Corpuscularianism is a physical theory that supposed all matter to be composed of minute particles, which became important in the Seventeenth century. Among the leading corpuscularians were Rene Descartes, Robert Boyle, and John Locke.[1]
Corpuscularianism is similar to the theory of atomism, except that where atoms were supposed to be indivisible, corpuscles could in principle be divided. In this manner, for example, it was theorized that mercury could penetrate into metals and modify their inner structure, a step on the way towards the production of gold by transmutation. Corpuscularianism was associated by its leading proponents with the idea that some of the properties that objects appear to have are artifacts of the perceiving mind: "secondary" qualities as distinguished from "primary" qualities.[2] Corpuscularianism stayed a dominant theory for centuries and was blended with alchemy by early scientists such as Robert Boyle and Isaac Newton in the 17th century.
The philosopher Thomas Hobbes used corpuscularianism to justify his political theories in Leviathan.[3][4] It was used by Newton in his development of the corpuscular theory of light, while Boyle used it to develop his mechanical corpuscular philosophy, which laid the foundations for the Chemical Revolution.[5]
William Newman traces the origins from the fourth book of Aristotle Meteorology.[6] (The "dry" and "moist" exhalations of Aristotle become the (alchemical) 'sulfur' and 'mercury' of the eighth-century Islamic alchemist, Jābir ibn Hayyān (721–815), and others.) Through the thirteenth-century work, the Summa perfectionis of Geber[7] (the Latinised form of Jabir), an alchemist claiming to be the original Jabir but who may have actually been an Italian Franciscan[3] or a Spaniard,[8][9] contains a theory where unified sulfur and mercury corpuscles, differing in purity, size, and relative proportions, form the basis of a much more complicated process.[10]