In the focal point of the paper >principles of stoichiometry<. (published in three volumes between 1792 and 1794) is not located chemistry as an independent science, but christian theology and platonical philosophy as total/universal sciences, in which chemical and stoichiometrical laws had to be integrated ! The main object and primary issue of this more than 1000 pages enclosing work is the answering of the theological questions: Does GOD exist ? How can his existence be prooved in chemistry and chemical laws by the "MATHESIS - UNIVERSALIS - FORMS" of the platonical world soul? The stoichiometrical laws (for example the law of equivalence) are mosaic pieces of a christian and platonic universal-cosmology, because Richter tried to define and to explain "his" chemical laws as a construction or as a synthesis of the geometrical and arithmetical progressions, which were explained in the Timaios-Cosmology.
In the same way as Johannes Kepler in the 16/17 th Century had constructed his astronomical laws as mosaic pieces of a christian and platonic universal-cosmology, Richter tried to integrate his chemical laws in the same neoplatonical cosmology, which Kepler had used for his astronomical research. Richter wrote, that the geometrical and arithmetical progressions are "GIVEN BY GOD", so that every chemical law, which was defined with the help of "divine" and interdisciplnary usable geometrical progressions is a part of the theological and platonical universal cosmology and a part of the platonical harmony of spheres.
Richter described his attempts, to verify the existence of God in Chemistry, in latin words as "physicotheologiae probationes de existentia DEI ". The three letters of the word "DEI" are always and everywhere written in CAPITAL-LETTERS in Richters tract, - because theology was more important than chemistry in his tractise "Principles of stoichiometry" .
Richter's chemical laws are not so important as the theological cosmology, which had to be verified by these chemical laws. In Keplers astronomical laws the verifying of the neoplatonic cosmology was also more important than the three astronomical laws.Were of central importance in its factory according to first thesis of its doctor work (`De Usu Matheseos in Chymia') the formal universal criteria of the truth 2 i.e. the truth criteria of the >Forma Universalis<,whose existence in chemical mixing proportion of acids and bases it tried to prove experimentally.
Over the formal universal criteria of the truth Johannes Kepler designed harmony intervals in the music and planet distances in the astronomy. Platonically oriented biologists looked in snow crystals and flowers for the same formal structures, over which Kepler defined its planet laws and Richter its stoichiometric laws. In the Renaissance the statics of temples were sketched and calculated by means of geometrical and arithmetic series, which represented at the same time musical harmonies. The same mathematical structures, with which Richter formulated its stoichiometric laws, were taken into consideration in the poetic arts of the baroque age (--> Johann Christoph Gottsched)3.
The arithmetic, geometrical and triangular number series possessed therefore the same function as from the Mathesis Universalis expert the Gottfried William Leibniz (1646-1717) already 100 years beforehand conceived >Characteristica Universalis< (universal language), because Richter referred to on the fact that one could calculate with a geometrical series not only mixing proportion in chemistry, but also planet distances in the astronomy4 . It does not surprise therefore that Richter set the fundamental, biblical-platonic theorem of the >Mathesis Universalis< six times in Greek letters on the title pages of its stoichiometric research reports?
" ἀλλὰ πάντα μέτρω̨ καὶ ἀριθμω̨̃ καὶ σταθμω̨̃ διέταξας " 5
(" بل قد كان نفس كافيا لاسقاطهم فيتعقبهم القضاء وروح قدرتك يذريهم لكنك رتبت كل شيء بمقدار وعدد ووزن ")
("sed omnia mensura et numero et pondere disposuisti. ")
("but thou hast ordered all things in measure, and number, and weight. ")
This quotation from Book of Wisdom / Wisdom of Solomon (11:21) "takes up the Pythagoreans and especially their discourses about the harmony of the universe and the creatorgod (Demiurgos) in the often commented-on Timaios-Dialogue of Plato6", and should lend to his stoichiometric research a bible-exegetical character because Richter interpreted the geometrical and arithmetic series as the "rules determined by the creatorgod himself "7. The evidence ('substantiation') of these in the mixing proportions of acids and bases - in the meaning of the 5th thesis of his dissertation - counted for him as a more than less " physicotheologica probatio de existentia DEI "8.
In Richter's stoichiometry was not chemistry as (>impure<) single science in the focal point of the interest but >the Mathesis Universalis< as (pure, purpose-free) total science of a Christian-Platonic science theory, because Richter under all circumstances tried to formulate its chemical phenomena over firmly given sets of mathematical structures (`Characteristica Universalis '). The pure 'Mathesis Universalis' always controlled thereby ('impure ', because with chemical dimensions impured) >Mathesis Specialis<, which Richter called >Mathesis Chymica<9 (in the sense of a chemical >Mathesis Specialis<).
It specified the nature-philosophical hypotheses of its guiding, universal-mathematical platonic metaphysics to scientific, i.e. single scientific-chemical, theories, to arrange because in its report had not turned around its empirically determined chemistry data after apriori the given forms of Christian theology (Bible-Exegeses) and the Platonic metaphysics (Timaios-Cosmology).
Later Richter possessed no more influence on the fact that positivistic and materialistic thinking chemists its apriorischen constructions, over which he had formulated its stoichiometric laws of nature, from its chemistry laws eliminated. The positivism explained Richter's chemistry in the 19.Jahrhundert as the main thing, although in the idealistisch romantic stoichiometry of Richter's Christian theology and Platonic metaphysics played the main role as total or universal sciences, while chemistry was as special or single science only instruction recipient of the total science
For Richter chemistry took still the role of one 'ancilla theologiae et philosophiae'. The Platonic metaphysics (i.e. those total science) is interpreted of J.B. Richter in the report "principles of stoichiometry" as ruler over the specialized sciences, as certain metaphysical absolute for chemistry were specified, after which the chemical results of measurement to direct itself had, as W. Boehm in its "history of ideas of chemistry"10 correctly, because the experience instrumentalised Richter in its stoichiometric factories only for the justification of the Platonic metaphysics, which formed the mental foundation of the theses of its doctor work.
In the year 1996 the stoichiometry term becomes 204 years old, by which the first 10 years were astronomically and therefore humanistisch ganzheitlich coined/shaped between 1792 and 1802 idealistic, romantically, like a Christian, Platonically, in music, ethicalally, theologically, poetically. Only in the " last " 194 years this term was represented as more materialistically, more positivistic, more atomistic and on chemistry narrowed term, without still of the very short idealistisch romantically one takes to coined/shaped epoch note. Although the idealistic epoch covered only 10 years, it is unique provable on the basis the primary source material global over 3000 pages, which was not analysed until today yet. Elizabeth Stroeker placed in this connection already before almost 30 years regretting fixed11:
"chemistry remained a stepchild of basic, philosophical reflection."
This situation didn't change since the 60's: P. Janich criticized in 1994 "the ignoramusm of chemistry by philosophers and the ignoramusm of philosophy by chemists"12 so that there isn't a >philosophy of chemistry< "13, because "chemistry were the most neglected science by scientologists and philosophers14".
1 LICHTENBERG, Georg Christoph, ÜBER WISSENSCHAFT UND BILDUNG: In:Lichtenbergs Werke, Hrsg . W. Grenzmann, Frankfurt Band 1, 1949 S. 2722 LÖWIG, Carl, RICHTER DER ENTDECKER DES GESETZES DER KONSTANTEN PROPORTIONEN, Breslau, 1874 S. 46
3 GOTTSCHED, Johann Christoph, VERSUCH EINER CRITISCHEN DICHTKUNST, Leipzig, 1751, S. 132
4 RICHTER, Jeremias Benjamin, ÜBER DIE NEUEREN GEGENSTÄND IN DER CHYMIE, 1,Band von 1792 bis Band 11 von 1802, Breslau, Band 11 1802 S. XV
5 RICHTER, Jeremias Benjamin, QUELLE NR. 4 Ebd., Breslau, Band 11, 1802 Titelseite
6 RIEMANN, Musik- Lexikon HARMONIA, Mainz, Band 3 1978, S. 524
7 RICHTER, Jeremias Benjamin, QUELLE NR. 4 Ebd., Breslau, Band 9, 1798, S. 112
8 LÖWIG, Carl, QUELLE NR. 2 Ebd., Breslau, 1874, S. 46
9 RICHTER, Jeremias Benjamin, ANFANGSGRUNDE DER STÖCHIOMETRIE, Band 1,von 1792,bis ,Band3 von 1794, Ebd., Breslau, Teil 1, 1792, S.XXIX
10 BÖHM, Walter, DIE METAPHYSISCHEN GRUNDLAGEN DER NATURWISSENSCHAFT , Wien, , 1965 S. 104
11 STRÖKER, Elisabeth, DENKWEGE DER CHEMIE, Elemente ihrer Wissenschaftstheorie, München, 1967, S. 9
12 JANICH, Peter, PHILOSOPHISCHE PERSPEKTIVEN DER CHEMIE, Leipzig, 1994, S. 4
13 JANICH, Peter, QUELLE NR. 12 Ebd., Leipzig, 1994, S. 1
14 JANICH, Peter, QUELLE NR. 12 Ebd., Leipzig, 1994, Einband
<xmp>