TRANSMUTATION

Autograph manuscript by Newton, [late 1680s to 1690s], 8 pages (11 ¾ x 7 ¼ in.; 299 x 185 mm) including one full-page drawing and 18 smaller figures, diagrams, and illustrations in text, on 2 bifolia (watermarked arms of Amsterdam), varying number of lines to a page (59 to the final page, the only one without a significant illustration), a very few deletions and emendations, text proper in Latin, captions and explications of the illustrations in English, including the entirety of the final page; first leaf with minor paper flaw at top margin, first bifolium with two tiny wormholes, the second splitting at foot of central fold.

The Newton Papers (Sotheby’s London, 13 July 1936, lot 109)

The greatest alchemical manuscript by Newton still in private hands, linking him closely with George Ripley, the most influential English alchemist of the fifteenth century.

Unlike the other manuscripts  in this collection, this has no identifying mark — indeed, it begins in the  middle of a sentence with half a word: [parti]cipationem inter se mutuam — and does not comprise brief notes on reading with precise references.  Rather, this highly important manuscript is a much more detailed account of the processes involved in, and the basic requirements for, transmutation couched in a highly alchemical language. It begins, and for the most part is, in Latin, has a number of  small diagrams or drawings with captions in English, and an extraordinary full-page drawing entitled “Liber septem sigillorum,” or “The Book of the Seven Seals,” which is taken from one of the famous Ripley scrolls.  Nevertheless, the fact that this manuscript is almost free of deletions and changes, together with other factors, such as a space left for later insertion of a word, would suggest that it too is copied (or perhaps is a fair copy of a copy), very likely from one of Ripley’s works in Latin (for Ripley, see below.) The paragraphs describing alchemical practice in sexual terms, which goes back to Ramon Lull, is also something which can be identified with Ripley.

The text begins by stating that the principal minerals from which all metals and other minerals derive are live mercury and sulphur. Gold is made from pure clear red mercury and silver  (Luna) from clear white mercury. Tin similarly is derived. Lead comes from impure mercury generated from sulphur. Copper and iron too are impure and iron is also terrestrial (the word "terrestreitas" is used).  Nature changes the four elements into live mercury and sulphur. Whatever is done results in “forma metallica.”  Nature can only introduce that to which it is already predetermined. Here follow two small drawings with explanations in English, of a beaker and mountain.

From all metals, the text continues, a perfect medicine can be made which will change other metals into gold and silver, and through separation of due conjunction of elements from both perfect and imperfect metals, the salt of nature, or the copper of the philosophers, called by some Lily of the Philosophers, is made. Without this the philosophical work (that is, transmutation) cannot be carried on.

By the use of fire, a skilled workman can make metallic water, variously called “lac virginis”, moon water (“Lunaria”), the green lion, the dragon, and the philosophers’ fire. This mercury water can, like acids, break down metals and divide and separate them [in a chemical reaction]. This sprit or mercurial water similarly dissolves its own body and separates the “tincture.”  This section is illustrated with a drawing of serpents being heated on a square furnace.

In paraphrase, the text continues: the ancient philosophers have told us in obscure terms about the green lion or the dragon indicating that the dragon (or lion) comes down to earth with rain water and white smoke. Its power comes both from above and below. It feeds on its own body, gnawing with its teeth its own wings and tail until its whole body enters into its head and remains there forever (the ouroboros). This is the hidden treasure of the philosophers and is gained only by means of tradition or divine revelation.  The text emphatically states: God reveals his secrets to whomsoever he wishes by reason of his own goodness (our italics).  This passage concludes with a series of symbolic drawings, including drops of blood falling from the sun into a beaker that contains a “white angel.”

The next section discusses “tincture,” which can be made only in gold. Gold has domination amongst metals, like an eagle, a lion, or the sun. It has the "tincture" of both redness and whiteness and it is this which transforms and illumines every body. The sun [i.e. gold] has been created from the most subtle substance.  This contains the soul, called the form of gold, or the ferment of the philosophers.  The main task is to break down, dissolve, and volatise gold and bring it to ge[? A gap appears here in the manuscript].  The discussion of tincture also ends with a series of illustrations.

The text turns next to an explication of the effect of the “philosophers’ fire” (as opposed to ordinary fire).  Unless the Moon or the Earth is properly prepared (i.e. silver or iron) and cleansed from its soul completely it will not be suitable to receive in itself the seed of the sun (“semen solare”).  The more earth is cleansed from earthy impurities, so much greater energy and potency exists in the fixing of its own fermentation. This earth or philosophic moon is the base or trunk into which the twig of the sun will be inserted. This earth is cleansed with its water.  The operation of these two forces is demonstrated in a drawing titled “Opposition.”

Conjunction and second conjunction are next dealt with in two separately illustrated sections.  Conjunction is nothing other than the joining of separated qualities or an equalisation of principles.  An earth cleansed of all its dirt has to be given a fitting husband. For if the male be conjoined with the female through the mediation of a sperm [an idea going back to Sendivogius], generation must take place by means of a solvent (“ex menstruo”).  Generation is further characterized as an inseparable and completely mixed union.  The second conjunction is made from body, spirit, and soul and this has to be reduced into one. Corruption must precede putrefaction. Nothing can be made better unless its form is first destroyed. The effects of heat on what is moist and what is dry, of dissolving and rotting substances, is discussed, and the expression “caput corvi” to signal a nasty poison is used. Blackness which is corruption precedes whiteness. The “magisterium” exists solely in putrefaction.

A passage on putrefaction follows, also illustrated with a diagram: The philosophers say that the thing of which the head is red, the feet white and the eyes black is the “magisterium.” Putrefaction lies behind all growth, but this putrefaction is not sordid or unclean, but is a mixture of earth with water “per minima” [the antique idea of atoms] until the whole becomes one body. The red male must be cooked with his white wife until they coagulate into a dry powder, because unless it shall have been dry the different colors will only appear in a small way. For with dryness working to produce wetness, the philosophers’ garden begins to flower in the egg with various and divers colors like a peacock’s tail [a description of a chemical reaction].  As the wetness is reduced by drying, the flowers and colors will change into a pullulating whiteness.

The text now turns to the whitening and reddening of the stone which depends upon the use of heat. The decoction has to be continued until the eagle is alive and become a crystalline stone.  This tincture is called “lac virginis, aqua perennis, & aqua vitae,” the water of life. Xiphilinus and others say that whiteness must precede redness.  Nothing can become gold unless it was previously silver … but gold cannot be made into silver unless it be first corrupted. During the process of corruption it becomes black, and from black to yellow can only happen through white. Heat working on wet causes blackness [putrefaction] but when heat works on dryness, especially if the heat be kept up without stop, true whiteness shall appear, and from yellowness a permanent and lasting redness appears.

True to the pattern of the manuscript, this text is followed by a diagram.  But beneath this figure a horizontal rule indicates a clear break.  From this point, the text is written in English, beginning with the synopsis “Immediately after the foregoing discourse & figures followed this & the two next figures.”  The second of these “two next figures” is the full-page drawing of a toad in a retort placed in a copper dish.  This illustration derives from a Ripley scroll, and it is followed by full-page explanation in English. From the description it is clear that the eight empty roundels should have further drawings, but these have not been executed.

The large toad must be a reference to gold. Ripley in his Compound of Alchymy (1591) tells us that the toad has “in it the whole secret of philosophers: the toad is gold; so called, because it is an earthy body, but most especially for the black stinking venemosity — A toad full rudde I saw did drink the juice of graves so fast” (Compound of Alchymy,  ed. S.L. Linden, Ashgate, 2001).

There are seven Ripley scrolls in the British Library (from the Sloane collection), five in the Bodleian (from Ashmole), a couple in the Wellcome Institute Library, and one in the Fitzwilliam (the longest).  There are four scrolls in the United States, and one was sold at Sotheby’s London, 19 December 2000, lot 1, and is now in a private collection. There is no doubt that they were in circulation in the seventeenth century, and were indeed copied and studied then, and not just in England (cf. the manuscript containing Ripley’s Key of the golden gate sold in 1995 at Christie’s, Bute Sale, lot 325).  

George Ripley was an Augustinian canon of Bridlington in Yorkshire who lived from about 1415 until 1495.  He was renowned as an alchemist and was the author of several works in English verse on alchemy. In the seventeenth century these were much read, and  Elias Ashmole edited “severall poeticall pieces of our famous English philosophers, who have written the Hermetique mysteries in their  owne ancient language” in 1652 (Newton owned a copy of this compilation, Theatrum chemicum Britannicum, Harrison 93, now at Philadelphia).  Ripley’s work was studied by the American George Starkey, who indeed mentions him in his letter of 1651 to Robert Boyle, and Newton was clearly interested in him.  He owned a number of works by Ripley. His copy of  Opera omnia  (Casell, 1649) is at Trinity (Harrison 1405, NQ. 10. 149), but another copy with his notes also existed. Medulla philosophica  by Ripley was also included in  Opuscula quaedam chemical  of 1644 (Harrison 1208), but again this has not been traced.