Robert Boyle, Transmutation, and the History of Chemistry before Lavoisier: A Response to Kuhn

In an influential article of 1952, Thomas Kuhn argued that Robert Boyle had little or no influence on the subsequent development of chemistry. This essay challenges Kuhn’s view on two fronts. First, it shows that Johann Joachim Becher developed his hierarchical matter theory under the influence of Boyle and then transmitted it to the founder of the phlogiston theory, G. E. Stahl. Second, this essay argues that transmutational matter theories were not necessarily opposed to the existence of stable chemical species,paceKuhn. Boyle’s corpuscular theory descended largely from the tradition of “chymical atomism,” which often advocated both chrysopoeia and the reality of robust chemical substances.