Page 49 - Hrobat Virloget, Katja, et al., eds. (2015). Stone narratives: heritage, mobility, performance. University of Primorska Press, Koper.
P. 49
planting, growing and breeding stones
metals and stones demand much more than good watering or rain. »The growth of metals
in their mines is due to the same process as that of plants on the surface of Earth.« (New-
man, 2009, p. 43)
Another hero of modern science, philosopher Wilhelm Leibniz, shared in his young-
er years the same belief as his contemporary Newton. In his treatise on geology, titled Pro-
togaea (published posthumously), however, this belief appears no longer.
Europeans and their science
In the mid-seventeenth century, the belief in stones’ and metals’ growth was widely held,
and it was a cultural belief as it were. Evidence of it is copiously available in various kinds
of scientific literature, in folklore, arts, biographic writing, etc. Another hero of modern
science, Francis Bacon, who was almost one century older than Newton and Leibniz, does
not seem to have had any doubts about the possibility of planting and growing metals, even
though he was a founder of a critical empiricist philosophy. In his Sylva sylvarum, which is
a collection of 1000 experiments, either conducted by him personally or described by oth-
ers, he claimed, in experiment no. 797, that if iron is cut into little pieces and put into the
ground, it will, if well watered, grow into bigger pieces (Bacon, 1663[1627], p. 168). That was
clearly an ‘experiment’ he did not made himself, but relied instead on a very popular travel
book by George Sandys (1615), a poet and translator of humanist extraction who travelled to
the Eastern Mediterranean and, regarding the growth of metals, himself relied on the be-
liefs of the Ancient Greek philosophers. The belief in the fecundity of mines which, when
exhausted, may be closed for a hundred years allowing metals to grow again in the mean-
time, survived well into the eighteenth century. »What is a mine, if not a plant covered by
earth«, asked the Renaissance polymath Girolamo Cardano (Bachelard, 1948, p. 244). But
it is slightly shocking that we still find the same belief at the very end of the enlightened
century, expressed by one of the leading philosophers of German Romanticism, namely F.
W. H. Schelling (Bachelard, 1948, p. 24).
Newton and other alchemists considered all that grows vegetation. As clarified by
Newman, the meaning of the term vegetation in Newton is somewhat different from our
current meaning:
In early modern English, ‘vegetation’ was not limited to plants, but it meant more broadly
‘growth’ or the act of growing. Newton, however, uses ‘vegetation’ to distinguish a sort of organic
growth from mere mechanical accretion. To him, vegetation implies a goal-directed process guid-
ed by tiny semina or ‘seeds’ implanted deep within matter (2009, p. 48).
In Newton’s distinction between the vegetal and the mechanical, the rocks and minerals
are part of the vegetal world since they contain seeds (semina, sperma…) which make them
grow. This explains why, as Newton claimed in his early writing titled Humores minerales,
»metals grow, putrefy, and regenerate themselves within the earth, much after the fashion
of trees on Earth’s surface« (Newman, 2009, p. 46).
In comparing young Newton’s view with the view of the Renaissance Neo-Platonist
philosopher Marsilio Ficino, it can easily be shown that the belief in the growth of stones
actually evolved through different theoretical elaboration and different cultural contexts.
This apparently exotic belief should therefore not blind us to notice the incompatibility of
the two theories. Newton’s is a theory developed in the empiricist environment of ‘chimis-
47
metals and stones demand much more than good watering or rain. »The growth of metals
in their mines is due to the same process as that of plants on the surface of Earth.« (New-
man, 2009, p. 43)
Another hero of modern science, philosopher Wilhelm Leibniz, shared in his young-
er years the same belief as his contemporary Newton. In his treatise on geology, titled Pro-
togaea (published posthumously), however, this belief appears no longer.
Europeans and their science
In the mid-seventeenth century, the belief in stones’ and metals’ growth was widely held,
and it was a cultural belief as it were. Evidence of it is copiously available in various kinds
of scientific literature, in folklore, arts, biographic writing, etc. Another hero of modern
science, Francis Bacon, who was almost one century older than Newton and Leibniz, does
not seem to have had any doubts about the possibility of planting and growing metals, even
though he was a founder of a critical empiricist philosophy. In his Sylva sylvarum, which is
a collection of 1000 experiments, either conducted by him personally or described by oth-
ers, he claimed, in experiment no. 797, that if iron is cut into little pieces and put into the
ground, it will, if well watered, grow into bigger pieces (Bacon, 1663[1627], p. 168). That was
clearly an ‘experiment’ he did not made himself, but relied instead on a very popular travel
book by George Sandys (1615), a poet and translator of humanist extraction who travelled to
the Eastern Mediterranean and, regarding the growth of metals, himself relied on the be-
liefs of the Ancient Greek philosophers. The belief in the fecundity of mines which, when
exhausted, may be closed for a hundred years allowing metals to grow again in the mean-
time, survived well into the eighteenth century. »What is a mine, if not a plant covered by
earth«, asked the Renaissance polymath Girolamo Cardano (Bachelard, 1948, p. 244). But
it is slightly shocking that we still find the same belief at the very end of the enlightened
century, expressed by one of the leading philosophers of German Romanticism, namely F.
W. H. Schelling (Bachelard, 1948, p. 24).
Newton and other alchemists considered all that grows vegetation. As clarified by
Newman, the meaning of the term vegetation in Newton is somewhat different from our
current meaning:
In early modern English, ‘vegetation’ was not limited to plants, but it meant more broadly
‘growth’ or the act of growing. Newton, however, uses ‘vegetation’ to distinguish a sort of organic
growth from mere mechanical accretion. To him, vegetation implies a goal-directed process guid-
ed by tiny semina or ‘seeds’ implanted deep within matter (2009, p. 48).
In Newton’s distinction between the vegetal and the mechanical, the rocks and minerals
are part of the vegetal world since they contain seeds (semina, sperma…) which make them
grow. This explains why, as Newton claimed in his early writing titled Humores minerales,
»metals grow, putrefy, and regenerate themselves within the earth, much after the fashion
of trees on Earth’s surface« (Newman, 2009, p. 46).
In comparing young Newton’s view with the view of the Renaissance Neo-Platonist
philosopher Marsilio Ficino, it can easily be shown that the belief in the growth of stones
actually evolved through different theoretical elaboration and different cultural contexts.
This apparently exotic belief should therefore not blind us to notice the incompatibility of
the two theories. Newton’s is a theory developed in the empiricist environment of ‘chimis-
47
