Robert Boyle's "Chymist": Critiques of Chymical Identities in the Seventeenth Century

The discussion of Boyle’s The Sceptical Chymist has been, generously, contentious. Its place in historiography, once characterized by a clear split between Alchemy and Chemistry, has been muddled, first through the addition of the category “chymistry” and later by the study of other chymical practitioners operating around Boyle’s time who used evidence-based practices. Reexamination of Boyle’s intent is necessary to accurately define the Sceptical Chymist’s role in the foundations of modern chymistry.

This paper analyzes Boyle’s discussions regarding other chymical practitioners within the Sceptical Chymist to understand what disqualified some from being chymists in Boyle’s eyes. I argue that Boyle’s definition of a chymist is shown to require three qualifiers. Firstly, it must be based on practice, and chymists must experiment and not solely reason. Secondly, a chymist’s work must be for philosophical purposes and not simply the attainment of material results. Finally, a chymist’s findings must be with solid reasoning as opposed to obedience to doctrine.

Of his place within the historical narrative, I argue that rather than being a trailblazer who invented a revolutionary new field, the traits that comprised his “chymist” were commonplace among his contemporaries. Boyle’s chymist is a syncretic identity, not a synthetic one, and his work is a culmination of the contributions of practitioners before him