The Foundations of Newton's Alchemy

B. J. Dobbs's 1975 scholarly study of Isaac Newton's alchemical manuscripts, demonstrating that Newton devoted as much intellectual effort to alchemy as to physics — complicating the conventional image of Newton as the paradigm of rationalist science.

Demonstrates that Newton's worldview was not the purely mechanistic, rationalist framework that the Enlightenment mythology claimed — that the founder of classical mechanics was simultaneously engaged in a comprehensive alchemical and theological project — supporting Peterson's argument that the disenchantment of the world was never as total as the scientific materialist narrative claims.