Vitalist Alchemy (paywalled)

[Paul Ferguson]

"Alchemy was a legitimate precursor to modern chemistry, and the vitalism of early modern alchemy was new, challenging earlier mechanistic alchemy. Newton the alchemist searched for nature’s active spirits or principles to account for phenomena not explicable by mechanism. His manuscripts record his vitalism; his speculations on the living continuity of animal, vegetable, and mineral; and his conviction of “the material soul of all matter.” Milton’s organic universe, with its circulations of respiration and digestion, resembles the universe of Newton’s alchemical manuscripts. Opposing Raphael’s living universe is Satan’s articulation of an outdated, mechanistic alchemy. The alchemical context unravels the puzzle of the presence of “infernal dregs / Adverse to life” in the living universe of Paradise Lost (7.238–39), and medical alchemy provides a basis for the sublimation of food to reason and the soul (5.482–90). Belief in a vital alchemical creation underwrites Milton’s theology of freedom and Newton’s theology of divine omnipotence."

https://academic.oup.com/book/63138/chap...m=fulltext