NEWTON, ISAAC. 1642-1727. Autograph alchemical manuscript, "A Key to Snyders," being Newton's "key" to Johannes de Monte-Snyders' Commentatio de Pharmaco Catholico, an important component of his alchemical thought, 3 pp, 4to (198 x 153 mm), on a folded folio sheet, with related addition on the verso of the final leaf, in Latin with some English headings, likely after 1674, numerous corrections and emendations, final leaf unopened.
Provenance: Sir Isaac Newton; Catherine Barton (1679-1739); by descent; sold Portsmouth sale of the Newton Papers, Sotheby's, July 13, 1936, lot 103 (partial lot).
A HIGHLY IMPORTANT NEWTON MANUSCRIPT, CENTRAL TO NEWTON'S STUDY OF CHEMISTRY AND MATTER, "A Key to Snyders" identifies and distills the crucial chymical processes discussed in Monte-Snyders' Commentatio de pharmaco catholico (1666, Latin translation of the German original, Tractatus de medicina universali).
According to William Newman the leading authority on Newton's alchemy, the works of Monte-Snyders "exercised more impact on Newton the alchemist than any other author short of Philalethes" (Newton the Alchemist, Princeton, 2019, p 15), and Newton pored over his work for decades (Newman, p 223). Newton's own heavily annotated copy of the Commentatio is held at Cambridge (H1378), and other manuscripts related to Snyders are held by the National Library of Israel (var 259.10, a synopsis), Columbia University ("Three Mysterious Fires"), and the Cushing Library at Yale (Newton's autograph transcription of Snyders' Metamorphosis of the Planets). Monte-Snyders is also one of the most frequently cited authors in Newton's florilegia and his Index Chemicus. Newton's autograph manuscript "Key to Snyders," comprising Newton's identification of Snyders' most important passages, along with his own interpretations and order, represents Newton's struggle to "reassemble the disassociated parts of Snyders's process" (Newman, p 228), in order to facilitate his own understanding and practice of the chemical (and alchemical) concepts.
Author of the most complex alchemical allegory ever composed (Metamorphosis Planetarum, 1663), Snyders was an influential 17th-century alchemist, renowned for his skill with transmutation (turning lead into gold) Kenelm Digby, who met him in London in 1664 gives an account of Snyders and witnessed his chrysopoeic ability, as described in his Chymical Secrets (1683). His Commentatio is ostensibly an iatrochemical text concerned with the refining of gold into universal medicine, another name for the philosopher's stone. In keeping with traditional alchemical practice, and a need for secrecy, Snyders disperses his knowledge in only small bits at a time like "a succession of extended riddles," concealing far more than it reveals. Newton's concern, and the impetus for his "Key," is discerning the concrete details of Snyders' chemical procedure for formulating the universal medicine. Newton's manuscript emphasizes the necessity of working with "three fires" (or volatile substances); and according to Newman, "The primary focus of the Key to Snyders lies in Newton's attempt to arrive at the means of extracting Snyders's third fire from 'a certain mineral Saturn, not yet fused'" (Newman, p 231).
In his quest to discover the principles of chemistry, Newton spent more than 30 years researching the method for making the philosopher's stone. "To Newton, no single alchemist had revealed the entire set of processes necessary to acquire the philosophers' stone. On the alchemical principle that 'one book opens another' ('liber librum aperit'), it was necessary to assemble the full set of stages from multiple authors in order to arrive at success" (Newman, p 246). Johann de Monte-Snyders and his Commentario were essential to Newton's pursuits, and Newton's "Key" a seminal document for understanding his chemical/alchemical practice. "De Natura Acidorum," Newton's only lifetime-published work on chemistry (printed in John Harris' Lexicon Technicum, 1703-1710), makes it clear that understanding the transformative activity of acid is essential to a knowledge of the principles of chemistry — hence Newton's intense interest in the practical (acidic) processes involved in making the philosopher's stone, and in Snyders' work in particular.
Isaac Newton was the greatest student of alchemy in the modern era. "Newton probed the whole vast literature of the older alchemy as it has never been probed before or since" (Dobbs, The Foundations of Newton's Alchemy, p 88). He compiled an Index Chemicus "the likes of which alchemy has never seen... over 100 pages crammed with 879 separate headings and approximately 5,000 page references to more than 150 different works" (Westfall, "Newton and Alchemy," 1984). At his death, works on alchemy constituted more than 10 percent of his library. Newton, however, did more than just read, "almost from the beginning he experimented as well." His lab notes describe "severely quantitative experiments with specific substances" and he frequently systematically varied the amount of a single ingredient (measured by weight) in order to determine the ideal proportions in a given compound" (above quotes, Westfall, p 319).
As the new paradigm of Isaac Newton makes increasingly clear, Newton's interest in "chymical philosophy" was not separate from his work with the "natural philosophy" of gravity — they were parts of the same whole. Even after the Principia was published in 1687, Newton deemed chemistry to hold the key to "the active cause of gravity," and some scholars suggest that it was in fact Newton's study of chemistry that led him to frame a generalized theory of gravitation. Indeed, "De Natura Acidorum" shows the clear connection of Newton's chemistry and gravity, representing "the transition from the alchemical concept of active principle to the Newtonian concept of attraction expressed in his own words" (Westfall, "Newton and Alchemy," 1984).
An important document for understanding Newton's theory and practice of chemistry, and by extension his theory of matter, Newton's autograph "A Key to Snyders" is itself a "key" to understanding the assimilated scientific thought of the world's greatest scientist. Almost all of Newton's manuscripts are in institutions, and the present manuscript one of the most important remaining in private hands.
REFERENCES:
Dobbs, B.J.T. The Foundations of Newton's Alchemy. Cambridge, 1983.
Newman, William. Newton the Alchemist, Princeton, 2019. The publication reproduces the title page of Monte-Snyders' Commentatio de pharmaco catholico on the cover, and providing a deep analysis, transcription and translation of Newton's Key to Snyders.
Westfall, Richard. "Newton and Alchemy." In Vickers (ed), Occult and Scientific Mentalities in the Renaissance, Cambridge, 1984, pp 315-335.
NEWTON, ISAAC. 1642-1727. Autograph alchemical manuscript, "A Key to Snyders," being Newton's "key" to Johannes de Monte-Snyders' Commentatio de Pharmaco Catholico, an important component of his alchemical thought, 3 pp, 4to (198 x 153 mm), on a folded folio sheet, with related addition on the verso of the final leaf, in Latin with some English headings, likely after 1674, numerous corrections and emendations, final leaf unopened.
Provenance: Sir Isaac Newton; Catherine Barton (1679-1739); by descent; sold Portsmouth sale of the Newton Papers, Sotheby's, July 13, 1936, lot 103 (partial lot).
A HIGHLY IMPORTANT NEWTON MANUSCRIPT, CENTRAL TO NEWTON'S STUDY OF CHEMISTRY AND MATTER, "A Key to Snyders" identifies and distills the crucial chymical processes discussed in Monte-Snyders' Commentatio de pharmaco catholico (1666, Latin translation of the German original, Tractatus de medicina universali).
According to William Newman the leading authority on Newton's alchemy, the works of Monte-Snyders "exercised more impact on Newton the alchemist than any other author short of Philalethes" (Newton the Alchemist, Princeton, 2019, p 15), and Newton pored over his work for decades (Newman, p 223). Newton's own heavily annotated copy of the Commentatio is held at Cambridge (H1378), and other manuscripts related to Snyders are held by the National Library of Israel (var 259.10, a synopsis), Columbia University ("Three Mysterious Fires"), and the Cushing Library at Yale (Newton's autograph transcription of Snyders' Metamorphosis of the Planets). Monte-Snyders is also one of the most frequently cited authors in Newton's florilegia and his Index Chemicus. Newton's autograph manuscript "Key to Snyders," comprising Newton's identification of Snyders' most important passages, along with his own interpretations and order, represents Newton's struggle to "reassemble the disassociated parts of Snyders's process" (Newman, p 228), in order to facilitate his own understanding and practice of the chemical (and alchemical) concepts.
Author of the most complex alchemical allegory ever composed (Metamorphosis Planetarum, 1663), Snyders was an influential 17th-century alchemist, renowned for his skill with transmutation (turning lead into gold) Kenelm Digby, who met him in London in 1664 gives an account of Snyders and witnessed his chrysopoeic ability, as described in his Chymical Secrets (1683). His Commentatio is ostensibly an iatrochemical text concerned with the refining of gold into universal medicine, another name for the philosopher's stone. In keeping with traditional alchemical practice, and a need for secrecy, Snyders disperses his knowledge in only small bits at a time like "a succession of extended riddles," concealing far more than it reveals. Newton's concern, and the impetus for his "Key," is discerning the concrete details of Snyders' chemical procedure for formulating the universal medicine. Newton's manuscript emphasizes the necessity of working with "three fires" (or volatile substances); and according to Newman, "The primary focus of the Key to Snyders lies in Newton's attempt to arrive at the means of extracting Snyders's third fire from 'a certain mineral Saturn, not yet fused'" (Newman, p 231).
In his quest to discover the principles of chemistry, Newton spent more than 30 years researching the method for making the philosopher's stone. "To Newton, no single alchemist had revealed the entire set of processes necessary to acquire the philosophers' stone. On the alchemical principle that 'one book opens another' ('liber librum aperit'), it was necessary to assemble the full set of stages from multiple authors in order to arrive at success" (Newman, p 246). Johann de Monte-Snyders and his Commentario were essential to Newton's pursuits, and Newton's "Key" a seminal document for understanding his chemical/alchemical practice. "De Natura Acidorum," Newton's only lifetime-published work on chemistry (printed in John Harris' Lexicon Technicum, 1703-1710), makes it clear that understanding the transformative activity of acid is essential to a knowledge of the principles of chemistry — hence Newton's intense interest in the practical (acidic) processes involved in making the philosopher's stone, and in Snyders' work in particular.
Isaac Newton was the greatest student of alchemy in the modern era. "Newton probed the whole vast literature of the older alchemy as it has never been probed before or since" (Dobbs, The Foundations of Newton's Alchemy, p 88). He compiled an Index Chemicus "the likes of which alchemy has never seen... over 100 pages crammed with 879 separate headings and approximately 5,000 page references to more than 150 different works" (Westfall, "Newton and Alchemy," 1984). At his death, works on alchemy constituted more than 10 percent of his library. Newton, however, did more than just read, "almost from the beginning he experimented as well." His lab notes describe "severely quantitative experiments with specific substances" and he frequently systematically varied the amount of a single ingredient (measured by weight) in order to determine the ideal proportions in a given compound" (above quotes, Westfall, p 319).
As the new paradigm of Isaac Newton makes increasingly clear, Newton's interest in "chymical philosophy" was not separate from his work with the "natural philosophy" of gravity — they were parts of the same whole. Even after the Principia was published in 1687, Newton deemed chemistry to hold the key to "the active cause of gravity," and some scholars suggest that it was in fact Newton's study of chemistry that led him to frame a generalized theory of gravitation. Indeed, "De Natura Acidorum" shows the clear connection of Newton's chemistry and gravity, representing "the transition from the alchemical concept of active principle to the Newtonian concept of attraction expressed in his own words" (Westfall, "Newton and Alchemy," 1984).
An important document for understanding Newton's theory and practice of chemistry, and by extension his theory of matter, Newton's autograph "A Key to Snyders" is itself a "key" to understanding the assimilated scientific thought of the world's greatest scientist. Almost all of Newton's manuscripts are in institutions, and the present manuscript one of the most important remaining in private hands.
REFERENCES:
Dobbs, B.J.T. The Foundations of Newton's Alchemy. Cambridge, 1983.
Newman, William. Newton the Alchemist, Princeton, 2019. The publication reproduces the title page of Monte-Snyders' Commentatio de pharmaco catholico on the cover, and providing a deep analysis, transcription and translation of Newton's Key to Snyders.
Westfall, Richard. "Newton and Alchemy." In Vickers (ed), Occult and Scientific Mentalities in the Renaissance, Cambridge, 1984, pp 315-335.
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