Encyclopedia of Early Modern History Online

Get access

Affinity, chemical
(779 words)

An early concept to explain chemical bonding, affinity described substances’ desire to bond with one another. Experiences from commercial chemical practices in the 17th century were thus brought together in a theoretical concept [5], at first explained in animistic or mechanistic terms, then from Isaac Newton onwards in terms of a substance-specific bonding “force.” Convinced of the lawful unity of nature, Newton had proposed in his Principia mathematica scientiae naturalis (1687) that all natural phenomena should be attributable to forces of attraction and r…

Cite this page
Meinel, Christoph, “Affinity, chemical”, in: Encyclopedia of Early Modern History Online, Editors of the English edition: Graeme Dunphy, Andrew Gow. Original German Edition: Enzyklopädie der Neuzeit. Im Auftrag des Kulturwissenschaftlichen Instituts (Essen) und in Verbindung mit den Fachherausgebern herausgegeben von Friedrich Jaeger. Copyright © J.B. Metzlersche Verlagsbuchhandlung und Carl Ernst Poeschel Verlag GmbH 2005–2012. Consulted online on 19 March 2024 <http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/2352-0272_emho_SIM_016617>
First published online: 2015
First print edition: 20160321



▲   Back to top   ▲