Isaac Newton and Alchemy

The notebook is in the Portsmouth Collection at Cambridge University Library. The handwriting is Newton’s — small, neat, dense, the letters leaning to the right. The page is headed “An Account of some of the Experiments I have made about shining Matter & the Magnet.” Below, in a long, careful list, Newton has recorded the results of his distillations. He has heated “antimony” with “salt of tartar” in a sealed glass vessel. He has observed the vapours that rose. He has weighed the residue. He has repeated the experiment with mercury, with lead, with copper, with silver. He has noted the colours of the residues, the odours of the vapours, the times of heating. The notebook is one of dozens in the Portsmouth Collection, and the dozens are the surviving record of a body of work that occupied more of Newton’s time, over a longer period, than any other branch of his natural philosophy.

That sentence is the most important sentence in the modern reassessment of alchemy, and the reassessment began when John Maynard Keynes bought a large portion of Newton’s alchemical papers at a Sotheby’s auction in 1936. Keynes read the papers over the following months, and in 1947 he published a brief, devastating reassessment. Newton was, Keynes wrote, “not the first of the age of reason: he was the last of the magicians.” The Keynes essay is the founding text of the modern reassessment, and the broad outlines are settled. The interesting disputes are about how far the reassessment goes.

The alchemical manuscripts

Newton’s alchemical papers were preserved in the Portsmouth Collection of the Cambridge University Library, and they were not made widely available to scholars until 1936, when Keynes purchased a large portion of the papers at auction. Keynes’s reading of the papers led him to declare that Newton was “not the first of the age of reason” but “the last of the magicians,” and his remarks opened a long and continuing scholarly debate about the relationship between Newton’s alchemical work and his other scientific work (Keynes, “Newton, the Man,” 1947; Newman, Newton the Alchemist, 2018, pp. 1–14).

The alchemical papers include several distinct bodies of material. The first is the famous “Index Chemicus,” a list of alchemical works that Newton compiled, with abstracts, in his own hand. The index runs to more than a hundred pages and includes references to virtually all the major alchemical texts of the medieval and early modern period. The index is the most concentrated witness to Newton’s alchemical reading, and it is the most important single document for understanding the scope of his alchemical interests.

The second body of material is the laboratory notebooks that record the details of Newton’s own alchemical experiments with mercury, antimony, lead, copper, gold, silver, and other metals. The notebooks are technical, careful, and detailed. They record the apparatus used, the quantities of materials, the temperatures, the durations of heating, the colours and odours of the products.

The third body of material is the theological and cosmological writings that integrate alchemical concepts with the broader framework of Newton’s natural philosophy. These writings show that Newton’s alchemical work was not a separate compartment of his thought but was integrated with his broader programme of natural philosophy, theology, and chronology. The integration is the most important finding of the modern reassessment, and the finding is the reason the reassessment has been so consequential for the history of science.

The alchemical papers are a major part of Newton’s intellectual legacy. The papers show that Newton’s alchemical work was not a youthful indiscretion that he later abandoned; it was a sustained, serious, and lifelong commitment that shaped his other work in ways that scholars are still working to understand. Principe’s The Aspiring Adept (1998) is the first book to read Newton’s alchemy as alchemy, on its own terms. Newman’s Newton the Alchemist (2018) is the definitive treatment.

Newton’s alchemical theory

Newton’s alchemical theory was grounded in the inherited alchemical tradition, particularly the tria prima and the four elements. He accepted the basic alchemical doctrine of the unity of matter: all substances are composed of the same underlying principles, and the differences among them are differences in the proportions and arrangements of the principles. He accepted the doctrine of the maturation of metals in the earth: the metals grow under the influence of the celestial heat, and gold is the fully matured form of the metallic seed. He accepted the possibility of transmutation.

Newton’s specific theoretical contribution was his integration of the alchemical tradition with the new corpuscular and mechanical philosophy. The mechanical philosophy explained all natural phenomena in terms of the motion and interaction of corpuscles. Newton accepted the corpuscular theory but argued that the corpuscles themselves are not inert; they are active, possessed of forces that determine their behaviour. The active forces of the corpuscles were, in Newton’s alchemical theory, the source of the alchemical transformations. The alchemist who understood the active forces of the corpuscles could manipulate them to produce the desired transformations. The philosopher’s stone was, on this reading, a substance that had the right active forces to rearrange the corpuscles of a base metal into the form of gold.

Newton’s integration of the alchemical tradition with the corpuscular philosophy is one of the most important and least understood features of his natural philosophy. The famous “Queries” appended to the Opticks (1704) include several that explicitly invoke alchemical concepts — the active forces of the corpuscles, the sympathy and antipathy of bodies, the vegetable and animal principles. The Queries are unintelligible without the alchemical background, and the background is the reason the Queries have been so variously read by the modern scholars who have tried to make sense of them. Newman (2018, ch. 7) is the right place to read the modern assessment, and the assessment is that the Queries are properly read as a natural philosophy in which alchemy and the mechanical philosophy are continuous, not opposed.

Newton’s laboratory work

Newton was a serious laboratory practitioner, and the practitioner is the most surprising thing about the reassessment. His laboratory notebooks record the details of more than a hundred alchemical experiments with mercury, antimony, lead, copper, gold, silver, and other substances. The records are detailed, technical, and careful, and they show a working knowledge of the alchemical laboratory tradition that the older view of Newton as the “first of the age of reason” could not accommodate.

The laboratory work was technically sophisticated. Newton built his own furnaces, distilled mercury and antimony compounds, calcined metals, and prepared mineral salts. He used the apparatus of the alchemical tradition — the athanor, the alembic, the retort, the pelican — and he was familiar with the laboratory procedures of the alchemical literature. The picture that emerges is of a working alchemist, doing working alchemist’s work, with working alchemist’s tools, in working alchemist’s laboratories at Cambridge and in London.

The laboratory work was not successful in the literal alchemical sense. Newton never produced the philosopher’s stone and never succeeded in transmuting a base metal into gold. The modern reader should not be surprised; the alchemical project of transmutation was a failure for every alchemist who attempted it. The laboratory work was successful in a different sense: it gave Newton a deep understanding of the behaviour of metals, salts, and mineral preparations that he could not have obtained from books alone, and the understanding shaped the development of his corpuscular and mechanical philosophy. The alchemical laboratory was, for Newton, a training ground for the experimental practice of natural philosophy.

The relationship to the Principia and the Opticks

The alchemical work was not separate from Newton’s other natural philosophical work; it was integrated with it, and the integration is the most important finding of the modern reassessment. The Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687) and the Opticks (1704) both include passages that reflect Newton’s alchemical commitments, and the passages are not separable from the rest of the argument.

The Principia presents Newton’s theory of universal gravitation. The theory is a mechanical account of the cosmos, but it has alchemical overtones that the older histories of science tended to miss. The active forces of the corpuscles that Newton invoked in his alchemical theory are the same forces that produce the gravitational attraction between the planets. The alchemical theory and the gravitational theory are, in this sense, two aspects of a single natural philosophy, and the unity is the most important piece of evidence for the integration of the alchemical and the mechanical in Newton’s thought.

The Opticks presents Newton’s theory of light and colour, the demonstration that white light is composed of the spectrum of colours, and the corpuscular theory of light. The Opticks ends with a famous series of “Queries,” in which Newton raises questions about the nature of matter, the active forces of the corpuscles, the cause of gravity, and the relationship between the alchemical and the mechanical accounts of nature. The Queries are a major document for the history of Newtonianism, and they show that Newton was, in his own self-understanding, an alchemist as well as a mechanist. Newman (2018) is the right place to read the modern scholarly assessment.

Newton’s “vegetable” and “animal” principles

One of the most striking features of Newton’s alchemical work is his use of the concepts of “vegetable” and “animal” principles, and the concepts are a good example of the way Newton integrated the alchemical tradition with his own natural philosophy. The vegetable principle is the active principle that animates plants and is responsible for growth, reproduction, and the assimilation of nutrients. The animal principle is the active principle that animates animals and is responsible for sensation, motion, and the higher functions of the nervous system.

Newton believed that these principles are present in all matter, not just in plants and animals. The vegetable principle is present in metals, where it is responsible for the growth of metallic ores in the earth. The animal principle is present in the human body, where it is responsible for the phenomena of life. The alchemist who understands the vegetable and animal principles can manipulate them to produce the alchemical transformations.

The concept of the vegetable and animal principles shaped the development of Newton’s later natural philosophical work. The famous “active principles” that Newton invoked in the Queries to the Opticks are, in a sense, the successors of the vegetable and animal principles of his alchemical work (Newman, 2018, pp. 167–198). The reader who is approaching the Queries for the first time should read them with the alchemical background in mind, and the background is the only way to make sense of passages that look, on first reading, like vague speculations about forces that the modern reader cannot quite place.

Newton’s religious and theological commitments

Newton’s alchemical work was deeply integrated with his religious and theological commitments, and the integration is the most surprising finding of the modern reassessment for readers who have been taught to think of Newton as a secular rationalist. Newton was a serious Christian, and his theological writings fill more than a million words. The theological writings include a treatise on the prophecies of Daniel and the Revelation of John, a long argument against the doctrine of the Trinity, and a detailed analysis of the biblical chronology.

The theological writings show that Newton was a unitarian, an antitrinitarian, and a millenarian, and his religious commitments were closely linked to his alchemical work. The alchemical work was, for Newton, a part of the Christian life, and the alchemist who worked in the laboratory was participating in the divine work of creation. The alchemical tradition, with its synthesis of natural philosophy, religion, and eschatology, was a natural fit for Newton’s religious commitments.

Newton’s influence on the alchemical tradition

Newton’s alchemical work had a significant influence on the alchemical tradition, both during his lifetime and after. Newton’s prestige as a natural philosopher gave the alchemical tradition a credibility that it had lost in the late seventeenth century, and the Newtonian alchemists of the eighteenth century treated Newton’s work as a major source of theoretical and practical guidance.

A number of eighteenth-century writers continued to develop the Newtonian alchemical tradition, including the author of the Mysterium Adepti (1731), a long treatise on the alchemical art that draws heavily on Newton’s alchemical and natural philosophical work. The Newtonian alchemists continued to work within the alchemical tradition into the nineteenth century, and the tradition is one of the sources of the modern Rosicrucian and theosophical movements.

The modern reassessment

The recovery of Newton’s alchemical papers in 1936 and the subsequent scholarly work on the papers have transformed our understanding of the relationship between alchemy and the Scientific Revolution. The earlier view, that the Scientific Revolution marked a clean break between the alchemical and the modern scientific traditions, has been replaced by a more nuanced view, in which alchemy and the new science were intertwined in the work of the founding figures of the modern tradition (Newman, 2018; Newman & Principe, Alchemy Tried in the Fire, 2002).

The reassessment has several components, and the components are the foundation of the modern history of alchemy. The alchemical work of Newton, Boyle, Locke, Hooke, and Leibniz shows that the leading figures of the early Enlightenment were, in important respects, continuing the alchemical tradition. The theoretical and practical work of the alchemical tradition contributed substantially to the development of the new science: the apparatus, the techniques, and the conceptual vocabulary of the alchemical tradition were the foundations on which the new science was built. The new science did not reject the alchemical tradition outright; it redefined the boundaries of the alchemical project and shifted the focus of research from the alchemical to the mechanical.

Newton and the modern esoteric tradition

Newton’s alchemical work has been an important source of the modern esoteric tradition, and the source is one of the more interesting pieces of evidence for the continuity of the alchemical tradition from the seventeenth century to the present. The Theosophical Society, the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, the Anthroposophical Society, and the various modern Rosicrucian orders all treat Newton as a major figure of the Western esoteric tradition.

FAQ

Q: How much of Newton’s time did alchemy take? A: William R. Newman’s Newton the Alchemist (2018) estimates that Newton’s alchemical writings total over a million words, and that his alchemical work occupied more of his time, over a longer period, than any other branch of his natural philosophy.

Q: Did Newton believe in transmutation? A: Yes. The alchemical papers preserved in the Portsmouth Collection include an alchemical “Index Chemicus” of over a hundred pages, transcriptions of major alchemical texts, and laboratory notebooks that record Newton’s own attempts to transmute base metals. Newman (2018) treats the transmutational project as a serious, lifelong commitment, not a youthful indiscretion.

Q: What is the “Index Chemicus”? A: Newton’s handwritten index, compiled over many years, of alchemical works with abstracts. It runs to over a hundred pages and includes virtually all the major alchemical texts of the medieval and early modern period (Principe, 1998; Newman, 2018).

Q: How did the alchemical work shape the Opticks? A: The famous “Queries” appended to the Opticks (1704) invoke the active forces of the corpuscles, the sympathy and antipathy of bodies, and the alchemical tradition of vegetable and animal principles. Newman (2018, ch. 7) argues that these Queries are unintelligible without the alchemical background, and that the Opticks is properly read as a natural philosophy in which alchemy and the mechanical philosophy are continuous, not opposed.