The year 1700 stood just before the systematic inquiry that would birth modern chemistry. At this time, the study of matter was heavily influenced by alchemy and natural philosophy, which had dominated intellectual life for centuries. While certain substances were known and utilized, the concept of a distinct, unchangeable chemical element was not yet established. Researchers focused less on pure elemental discovery and more on practical applications or the pursuit of transmutation.
Defining Elements Before 1700
The understanding of what constituted a fundamental substance was highly ambiguous before 1700. For over two millennia, the prevailing view, inherited from Greek philosophy, was that all matter was composed of four Aristotelian elements: Earth, Air, Fire, and Water. These were considered qualities or principles, and the belief that one element could be transformed into another formed the basis of alchemical endeavors.
In chemical practice, the term “element” was loosely applied to any substance that could not be broken down further by available techniques. Alchemists worked with substances they called the Tria Prima—Sulfur, Mercury, and Salt—which represented the principles of combustibility, fusibility/volatility, and non-combustibility/involatility, respectively. This framework often led to the misidentification of complex compounds as simple, irreducible components.
The Specific Answer: Elements Recognized by 1700
By the year 1700, the number of distinct substances stood at approximately 9 to 12. This small number reflects the difficulty of isolating pure substances without systematic analytical methods. The core group consisted primarily of the seven metals known since antiquity, which were often found in their native, uncombined state.
These ancient metals included Gold, Silver, Copper, Iron, Lead, Tin, and Mercury. Their relative abundance and low reactivity allowed humans to discover them through basic smelting or by finding them in nature. Mercury, a unique liquid metal, was known from ancient times and used in pigments and alchemical processes.
Beyond these metals, a few non-metallic substances were also recognized. Carbon, known in forms like charcoal and soot, and Sulfur, or brimstone, were known since antiquity. The most recent chemical discovery before the turn of the century was Phosphorus, which Hennig Brand isolated from urine in 1669. Depending on classification, other substances like Arsenic and Antimony were known by alchemists before 1700.
Why Discovery Was Limited
The small number of known elements was a direct result of the technological and conceptual limitations of the pre-18th-century world. Chemical discovery largely depended on finding materials that naturally occurred in their elemental form, which primarily favored the noble metals like Gold and Silver. The few other substances known, such as Sulfur and Carbon, also exist in accessible, relatively pure forms in the Earth’s crust.
The biggest methodological hurdle was the absence of systematic analytical chemistry. Researchers lacked the controlled conditions and precise measurement tools necessary to rigorously prove that a substance could not be decomposed further. Pre-1700 chemistry lacked the high-heat processing and electrical methods that would later be used to separate elements from their stable compounds, especially oxides. Many elements naturally occur as compounds, which were simply called “earths” or “calxes” and considered irreducible substances themselves.
The dominant goal of alchemists was not systematic elemental discovery but the pursuit of transmutation, particularly turning base metals into Gold. This focus on the possibility of change, rather than the immutability of elements, diverted attention from rigorous decomposition experiments. It was not until the late 1700s, when figures like Antoine Lavoisier established a modern definition of an element as a substance that cannot be broken down by chemical means, that the rate of discovery began to accelerate dramatically.