Reproduced with Permission. Text © 2007 by John T. Young.
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'[Glauber] ist ein Mensch voller verstand und wißenschafften in re medico-chimica Ia so [sehr?] daß Er gleichsam darinnen sich veriret und nicht weiß welches er am ersten furnehmen oder ins werkh richten soll' ('[Glauber] is a man of great understanding and knowledge in medical and chemical matters; so much so, indeed, that he loses himself in them, as it were, not knowing what to undertake or set on foot first') - Moriaen to Hartlib, 27 August 1647, HP 37/121A.
Of all the many 'Chemical Philosophers' with whom Moriaen became associated in the course of his long involvement with alchemy, the one personally closest to him and on whom he sent the longest and most detailed reports was his highly controversial countryman Johann Rudolph Glauber (1604-1670).Geschichte der Menschlichen Narrheit (Leipzig, 1785) II, 161-92; H. Kopp, Beiträge zur Geschichte der Chemie (Braunschweig, 1869), 60-163; Kurt F. Gugel, Johann Rudolph Glauber: Leben und Werk 1604-1670 (Würzburg, 1955); Erich Pietsch, 'Johann Rudolph Glauber: Der Mensch, sein Werk und seine Zeit', Deutsches Museum Abhandlungen und Berichte 24, Heft 1 (Munich 1956), 1-64; J.R. Partington, A History of Chemistry II (London, 1961), 341-361; NDB VI, 437-8, and the excellent summary by Katherine Ahonen in DSB V, 419-23. Far and away the fullest and most objective account to date of Glauber's life and work, distinguishing carefully between pure myth, plausible speculation and verifiable fact, is Arnulf Link, Johann Rudolph Glauber 1604-1670: Leben und Werk (doctoral dissertation, Heidelberg, 1993); this also gives an excellent bibliography. I am deeply indebted to Dr. Link for supplying me with a copy of his thesis, which I was unable to obtain in England.
Though numerous monographs on him have been written, many details of Glauber's personal history remain obscure. The principal primary source of information hitherto available on his life has been his own autobiographical writings - a notoriously unreliable form of evidence. These autobiographical fragments, which are scattered in typically disorganised fashion throughout his work, were mostly written in response to accusations published by Christoph Fahrner, an assistant and protégé with whom Glauber fell out in 1654.J.R. Glauberi Apologia oder Verthädigung gegen Christoff Farners Lügen vnd Ehrabschneidung (Mainz, 1655); Johann Rud: Glaubers zweyte Apologia, oder Ehren-Rettung gegen Christoff Farnern […] unmenschliche Lügen vnd Ehrabschneidung (Frankfurt am Main, 1656), Glauberus ridivivus [sic] (Amsterdam, 1656), and Joh. Rudolphi Glauberi testimonium veritatis (Amsterdam, 1657). There are, however, biographical asides in a great many other works, especially De tribus lapidibus ignium secretorum (Amsterdam, 1667).
Hartlib's papers, especially the letters from Moriaen, supply a number of lacunae in the biographical data so far available on Glauber, particularly for
Glauber's life and work were both consciously modelled on those of Paracelsus: he has been described as the 'Paracelsus of the seventeenth century'.Geschichte der pharmazeutischen Chemie (Weinheim, 1972), 130, cit. Link, Glauber, 8.
Like Paracelsus, he was a spectacularly controversial figure during his lifetime, and has continued to be the object of both uncritical praise and excessive vilification in the centuries since his death. What both camps have generally agreed on, however, is that an evaluative judgment of Glauber depends on the question of whether he is to be seen as an alchemist or a chemist - a question which, as was argued in the previous chapter, is wholly anachronistic.Glauber, 8-13. Link's own work is an honourable exception in this respect, presenting a much more integrated view of Glauber's natural philosophy and relating it more fully to contemporary currents of thought. Katherine Ahonen's DSB entry should also be exempted.Johann Rudolph Glauber, 69.Reappraisals of the Scientific Revolution, ed. David C. Lindberg and Robert S. Westman (Cambridge, 1990), 367-96.A History of Chemistry II, 343 and 349.
Paul Walden, on the other hand, goes so far as to call him 'the German Robert Boyle'.Das Buch der großen Chemiker I (Weinheim, 1974; first pub. 1929), 153.
I am glad to admit that I never went to prestigious schools and never wanted to: had I done so, I might never have gained such understanding of Nature as, without wishing to boast, I now possess; I do not in the least regret that from my youth I had my hands among the coals and by this means learned the hidden secrets of Nature. I seek to take no man's place, I have never aspired to eat fine gentlemen's bread, but preferred honestly to earn my own, with regard to this motto, ALTERIUS NON SIT QUI SUUS ESSE POTEST.Deß Teutschlands Wolfahrt I (Amsterdam, 1656), 80.
The motto ('let him belong to no one else who can belong to himself') is taken directly from Paracelsus,Paracelsus: An Introduction to Philosophical Medicine in the Era of the Renaissance (Basel and New York, 1958), 28.
Boyle's thought was exceptionally systematic and sequential: he was among the first clearly to formulate and practise a method of consistent scepticism and experimental verification, rejecting all prior authority and tradition, of what is now called empiricism (though the word had other connotations at the time, implying random guesswork if not outright quackery). The insistence on trusting only the evidence of the senses, the 'light of nature', was nothing new, having been commonplace already in medieval alchemical writing and become even more strident in Paracelsus and his followers, especially (in his earlier work) Glauber. What is revolutionary about Boyle is that he followed the idea through and made it the central tenet of his scientific method rather than a mere rhetorical tag. His style is incomparably more organised and sophisticated (though at times hardly less verbose) than Glauber's: indeed, Glauber's frequent coarseness is singled out for criticism in Boyle's Sceptical Chymist.Sceptical Chymist, A5v), a thinly disguised allusion to Glauber, Fahrner, and J.F. Hartprecht, who also wrote against Glauber (see below, p. 204).
Glauber's thought and writing, by contrast, were spectacularly unorganised, and he had the practical autodidact's defensive contempt of theory and method. As Gugel points out, although he described his profession (on his second marriage certificate) as 'apothecarius', he never attempted to gain a qualification from the Amsterdam Collegium Medicum, as practising apothecaries were theoretically required to do.Glauber, 13.Ambix 14 (1967), 16-41; also The Great Instauration, 250-56.Glauberus ridivivus, 65.Glauber, 13-14) but Link exposes this as unsubstantiated conjecture (Link, Glauber, 18). On the patronage of German princes, see William B. Ashworth Jr., 'The Habsburg Circle', and Bruce T. Moran, 'Patronage and Institutions: Courts, Universities, and Academies in Germany; an Overview: 1550-1750', in Bruce T. Moran (ed.), Patronage and Institutions: Science, Technology and Medicine at the European Court 1500-1750 (Boydell, 1991), 137-83.
Boyle's thorough scepticism led him to be chary of all tradition and received wisdom from whatever source, to take nothing on trust until he had himself seen it experimentally verified. Glauber, like the majority of iatrochemists, ostensibly held the same opinion, but in fact reserved his mistrust for the authorities sanctioned by the Schools, investing in the Hermetic writers, particularly van Helmont, 'the most learned and experienced philosopher of his day',De tribus lapidibus, 4.
Finally, while Boyle's thought developed towards a scientific methodology recognisable and indeed still practised today, Glauber in his old age turned away from the practical chemistry for which he is now best known - his observations on acids, alkalis and salts, his production of fertilisers and fruit wines, his studies of the therapeutic effect of spa waters - and turned instead to a wholly contemplative and mystical approach, depicting his earlier labours as a superficial and mechanical preliminary to the true transcendent insights into the secret fires of the earth, the transmutation of metals and the universal animating spirit which he gained only after abandoning practical experiment. The development of Glauber's scientific thought from the merely practical to the transcendent could serve as a paradigm of the progression through 'chemistry' to 'alchemy' suggested in the previous chapter, though the utter rejection in his last years of practical experimentation makes his a rather extreme and idiosyncratic case.
Between the still almost totally obscure Wanderjahre of his youth and his move to the Netherlands in c.1640, Glauber was for a time Court Apothecary to Landgrave Georg II of Hessen-Darmstadt, in Giessen and Marburg. He occupied this position by 1635 at the latest.Glauber, 27.Glauber, 29-31; Gugel, Glauber, 16.Glauberus ridivivus, 50 and 65. Glauberus ridivivus, 65.
Glauber had not, he claimed, intended to settle in Amsterdam, but had merely been making a business visit. He cited two compelling grounds for taking on another wife in spite of the previous unfortunate and cautionary experience: he had fallen ill, and he disliked Dutch food: 'I went to Holland on business, but because of the change of air I fell ill, and being unable to stomach Dutch food, I was obliged to remarry, that I might be better looked after'.Glauberus ridivivus, 65.Jaarboek van het Genootschap Amstelodamum 43 (1949), 1-6), none of them has drawn the obvious inference.
It may well have been at this time that Glauber made friends with Moriaen. It is the first time both men were demonstrably in the same place, and as two German émigrés with a pronounced interest in chemistry, it would hardly be surprising if they became known to one another. They were certainly acquainted by 1642, for on returning to Amsterdam in September that year after two months' absence, Moriaen mentioned to Van Assche that on account of this he had not seen Glauber for some time.
On 9 May 1643, Moriaen told Van Assche that Glauber had moved into a new house in Amsterdam.Glauber, 31.De tribus lapidibus, which the chemist had bought from a 'lover of the art' ('Liebhaber der Kunst', i.e. an alchemist), who had had it built expressly to house a laboratory. Glauber gave a grand account of the establishment he set up here with the intention of performing 'something proper on a large scale in Alchemy'.De tribus lapidibus, 9.Glauber, 32-3.
In a letter to Hartlib of 7 June 1644, Appelius assumed his friend in London would already have heard all about Glauber from Moriaen: 'I would have sent you Glauber's Uses of the New Philosophical Oven, but I suppose you will have heard all about such matters from Herr Moriaen, and if not, he is the best person to ask, for he surely knows more about such things than I'.en bey ihm erkundigen […] dann ihm ohne zweifel mehr davon bewust als mir' - Appelius to Hartlib, 28 May/7 June 1644, HP 45/1/6A.nd andere Medici/ die was von ihm haben, seind mit ihm wohl zufrieden' - 22 June 1644 (or possibly 2 July if Appelius is using Old Style), HP 45/1/8A.en wegen H Glauberi zu wißen begehret' ('the other things you wish to know about Herr Glauber'), is dated 27 Aug. 1647 (HP 37/121A-122B).
The tract sent by Appelius was an advertisement for Glauber's new laboratory. A copy, in Appelius's hand, is preserved among Hartlib's papers, entitled 'Furni Noui Philosophici Utilitates oder Beschreibung der eigenschafften eines sonderbaren new erfundenen Philosophischen distillir ofens […] Zu Amsterdam gedruckt beÿ Broer Ianß. Ao 1643' ('Uses of the New Philosophical Oven, or a description of the particulars of a singular new philosophical digesting oven, printed at Amsterdam by Brother Jans, 1643).
In contrast to the later but very similarly entitled Furni novi philosophici (1646-9), the work that was to make Glauber's name throughout Europe, the advertisement gives no indication whatsoever of how the furnace was constructed or how it worked. Instead, it describes, in deliberately vague terms, the processes it could perform and the products it could yield. The fact that only one oven is mentioned suggests that Glauber's later description of his laboratory in De tribus lapidibus, equipped 'with all manner of small and large furnaces', had benefited from a certain amount of retrospective embellishment. It may be, however, that Glauber was using one oven for public displays and others for his private research: it is clear from Appelius's report that there was at least one other oven in the house. The advertisement concludes with an invitation to 'the lover of truth and the spagyric art' to visit Glauber and have the furnace's operations revealed to them: Glauber would not withold his mysteries from the curious visitor. Not, at least, if the visitor came armed with a suitable fee. Appelius was charged 30 Imperials to see both furnaces and their more basic operations: he thought this a reasonable sum.
A particularly striking feature of the list is that Glauber was already speaking of the 'secret philosophic fire', probably some highly corrosive acid, which was to become one of his deepest obsessions in later years. The prices quoted by Appelius were what he and his friendHistory of Chemistry II, 281-9.
The total fee mentioned by Appelius is 420 Imperials, or about £100. Had Glauber had many such eager customers, his business would have been a very profitable one indeed: £100, it may be remembered, is what Comenius a few years earlier had considered an adequate annual income. Glauber was doubtless also selling the products of his laboratory, such as medicines, pesticides, preparations for purifying or preserving food and drink, and the like. But it seems there were few both able and willing to run to expenditure on this scale for the satisfaction of their curiosity, and the overheads must De tribus lapidibus, 10.nd sich an einen bequemen ort zu wohnen niedersetzen'. The phrase is rather odd, since the Rhine does not run through Amsterdam.
All that has previously been known of Glauber's movements in the Netherlands is that besides Amsterdam he dwelt at some point in Utrecht and Arnhem. This information is drawn from the truculently incoherent Glauberus ridivivus:
It is true that I could not stand the damp air of Amsterdam and sought healthier air in Utrecht and Arnhem; then for the sake of earning my keep I had to settle again in Amsterdam, but I never lived in Leiden as you [Fahrner] pretend, and if I had lived there, what would it have mattered if Leiden had suited me better than another place, who could object to my living there?Glauberus ridivivus, 65-6.
Information in Hartlib's papers make it possible to establish the chronology of these movements with much greater accuracy, thanks to the regular news about Glauber sent by Moriaen and Appelius. Though the very vehemence with which Glauber denied a stay in Leiden inevitably arouses the suspicion that he had been there and had reason to conceal the fact, the absence from their reports of any mention of such a stay tends to suggest on this occasion he was in fact telling the truth.Glauber, 17).
Both Pietsch and Gugel conclude that after leaving Amsterdam the first time, Glauber returned to the service of the court of Hessen-Darmstadt. This is because Glauber appears to cite the siege of Marburg by invading troops from Hesse-Kassel, which occurred on 2 November 1645, as his reason for leaving this employment. But as Arnulf Link points out,Glauber, 29-30.
twenty-odd years ago [i.e. before 1636 if the report is accurate] I took a wife in Giessen, then I was summoned to supervise the prince's court apothecary, but when Hesse-Kassel made war with Hessen-Darmstadt and sought to take Marburg by force of arms, everything changed, and whoever could fled to safety; I moved then down the Rhine to my gracious Lord [= Georg II of Hessen-Darmstadt?] in Frankfurt and then Bonn, and during this time surprised the said wife from Giessen one day committing adultery with my then manservant in my bedroom; I then moved to Holland for the first time over a year later [emphasis added].Glauberus ridivivus, 65.
The passage thus seems to place the siege of Marburg (1645) a year before Glauber, 30.
Gugel and Pietsch also both assume Glauber was back in Amsterdam by 1646, on the grounds that his first major published works, Furni novi philosophici I and De auri tinctura (often referred to as De auro potabili), appeared there that year.De auri tinctura sive auro potabili vero (Amsterdam, 1646): the short title form De auri tinctura avoids confusion with the later Tractatus de medicina universali, sive auro potabili vero (Amsterdam, 1657).De auri tinctura.De auri tinctura was not, therefore, as Partington states (History of Chemistry II, 344), Glauber's first published book, having been narrowly preceded by Furni novi I.
It was at just this juncture, it seems, that Moriaen's regular correspondence with Hartlib was resumed, and it is obvious that his relations with Glauber were now very close. Though only part one of Furni novi philosophici had appeared in print, he was able to give detailed and accurate accounts of the ovens that were to be described in parts two to four (1647-8).en offen ins werck zu richten vnd ein theil medicamenten dadurch zu machen'.
Moreover, it emerges that not only had Moriaen given the chemist lodgings at his house in Amsterdam, he and Odilia were the godparents of two of Glauber's children.au ihme 2 Kinder auß der tauffe gehoben'.
expressly says in several places, Come unto me all ye that labour and are Glauberus ridivivus, 79; cf. Matthew 11:28 (I have departed from the Authorised Version in my translation in order to remain closer to Glauber's German).
If Glauber really had been playing the Vicar of Bray, he would hardly have published a declaration so calculated to offend all the established Christian orthodoxies, one which makes him sound more like a Behmenist or a Collegiant, or at any rate an 'impartial' spirit very much of Moriaen's own stamp, than a kow-tower to any denominational authority.
The evident closeness of their relationship did not, however, make Moriaen an uncritical admirer of his friend. Already at this stage he was commenting on Glauber's inability to concentrate on a given subject or follow his experiments through to a definite conclusion. Later, this inconstancy of purpose would be a source of continual annoyance to Moriaen, though he always stressed that Glauber was genuinely talented and that 'he has been granted a considerable light into Nature'.en ist' - Moriaen to Hartlib, 5 June 1658, HP 31/18/28A.
At least as early as 1644, Glauber had been hankering to return to his homeland. Reporting his move to Utrecht that year, Appelius stated that he had intended to go to Germany but was prevented by the continuing state of war.Glauberus ridivivus, 70.Glauberus ridivivus, 12.
It has not previously been possible to establish whether Glauber made his move in the spring of 1650 or that of 1651. The latter has, reasonably enough, been favoured, on the grounds that Glauber's son Alexander was baptised in Amsterdam in 1651.Glauber, 24; Link, Glauber, 35.Glauberus ridivivus, 67-8.
Glauber also claimed that, far from sneaking out of Amsterdam in secret to escape his creditors and a pending court case for debt, as Fahrner (very plausibly) charged, he had merely gone on ahead alone to check that the route was safe for his family, and that having found it was, he summoned them to follow him by boat to Bremen, from where they completed the rest of the journey together.Glauber, 35.
There are two plausible reasons why Glauber should have bothered with this invention. The first is to gloss over the fact that he left a pregnant wife and nursing mother to fend for herself, and fend off the creditors, for at least the better part of a year. If, that is, Helena was pregnant when he left: and herein lies the second likely reason. Having admitted to one cuckolding already in this book, Glauber doubtless did not wish to draw attention to the fact that he had not seen his wife for a good nine months at least before the birth of 'his' son. The available evidence unfortunately does not reveal when in 1651 Alexander Glauber's baptism took place. If it was in early January, and if Glauber did not in fact leave Amsterdam until early April 1650, it is possible he was indeed the child's father, but the odds are not favourable. This would also help explain Glauber's apparently gratuitous remark, in the story of his first marriage, that in spite of her treachery he would not have cast his first wife off if they had had any children living.Glauberus ridivivus, 52.
In Wertheim, Glauber rented a large house and set up a new public laboratory in which to teach transmutation of metals, and set about exploiting a mine, the nature of which is not clear.m auffrichtet transmutationem metallorum publice zue docirn hatt sonsten ein Bergwerkh daselbsten funden'.
The initial funding for these projects, which must have represented a considerable outlay, was presumably supplied by Glauber's new patron, Johann Philipp von Schönborn, Elector and Archbishop of the Imperial City of Mainz (some hundred kilometres to the west of Wertheim), though it has not previously been known that Glauber was associated with him this early. On 13 June 1651, Glauber specifically mentioned Johann Philipp as his patron, from whom he expected an unspecified advantage in exchange for the revelation of an unspecified secret.Gründliche und wahrhafftige Beschreibung wie man auß den Weinhefen einen guten Weinstein […] extrahiren soll (1654), which he dedicated to the Elector. According to this dedication, he received a privilege for the process from Johann Philipp in 1652.
Faced with this large and diverse work-load, Glauber took on two students as apprentices-cum-assistants.Glauberus ridivivus, 68.Glauberus ridivivus and De tribus lapidibus, passim.
Despite the quarrels with his apprentices, Glauber seemed comfortably placed in Wertheim, in favour with the Elector, his mine and public laboratory flourishing. This situation too, however, was soon to be disrupted, as the owner of the house he was renting sold it and the buyer promptly evicted him. Glauber moved this time to the relatively nearby Kitzingen - still within the Elector's sphere of influence - and devoted himself more exclusively to his enterprises of manufacturing and improving wine and extracting tartar from wine lees.Glauber, 36-7, Gugel, Glauber, 21. Gugel dates the move late 1652/early 1653, but Glauber had decided to leave at the end of June 1651 (HP 63/14/9A), and after changing his mind yet again about his next destination, which was initially to have been Hanau or Frankfurt (both much closer to Mainz), had arrived by 8 September 1651 (Moriaen to ?, HP 63/14/10A).Glauberus ridivivus, 48.Operis mineralis (1652),Miraculum mundi (1653), part 1 of Pharmacopoea spagyrica (1654) and the Gründliche und wahrhafftige Beschreibung of 1654 mentioned above.
Gugel describes this last work as Glauber's parting gift to the Elector and the district that had treated him well for some years. This may be true as far as it goes, but if so it is the first of many examples of Glauber's offering as a gift what had ceased to be of any use to him. The explicit motivation behind this and the ensuing torrent of publications was to forestall the attempts of his estranged assistant Christoph Fahrner to pass off what he had learned from
Glauber had met Fahrner soon after his arrival in Kitzingen in mid-1651, and took him on as a trainee and assistant, under a vow of secrecy.Ehrenrettung (1656) cited a contract he had himself drawn up offering half his entire worldly possessions as surety, but it is not certain this was ever ratified. See Gugel, 22-5, and Link, 39-42, for fuller accounts.Glauberus ridivivus, 15.
This does not chime very well with Moriaen's earlier report that Glauber not only claimed to understand transmutation but had taught it publicly in Wertheim. It must, however, be doubted whether Moriaen's report is an entirely accurate representation of what Glauber had told him - or indeed whether what Glauber had told him was an entirely faithful representation of what Glauber was doing. If Glauber really was, as Moriaen stated, offering instruction to the general public in the transmutation of metals, he was breaking the most sacred alchemical taboo. The 'great work' was not to be made available to all and sundry, or not at least until the world itself had been transmuted into a terrestrial paradise by direct divine intervention. It seems likelier that what Glauber was doing, as in his earlier public laboratory in Amsterdam, was demonstrating the results of his methods to the public rather than explaining the methods themselves, and that these supposed results now included transmutation (to which he had not laid claim in Furni novi utilitates).
Gugel asserts somewhat defensively that though he believed in the possibility of transmutation, Glauber repeatedly stated that he himself had never achieved a successful transmutation.Glauber, 8.
According to Fahrner, not only did Glauber withold his alchemical secrets, even his wine treatments were valueless. Glauber countered that any failures they had met with were the result of Fahrner's incompetence. What truth there is in either account it is now largely impossible to determine. The polemics on both sides are almost exclusively ad hominem and obviously wildly exaggerated. Fahrner accused Glauber of being a time-server in religious matters, an adulterer and a bigamist; Glauber accused Fahrner of everything from inadequate facial hair to uxoricide.Glauberus ridivivus, 74, 49, 50, 21 and 52 respectively.
Whatever the full facts behind the dispute, it is clear that Fahrner did indeed set about selling some of the secrets he had learned from Glauber. Whether he also, as Glauber claimed, incited other former employees to do likewise is not verifiable, but since Fahrner himself did not deny the main charge, claiming only that he had offered his knowledge to far fewer people than Glauber made out, it seems certain the accusation was substantially true.Apologia (1655), 19-30, and Fahrner's Ehrenrettung (1656), 44.
by which revelation the whole human race, its aged and sick, will gain great delight and salve, which I might perhaps not have done had the godless Fahrner not wrung it from me through his treachery, lies and calumnies, but Fahrner will earn a reward like Judas Iscariot's.Glauberus ridivivus, 99.
Starting with the Gründliche und wahrhafftige Beschreibung, exposing in some detail the process even Glauber stated he had originally contractually agreed to confide to Fahrner, works flooded from his pen in the following years, all purporting to make a gift to mankind of what Fahrner had tried to steal for himself.en sich nur beide zueschanden damit, vnderdeßen kommen auch gute dinge an den tage die sonsten dahinden geblieben weren'.
When Glauber left Kitzingen is uncertain, but it was probably soon after publishing Gründliche und wahrhafftige Beschreibung in 1654. He later gave as his grounds for leaving that the local distillers, envious of his success and under the influence of their own produce, had resolved to use violence against him: 'seeing that I was likely to come to blows with a gang of drunken thugs, I sought to take my family to a place of safety'.Glauberus ridivivus, 71.
Mr. Morian writes again of Glauber, that he hath had a very dangerous fall from a waggon, spitting much blood, and if the fever prevail upon him he fears for his life; which I pray God may be yet continued for giving many good hints, at least[,] to the studiers of nature and arts.Works VI, 91.
He then spent some time in Frankfurt am Main, which he was forced to leave, he claimed, for fear of being murdered by Fahrner's cronies.Glauberus ridivivus, 105, and see Link, Glauber, 43-4.ichen Personen') as an assayer in mines near Cologne. In this instance, Moriaen's letters provide confirmation of Glauber's own published statements, which have previously been the only evidence for his stay in Cologne, and suggest that by 'princely persons' Glauber meant the Elector himself.Glauberus ridivivus, 82; and Moriaen to [Hartlib?], 16 Oct. 1654, HP 39/2/18A: 'Er dann erstes tages für seine person nach Cölln kommen muß zu dem Churfürsten'.
In Glauberus ridivivus, published in 1656, Glauber declared - somewhat paradoxically in view of his statement elsewhere in the same book that one reason he kept moving was to escape Fahrner's murderous intentions - that
now here I am in Amsterdam and I live on the Kaisersgracht, in a well-known place, not in a corner; if you [Fahrner] or anyone else have anything to say to me, come here and say it; you shall have a straight answer.sic] es/ werde dir redt vnd antwort geben' - Glauberus ridivivus, 11-12.
Here he continued working on his celebrated and much discussed aurum potabile, with which according to Moriaen he now claimed he could transmute all metals, albeit unprofitably. It was also, more importantly, a universal medicine.sal mirabile fundamentally dissolves not only all metals but all stones and bones, yea, coal itself, which no other corrosive can dissolve; I could write a great book about this miraculous solution'.De natura salium, 94.History of Chemistry II, 355).
Plans for Moriaen to visit Glauber, or vice versa, were constantly being renewed after the latter's return to the Netherlands in 1656, but were repeatedly frustrated by one or the other's ill health, or by bad weather. Indeed, in July 1658, Moriaen reported that Glauber had 'a violent desire to leave Amsterdam',erdam' - Moriaen to Hartlib, 2 July 1658, HP 31/18/39A.
He was evidently soon thriving once more, for at least by 1659 he had set up yet another new laboratory, part public and part private. Moriaen finally managed two visits to Amsterdam in the summer and autumn of 1659 in order to inspect this. Another visitor that summer was Kretschmar, who told Hartlib:
Herr Glauber's public and private laboratory has now been set on foot, and he has many friends visiting him, especially good old Joh Moriaen of Arnhem, with whom I have met several times. He is staying in Herr Glauber's own house, and will perhaps be able to tell you more than I can of Herr Glauber's affairs.en, und sind viel freunde beÿ ihm, insonderheit der gute alte H joh Morian von Arnheimb; mit welchem ich etliche mahl zusammen gewesen […] logiret beÿ H. Glaubern selber im hause, und wird vielleicht, Meinem hochgeehrten H. ein mehrers, alß ich, von H. Glaubers dingen überschreiben' - Kretschmar to Hartlib, Dury, Clodius and Brereton, 1 Aug. 1659, HP 26/64/3B.
Both Glauber himself and his new laboratory were described by the travelling French scholar Samuel de Sorbière in 1660.Relations, lettres et discours de Mr. de Sorbière sur diverses matières curieuses (Paris, 1660), and rather more accessibly in P.J. Blok, 'Drie Brieven van Samuel Sorbière over den Toestand van Holland in 1660', Bijdragen en Mededeelingen van het Historische Genootschap 22 (1901), 1-89; passage relating to Glauber 74-89.
the Panaceas, the Alcahest, the Zenda and Parenda, the Archeus, the Enspagoycum, the Nostoch, the Ylech, the Trarame, the Turban, the Ens Tagastricum and the other visions van Helmont and his fraternity serve up to us,
he was careful to absolve Glauber:
By none of this speech, Sir, do I intend to insult Glauber, nor any of those who,
Indeed, so well-appointed were Glauber's premises that Sorbière, for all his sarcasm about alchemical jargon, was only half in jest when he stated that Glauber must indeed have mastered the secret of transmutation in order to maintain his laboratory and his large family (eight children by this time) in such fine style.
But there is a telling detail in Sorbière's account: he and his companions guessed Glauber's age to be sixty-six. In fact, he was at least ten years younger than that.Les voyages de M. Monconys II (Paris, 1695), 353, dated 28 Aug. 1663.Glauberus concentratus, oder Laboratorium Glauberianum (Amsterdam, 1668).
Nonetheless, he managed in his last eight years, before being finally released from what must have become a very trying and dispiriting existence in March 1670, to produce a further eleven works besides the catalogue of his effects. In terms of numbers of titles this represents forty percent of his total output, though it should be said these are all short single-volume works, and in terms of bulk of content account for only half that proportion.Glauber, 99, n. 358. Link assesses the output of his last decade as representing 19 percent of the total in terms of number of pages.
He took to denouncing practical experiment as a superficial, mechanical operation, and to lauding instead the 'secret fire' he claimed to have discovered, probably an acid of some form, which could do more in a hazelnut shell than could be done by ordinary fire in the greatest furnace.De tribus lapidibus, 19.De signatura salium, 13-15. Cf. Link, Glauber, 118-22, for a fuller discussion of Glauber's various notions of 'signatures' discernible not only in the physical makeup of things but in the words and symbols used to denote them.
There can be little doubt that Glauber's rejection of laboratory work was to some extent at least a case of sour grapes. One of the advantages of his 'secret fire' was that the adept did not even need to get out of bed to work with it:De tribus lapidibus, 19.Furni novi utilitates to reveal the 'secret fire of the philosophers', and had gained rather than lost weight with him as his technical expertise increased. Long before he was forced to give up practical experiments, he was busying himself with isolating and analysing the 'soul of the world', interpreting the microcosmic 'signatures' of salts, and offering chemical accounts of Creation itself. This 'mystical' aspect of his thought was not separate from, let alone opposed to, his practical work, and only became divorced from it when the latter became impossible for him. Like so many of the figures associated with or promoted by Hartlib and his circle, Glauber has been widely praised as a precursor, or even a 'father', of modern science, but was in fact turning more and more against the rationalist and empiricist currents that became increasingly prevalent in the latter half of the century.
The most valuable supplement the Hartlib Papers can add to the individual history of Glauber is a broader and more contextualised view of contemporary reaction to the man and his work. They also reveal much about the international dissemination of his writings and equipment, which Hartlib did a great deal to promote. Glauber's first public laboratory in Amsterdam began to acquire a reputation in 1643, with the publication of Furni novi utilitates. This was precisely the time when Hartlib, after the failure of his plan to launch a pansophic reformation of learning by establishing a College of Light in England under the directorship of Comenius, began to turn more wholeheartedly to the study of nature as a means of achieving universal illumination, and he immediately latched onto Glauber's work as a possible means of promoting this. The earliest surviving mention of Glauber in his papers is in a letter from Appelius of 7 June 1644 mentioning the Furni novi utilitates,
Several extracts of Glauber's works are to be found among Hartlib's papers, but Hartlib must have possessed all, or almost all, the Glauberian works that appeared during his lifetime. Appelius sent him Part I of Furni novi philosophici and probably De auri tinctura.Furni novi, as well as Operis mineralis, De medicina universali, De natura salium, the Apologia against Fahrner, and other unspecified books. He also promised to send Trost der Seefahrenten, until he discovered that copies had already been sent directly to England by the publisher. This work was published simultaneously in Amsterdam by Jansson and in Arnhem by Jacob von Biesen: it appears from Moriaen's letter that it was Biesen who was sending copies to England to pre-empt Jansson - proof in itself of how ready a market there was in this country for Glauber's productions.Glauber, 178, and Bruckner, no. 232.
Hartlib in turn distributed the works he received, or copies of them, to other chemical enthusiasts. He had Furni novi utilitates translated from German into Latin and recopied for circulation. He aroused the interest of Furni novi, possibly of Miraculum mundi or Pharmacoepia spagyrica: Glauber wrote nothing else in more than three parts) (n.d., HP 46/9/11A).Furni novi philosophici, or part of it, possibly De auri tinctura), to Comenius's estranged assistant Cyprian Kinner in Poland.Operis mineralis (1651) early in 1652,
Not only Glauber's writing but also his equipment was brought to England, or replicated there, by various of Hartlib's associates. However varied the judgments on his theoretical writings and chemical products, there has never been any doubt that his technological innovations were genuine and valuable: not even his fiercest detractors denied this, though some questioned their originality.ings out of Erker his booke vom Berg-wercke [i.e. Lazarus Ercker, Beschreibung allerfürnemisten mineralischen Ertzt vnnd Bergwercks Arten (Prague, 1574)]. Hee excels only in der Scheide-kunst [chemistry]' (Eph 48, HP 31/22/8B). In fairness, Glauber openly acknowledged in Operis mineralis that he had taken a great deal from Ercker: cf. Link, Glauber, 51.Ephemerides of 1654, citing Boyle as a source, record that 'Dr Rigely an Auncient Physitian of the College […] bought vp all Glauberian furnaces especially the 2d with a new Head, which also Mr Boyle hath'.Eph 54, HP 29/4/27A.Eph 55, HP 29/5/6B.
Hartlib was also instrumental in commissioning early translations of Glauber. His papers include a complete English version of the Gründliche und wahrhafftige Beschreibung, the work on tartar extraction Glauber had written for the Elector of Mainz,the good of his Country By Iohn Rudolph Glaubers [sic] 1654'. The work has been split into three for some reason and occurs at HP 55/17/1A-4B, 16/1/85A-88B and 8/24/3A-14B in that order. These three fragments have not previously been recognised as forming a whole.Furni novi and De auri tinctura, which appeared in 1651 or 52Glauber, 247).Description of New Philosophical Furnaces that he had found 'the greatest part of the treatise in private hands already translated into English by a learned German',A Description of New Philosophical Furnaces (London, 1651/2).Paradise Lost into German (cf. Barnett, Haak, 71-5, 114-19, 168-86).sic: Moriaen repeatedly made this mistake] subterraneal Treasure de agricultura Teutsch machen vnd vbersenden wolte so würd Er sich vmb vnsere landsleuthe woll verdienen vnd H. Merian wills gern druckhen' ('if Mr. Haak wished to translate Mr. Plattes' Subterraneal Treasure of Agriculture into German and send it over, he would do a service to our countrymen, and Mr. Merian is eager to print it'. Moriaen was apparently confusing Plattes' Subterraneall Treasure, a treatise on mining and metallurgy which has nothing to do with agriculture, with his Discovery of Hidden Treasure.
What is certain, however, is that Hartlib subsequently urged French to undertake further translation of Glauber, a fact which lends considerable weight to the hypothesis that it was he who suggested and supplied the original texts for French's version of the Furni novi. Hartlib recorded that 'The 30. of Nov. 1652 I lent to Dr French the 2. et 3. Part of Glaub. to be translated into English'.Eph 52, HP 28/2/42B.Furni novi, for French had already translated these and almost certainly published them.Operis mineralis, which Hartlib had received from Moriaen earlier that year, though if French did undertake this work it was never published.
Whoever French's predecessor as translator of Furni novi was, he must already have finished part one some time before March 1647, as Cheney Culpeper had by then started, given up on and decided to restart a translation of the English, presumably into Latin. He specifically remarked that he was not working from the original: 'truly', he complained, 'I finde it a greater busines to translate it out of Englishe then it wowlde haue beene out of Dutche [i.e. German] if I had vnderstoode that langwage'.Furni novi, as the second book had not yet been published even in German. Clucas is mistaken in assuming Culpeper to be the author of the partial English translation mentioned by French ('Correspondence of a XVII-Century "Chymicall Gentleman"', 168, n. 59).the book were no more his, but all mens'.
In this case, the correspondence leaves no doubt whatsoever that Hartlib was the instigator of the project. The translation cost Culpeper much pains, and he apologised repeatedly to Hartlib for the fact that it was taking him far longer than he had expected.Furni novi ever appeared in England.
Hartlib even nursed hopes of persuading Glauber to move to England to teach at Gresham College. In 1647, Appelius advised:
But to gett Gl. in Hunns.[expanded by Hartlib to Hunniades] place, that shall not bee, because hee is this summer gone from Amsterd. to Arnheim, to bee the nigher Germany, whither hee intends to goe up the next yeere, to settle him et so to live by his art.
János Bánfihunyadi (1576-1646), better known in England as Banfi Hunniades (in an assortment of variant spellings) or Hans Hungar, was a Hungarian alchemist and mathematician who had moved to England by 1633 and at some point taught chemistry and mathematics at Gresham College. He was described on engravings by Wenceslaus Hollar, dated 1644, as a former practitioner of the hermetic and mathematical disciplines at Gresham ('Olim Anglo-Londini in Illustri Collegio Greshamensi Hermeticæ Disciplini Sectatoris et Philo-Mathematici').Ambix 5 (1953-6), 44-52, pp. 44-6; cf. also the same authors' 'Supplementary Note' to the article, correcting some erroneous conjectures including the date of death, Ambix 5 (1953-6), 115. Jan Jonston mentioned him to Hartlib on 1 March 1633 as a mutual friend, clearly implying he was in London (HP 44/1/1A). On Bánfihunyadi, see also John H. Appleby, 'Arthur Dee and Johannes Bánfi Hunyades: Further Information on their Alchemical and Professional Activities', Ambix 24 (1977), 96-109, and George Gömöri, 'New Information on János Bánfihunyadi's Life', Ambix 24 (1977), 170-74Anglicus, Peace, or no Peace (London, 1645), cit. Taylor and Josten, 47.
It has been suggested that Hunniades' post at Gresham was Professor of Mathematics,Eph 40, HP 30/4/51B, probably in the first half of the year.
Hartlib's idea was in any case hardly realistic, if only on linguistic grounds. He had obviously considered this problem, as Appelius in the same letter reported that Glauber 'understands latyn well, et can also make his minde knowne therein, if I remember well',
Further evidence of this general early enthusiasm for Glauber is provided by the commendatory remarks by Appelius and Moriaen already noted. Glauber also inspired considerable interest in Boyle. Early in 1648, noting Boyle himself as the source, Hartlib recorded that
Helmont's stone wherby hee cured the stone in bladder kidney called Ludus Paracelsi is a stone which is found neere Antwerp prepared by Helmont. This stone one of Helmont's friends hath gotten and shewn or promised it to Morian, which hee hath promised for Mr Boyles sake to give to Glauberus that hee may prepare it and make the Ludus Paracelsi of it.Eph 48, HP 31/22/2A-B.
Boyle had barely turned twenty when this was written,
In Tractatus Glauberi de Prosperitate Germaniæ [i.e. Teutschlands Wolfahrt I, which came out that year], the annexed discourse of salpeeter De Nitro is the most substantial rational et real piece, wherin many secrets are discovered which himself [Boyle] had before.Eph 56, HP 29/5/92B: again, Boyle himself is given as the source.
Perhaps the most assiduous collector of Glauberian writings and equipment was Cheney Culpeper, whose complex and ambivalent assessment will be considered at more length in Chapter Seven.
However, in a striking re-run of the history of the Hartlib circle's responses to Comenius, initial high enthusiasm was increasingly (though not invariably) displaced by scepticism and disillusion. Just as with Comenius, the more Glauber wrote, the less Hartlib's friends saw their initial expectations fulfilled. When Robert Child in 1652 received the first two books of Operis mineralis from Hartlib, he could make little sense of them, though he nonetheless asked in April, 'pray let me se all Glaubers workes if possibly [sic]'.
Doubts about Glauber's honesty recur throughout the papers. The naturalist and historian Georg Horn complained that Glauber was more assiduous in making promises than in keeping them.hich I wonderfully approue'.
A recurrent charge, and perhaps one of the weightier ones, was that Glauber was given to selling processes he had not in fact tested. Erasmus Rasch, for instance, declared: 'Glauber, in my opinion, commits a great sin by undertaking to teach others things he does not know himself'.en andern zu lehren unterstehet, die er selbst nicht weis' - Rasch to Hartlib, 25 July 1658, HP 26/89/19A.
Moriaen himself, during the 1650s, became increasingly dubious about Glauber's claims and motives. After reporting his friend's discovery of 'sal mirabile', he went on to remark that if what Glauber said was true, he had indeed discovered the alcahest or something very like it, in which case it would certainly cure Hartlib's bladder stone, an ailment Moriaen feared he was developing as well. But hard on the heels of this optimistic report came a sombre caveat: Glauber had promised to visit Moriaen soon and show him an even more important treatise,Tractatus de signatura salium, which appeared the same year (1658).
He has been putting me off in this fashion for a long time now, and leading me to the summit of Mount Pisga; whether anything will come of it this time and what good things he will bring me, only time will tell; I can no longer depend on him, having been disappointed so often and for so long.
And indeed, when Moriaen asked Glauber for some sal mirabile, so that he might try to prepare the alcahest and treat his stone, the usual story unfolded: Glauber claimed to have no sal mirabile to hand, and sent instead some 'tinctura nitri', together with the unhelpful remark that Moriaen's bladder stone was probably hereditary.er sein, dan seines gleichen in unbeständigkeit seines furnehmens ist mir noch niemand fürkommen' - Moriaen to Hartlib, 5 June 1658, HP 31/18/28A.
Nonetheless, the two men appear to have remained on friendly terms. In July 1657, when Moriaen was recovering from a violent fever he had fully expected would kill him, and was reflecting anxiously on what would befall Odilia if he died, Glauber reassured him that should the worst happen, he would take it upon himself to guarantee her welfare. Moriaen thought this reflected very well on the chemist.
You should know that Herr Moriaen no longer thinks so highly of Glauber as he did, for he has been convinced that the yellow metal of which his so-called aurum potabile is made is no true gold and will not stand thorough testing, as I have been told by a trusted friend who has proved this to Herr Moriaen on a sound basis, and whom Herr Moriaen had to admit was right.er halte als vor diesem, den er überzeuget ist, dass das jenige gelbe metal, welches sein vermeintes aurum putabile [sic] gemachet, kein wahres golt, noch in allen proben bestehen könne, welchs mir ein vertrawter freundt gesagt, der dem H Morian solchs ex veris fundamentis demonstrirt, vnd H Morian ihm auch hat müssen recht geben' - Poleman to Hartlib, 17 Oct. 1659, HP 60/4/194A.
Unfortunately, the lack of material from Moriaen himself after this date makes it impossible to judge whether there was any truth in this claim of a chemical conversion.
In 1660, an anonymous correspondent who I believe is Kretschmar
I hope by God's grace I have it largely right; it was a wonder I managed to see the ovens despite the fact that he keeps the laboratory close shut now men, vngeachtet er das Laboratorium feste zuegeschloßen helt, nach dem sie nun gebawet sind, vnd keinen Menschen hinein lest. Es kostet mich alle mein armuth, vnd kan nun nichts mehr thun, als daß ichs ihnen hiermitt alles treulich offenbahre, vnd nochmahls umb Gottes willen bitte, es in höchster verschwiegenheit zu halten gegen iederman, sonderlich gegen H. Morian, daß ichs ihnen vbergeschrieben, vnd daß es ja Glauber nicht erfahre' - [Kretschmar?] to Hartlib, Dury, Clodius and Brereton, c. 1660, HP 31/23/30B.
If this is indeed from Kretschmar (who, like Moriaen, frequently incurred Poleman's scorn for believing Glauber's fairy tales), it may well be that he was offering these details as an added incentive to the addressees to participate in his own transmutation project.
In 1660 and 1661, Fahrner's published attacks on Glauber were supplemented by three polemical works from other pens. These were the Sudum philosophicum (Philosophical Fine Weather, 1660) of the self-styled 'filius Sendivogii', Johannes Fortitudino Hartprecht, the Glauberus refutatus (1661) of one 'Antiglauberus', whom an anagram in his title reveals as Johannes Joachim Becher,Glauber, 106. The 'Autoris Anagramma' is 'Hai soo muß ich ja berechnen! was deß Glaubers Facit macht?' The first sentence is a perfect (if somewhat contrived) anagram of Iohannes Ioachimus Becher, and though Link leaves the question open I do not think there can be much doubt of the ascription. There are several mentions of Becher in the Hartlib Papers, relating to his perpetual motion machine and 'new argonautical invention', but no direct reference to his controversy with Glauber. On Becher, see Partington, History of Chemistry II, 637-52.Gründliche Widerlegung (Thoroughgoing Refutation, 1661) of 'C.D.M.A.S.'.Glauber, 276-7. At this point in the print edition of this book I somehow managed to ascribe the Sudum philosophicum to Becher and the Glauberus refutatus to Hartprecht instead of vice versa, though going on to speak of 'Hartprecht's Sudum philosophicum'.Sudum philosophicum he supplied the bibliographical detail that this work, which was published without indication of place, in fact came out in Amsterdam: 'the Son of Sendivogius has thoroughly demonstrated that he [Glauber] is a complete ignoramus in true philosophy in his Ludum [sic] philosophicum, which is now under the press here [Amsterdam]'.
'C.D.M.A.S.' accused Glauber of being semi-literate, of employing an assistant to render his books readable, of not understanding Paracelsus properly, of atheism, and of having killed a number of people with his 'aurum horribile'. The author has so far remained unidentifiable, though as Link remarks it is not unlikely, given that his work was published there, that he lived at the time in Leipzig.Glauber, 106.Widerlegung's subtitle, Nothwendige Refutation auff etliche Johann-Rudolph Glaubers zu Amsterdam unwahre bißhero außgelaßene Bücher.
We have, then, a name to put to 'C.D.M.A.S.', Charles De Montendon - perhaps Altenburgensis Studiosus? Unfortunately that is about all we have.
All four men who published against Glauber in his lifetime (Fahrner, Hartprecht, Becher and Montendon) were themselves chemically inclined. So were the harshest critics whose comments survive in Hartlib's papers. Foremost among these was Poleman, whose diatribes are composed in a very similar spirit to those of Fahrner and the others, except that Poleman does not appear to have had any personal grudge against Glauber beyond the conviction that he brought discredit on the noble art of alchemy. Some of his comments have already been cited: there are a great many more. He reported with evident satisfaction that one Schöfler 'is slopping about in Glauber's stinking so-called alcahest and has made such serious mistakes with it that it well nigh cost him his life'.
The range of opinions represented in the papers is spectacularly wide. The accusations of dishonesty and fraudulence somewhat outweigh the commendations, and the widespread enthusiastic interest of the 1640s tends to be replaced by disillusion and rejection in the 1650s. There is, however, no clear consensus at any point, and it should be added that even among Glauber's professed detractors a good many, like Rasch, were keen to obtain his works and, especially, his equipment. One of the more balanced judgments, which neatly sums up the tone of much of the polemic, is that of Appelius: 'for my own part, I have no reason to think him a cheat, but he despises others, and others despise him, as is the way with almost all artists, for none cries up any but his own wares'.er zu halten, sonsten veracht er andere, vnd andere verachten ihn, wie aller artisten gebrauch ist, da niemand nichts lobet als seine eigene wahre' - Appelius to Hartlib, 2 Aug. 1648, HP 45/1/39B.
Hartlib himself apparently remained perplexed as to which of the widely differing reports he should believe. Though he was still collecting Glauber's works assiduously at least as late as 1659, the stream of accusations from the likes of Rasch and Poleman, and news of the work of Becher, Hartprecht and Montendon, led him to become increasingly suspicious. In 1660, he told Winthrop:
our german adepti with whom I shall be better acquainted ere long, count no better of Glauber then a mountebank, one that continues to cheat all sorts of people by his specious artifices and one that knows nothing in the true Philosophical work Alkahest Elixir, &c &c There are some who are the error and falshood of his philosophy and experimentall knowledges & his willfull cheates and cousenages.
This, however, is followed by the quintessentially Hartlibian rider, 'I have suggested that some would also note whatever was true and good in all his writings'.
It is obviously impossible to reduce such a broad spectrum of opinion to any simple formulation of the contemporary response to Glauber. It is quite clear, though, that the most savage attacks came from what one might call the 'old school' of Hermetic chemists: men such as Rasch, Hartprecht and Poleman, who were deeply committed to the notion of alchemy as essentially a mystic experience and a matter of personal revelation, from which it was important to exclude the common herd, even when publishing - indeed, especially when publishing. This peculiar ambivalence to the notion of publication finds striking expression in Poleman's comments on the manuscripts of Starkey, which were sent to him by Hartlib in 1659. Poleman was hugely impressed by these cryptic productions and wished to see them brought to press at once - indeed, he expressed an interest in arranging this himself.
Clearly, however, Poleman did not regard himself as 'anyone': these mysteries were not impenetrable to him. The purpose of publication, presumably, was to reach out to that tiny, elect body of similarly enlightened adepts whose learning and insight qualified them to share in this virtually sacred knowledge. The very fact that they were capable of understanding it guaranteed that they were worthy to do so. To the proponents of such an outlook, Glauber's direct, popular style and (comparatively) explicit terminology was anathema. This is not, to be sure, what they ostensibly attacked him for: the endlessly repeated charges were that he was at best mercenary and at worst a charlatan and confidence trickster whose fake medicines were lethal, whose writings led would-be adepts onto false paths and who brought the noble art of alchemy into disrepute by his association with it. However, the very vehemence of their onslaughts suggests they felt threatened by him in some way, and this concern for a gullible public whom they were themselves at such pains to keep in the dark is not overly convincing. What really upset them, I would suggest, is that Glauber was trying to make chemistry accessible to the commoner.
Others such as Boyle, Hartlib and Moriaen, who took a rather less elitist view of the chemical art, were inclined to give Glauber more credit, and to acknowledge at least his practical achievements. Boyle, as has been mentioned, was keen to apply his furnace-making technology and thought highly of his work on saltpetre; Moriaen was particularly impressed by his contributions to agriculture and longed more than anything to learn the secrets of his fertilisers and artificial wines. Poleman, by contrast, sneered at such mundane achievements, remarking (not unreasonably) that if Glauber's aurum potabile and alcahest were half so miraculous as he claimed, he would not
But among those who did not simply dismiss everything connected with the man as manifest charlatanism, his practical and technical achievements were generally esteemed, even when his more grandiose claims were mistrusted. What many increasingly came to find wanting in his work, however, was the spiritual element, the transcendent insights into God and the harmony of the universe that were the ultimate goal of the 'Chemical Philosophy'. Attempts to apply Glauber's more mundane achievements to these mystical ends provide the subject of the final chapter of this study.