Franciscus Mercurius van Helmont
Encyclopedia
Franciscus Mercurius van Helmont (bapt. 20 October 1614, Vilvoorde
, Flemish Brabant
- 1699) was a Flemish alchemist and writer, the son of Jan Baptist van Helmont
. He is now best known for his publication in the 1640s of his father's pioneer works on chemistry
, which link the origins of the science to the study of alchemy
.
From his early work as a physician, he became a kabbalist, and also associated with Henry More
of the Cambridge Platonists
. Together they annotated Christian Knorr von Rosenroth
's translations of kabbalist texts.
in his 1711 Characteristics of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times. He self-identified as a "wandering eremite".
Franciscus van Helmont had important groups of contacts in the Netherlands, where he knew Adam Boreel
and Serrarius,, and later in life, in 'the Lantern', the circle around the Rotterdam
merchant Benjamin Furly
that included John Locke
. He was an influence on Franciscus van den Enden
, and on the Spanish medical professor Juan de Cabriada. In Amsterdam around 1690 he worked out theory to support the work Johann Konrad Ammann
was doing with deaf people.
He also spent much time in Germany and England. From 1644, when his father died, to 1658, when the Emperor
ennobled him, he was constantly involved in diplomacy for German princes and their families.
when he was forcibly taken by soldiers of Philipp Wilhelm, Elector Palatine
to Rome and a prison of the Inquisition
, where he was tortured and kept for 18 months.
His first work was a 1667 Latin treatise Alphabeti veri naturalis hebraici brevissima delineatio (usual short English title Alphabet of Nature) on Adamic language
, which he equated with Hebrew
. He argued that the Hebrew alphabet implicitly gave a pronunciation guide, analogous to a musical notation for the tongue and voice.
He was a friend of Gottfried Leibniz
, who wrote his epitaph, and he introduced Leibniz to Rosenroth in 1671. Leibniz writing in 1669 took the "Helmontians" seriously, as one of three contending groups in philosophy, the others being the traditionalist followers of Aristotle
, and the Cartesians. The Helmontians comprised remaining Paracelsans and those who took the writings of Jan Baptist van Helmont to heart.
He came to England in 1670, meeting the king, Charles II
. He was on a diplomatic mission on behalf of Elisabeth of Bohemia, Princess Palatine
. At this time he met Robert Boyle
, a leading Helmontian chemist.
Through his relationship as physician to Anne Conway, Viscountess Conway
, he began to attend Quaker meetings, in 1675. In return he introduced her to kabbalist thought. He was resident at the old Ragley Hall
from 1671 until 1679, when she died. Twenty years later, he was a figure in the Keithian Controversy, a schism formed in the Quakers, in which van Helmont took the side of George Keith
who broke away. Keith had translated van Helmont's Two Hundred Queries in 1684; it was a work of speculative theology, written in Latin in a simultaneously-published version and anonymous until the following year, and van Helmont had hoped for an effect on Quaker belief, at the time still plastic and uncodified. But he encountered serious resistance from George Fox
. Keith collaborated on van Helmont's Paradoxal Discourses of 1685, but went to some pains to deny he held the same opinions.
In a A Cabbalistical Dialogue (Latin version first, 1677, in English 1682) he launched a defence of kabbalist metaphysics. He had been closely associated with the Kabbala Denudata of Rosenroth. The Dialogue puts matter and spirit on a continuum, describing matter as a "coalition" of monad
s. There are various views on the evolution of the concept of "monad", which Conway and Van Helmont shared with Leibniz. From the same period, the attributed work Adumbratio Kabbalae Christianae, sometimes included with the Kabbala Denudata as an anonymous essay, purported to be a tract to convert Jews to Christianity, but equally served as an introduction to Christian Kabbalist views, and the identification of Adam Kadmon
of the Lurianic Kabbalah with Christ.
In his last years he was in Germany, and continued to work closely with Leibniz. It has been argued that Leibniz may have written the final book to appear under van Helmont's name, the Premeditate and Considerate Thoughts, on the early chapters of the Book of Genesis.
Vilvoorde
Vilvoorde is a Belgian municipality in the Flemish province of Flemish Brabant. The municipality comprises the city of Vilvoorde proper with its two outlying quarters of Koningslo and Houtem and the small town of Peutie...
, Flemish Brabant
Flemish Brabant
Flemish Brabant is a province of Flanders, one of the three regions of Belgium. It borders on the Belgian provinces of Antwerp, Limburg, Liège, Walloon Brabant, Hainaut and East Flanders. Flemish Brabant also completely surrounds the Brussels-Capital Region. Its capital is Leuven...
- 1699) was a Flemish alchemist and writer, the son of Jan Baptist van Helmont
Jan Baptist van Helmont
Jan Baptist van Helmont was an early modern period Flemish chemist, physiologist, and physician. He worked during the years just after Paracelsus and iatrochemistry, and is sometimes considered to be "the founder of pneumatic chemistry"...
. He is now best known for his publication in the 1640s of his father's pioneer works on chemistry
Chemistry
Chemistry is the science of matter, especially its chemical reactions, but also its composition, structure and properties. Chemistry is concerned with atoms and their interactions with other atoms, and particularly with the properties of chemical bonds....
, which link the origins of the science to the study of alchemy
Alchemy
Alchemy is an influential philosophical tradition whose early practitioners’ claims to profound powers were known from antiquity. The defining objectives of alchemy are varied; these include the creation of the fabled philosopher's stone possessing powers including the capability of turning base...
.
From his early work as a physician, he became a kabbalist, and also associated with Henry More
Henry More
Henry More FRS was an English philosopher of the Cambridge Platonist school.-Biography:Henry was born at Grantham and was schooled at The King's School, Grantham and at Eton College...
of the Cambridge Platonists
Cambridge Platonists
The Cambridge Platonists were a group of philosophers at Cambridge University in the middle of the 17th century .- Programme :...
. Together they annotated Christian Knorr von Rosenroth
Christian Knorr von Rosenroth
Christian Knorr von Rosenroth was a German Hebraist born at Alt-Raudten, today Stara Rudna in Silesia. After having completed his studies in the universities of Wittenberg and Leipzig, he traveled through Holland, France, and England.On his return he settled at Sulzbach and devoted himself to the...
's translations of kabbalist texts.
Contacts and movement
He led an itinerant life in wanderings in Europe, an adjective already applied to him by Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 3rd Earl of ShaftesburyAnthony Ashley-Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury
Anthony Ashley Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury was an English politician, philosopher and writer.-Biography:...
in his 1711 Characteristics of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times. He self-identified as a "wandering eremite".
Franciscus van Helmont had important groups of contacts in the Netherlands, where he knew Adam Boreel
Adam Boreel
Adam Boreel was a Dutch theologian and Hebrew scholar. He was one of the founders of the Amsterdam College; the Collegiants were also often called Boreelists, and regarded as a small sect...
and Serrarius,, and later in life, in 'the Lantern', the circle around the Rotterdam
Rotterdam
Rotterdam is the second-largest city in the Netherlands and one of the largest ports in the world. Starting as a dam on the Rotte river, Rotterdam has grown into a major international commercial centre...
merchant Benjamin Furly
Benjamin Furly
-Life:Furly was born at Colchester 13 April 1636, began life as a merchant there, and joined the early Quakers. In 1659–60 he assisted John Stubbs in the compilation of the 'Battle-Door.' George Fox records that this work was finished in 1661, and that Furly took great pains with it.Some time...
that included John Locke
John Locke
John Locke FRS , widely known as the Father of Liberalism, was an English philosopher and physician regarded as one of the most influential of Enlightenment thinkers. Considered one of the first of the British empiricists, following the tradition of Francis Bacon, he is equally important to social...
. He was an influence on Franciscus van den Enden
Franciscus van den Enden
Franciscus van den Enden was a former Jesuit, Neo-Latin poet, physician, art dealer, philosopher and plotter against Louis XIV of France and is mainly known as the teacher of Baruch de Spinoza . His name is also written as 'Van den Ende', 'Van den Eijnde', 'Van den Eijnden', etc...
, and on the Spanish medical professor Juan de Cabriada. In Amsterdam around 1690 he worked out theory to support the work Johann Konrad Ammann
Johann Konrad Ammann
Johann Konrad Amman was a Swiss physician and instructor of non-verbal deaf persons.He is often confounded with Johann Conrad Amman, born 1724 and died 1811 in Schaffhausen....
was doing with deaf people.
He also spent much time in Germany and England. From 1644, when his father died, to 1658, when the Emperor
Emperor
An emperor is a monarch, usually the sovereign ruler of an empire or another type of imperial realm. Empress, the female equivalent, may indicate an emperor's wife or a woman who rules in her own right...
ennobled him, he was constantly involved in diplomacy for German princes and their families.
Life from 1660
In 1661 he was in KitzingenKitzingen
Kitzingen is a town in the German state of Bavaria, capital of the district Kitzingen. It is part of Franconia geographical region and has around 21,000 inhabitants.Surrounded by vineyards, Kitzingen County is the largest wine producer in Bavaria...
when he was forcibly taken by soldiers of Philipp Wilhelm, Elector Palatine
Philipp Wilhelm, Elector Palatine
Philip William of Neuburg, Elector Palatine was Count Palatine of Neuburg from 1653 to 1690, Duke of Jülich and Berg from 1653 to 1679 and Elector of the Palatinate from 1685 to 1690...
to Rome and a prison of the Inquisition
Inquisition
The Inquisition, Inquisitio Haereticae Pravitatis , was the "fight against heretics" by several institutions within the justice-system of the Roman Catholic Church. It started in the 12th century, with the introduction of torture in the persecution of heresy...
, where he was tortured and kept for 18 months.
His first work was a 1667 Latin treatise Alphabeti veri naturalis hebraici brevissima delineatio (usual short English title Alphabet of Nature) on Adamic language
Adamic language
The Adamic language is, according to certain sects within Abrahamic traditions, the language spoken by Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, i.e., either the language used by God to address Adam, or the language invented by Adam ....
, which he equated with Hebrew
Hebrew language
Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...
. He argued that the Hebrew alphabet implicitly gave a pronunciation guide, analogous to a musical notation for the tongue and voice.
He was a friend of Gottfried Leibniz
Gottfried Leibniz
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz was a German philosopher and mathematician. He wrote in different languages, primarily in Latin , French and German ....
, who wrote his epitaph, and he introduced Leibniz to Rosenroth in 1671. Leibniz writing in 1669 took the "Helmontians" seriously, as one of three contending groups in philosophy, the others being the traditionalist followers of Aristotle
Aristotle
Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology...
, and the Cartesians. The Helmontians comprised remaining Paracelsans and those who took the writings of Jan Baptist van Helmont to heart.
He came to England in 1670, meeting the king, Charles II
Charles II of England
Charles II was monarch of the three kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland.Charles II's father, King Charles I, was executed at Whitehall on 30 January 1649, at the climax of the English Civil War...
. He was on a diplomatic mission on behalf of Elisabeth of Bohemia, Princess Palatine
Elisabeth of Bohemia, Princess Palatine
Elisabeth of the Palatinate , also known as Elisabeth of Bohemia, was the eldest daughter of Frederick V, who was briefly elected King of Bohemia, and Elizabeth Stuart. She ruled the Herford Abbey as Princess-Abbess Elizabeth III...
. At this time he met Robert Boyle
Robert Boyle
Robert Boyle FRS was a 17th century natural philosopher, chemist, physicist, and inventor, also noted for his writings in theology. He has been variously described as English, Irish, or Anglo-Irish, his father having come to Ireland from England during the time of the English plantations of...
, a leading Helmontian chemist.
Through his relationship as physician to Anne Conway, Viscountess Conway
Anne Conway, Viscountess Conway
Anne Conway, Viscountess Conway was an English philosopher whose work, in the tradition of the Cambridge Platonists, was an influence on Leibniz....
, he began to attend Quaker meetings, in 1675. In return he introduced her to kabbalist thought. He was resident at the old Ragley Hall
Ragley Hall
Ragley Hall is located south of Alcester, Warwickshire, eight miles west of Stratford-upon-Avon. It is the ancestral seat of the Marquess of Hertford and is one of the stately homes of England.-The present day:...
from 1671 until 1679, when she died. Twenty years later, he was a figure in the Keithian Controversy, a schism formed in the Quakers, in which van Helmont took the side of George Keith
George Keith
George Keith was a Scottish missionary.-Life:Born in Peterhead, Aberdeenshire, Scotland, to a Presbyterian family, he received an M.A. from the University of Aberdeen...
who broke away. Keith had translated van Helmont's Two Hundred Queries in 1684; it was a work of speculative theology, written in Latin in a simultaneously-published version and anonymous until the following year, and van Helmont had hoped for an effect on Quaker belief, at the time still plastic and uncodified. But he encountered serious resistance from George Fox
George Fox
George Fox was an English Dissenter and a founder of the Religious Society of Friends, commonly known as the Quakers or Friends.The son of a Leicestershire weaver, Fox lived in a time of great social upheaval and war...
. Keith collaborated on van Helmont's Paradoxal Discourses of 1685, but went to some pains to deny he held the same opinions.
In a A Cabbalistical Dialogue (Latin version first, 1677, in English 1682) he launched a defence of kabbalist metaphysics. He had been closely associated with the Kabbala Denudata of Rosenroth. The Dialogue puts matter and spirit on a continuum, describing matter as a "coalition" of monad
Monad
-Philosophy:*Monad a term meaning "unit" used variously by ancient philosophers from the Pythagoreans to Plato, Aristotle, and Plotinus to signify a variety of entities from a genus to God....
s. There are various views on the evolution of the concept of "monad", which Conway and Van Helmont shared with Leibniz. From the same period, the attributed work Adumbratio Kabbalae Christianae, sometimes included with the Kabbala Denudata as an anonymous essay, purported to be a tract to convert Jews to Christianity, but equally served as an introduction to Christian Kabbalist views, and the identification of Adam Kadmon
Adam Kadmon
In the religious writings of Kabbalah, Adam Kadmon is a phrase meaning "Primal Man". The oldest rabbinical source for the term "Adam ha-Ḳadmoni" is Num. R. x., where Adam is styled, not as usually, "Ha-Rishon" , "Ha-Kadmoni" ....
of the Lurianic Kabbalah with Christ.
In his last years he was in Germany, and continued to work closely with Leibniz. It has been argued that Leibniz may have written the final book to appear under van Helmont's name, the Premeditate and Considerate Thoughts, on the early chapters of the Book of Genesis.
External links
(in German, with full bibliography)- Bio at compossivel
- http://www.digital-brilliance.com/contributed/Karr/VanHelmont/index.php Selected Writings of Franciscus Mercurius van Helmont - transcribed, edited, and introduced by Don Karr