This document, which Newton likely wrote in the mid-1670s, is part
of an eight-page manuscript now housed at Yale University.* The
manuscript contains extracts from Newton's favorite alchemist, the
American writer George Starkey (1628-1665). Starkey's
Marrow of Alchemy (1654-5), the work Newton cites here, was
published under Starkey's pseudonym, Eirenaeus Philalethes ("a
peaceful lover of truth").
Alchemical authors frequently employed a riddling style in the
attempt both to reveal the text to clever readers and to hide it
from those whom they considered unworthy. Starkey's text is no
exception, but history has provided us with the means to decipher
his allegories into a clear laboratory practice. Amazingly, the
"plaintext" behind Starkey's extravagant game of alchemical metaphor
has survived. A letter written in 1651 by the young American to the
soon-to-be-famous scientific author Robert Boyle (1627-1691)
contains a "Key into Antimony" that reveals the exact nature of
Starkey's secret.
Starkey's laboratory practice, which Newton wanted to understand and
reproduce, consisted first of reducing metallic antimony from its
ore, stibnite, by heating the ore at high temperature with bits of
iron. Further refinements would create crystalline "rays" on the
surface of the metallic antimony, hence it was called the
star-regulus of antimony. Starkey then fused the star-regulus with
silver or copper, which allowed him to amalgamate the antimony with
quicksilver. Eventually, he produced a "sophic mercury" in which
gold could be made to dissolve and "vegetate"—forming
tree-like growths. Starkey, and Newton, believed this "vegetation"
was evidence that sophic mercury was a key to producing the ultimate
agent of transmutation—the philosophers' stone.
Newton was fascinated by Starkey's encoded laboratory processes,
extracting and interpreting them many times throughout his
manuscripts. Like Starkey, Newton believed that ancient Greek and
Roman mythology contained hidden alchemical secrets. For example,
the story (found in Ovid's Metamorphoses) that the gods Venus
and Mars, locked in an illicit embrace, were trapped in a bronze net
by Venus's husband Vulcan was interpreted as an allegory for making
an alloy of copper and star-regulus that Starkey called "the Net."
Alchemists traditionally used planetary names for the metals, naming
lead Saturn, iron Mars, tin Jupiter, gold Sol, copper Venus,
quicksilver Mercury, and silver Luna, so it is easy to see how a
fable concerning Venus and Mars could be seen as a chemical recipe.
Finally, it is important to note that by the mid-1670s, the young
Newton had not yet fully deciphered Starkey's recipes. At this stage
in his alchemical career, Newton did not realize that Starkey had
substituted another referent, stibnite, for the usual material
associated with Saturn, namely lead. Newton's later laboratory
notebooks show that he would soon solve this riddle—one of
many puzzles Newton faced in his alchemical work.
*The catalogue information for the manuscript is Yale University,
Beinecke Library, Mellon MS. 79.
A Complicated Man
Historian Jed Buchwald on the complex genius that was
Isaac Newton
