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THE FOUNDING WORK OF MODERN CHEMISTRY. First Latin edition, published one year after the first English edition, of this milestone in the history of chemistry. "His most important work [where he] set down his corpuscular theory of the constitution of matter, which finally freed chemistry from the restrictions of the Greek concept of the four elements, and was the forerunner of Dalton's atomic theory" (Sparrow). "The 'Sceptical Chymist' is one of the great books in the history of scientific thought, for it not only marks the transition from alchemy to modern chemistry but is a plea, couched in most modern terms, for the adoption of the experimental method. Boyle inveighed against the inaccurate terminology of the 'vulgar spagyrists' and the 'hermetick philosophers,' as he termed the alchemists who refused to define their terms . He predicted that many more [elements] existed than had been described, but insisted that many substances, then thought to be elemental, were, in fact, chemical compounds. He set forth the modern distinction between a compound and a mixture, pointing out that a true chemical compound possessed properties entirely different from either of its constituents" (Fulton). "The importance of Boyle's book must be sought in his combination of chemistry with physics. His corpuscular theory, and Newton's modification of it, gradually led chemists towards an atomic view of matter . Boyle distinguished between mixtures and compounds and tried to understand the latter in terms of the simpler chemical entities from which they could be constructed. His argument was designed to lead chemists away from the pure empiricism of his predecessors and to stress the theoretical, experimental and mechanistic elements of chemical science. The Sceptical Chymist is concerned with the relations between chemical substances rather than with transmuting one metal into another or the manufacture of drugs. In this sense the book must be considered as one of the most significant milestones on the way to the chemical revolution of Lavoisier in the late eighteenth century" (PMM). "Boyle's most celebrated book is his Sceptical Chymist . It contains the germs of many ideas elaborated by Boyle in his later publications . Boyle has been called the founder of modern chemistry, for three reasons: (1) he realized that chemistry is worthy of study for its own sake and not merely as an aid to medicine or alchemy - although he believed in the possibility of the latter; (2) he introduced a rigorous experimental method into chemistry; (3) he gave a clear definition of an element and showed by experiment that the four elements of Aristotle and the three principles of the alchemists (mercury, sulphur and salt) did not deserve to be called elements or principles at all, since none of them could be extracted from bodies" (Partington II, pp. 496-7). This Latin edition is the second edition overall. There are two issues, published at Rotterdam and London (no priority established). Curiously, this copy has the title pages of both issues. RBH lists one copy of the Rotterdam issue and none of the London issue. OCLC lists six copies of the Rotterdam issue and four of the London issue in the US. The first English edition now commands a very high price - the last complete copy at auction sold for £279,800 in 2023 - so that this first Latin edition is the earliest form of Boyle's greatest work that is accessible to the majority of collectors. Provenance: Ink stamp A*G* on Rotterdam title. "Robert Boyle was one of the most significant of British scientists. More than anyone else, he invented the modern experimental method. His profuse published findings on pneumatics, chemistry and many other scientific topics were widely influential in providing empirical support for a mechanical view of nature. He also wrote books on the philosophical aspects of science, and on religion. He was a founding member of the Royal Society, and was the doyen of that body in its formative y.
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