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Article ID: CBB868354009

Spirits Coming Alive: The Subtle Alchemy of Francis Bacon’s Sylva Sylvarum (2018)

Early Science and Medicine: A Journal for the Study of Science, Technology and Medicine in the Pre-modern Period
Volume: 23
Issue: 5-6
Pages: 459-486

URI: https://brill.com/view/journals/esm/23/5-6/article-p459_4.xml

DOI: 10.1163/15733823-02356P04

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Natural philosophy Plants Scientific apparatus and instruments Natural history Experiments and experimentation Observation Alchemy 17th century 16th century Bacon, Francis, 1st Baron Verulam

Observations, experiments and inquiries into the world of plants figure prominently in Francis Bacon’s Sylva Sylvarum. My purpose in this article is to offer a survey of this very rich and relatively under-investigated natural historical material, with the purpose of showing two things. First, I show that these inquiries unveil a sophisticated instrumental approach. Bacon treats plants as (al)chemical laboratories in which one can investigate the fundamental processes of nature and the continuous ‘pneumatisation’ of matter. A detailed examination of this instrumental approach can shed important light upon Bacon’s reductionist strategies of explanation. Second, I show that some of the experiments with plants recorded (or merely suggested) in the Sylva Sylvarum uncover several layers of theoretical vocabulary. In this experimental context, key concepts of Bacon’s natural philosophy are further refined and acquire new meanings.

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Article Fabrizio Baldassarri; Oana Matei (2018) Manipulating Flora: Seventeenth-Century Botanical Practices and Natural Philosophy. Introduction. Early Science and Medicine: A Journal for the Study of Science, Technology and Medicine in the Pre-modern Period (pp. 413-419). unapi

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