Vico’s Ring
219
themselves in a position on a par with the status that Spinoza
concedes to the «prophets» and/or authors of the Scriptures, to
whom he applied the disclaimer that «what God is […], Scripture
[that is, their extant pronouncements] does not teach formally,
and as eternal doctrine»
509
.
In the scientific field of chemistry, our relevant primary
source material is Spinoza’s correspondence with Henry Olden-
burg in London, with, and through, whom he entered into a de-
bate about Robert Boyle’s experimental and theoretical views
510
,
Letters 6
and
13
, in particular
511
, although there are a number of
other letters that are also relevant to the subject. On an initial
reading, these two letters seem to be about detailed descriptions
of experiments, conducted both by Boyle and Spinoza, and their
results, involving primarily “nitre”, i.e. potassium nitrate, but also
general physical properties such as «fluidity» and «solidity», as
dealt with in the extremely lengthy
Letter 6
. But beneath the sur-
face of the “technical” details
512
, between the lines, but at times
not so opaquely, the more fundamental, and therefore more ir-
reconcilable, differences cannot be overlooked. Spinoza actually,
with his characteristic incisiveness, sums up
513
key points of con-
tention at the very beginning of
Letter 6
:
First, he gathers from his experiment […] that Nitre is a heterogeneous
thing, consisting of fixed and volatile parts. Its nature, however […] is
quite different from the nature of its component parts […]. For this
conclusion to be regarded as valid, I suggest that a further experiment
seems to be required to show that Spirit of Nitre is not really Nitre
[…].
To make this clear, I shall briefly set forth what occurs to me as the
simplest explanation of this redintregation of Nitre […]. […] I shall
posit no difference between Spirit of Nitre and Nitre itself other than
that which is sufficiently obvious; to wit, that the particles of the latter
are at rest whereas those of the former […] are in a state of considera-
ble commotion. With regard to the fixed salt, I shall
suppose that this