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are so small that they satisfy another canonic criterion of atomism - the requirement of
minute size. In his later works, Sennert would underscore the minuteness of the silver atoms
by passing them through filter paper before their precipitation from the acid-silver
solution.
21
According to Sennert, although corpuscles are elementary, the observable
qualities of different substances are due to corpuscular aggregations that he con-
siders as atomic species. These atomic species are not elementary but have specific
chymical properties that are observable at the macro-level. When the structural
arrangement of the elementary corpuscles is altered, the new aggregations form
different atomic species with different chymical properties. Sennert
s ideas here are
prescient in that they anticipate the structural chemistry later to be developed by
Robert Boyle. Despite their prescience, however, Sennert
'
s ideas clearly retain a
close association with Paracelsian alchemy and Helmontian chymistry. For exam-
ple, Sennert believes that affinity and, very rarely, antipathy play an important role
in the dissolution and precipitation of substances. As Newman points out, Sennert
'
s
'
work shows “the interplay between the two types of qualitative explanation [
] the
...
structural and the substantial [
] Sennert uses a generalized microstructural
explanation in combination with chymical properties originating in the substantial
form to explain the origin of a macrolevel effect.”
22
Sennert attempts to replace the
notion of the Aristotelian elements with the notion of corpuscles endowed with
substantial form, but he realizes the empirical difficulty associated with positing
any kind of substantial form. “The substantial form itself is completely insensible, a
causal
terminus post quem
, from which perceptible qualities arise without revealing
the nature of their source. Substantial form, therefore, is a sort of
...
'
black box
'
from
which qualities emerge. The unknowable nature of Sennert
'
s substantial form is an
s statement of nescience.”
23
Ultimately, neither the Aristo-
telian nor the Sennertian notion of substantial form could be sustained within
chemical explanations, and one of the central aims of mechanistic chemical
philosophy was to provide a heuristic alternative to this empirically problematic
Scholastic notion.
Aristotelian empiricist
'
10.3 The Mechanistic Corpuscularianism
of Gassendi and Boyle
Before I begin the discussion of mechanistic atomism and its indebtedness to
vitalistic corpuscularianism, I will give a general account of the basic tenets of
the mechanistic philosophy.
, or the mechanistic philosophy, is the
view according to which matter is inert and all interactions in nature are produced
Mechanism
'
'
21
Ibid
, pp. 99-100.
22
Ibid
, p. 136.
23
Ibid
, pp. 138-139.
