophical chemistry, whose high priests
were Paracelsus and Basil Valentine in the past and van Helmont and Glauber
in his own day. He states that
Chymistry is nothing else but the Art and Knowledge of Nature it
self; that it is by her means we examine the Principles, out of which
natural bodies do consist and are compounded; and by her are discovered
unto us the causes of their sources of their generations and corruptions,
and of all the changes and alterations to which they are liable ... -

In short, the chemical philosopher thinks of this science as the "true Key of
Nature."1
Such claims derive ultimately from traditional alchemy. Centuries earlier,
Bonus of Ferrara had spoken of alchemy as "the key of all good things, the
Art of Arts, the Science of Sciences",' while the pseudo-Lullian treatise Incipit
Practica super lapitle philosophico begins with a sweeping definition of alchemy.
The alchemist was not to be concerned only with the purification of metals and
driving forth illness from man; the author goes on: Broad definitions such as

Sons, this science is called flos regalis through which the human
intellect is rectified through the force of experience with respect to the
eyes and true observation since its experiments cannot suffer phantastic
proofs, and rather if gives a vivid entrance to the intellect to all other
sciences [my italics-A.G.D.] since it has divine virtues to penetrate
those truths which are veiled . •. I

- Nicasiu8 I.e Febure, A Compleat Body of Chymistry, trans. P. D. C., Esq., one of the
Gentlemen of His Majesties Privy-Chamber, London, 1670, p. I.
I Ibid., p. 3.

'Bonus of Ferrara, The New Pearl of weal Price, trans. A. E. Waite, London, 1963,
P·138.
I Bibliotheca Chemica Curiosa, ed. J. J. Manget, Geneva, 1702, I, 763.
 RENAISSANCE CHEMISTRY AND THE WORK OF ROBERT FLUDD 45

these are not uncommon in Medieval Latin texts, but the same works were
devoted, for the most part, to the search for the philosopher's stone, and it is
primarily in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries that we see a sincere effort
to view all of nature as a vast chemical laboratory. In great measure, the
Paracelsians were responsible for this. Paracelsus insisted that alchemy gave
us an "adequate explanation of the properties of all the four elements", meaning
thereby that alchemy has as its province the study of the whole cosmos.6 It
was this broad meaning of the word which his followers referred to when they
spoke of the chemical philosophy. In England, R. Bostocke explained in 1585
that true medicine is nothing other than "the searching out of the secretes of
nature", and this is to be carried out by resort to "mathematicall and super-
naturall precepts, the exercise whereof is Mechanicall, and to be accomplished
with labor". Thus, medicine was equated with our science, but Bostocke went
on to state that the real name for all of this was simply chemistry or alchemy.7
Other theoretical Paracelsists and mystical alchemists such as Peter Severinus,
Oswald Croll, Michael Maier, and Robert Fludd, took much the same line.
They believed that natural phenomena might best be interpreted through
chemical studies or analogies, and that true medicine is essentially nothing but
chemistry.
There was a deep religious significance connected with the chemical philo-
sophy. As devout Christians, the Paracelsians believed strongly in the twofold
revelation of the Lord. Commenting on this, Thomas Tymme wrote:
The almighty Creatour of the Heauens and Earth, (Christian Reader),
hath set before our eyes two most principall Bookes: the one of Nature,
the other of his written Word ... The wisedome of Natures booke men
commonly call Naturall Philosophie, which serueth to allure to the
contemplation of that great and incomprehensible God, that wee might
glorifie him in the greatncsse of his worke. For the ruled motions of
the Orbes the connexion, agreement, force, vertue, and beauty of
the Elements are so many sundry natures and creatures in the world,
are so many interpreters to teach us, that God is the efficient cause of
them and that he is manifested in them, and by them, as their final! cause
to whom also they tend.8
Indeed, we need the book of nature to understand divinity. If man had not
sinned, nature itself would have been. enough for man's knowledge of his
Creator; but because of the fall of man, "God hath given us his sacred Booke,

• Paracelsus, Samtliche Werke, ed. Karl Sudhoff and Wilhelm Matthiesen, Munich and
Berlin, 1922-33, VIII, 55f.
., R. B., Esq. [R. Bostocke), The difference betwene the auncient Phisicke ... and the
latter Phisicke, London, 1585, sig. Bi (r).
• Thomas Tymme, A Dialogue Philosophicall, London, 1612. From the dedication to
Sir Edward Coke, Lord Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas, sig. A3.
 ALLEN G. DEBUS

by meanes whereof, as also by his holy spirit, he communicateth to us as much

heauenly light as is needfull for the knowledge of our selues, and of his high
Maiestie" .9
The implication is clear: to understand his Creator, man may obtain truth
both through the Holy Scriptures, or through some mystical religious experi-
ence, and through his diligent study of nature, God's book of Creation. At all
events, the "heathenish" Aristotelian and Galenic teachings of the schools
must be rejected and the universities themselves must be reformed to accom-
modate this new Christian learning.
The almost evangelistic zeal of the Paracelsians toward fresh observations
and experiments is characteristic of them. Although this zeal derives in part
from their alchemical heritage, it is nevertheless true that they were strong
supporters of the call for a new and unprejudiced investigation of nature.
PYrotechny became their key to this knowledge-the anonYmous author of the
Philiatros (1615) joyously exhorted his readers to "put then on Glouves and
Cuffes, for you must to the fire, and happily to the fiery Furnace".l° Peter
Severinus, the revered Danish Paracelsian philosopher, urged all true physicians
to
sell your lands, your houses, your garments and your jewelry; burn up
your books. On the other hand, buy yourselves stout shoes, travel to
the mountains, search the valleys, the deserts, the shores of the sea, and
the deepest depressions of the earth; note with care the distinctions
between animals, the differences of plants, the various kinds of minerals,
the properties and mode of origin of everything that exists. Be not
ashamed to study diligently the astronomy and terrestrial philosophy of
the peasantry. Lastly, purchase coal, build furnaces, watch and operate
with the fire without wearying. In this way and no other, you will arrive
at a knowledge of things and their properties.ll
These men prided themselves on their independent investigations. Rejecting
the current philosophical debate on the different element systems in the mid-
1580'S, Thomas Moffett scornfully commented that
Some wish that there should be but one element. while others think
there are many, and some even think they are infinite, innumerable and
immovable: these assert that there are two, those three, some others say
four, while others still demand eight.l2
But, for Moffett, the Paracelsians were in a different class. For them, the body
of man (and therefore all created things, if man is to be considered a true

• Ibid.
10 Philiatros, London, 1615,. fol. 14.
11 Petrus Severinus, Idea Medicinae Philosophicae. 3rd ed., Hagae Comitis. 1660, p. 39.
11 Thomas Moffett, De Jure et Praestantia Chemicorum Medicamentorum (1584), in
Theatrum Chemicum, ed. L. Zetzner, Argentorati, 1659, I, 101.
 RENAISSANCE CHEMISTRY AND THE WORK OF ROBERT FLUDD 47

microcosm) "consists of sulphur, mercury, and salt alone, not because we know
this as perfectly as Adam, but because the actual resolution of all kinds of
natural as well as artificial bodies shows it to be SO".I3 Moffett was wrong, of
course, but we do find him here appealing to the alchemical laboratory tradition
rather than to sterile philosophical disputations.
On the surface, the Paracelsians' rejection of traditional learning and their
definition of chemistry as an experimental, mathematical, and mechanical
investigation of nature sound remarkably modem. Yet, what was this chemical
philosophy based upon? We find a substructure of Hermetic, Pythagorean,
and neo-Platonic thought.l' Essential to all orthodox Paracelsian theorists
was the macrocosm-microcosm analogy, a scheme still so widely accepted in the
sixteenth century that it was seldom felt necessary to defend it. One need only
cite the Emerald Table of Hermes, or a host of other revered authors, or perhaps
the innumerable signs or signatures which seemed to link heaven and earth.
In the Triumphal Chariot of Antimoney, Basil Valentine offers a typical alchemi-
cal "dream sequence", in which he affirms that he ascended on high and, in so
doing, viewed the whole universe and thus proved the correspondence of the
macrocosm and the microcosm.Io In general, this was a truth accepted by
everyone, and it seemed to require no formal proof.
Also deriving from Hermetic sources was the emphasis on the Biblical story
of Creation. Here the most commonly cited Paracelsian source is the Philo-
sophy to the Athenians. In it the Creation is interpreted essentially as a divine
chemical separation in which special emphasis is placed on the elements from
which all other substances derive. In the Philosophy to the Athenians the
discussion centres primarily around the traditional Aristotelian elements; other
authors, such as Joseph Duchesne, interpret the same text from the viewpoint
of the three principles.16
If the Creation reduced to a chemical process, it seemed not improper to
conclude that nature must continue to operate in chemical terms. Reflecting
this viewpoint, Le Fevre observed that "Chymistry makes all natural things,
extracted by the omnipotent hand of God, in the Creation, out of the Abysse of
the Chaos, her proper and adequate object"P The relationship of the two
worlds played an important part here. The created universe was conceived to

18 Ibid., p. 100.
U See especially Walter Pagel, Paracelsus, Basel, 1958; Das Medizinische Weltbild des
Paracelsus: Seine Zusammenhange mit Neuplatonismus und Gnosis. Wiesbaden, 1962.
11 Basil Valentine, The Triumphal Chariot of Antimony, with a Commentary by Theodore

Kerckringius, trans. A. E. Waite, London, 1893, p. 184.

11 Joseph Duchesne (Quercetanus), The Practise of Chymicall, and Hermeticall Physicke,

trans. Thomas Tymme, Minister, London, 1605, sig. Hi.

17 Le Febure, op. cit., p. 8.
 ALLEN G. DEBUS

be relatively small, with all of its parts interconnected. In his Paracelsian

apology, Oswald Croll concentrated on this "divine Analogy of this visible
World and Man". He affirmed that
Heaven and Earth are Mans Parents, out of which Man last of all
was created; he that knowes the parents, and can Anotomize them, hath
attained the true knowledge of their child man, the most perfect creature
in all his properties; because all things of the whole Universe meet in
him as in the Centre, and the Anotomy of him in his Nature is the
Anotomy of the whole world ... 18
Similarly, Elias Ashmole observed that "Iudiciall Astrologie is the Key of
N aturall M agick, and N aturall M agick the Doore that leads to this Blessed
Stone".19 In other words, the study of the heavens is the key to natural magic,
which he defines as natural or mathematical philosophy, and this in turn is the
key to the highest science, alchemy.
The Paracelsians called for observation and experiment-but in relation to
a preconceived belief in the unified macrocosm and microcosm. Severinus had
insisted that the true physician must learn the dispositions of the elements, the
times of the rising and setting of the stars, the periods of the planets, the origins
of the comets and winds, thunder and lightning, and rains, and the differences
of animals, metals, and minerals. Only after learning all of these thirigs, and
many others, would he properly see the correspondences between nature and
supernature.20 The chemical philosophers, whenever possible, interpreted
their observations from a chemical viewpoint. The formation of the earth's
crust could seemingly be duplicated in chemical flasks, mountain streams
could be explained in terms of earthly distillations, thunder and lightning were
no less than an explosion of aerial sulphur and nitre duplicating gunpowder on
a grand scale, and the rains were due to macrocosmic circulations that imiatated
the heating of water in the alchemical pelican.21
But the Paracelsians were physicians, and that which interested them most
was the relation of all this to man, the microcosm.
For example, we might look at the work of Joseph Duchesne, who, after
considering the formation of meteors, turned immediately to analagous forma-
tions in the microcosm. He suggests that vapours and exhalations rising from
the lower regions of the brain become condensed in the same way that clouds

11 Osw. Crollius, Discovering the Great and Deep My~eries of Nature, in Philosophy
Reformed and Improved, trans. H. Pinnell, London, 1657. p. 24.
II Theatrum Chemicum Britannicum, collected and annotated by Elias Ashmole, London,
1652, p. 443·
10 Severinus, pp. 18-21.

11 For a general discussion of this topic, see Allen G. Debus, The English Paracelsians,
London, 1965, chap. I.
 RENAISSANCE CHEMISTRY AND THE WORK OF ROBERT FLUDD 49

and rains form on the earth. In mild form the result may be a cold and a run-
ning nose, in more violent form a more serious disabling of the body. In any
case, he concludes that such investigations will teach us the true source of winds,
sleet, and snow, on the macrocosmic level, and of ringing in the ears, paralepsy,
and apoplexy, on the microcosmic level, since in all of these cases the ultimate
cause is the congealing of mercurial vapours by a sudden cooling effect.22
An even more interesting example dates from a half-century later. Johann
Rudolph Glauber states that since the blood circulates in the body, "why
should not also such a Circulation in the Macrocosm be admitted as true?"
And he goes on to show that the earthly waters have a complex circularity
analagous to that of the blood.23 Here, writing a generation after Harvey's
great work, an author often referred to as one of the major chemists of the
seventeenth century finds that the new discoveries only strengthen his belief
in the macrocosm-microcosm analogy. And again, what we learn by observa-
tion will have a twofold meaning on the macrocosmic and microcosmic levels.
By the opening of the seventeenth century, Oswald Croll felt that Paracelsus'
dream of overturning the ancient doctrines of the schools was imminent if not
yet quite achieved. He pointed out that the courts of Euope did not lack
competent Paracelsians, and quoting one of them, Albertus Wimpeneus, he
argued that the Paracelsian v iews had triumphed because of the success of their
chemical hypotheses, because of the inherent progress of medical knowledge,
and, finally, because of the simplicity and truth of the macrocosm-microcosm
analogy. 24
The success of the Paracelsians, however, was not so pleasing to other
scholars. In Paris, Father Mersenne was genuinely alarmed by the number of
scholars who were turning to natural magic, alchemy, and Paracelsism as an
alternative to the works of the ancients. In his commentary on Genesis (1623),
Mersenne specifically attacked the comparison of the Creation with a divine
chemical separation, and two years later in his La Verite des Sciences he devoted
some four hundred pages to a refutation of the claims made by the alchemists
that their subject was an exact science. Only then did he proceed to a des-
scription of mathematics, which he felt should be the basis of man's new
understanding of the universe-and, for Mersenne, mathematics did not mean
the numerological studies of the alchemists. In his campaign against the
alchemists he proceeded to enlist the support of his friends. Pierre Gassendi
was to become his chief all,y in his crusade. In a sense, this confrontation may

II Joseph Du Chesne, Traictl de la Matiere, Preparation et excellente vertu de la M edecine

balsamique des Anciens Philosophes, Paris, 1626 (1st Latin ed., 1603). p. 183.
II J. R. Glauber, Works, trans. Christopher Packe, London, 1689, pp. 248£.

u Crollius, op cit., pp. 142-7.

50 ALLEN G. DEBUS

be viewed as a major chapter in the rise of modern science, for it has been sugges-
ted that Gassendi's search for an alternative to natural magic and alchemy
convinced him that atomism might be adopted as a basis for a new mechanized
science.26
The immediate focal point of the attack of Mersenne and Gassendi was
centered on the volumes of the now nearly forgotten mystical alchemist Robert
Fludd, and for this reason Fludd's writings assume for us an importance which
they would not have if we were interested only in anticipations of modern
discoveries. It seems appropriate, then, to turn briefly to Fludd's work, which
he modestly called his "Fluddean Philosophy", but which is little more than an
extreme example of the more general Hermetic-Parcelsian approach to nature.26
Robert Fludd was born in Kent in 1574, and he had the advantage of
obtaining an excellent education at Oxford. After receiving his master's
degree in 1598, he spent six years as a student on the continent, where he became
interested in the complexities of the alchemical approach to nature. On his
return to England in 1604, he obtained his M.D. degree at Christ Church,
Oxford, and then moved to London, where he quickly developed a most
successful practice. Later in the century, when referring to the mystical and
dark language of Fludd's works, Thomas Fuller mentioned "the same phrases
he used to his patients; and seeing conceit is very contributive to the well
working of physic, their fancy or faith natural was much advanced by his
elevated expressions".27 It is perhaps not surprising that his espousal of
mysticism interfered with his immediate acceptance by the Royal College of
Physicians, but late in 1609 he became a fellow of the College, where he was to
become a close friend of William Harvey. In later years, he was considered a
highly respected member, and he served as Censor four times prior to his death
in 1637.

16The details and consequences of this conflict are beyond the scope of this paper. The
reader will find the most recent account in Frances A. Yates, Giordano Bruno and the
Hermetic Tradition, Chicago, 1964, pp. 432-55, and L. Cafiero, "Robert Fludd e la polemica
con Gasscndi", Rivista Critic a di storia filosofia, Part I, XIX (1964), 367-410; Part II, XX
(1965), 3-15. An older but basic study is R. Lenoble, Mersenne ou la naissance du
mecanisme, Paris, 1943; and the Fludd-Kepler exchan~e has been discussed by W. Pauli in
"The Influence of Archetypal Ideas on the Scientific Theories of Kepler", in C. G. Jung and
W. Pauli, The Interpretation of Nature and the Psyche, trans. Priscilla Silz, New York, 1955.
Allen G. Debus has noted the significance of Fludd's controversies in his various works
cited in this paper; in addition to these, see his "Robert Fludd and the Use of Gilbert's
De Magnete in the Weapon-Salve controversy", Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied
Sciences, XIX (1964), 389-417 .
•• On Fludd's work, sec Debus, pp. 105-27. On Fludd's life, see J. B. Craven, Doctor
Robert Fludd, Kirkwall, 1902; C. H. Josten, "Truth's Golden Harrow: An Unpublished
Alchemical Treatise of Robert Fludd in the Bodleian Library", Ambix, III (1949), 91-150.
17 Thomas Fuller, The Worthies of England, ed. John Freeman, London, 1952, p. 281.
 RENAISSANCE CHElYIISTRY AND THE WORK OF ROBERT FLUDD 51

In 1616, the German alchemist Michael Maier visited England, and although
there is no direct evidence that he contacted Fludd, it would seem likely that he
did. This is all the more probable because Maier was closely connected with
the new Rosicrucian movement and in 1616 Fludd published his first book,
which was a defense of the Brotherhood of the Rosy Cross against the attack of
Andreas Libavius.28 In this fairly short work he lashed out against the
reliance of the schools on the ancients and he summarized his views on the
Creation and the origin of the elements. He delved into these themes in far
greater detail in a series of folio volumes which he began to have published in
the following year. These massive volumes resulted in the conflicts with
Mersenne and Gassendi which have been referred to, and also Johannes Kepler
and many others took note of Fludd's theories. In these books, Fludd described
in detail his alchemical cosmology and, at the same time, paused to refute the
heliocentric theory and to reinterpret much of the magnetic work of William
Gilbert. The first of these major works was the Utriusque Cosmi Maioris
scilicet et Minoris Metaphysica, Physica atque Technica Historia (1617), and for
the next twenty years his works continued to pour forth from the presses.
Fludd, like all other Renaissance chemical philosophers, had an implacable
hatred of Aristotle even though Aristotelian influences are evident throughout
his work. As his prime authority he preferred to turn to God's two books of
revelation-one, His written book, the Holy Scriptures, and the other, nature,
God's book of Creation. There was no question in Fludd's mind that the first
of these was the most important, for although he could appreciate the value of
experimental research, he clung more tenaciously than most to the mystical
approach of the neo-Platonists. For him, the Holy Scriptures and the semi-
divine Hermetic corpus carried far more weight than ocular demonstrations
ever could. He might turn to mechanical examples to demonstrate the
immobility of the Earth, he might invoke Harvey's dissections to demonstrate
the solid structure of the septum of the heart, and he might quote the experi-
ments of William Gilbert and Mark Ridley to show the truth of sympathetic
magic, but each of these was a lesser form of proof. It should be pointed out,
however, that when he was attacked with experimental evidence, Fludd was
quite capable of defending himself from his adversary's point of view. When
opposed by Gassendi on the question of the circulation of the blood, Fludd
argued that Gassendi's experimental evidence was invalid because it was based
on the results of only one dissection, whereas his own belief, that the blood

•• Robert Fludd, Apologia Compendiaria Fraternitatem de Rosell Cruce Suspicionis et

Infamiae Maculis Aspersam, Veritatis quasi Fluctibus abluens et abstergens, Leiden, 1616;
Tractatus Integritatem Societatis De Rosea Cruce dejendens, Lugduni Batavorum, 1617;
Schutzschrift fur die Aechtheit der Rosenkreutzergesellschaft ••• Ubersetzt von Ada Mah Booz,
Leipzig, 1782.
52 ALLEN G. DEBUS

circulates in the body, was founded not only on his philosophical convictions but
also on the results of a great number of dissections.29•
Fludd's emphasis on the Holy Scriptures echoes the Hermetic and Paracel-
sian belief that our most important source for the study of nature may be found
in the opening chapters of Genesis. As we have seen in the PhilosoPhy to the
Athenians, we see again in Fludd's account that the divine Creation is pointed
to as the great "spagerick act" of separation. Fludd explains that
it was by the Spagericall or high Chymicall virtue of the word, and work-
ing of the Spirit, that the separation of one region from another, and the
distinction of one form all virtue from another, was effected or made: of
the which business the Psalmist meaneth where he saith: By the Word
of the Lord the heavens were made, and by the Spirit from his mouth
each virtue thereof. 30
For Fludd, the Mosaic, or Fluddean, philosophy is based upon this mystical
chemical account of the Creation. The origin of all things may be found in the
primeval dark Chaos from which arose the divine light. The latter then acting
on the Chaos brought forth the waters, which are the passive matter of all other
substances. This, then, is the true Mosaic philosophy which is built upon the
three primary elements of darkness, light, and the waters or the Spirit of the
Lord. These three are the primary elements, and it is from the waters that all
secondary elements derive-and if for Fludd the Paracelsian principles could
easily be explained also by this system, the significant secondary elements are
the traditional Aristotelian elements, earth, water, air, and fire. The process
by which this was accomplished was simple and yet divine. The primary
waters were separated first into a heavenly or fiery portion and an earthy
portion. The latter in turn was divided into the spheres of air, water, and earth.
Fludd insists that it must follow then
that both the Starrs in the higher heaven and the compound-Creatures,
beneath in the Elementary world, be they~meteor910gicall, or of a more
perfect mixtion, namely Animal vegetable or minerall, must in respect of
their materiall part of existence proceed from waters ... 81
For Fludd, water was the prima materia of tangible substances, and after
giving a series of observations which seemed to support this view, he concluded
that "earth is dense water, and water is dense air, while on the other hand, air

It On Fludd's use of observational techniques, see Allen G. Debus, "Robert Fludd and the

Circulation of the Blood", Journal of the History of Medicine, XVI (1961), 314-93; The
English Paracelsians, pp. 105-21; and "The Sun in the Universe of Robert Fludd", Le Soleil
Ii la Renaissance-Sciences et Mythes, Colloque International tenu en Avril I963 ... , Brussels,
1965, 259-18.
10 Robert Fludd, Mosaicall Philosophy, London, 1659 (1st ed., Gouda, 1638), p. 115.
II Ibid., p. 48•
 RENAISSANCE CHEMISTRY AND THE WORK OF ROBERT FLUDD 53

is nothing else than dense and crass fire". 32 He then suggested that the
observable differences between the four elements are due to the different
amounts of light present in them. One might reason that by distilling or
boiling water over a fire one would be adding heat to it. Since heat and light
are inseparably connected with one another, one could then say that the
operator is adding light to the water, and with this assumption one would expect
the water to be converted to air, and this is just what happens.36 Hence, one
could assume that there is a larger proportion of light in air than in water.
Throughout all of this may be seen the importance attached to the divine
light, which represents the active agent responsible for the divine Creation.
Light and divinity are terms which are constantly related in the Fluddean
writings. Fundamentally, it was the light of the Lord informing the Chaos
which was requisite for the formation of the world, and it was this same divine
light arising from the Spirit which on the fourth day was formed into the sun
and received into the ethereal heaven. Fludd was as much a proponent of the
primacy of the sun as any Renaissance neo-Platonist. He felt that its import-
ance was shown to us above all through the Sacred Scriptures, especially in
Psalm 18:5, where it is written, "God hath put his tabernacle in the Sun".
Fludd interpreted this to mean that the Spirit of the Lord is actually in the sun,
and he supported this position by theological arguments, kabbalistic analyses,
and references to arithmetic, geometry, and music. Above all, the perfection
of the sun indicates its connection with divinity, and, in a rhapsody to this
heavenly body, Fludd states that
the Macrocosmicall Sun's dignity and perfection is easily discerned, in
that this Royal Phoebus doth sit in his chariot, even in the center or
middle of the heavens, flittering with his golden hair, as the sole visible
Emperour, holding the royall Scepter and government of the world, in
whom all the vertue of the celestiall bodies do consist . . .84
How similar this quotation is to the famous eulogy to the sun of Copernicus !36
Surely both quotations betray their neo-Platonic source, and it is of considerable

81 Robert Fludd, A natomiae A mphitheatrum effigie more et conditione varia, Frankfort,

1623, p. 25. For a similar treatment, see also Robert Fludd, Mosaicall Philosophy, pp. 6<)f;
Medicina Catholica seu Mysticum Artis Medicandi Sacrarium In Tomos divisum duos,
Frankfort, 1629, I, 107; Tom. Sec. Tract. Sec. De Praeternaturali Utriusque Mundi His/oria
In Sectiones tres divisa, Frankfort, 1621, p. III.
n Robert Fludd, Tomus Secundus de Supernaturali, Naturali, Praeternaturali et Con
tranaturali Microcosmi historia, in Tractatus tres distributa, Oppenheim, 1619, pp. 200-3.
:w From Fludd's argument to prove that the Spirit of the Lord is actually in the sun, to
be found in his Mosaicall Philosophy, pp. 61-4.
16 The concept of the sun's centrality in the heavens was common among Renaissance

neo-Platonists. Thomas S. Kuhn discusses this in his The Copernican Revolution, Cambridge
Mass., 1957, p. 130; and Allen G. Debus has discussed Fludd's views on this topic in more
detail in his "The Sun in the Universe of Robert Fludd", cited in note 29 above.
 S4 ALLEN G. DEBUS

interest that Fludd also speaks specifically of the centrality of the sun. Yet
here, in contrast to Copernicus, Fludd means the centrality of the sun in the
heavens, as opposed to the centrality of the Earth in the universe as a whole.
In a sense, he must have felt that he had managed to keep the best of two
worlds, for if he had no desire to depart from the traditional Earth-centred
universe, he still placed the sun midway between the Earth and the Creator in
the heavens. In doing this, he favoured two central positions, and the higher
and more worthy centrality was to be occupied, quite naturally, by the divine
sun.
Beyond the obvious significance of the sun for the macrocosm as a whole,
Fludd was much concerned with the significance that the sun has for us here on
Earth as the source of light and life. Fludd considered the sun to be the
purveyor of the life beams required for all living creatures here on Earth.
These golden beams by the mercy of God are conveyed to us through the air, in
which they form a necessary ethereal nutriment for all life. This active and
heavenly part of the air becomes fixed in living things, and Fludd asserts that
the chemical analysis of vegetable life shows that the substance in fixed form
is a volatie salt which may be further identified as a volatile salt-petre. The
concept of an aerial nitre or volatile saltpetre which is necessary for life is also
found in the work of Duchesne in 1603 and of Sendivogius in 1604, but both of
these accounts appear to derive from still earlier texts in the Paracelsian corpus.
In any case, this concept easily antedates the famous work of John Mayow
(1668, 1674).38
Fludd, of course, was a physician, and for him it was important to understand
the role played by this ethereal saltpetre in our bodies. Like Galen, he insisted
that the active part of the air was abstracted from the grosser part in the heart.
And as a Paracelsian, he called this a chemical extraction.37 But, since man is
a miniature copy of the great world, Fludd suggested that we might learn much
_by comparing our bodies with the macrocosm. Once more turning to the sun
and Ps·3.1m18 :S, Fludd said that in man the godly tabernacle is in the heart.as

II For Fludd's views on the aerial niter, along with the recent literature on this subject,

see Aleen G. Debus, "The Paracelsian Aerial Niter", Isis, LV (1964), 43-61; and "The
Aerial Niter in the Sixteenth and Early Seventeenth Centuries", Actes du Dixieme Congres
International d'Histoire des Sciences, Paris, 1964,II, 835~.
17 Fludd, Mosaicall Philosophy, pp.' 164-5.
II Allen G. Debus has discussed Fludd's views on the circulation in more detail in bis

"Robert Fludd and the Circulation of the Blood" (see note 29 above). Joseph Duchesne
had suggested a series of circulations of the blood in the liver, the heart, and the brain
which might be likened unto a connccted series of chemical distillations. Fludd borrowed
this system from Duchesne in its cntirety with its implication of "local" circulations. The
mystical general circulation of the blood described here is a second sense of the word
circulation used by Fludd.
 RENAISSANCE CHEMISTRY AND THE WORK OF ROBERT FLUDD 55

Then relying on the fact that the Earth is stationary and the sun goes around it
every day, he pointed out that the sun, as the tabernacle of the Lord, affects the
four cardinal winds which contain the breath of the Lord which is the vital
nutriment which is breathed into our bodies, formed into arterial blood, and
then given to the body as that spiritual nourishment without which we would
all perish. Hence, the sun travels around the earth daily in a circle and
impresses on the winds as well a circular motion. This air with its circular
motion is then inhaled by man, and thus the spirit of life reaches the heart and
from there is carried around the body in a circular motion imitating the divine
circularity.39 It was in this mystical and occult fashion that Fludd proposed a
system of the general circulation of the spirit of the blood five years prior to
Harvey.
We might tum to other specific points in Fludd's works-his theory of
disease, his use of mechanical examples to prove the geocentricity of the universe,
his application of the age-old doctrine of expansion and contraction (or sympathy
and antipathy) to the then current controversy on the weapon-salve, or a host
of other topics. Still, perhaps this is not necessary. We seem to have strayed
far from our topic of chemistry and alchemy-or have we? Actually, Fludd
demonstrates precisely what I wanted to show. First, his work includes
enough of the general characteristics displayed by the theoretical chemical
philosophers for him to be classed as one of them. Second, the notice taken of
his work by Kepler, Mersenne, Gassendi, and others means that the study of his
work, and that of the other chemical philosophers, should have more than an
antiquarian value for us today.
The work of these men indicates that chemistry or alchemy before the mid-
seventeenth century (or more specifically before the adoption of atomism and
the attempt to make this subject part of the mechanical philosophy) was
something far different from the chemistry of today. Topics which do not now
fall within the province of chemistry were then considered at least by some to be
a fundamental part of the discipline because the subject was theoretically
universal in scope. For Fludd and many others, the real meaning of chemistry
was based upon the divine and mystical chemical separation which resulted in
the created universe. All things had been formed in a chemical fashion and all
things could be explained in terms which might ultimately reduce to chemistry
or chemical analogues. Before the widespread acceptance of corpuscular
explanations of matter in the late seventeenth century, chemistry could be
equated with the terms natural philosophy and medicine, for this' sect. If
Mersenne and Gassendi had reason to be wary of the natural magicians, they
had special reason to d~strust Fludd, whose works presented the mystical

II Fludd, A natomiae. p. 266.

 ALLEN G. DEBUS

alchemical universe in a more comprehensive fashion than had any other author
up to their time.
Still, the mystical alchemists had been under attack for some time when
Gassendi wrote his unfavourable epitome of Robert Fludd's philosophy. The
excessive and seemingly unfounded use of the macrocosm-microcosm relation-
ship plus the constant appeal to mystical chemical analogues had brought forth
some of the earliest and harshest criticism of the theoretical Paracelsians. Even
some iatrochemists who believed firmly in the close union of medicine and chem-
istry could still look with dismay on men such as Fludd, whose interests seemed
to run more to hypotheses than to experiments. Early in the century, Andreas
Libavius and Daniel Sennert represented this approach, and to a degree their
position was not far removed from that of their contemporary Francis Bacon,
who also lauded the observations of the chemists but rejected their far-flung
hypotheses, and he particularly cited the alleged correspondence of the macro-
cosm and the microcosm.4o
A new type of chemical philospher was developing in the seventeenth
century, and in a sense van Helmont may be taken as the chief example of this
newer breed. By his own admission strongly influenced by the writings of
Paracelsus, he nevertheless continually objected to the mysticism of his
hypotheses:
The name of Microcosm or little World is Poetical, heathenish, and
metaphorical, but not natural, or true. It is likewise a Phantastical,
hypochondrical and mad thing, to have brought all the properties, and
species of the universe into man, and the art of healing.41
Yet, though specific Paracelsian views, such as the macrocosm-microcosm
analogy, might be condemned, the similarities between the outlook and goal of
van Helmont and the Paracelsians seem to outweigh the differences.42 In the
same tradition, van Helmont felt that medicine was the chief end of natural
philosophy.43 And while he might willingly give "mathematical demonstra-
tions", by which he meant manual experiments, a strictly mathematical method
for him was akin to logic and therefore smacked of Aristotelianism." Mathe-

10 See Joshua C. Gregory, "Chemistry and Alchemy in the Natural Philosophy of Sir
Francis Bacon, 1561-1626", Ambi_~, II (1938), 93-111-
U J. B. van Helmont, Oriatrike or Physick Refined, trans. John Chandler, London, 1662,

P·323·
II Walter Pagel comments that "he is conscious of his advance on the doctrines of
Paracelsus which admittedly stimulated his work and with which he agreed in their critical
position against natural philosophy and humorism". "The Religious and Philosophical
Aspects of van Helmont's Science and Medicine"; Supp. Bull. Rist. Med., NO.2 (1944).p. 13.
II Van Helmont, Ope cit., p. 4.

« Ibid., pp. 33f.

 RENAISSANCE CHEMISTRY AND THE WORK OF ROBERT FLUDD 57

matics might and should be used for calculations and measurements, but it was
not basic to science. Rather, "the Philosopher ... is never admitted to the
Root, or radical knowledge of natural things, without the fire".45 Van Helmont
and his followers emphasized observation and experiment in the Paracelsian-
alchemical tradition, but at the same time they were willing to explain physio-
logical and earthly processes in chemical tenns often on a basis no more firmly
grounded than those of the mystical alchemists they rejected.
The Helmontian restatement of Paracelsism, stressing experimentalism and
allegedly stripped of baseless hypotheses, found many supporters in the mid-
seventeenth century. It had a natural appeal for physicians interested in the
new philosophy, since it was openly experimental in approach and it stressed
medicine as the chief goal of natural philosophy. At the same time, those who
found chemical interpretations more appealing than mathematical abstractions
were being offered a path to true knowledge, not of just one branch of science
but, again in Paracelsian tradition, of all nature. In R. F. Jones's Ancients
and Moderns a survey of the English literature shows that an impressive number
of mid-seventeenth-century reformers were advocating the study of spagyric
chemistry as a replacement for the traditional Aristotlian road to nature.
Noah Biggs was expressing a fairly common view when he wrote:
wherein do they [the universities] contribute to the promotion or
discovery of Truth? ... Where have we any thing to do with Mechanick
Chymistrie the handmaid of Nature, that hath outstript the other Sects
of Philosophie, by her multiplied real experiences ?46
For Robert Boyle, van Helmont was a "benefactor to experimental learning,"
and he lamented the fact that the chemists were thought to have brought forth
so many experiments in support of their views:
that of those that have quitted the unsatisfactory Philosophy of the
schools, the greater Number dazl'd as it were by the Experiments of
Spagyrists, have imbrac'd their Doctrines instead of those they deserted.47
Here, Boyle, writing thirty-five years after Mersenne, voices a similar fear of
the increasing popularity of the hypotheses of the theoretical Paracelsians and
chemical philosophers, whose constant appeal to experiment and claims for

U Ibid., p. 45 •

•• Noah Biggs, Chymiatrophilos, Mataeoteclmia Medicinae Praxews. The Vanity of the

Craft of Physick ... With an humble Motion for the Reformation o/the Universities, And the
whole Landscape 0/ Physick, and discovering the Terra Incognita o/Chymistrie, London, 1651,
sig. bi (r). Attacked by William Johnson, Noah Biggs was called a "Helmontii Psittacum".
See Johnson's preface to Leonard Phioravant, Three Exact Pieces, London, 1652, p. I.
n From Boyle's preface to Some Specimens of an Attempt to make Chymical Experiments
Usefull to Illustrate the Notions of the Corpuscular Philosophy, London, 1661, sig. P5 (r).
58 ALLEN G. DEBUS

universality were resulting in an increasing number of adherents. In reply,

Boyle proposed to offer experiments which would lure these disenchanted
Aristotelians to the Mechanical Philosophy.
I began by pointing to the change in man's outlook toward nature which
we see if we compare the first half of the seventeenth century with the second
half. I would conclude by suggesting that the dichotomy certainly exists, but
perhaps it should not be painted so starkly in black and white a') has been
customary. I do not believe that it is sound to dismiss the work of these men
as valueless for the rise of modem science, as has often been done, simply
because they were not right in our terms. The work of Robert Fludd had been
taken quite seriously in the second quarter of the seventeenth century and it had
resulted in a major confrontation between the supporters of the mystical
neo-Platonic universe and representatives of what we would call a more modem
outlook. The Paracelso-Helmontian revival of the mid-century gives evidence
of the persistent appeal of the chemical philosophy. The new chemical
philosophers were more genuinely wedded to an experimental investigation of
nature, but their approach retained the same goals. These men still spoke not
narrowly of technical applications of chemistry, but of a true understanding
of nature through the aid of chemical theories based on laboratory investiga-
tions. Like the mechanical philosophers, the Paracelsians and Helmontians
stood for an unyielding attack on the blind authority of the ancients; like the
mechanical philosophers, they insisted that the secrets of nature would only
unfold through an unyielding observational and experimental approach; and
like the mechanical philosophers, they claimed that their method would
eventually yield the secrets of the universe. If Fludd, as one of them, had
placed a greater emphasis on Biblical authority than on experiment, this was
not really unusual for the period. Many other iatrochemists would not have
been in essential disagreement with Galileo when he wrote in 1615 that Biblical
authority
ought to be preferred over that of all human writings which are sup-
ported only by bare assertions or probable arguments, and not set forth
in a demonstrative way. This I hold to be necessary and proper to the
same extent that divine wisdom surpasses all human judgment and
conjecture.48
That the chemical philosophers were wrong is not the main issue here. It is
important that they helped formulate modem science by striving for the same
goals as the mechanical philosophers, even though they were encouraged to do so

•• Discoveries and Opinions of Galileo, trans. (with an Introduction and notes) Stillman
Drake, Garden City, New York, 1957, p. 183. From the Letter to the Grand Duchess
Christina.
 RENAISSANCE CHEMISTRY AND THE WORK OF ROBERT FLUDD S9

by hypotheses and analogies which we today would reject outright. It seems

to me that if we are to understand the sixteenth- and seventeeth-eentury
mechanical philosophers, astronomers, and mathematicians who showed
evidence at one time or another of an interest in traditional alchemy or any
other phase of chemistry, we should be willing at least to consider the possibility
that this interest may stem not necessarily from a desire on their part to
transmute the base metals to gold, or even to apply corpuscular philosophy to
chemical change, but rather from a very understandable desire on their part to
investigate the claims of these chemical philosophers, who suggested that the
proper key to all nature was to be found in the study of this Christian, this
Universal, and this experimental science, Chemistry.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The author gratefully acknowledges support from the National Institutes of

Health (USPHS LM-00046) which has made it possible for him to continue his
research on this subject.