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Klein on the origin of the concept of chemical compound

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Abstract

Ursula Klein has argued that Geoffroy’s table of chemical affinities, published in 1718, marked the emergence of the concepts of chemical compound and chemical combination central to chemistry. In this paper her position is summarised and then modified to render it immune to criticism that has been levelled against it. The essentials of Geoffroy’s chemistry are clarified and adapted to Klein’s picture by way of a detailed comparison of it with Boyle’s corpuscular chemistry that proceeded Geoffroy’s by over half a century. The idea that Geoffroy’s notion of chemical combination marked a significant turning point in the emergence of modern chemistry is defended against the charge that it is Whiggish.

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Notes

  1. Nor is the attribution of non-material causes entirely a thing of the past. The charge on the electron is not something material added to it. What is more, the annihilation of an electron when it meets a positron, with the production of a γ-ray, cannot be classified as combination.

  2. Hereafter references to Boyle’s works are specified by citing only the volume and pages numbers in Hunter and Davis (2000).

  3. For instance, Geoffroy is able to explain why sublimate cannot be prepared by adding sea salt to mercury directly but can be prepared by adding that salt to mercury dissolved in ‘acid of niter’ (nitric acid). This can be explained by consulting the degrees of rapport represented in Geoffroy’s table. Geoffroy thinks of sea salt as a compound of an earth (sodium oxide) and marine acid (hydrochloric acid). Column 1 of the table shows that the rapport between acids and earths is greater than that between acids and metals. Consequently, mercury does not displace the absorbent earth from marine acid and no reaction transpires. However, if mercury combined with spirit of nitre as added to sea salt a reaction does take place. As can be seen from Column 5 of the table, nitric acid has a greater affinity with an earth than hydrochloric acid does. Consequently, the nitric acid displaces the hydrochloric acid form the sea salt (forming sodium nitrate) leaving the hydrochloric acid free to combine with the mercury to form mercuric chloride.

  4. Key passages on the relation between natural bodies and artefacts are in Hunter and Davis (2, p. 300, 5, 356–362 and 6, 467–8).

  5. For Boyle’s argument to this effect see Hunter and Davis (2000, 2, 224).

  6. For Boyle’s stress on the flexibility of his corpuscular philosophy see, for instance Hunter and Davis (2000, 8, 113ff and 6, 27).

  7. For a good account of the sense in which Newton’s theory was confirmed by the evidence see Smith (2002).

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  1. Unit for History and Philosophy of Science, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia

    Alan Chalmers

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  1. Alan Chalmers
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Correspondence to Alan Chalmers.

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Chalmers, A. Klein on the origin of the concept of chemical compound. Found Chem 14, 37–53 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10698-011-9121-1

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