Effluvia, Action at a Distance, and the Challenge of the Third Causal Model

Abstract

In the early modern age, two causal models are clearly identifiable: action at a distance—a typical Renaissance paradigm, widespread among thinkers involved in natural magic and seventeenth-century Neoplatonists—and action by contact, on which both the Aristotelians (including the Jesuits) and the Cartesians agreed. Pierre Gassendi too seems to endorse the motto: ‘Nihil agit in distans nisi prius agit in medium’ [Nothing acts at a distance unless it acts through a medium]. In this essay, it will be shown that a third causal model exists, according to which material bodies are surrounded by ‘atmospheres’ of effluvia or qualities, which spread within a circumscribed ‘sphere of activity’, whose extension is peculiar to each body. In particular, it will be shown: (1) what the third causal model was like, from an ontological point of view, that is, how it centred on the concepts of effluvium and spiritus, or qualitas; (2) what this model was like, from a gnoseological point of view; (3) how it was theorized by three physicians—Girolamo Fracastoro, Daniel Sennert, and Sylvester Rattray; it stood on Gassendi’s qualitative corpuscularianism, and was exemplarily utilized by Robert Boyle.

Acknowledgements

Two different, previous versions of this essay were discussed and criticized by some scholars attending the international conference, ‘Understanding Matter’, Palermo, April 2014, and by two unnamed referees of International Studies in the Philosophy of Science: I would like to thank them all. I am particularly grateful to James W. McAllister and the referees, whose pointed and keen comments gave me the opportunity to clarify, develop, and deepen this essay.

Notes

[1] See Albertus Magnus (1517; De spiritu et respiratione, b. II, tr. II, chap. IV, 58b), quoted in Vitale (1910), 170–171.

[2] On the meaning of spiritus in Ficino, see Walker (1958), pt. I, chap. 1, §2 and chap. 2, §2; Garin (1984).

[3] Daniel Sennert’s definition is in Tractatus de consensu et dissensu Galenicorum et Peripateticorum cum Chymicis (1619). See Clericuzio (1988), 46ff.; (2000), chap. 1; Hirai (2005), chap. 15.

[4] Ficino (1576). On the various meanings of the term spiritus in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, see Rattansi (1972); Westfall (1972); Clericuzio (1994).

[5] ‘Quintam essentiam Paracelsici definiunt formam esse, sive spiritum, sive virtutem ab omni impuritate, et elementar (sic) sui corporis conditione separata.’

[6] See Aristotle (1965; De generatione animalium, 736b–737a). This passage was very well known and widely quoted in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

[7] ‘Spiritus desideria duo sunt: unum se multiplicandi, alterum exeundi, et se congregandi cum suis connaturalibus’: Bacon (1663), 186.

[8] ‘Dicitur autem similitudo et imago respectu generantis.  … Dicitur autem species respectu sensus et intellectus secundum usus Aristotelis et naturalium.  … Dicitur vero idolum respectu speculorum.  … Dicitur phantasma et simulacrum in apparitionibus somniorum.  … Forma quidem vocatur in usu Alhazeni, auctoris Perspectivae vulgatae. Intentio vocatur in usu vulgi naturalium propter debilitatem sui esse respectu rei, dicentis quod non est vere res, sed magis intentio rei, id est, similitudo.  … Dicitur vero virtus respectu generationis et corruptionis; unde dicimur solem facere virtutem suam in materiam mundi pro generatione et corruptione faciendis; et sic de omni agente dicimus quod facit virtutem suam in patiens’ (Bacon 1897, pars I, chap. 1, 409–410). See Parigi (1995).

[9] ‘Exhalant nimirum ex omnibus his, ac circumquaque feruntur insensibilia corpora quorum diversae actiones sunt.’

[10] ‘Punctum in orbem suam vim diffundere cognovimus, ut a centro ad circumferentiam, sicut lumen candelae spargitur undecumque.’

[11] ‘Orbis virtutis est illud spacium, per quod quaevis Magnetis virtus extenditur. Orbis vero attractionis, sive coitionis, est totum illud spacium, intra quod Magneticum quodvis positum, a Magnete incitatum allici potest.’

[12] ‘Praeterea cum omnes res agant per effluxum quondam, sive diffusionem qualitatis suae in rem quam afficiunt, factam; effluxus autem is concipi non possit, nisi per lineas quasdam brevissimas in orbem diffusas,  … cum igitur inter caeteras prodigiosas naturae operationes potissimum in magnetis operibus huiusmodi radiatio advertatur, quam nos proprie magnetismum, sive formalem actum Magnetis dicimus, hinc per similitudinem quandam, et per analogiam, omnium rerum vires ac qualitates, quibus in se mutua radiatione agunt, Magnetismos appellare visum est.’

[13] See Digby’s Discours touchant la guérison des plaies par la poudre de sympathie (1658); Parigi (2009). See also Clericuzio (2000) on Digby’s theory of matter.

[14] ‘Nam non terra tantum, et aqua, sed res aliae quaecunque, ut flores, fructus, animalia, mineralia, liquores omnes, aliaque quaevis mista … emittunt in aere effluvia sua: quae aliud non sunt, quam corpuscula quaedam minima instar atomorum.’

[15] ‘Non emanat autem nuda qualitas,  … igitur emanant spirituosa et subtilia effluvia, quae licet invisibilia effectu tamen manifestantur.’

[16] ‘Nullum est corpus quod circumquaque effluvia non emittat, et athmosphera quadam propria non convestiatur, sic corpora odorosa, effluvia spargunt odorata, sic corpora venenosa spiritus veneficos emittunt, sic electrica effluvium electricum diffundunt.’

[17] ‘Quoniam igitur nulla actio fieri potest nisi per contactum,  … similia autem haec non sese tangunt, nec per naturam moventur unum ad aliud, necesse est, si applicari invicem debent, demitti aliquid ab uno ad aliud, quod proxime tangat, et eius applicationis principium sit: hoc autem aut corpus erit, aut forma aliqua simplex materialis, vel spiritualis.’

[18] Opposite interpretations have been given by Rossi (1954), 485–499, and Peruzzi (1980), 43–131. Chalmers (1936; 1937, 1037) affirms that ‘at root his science is not atomistic at all’. Hirai (2005, 76) distinguishes, in Fracastoro, two kinds of seminaria contagionum: respectively, acting by direct, material contact or acting at a distance ‘puisqu’ils sont doués de la force de se répandre en un cercle, d’arriver très loin et de pénétrer très vite’ [because they are endowed of the force of expanding in a circle, arriving very far and penetrating very fast].

[19] ‘Omnium agentium creatorum activa vis certis limitibus ac terminis est circumscripta, quibus eorum vis agendique potestas quasi coercetur, ita ut extra hos vires suas extendere naturaliter nulla ratione possint; necessario igitur passum intra sphaeram agentis, ut effectum suum consequi possit, constitui debet.’

[20] Lucretius, De rerum natura, VI, 981–983, 1084–1089: ‘Multa foramina cum variis sint reddita rebus,/dissimili inter se natura praedita debent/esse, et habere suam naturam quaeque viasque.  … Quorum ita texturae ceciderunt mutua contra,/ut cava conveniant plenis haec illius, illa/huiusque inter se, iunctura haec optima constat./Est etiam quasi ut anellis hamisque plicata/ inter se quaedam possint coplata teneri; quod magis in lapide hoc fieri ferroque videtur.’

[21] ‘Nullus effectus sine causa sit; ut nulla causa sine motu agat; ut nihil agat in rem distantem, seu cui non sit praesens vel per se, vel per organum, aut coniunctum, aut transmissum; ut nihil proinde moveat aliud, nisi contingendo ipsum vel per se, vel per organum, illudque corporeum.’

[22] ‘Quodque spiritus ab eo exhalatus eius sit energiae, quae ad paucolos digitos promota possit exseri; quod superest, videtur res mere fabulosa habenda.’

[23] It should be noted that Daniel Sennert and Athanasius Kircher, the versatile Jesuit writer, were among Boyle’s youthful sources: see Hunter (1995).