Tria prima Quotes

“Phlogiston theory”

“History of science”

“History of chemistry”

“Practically... there was little difference in the application of these diverse theories regarding the three principles.”

“And first the Doctrine that all their Theory is grounded on, seems to me Inevident and undemonstrated, not to say precarious.”

“In this treatise Boyle sets out to prove that the number of the peripatetic elements or principles hitherto assumed by chemists is, to say the least, doubtful.”

“Mercury, sulphur, and salt were not three matters, but one, derived from the prima materia.”

“The words "element" and "principle" are used by him as equivalent terms, and signify those primitive and simple bodies of which compounds may be said to be composed, and into which these compounds are ultimately resolvable.”

“The mercury of a metal... represented its lustre, volatility, fusibility, and malleability; the sulphur of the metal, its colour, combustibility, affinity, and hardness.”

“Ontological Tensions in 16th and 17th Century Chemistry: Between Mechanism and Vitalism by Marina Paola Banchetti-Robino”

“Each of these was a trinity in unity, and a unity in trinity. In each world was a distinct design,—in the material, the perfection of the metals; in the human, the perfection of the soul; in the divine, the contemplation of the Deity in His splendour.”

“Traces of these ancient conceptions are still to be recognised in the word "quick-silver," that is living silver, a literal translation of argentum vivum. A term "quick-sulphur" (sulphur vivum) was also in use, but it has long since disappeared.”

“Tria Prima. The three elements of the alchemists, their salt, sulphur, and mercury: the first of which appears to have denoted whatever remained fixed in the fire; the second, whatever was inflammable; and the third, whatever was neither fixed nor inflammable, but rose in vapour without being burned.”

“[Paracelsus] arranged the several parts of man, his own universal elements, and the Aristotelian elements in triplets, thus :—

 {| |- |Soul || Spirit || Body |- |Mercury || Sulphur || Salt |- |Water || Air || Earth |}”

“In conformity with this theory they maintained, that all bodies may be decomposed by means of fire into these three principles; the salt remains behind fixed, the sulphur takes fire, and the mercury flies off in the form of smoke. The phlegm and caput mortuum of Paracelsus were the water and earth of the ancient philosophers.”

“The alchemists seem to have attached only a very indefinite meaning to the terms salt, sulphur, and mercury: since by salt they appear to have designated every thing which is fixed in the fire; all inflammable substances they denominated sulphur; and every substance which flies off without burning, mercury.”

“All metals and minerals consist of certain principles. These were at first called "mercury" and "sulphur," not the ordinary substances... but a philosophical mercury and a philosophical sulphur. ...At a later period the alchemists added a philosophical salt, or a philosophical arsenic, but they never ascribed to these the importance they attached to the other two principles.”

“Boyle attacked this hypothesis in his Sceptical Chemist, and several of his other publications: proving that under each of the terms salt, sulphur, mercury, phlegm, and earth are comprehended substances of very different properties; that all bodies are not composed of these principles; and that the principles themselves are not elements, but compounds.”

“He concludes... that the Paracelsian elements—their "salt," "sulphur," and "mercury"—are not the first and most simple principles of bodies; but that these consist, at most, of concretions of corpuscles or particles more simple than they, and possessing the radical and universal properties of volume, shape, and motion.”

“Now a man need not be very conversant in the writings of Chymists to observe, in how Laxe, Indefinite, and almost Arbitrary Senses they employ the Terms of Salt, Sulphur and Mercury; of which I could never find that they were agreed upon any certain Definitions or setled Notions; not onely differing Authors, but not unfrequently one and the same, and perhaps in the same Book, employing them in very differing senses.”