Chemistry Reference
In-Depth Information
substances. When combined, they form primary mixtures that can, in turn, be
combined to form different degrees of mixtures. To the extent that
chymical
'
atoms
are semi-permanent and homogeneous with regard to their essential
properties and that they cannot be altered by chemical procedures, they can be
considered as chemically
'
.
As Boas Hall has pointed out, the concept of
'
elementary
'
changed radically in the
course of the centuries
31
and particularly in the period between the sixteenth and
the eighteenth centuries. Boyle
'
element
'
s work signals precisely such a change in how
elementary substances are conceptualized. To the extent that he accepts the con-
ventional seventeenth century definition of elements as “substances necessarily
present in all bodies”,
32
Boyle rejects the existence of such substances and recog-
nizes only “corpuscles [as the minutest portions of matter present in] all bodies,
including those [bodies] regarded by others as elementary.”
33
For him, what other
chemists call elements are actually concretions of primary corpuscles. However, as
mentioned above, Boyle does employ the notion of
'
, which he
inherits from Sennert, to refer to those concretions of primary corpuscles that retain
their deep microstructure through analysis by fire or chemical corrosives.
34
'
chymical atom
'
'
are, for him as for Sennert, the final products of chemical
analysis. Thus Boyle, like Sennert before him, endorses an operational conception
of
Chymical atoms
'
chymical atom
and of
elementarity
that anticipates the important work to be
'
'
'
'
done later by Lavoisier.
This operational notion shows Boyle moving beyond Gassendi, Charleton,
and Descartes by not limiting himself to mere philosophical speculation about the
most fundamental particles of matter and, instead, attempting to link his claims
about microstructure to the actual results of empirical analyses in the laboratory.
Unfortunately, however, there is a problem in Boyle
s notion of microstructure that
cannot be resolved by the mechanical philosophy. Boyle
'
s notion of structure is a
strictly geometrical concept. Although Boyle claims that the deep structure of
'
'
cannot be altered by analytical corrosives or fire, he never gives
an account of how and why this deep structure persists even under analysis by the
most powerful tools available to the chemist in his time. Since the concept of
chemical bond did not yet exist and would have been anathema to the mechanical
philosophy, the resistance of deep structure to chemical analysis remains
unexplained. Thus, Boyle fails to give a satisfactory account of the operational
irreducibility of semi-permanent
chymical atoms
'
.
Additionally, given the lack of technologies available to early modern chemists,
any possible link that could be forged between microstructure and experimental
findings were tenuous at best and did not warrant the assumption that either atoms
or fundamental corpuscles were involved at the micro-level. Thus, seventeenth
chymical atoms
'
'
31
Boas Hall (
1968
), p. 21.
32
Ibid
, p. 27.
33
Ibid
.
34
Anstey (
2011
), p. 21.
