Julius Caesar Scaliger on - Specialized Research AI at MIT

Julius Caesar Scaliger on
Corpuscles and the
Vacuum

Andreas Blank
Tel Aviv University

This paper investigates the relationship between some corpuscularian and Ar-
istotelian strands that run through the thought of the sixteenth-century phi-
losopher and physician Julius Caesar Scaliger. Scaliger often uses the concepts
of corpuscles, pores, and vacuum. At the same time, he also describes mixture
as involving the fusion of particles into a continuous body. The paper explores
how Scaliger’s combination of corpuscularian and non-corpuscularian views
is shaped, in substantial aspects, by his response to the views on corpuscles and
the vacuum in the work of his contemporary, Girolamo Fracastoro. Frac-
astoro frequently appears in Scaliger’s work as an opponent against whom
numerous objections are directed. However, if one follows up Scaliger’s refer-
ences, it soon becomes clear that Scaliger also shares some of Fracastoro’s
views. Like Scaliger, Fracastoro suggests corpuscularian explanations of phe-
nomena such as water rising in lime while at the same time ascribing some
non-corpuscularian properties to his natural minima. Like Scaliger, Fracas-
toro maintains that there is no vacuum devoid of bodies since places cannot
exist independently of bodies (although their opinions diverge regarding how
exactly the relevant dependency relation might be explicated). Finally, like
Scaliger, Fracastoro connects a continuum view of mixture with a theory of
natural minima.

1. Introduction
Due to pioneering studies by Norma Emerton and Christoph Lüthy,
the Padua-trained, Agen-based philosopher and physician Julius Caesar
Scaliger (1484–1558) is by now widely recognized as a seminal ªgure in
the development of early modern corpuscularian matter theory. Scaliger’s
matter theory is expounded in the Exoteric Exercises (1557), a work con-
sisting of almost 1000 pages of polemical remarks on Girolamo Car-

Perspectives on Science 2008, vol. 16, no. 2
©2008 by The Massachusetts Institute of Technology

137

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Scaliger on Corpuscles and the Vacuum

dano’s On Subtlety (1550). As Ian Maclean has pointed out, there is a
strongly sceptical strand to Cardano’s and Scaliger’s conceptions of sub-
tlety (Maclean 1983, especially pp. 146–147; Maclean, 1984). Cardano
devotes an entire book to “useless subtleties” (Cardano [1550] 1663,
pp. 587– 592). Likewise, Scaliger laments the weakness of the human
mind in gaining insight into eternal things (EE, fol. 2r). He takes an ag-
nostic stance towards some issues in natural philosophy and metaphysics,
e.g., as to the causes of the motion of the heart (EE, fol. 417r) or as to the
nature of the union of soul and body (EE, fol. 416r). Nevertheless, like the
twenty other books of Cardano’s On Subtlety, Scaliger’s Exoteric Exercises
contains a wealth of miscellaneous remarks on an exhaustive variety of
topics in metaphysics and natural history and, as many of his marginal
notes indicate, Scaliger felt that he had something subtle to say about
these topics.1

The presence of both Aristotelian and corpuscularian strands in
Scaliger’s matter theory explains why recent interpretations of his meta-
physics of nature differ widely. On one side, Emerton emphasizes the im-
portance of the concept of minima naturalia in Scaliger’s thought. She
writes that “[o]f all the distinctions between minimism and atomism, the
most important and fundamental was that minimism was indissolubly
tied to the concept of form, which supplied the basic deªnition of the
scholastic minimum naturale as the unit material embodiment of the form”
(Emerton 1984, pp. 90–91; see also Maier 1949, pp. 181–182). Accord-
ing to Emerton, it is Scaliger who, alongside Agostino Nifo (1473–1538)
and Jacopo Zabarella the elder (1532–1589), did most to develop
minimism in the sixteenth century (ibid., p. 92). Emerton maintains that
minimism is not intended to function as a comprehensive matter theory
but rather provides explanations of a limited range of phenomena, in par-
ticular in chemistry (ibid., pp. 101–102). According to her reading,
Scaliger suggests a minimist deªnition of mixture, when he writes:
“mixtion is the motion of the minimum bodies so that union is achieved”
(ibid., p. 101; see Scaliger 1557 [henceforth: EE], fol. 143v).2

By contrast, Lüthy maintains that “much in the Exercitationes is utterly
un-Aristotelian, notably the doctrines of the temporal creation ex nihilo

1. The full title of Scaliger’s book implies that it is the ªfteenth in a series of Exoteric
Exercises about various other matters—but no trace is left of any of the fourteen other vol-
umes. Scaliger’s son Silvius Caesar reports that the household of his father, who died deeply
in debts, was sacked by his creditors who took anything of value, including his manu-
scripts, with them (see Scaliger 1584, p. 81). Maybe, just maybe, the fourteen other vol-
umes did exist, but probably we will never know. On the creation of Scaliger’s autobio-
graphical myths, see Billanovich 1968.

2. “Mistio est motus corporum minimorum ad mutuum contactum, ut ªat unio.”

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Perspectives on Science

139

of the world; of the substantial independence of prime matter; of the
vacuum; of space; and of the soul” (Lüthy 2001, p. 548).3 According to
his reading, “[a]lthough Scaliger explicitly condemns atomism, his
Exercitationes contain numerous explanations of natural phenomena that
rely on pores and particles, minima and vacua . . .” (ibid., p. 549). On the
basis of passages invoking pores and particles, minima and vacua, Lüthy
claims that there is a “corpuscularian treatment of matter theory” in
Scaliger’s work and that this derives from the corpuscularian views in the
Fourth Book of the Aristotelian Meteorology (ibid.). In Lüthy’s view, the
following are examples of such corpuscularian explanations of natural phe-
nomena: “the structure of the minima naturalia in an anvil is so dense that
it cannot be further condensed . . . , ªre is stronger or weaker depending
on whether its particles are close or farther apart . . . , the varying density
of minimae partes in substances explains their speciªc properties . . . ,
[and] some substances have round or oblong corpuscula” (ibid., p. 550).4
Lüthy concedes that in his ofªcial deªnition of mixture, Scaliger does not
regard corpora minima as atoms, “ªrst, because atoms can only be contigu-
ous to each other, while mixtures are continuous, and second, because
adjacent atoms cannot form a new mixture, whereas ‘the form of a mixture
is different from that of the element.’” Nevertheless, Lüthy claims that
“frequently in his Exercitationes, Scaliger views these ‘minimal bodies’ as
independently existing corpuscles having certain shapes and as touching
each other contiguously, but not continuously, with small interstitial
voids ªlling the remaining spaces” (ibid., p. 551).

In what follows, I suggest that Scaliger’s numerous references to
Girolamo Fracastoro (ca. 1478–1553) give important clues for under-
standing Scaliger’s conception of corpuscles and the vacuum. Fracastoro
had an important role in early modern life sciences with his views on the
constitution of matter that laid the foundation for his medical theories, es-
pecially his theory of contagion and disease. In his On Contagion (1546), he
develops the view that diseases that traditionally had been ascribed to
inºuences of the air and the receptivity of the organism are in fact caused
by minimal particles (particula minima) (Fracastoro [1546] 1550, pp. 218–
219; see Hirai 2005, pp. 74–80). Moreover, in On the Sympathy and Antipa-

3. On the creation of the world, see EE, fol. 17r–v; on the substantiality of prime mat-
ter, see EE, fol. 467r–v. By contrast, Raimondi 2003 maintains that Scaliger’s thought is in
line with the Scholastic tradition also in a variety of respects such as creationism,
providentialism, and teleology.

4. On the closeness of particles in ªre, see EE, fol. 20v. Clericuzio, too, holds that
Scaliger interpreted minima as particles (see Clericuzio 2000, pp. 9; 11–13). On the
inºuence of Scaliger on Gaston DuClo’s corpuscularian alchemy, see Principe 1998,
pp. 189–190.

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Scaliger on Corpuscles and the Vacuum

thy of Things (1546), he repeatedly uses the term “atom” to characterize
such natural minima. Christoph Meinel holds that Fracastoro was probably
“the ªrst of the humanists to use the ancient atomic theory in explaining
physical and chemical phenomena” (Meinel 1988, p. 71; see also Cleri-
cuzio 2000, p. 17, note 35; Lüthy 2000, p. 450). Moreover, as Vivian
Nutton has brought to light, an atomistic reading of Fracastoro’s theory of
contagious seeds was ªrst used for polemical purposes by the sixteenth-
century Paduan professor of medical theory, Giambattista da Monte
(Nutton 1990, pp. 208–213). Nevertheless, Fracastoro maintains that
minimal particles can be joined together such as to form composite sub-
stances that are more than mere aggregates of true, simple unities. He
also holds that in cases of genuine mixture natural minima form a contin-
uum. His conceptions of the unity of composite substances and of the con-
tinuity of the constituents of genuine mixtures indicate that Fracastoro’s
corpuscularianism is not an unmodiªed atomistic variety with perfectly
hard, impenetrable bodies ºoating in a void. While I will not be con-
cerned here with his views on contagion and disease, the way Fracastoro
combines corpuscularian and non-corpuscularian intuitions turns out to
be highly relevant for understanding Scaliger’s views on corpuscles and
the void.

2. Fracastoro on Corpuscles and the Vacuum
The following is a passage from Scaliger’s Exoteric Exercises, which Lüthy
invokes to support his interpretation of Scaliger’s notion of a vacuum:

[T]hose who attributed certain shapes to the natural minima as
their principles are necessarily forced—as no body made up of glob-
ules can cohere on a continuous line because of their rotundity—to
posit also a vacuum in nature, by means of which all becomes one
by contiguity, not by continuity, as the wise philosophers (Sapientes)
know well. (EE, fol. 6v)5

According to Lüthy, Scaliger here appears to side with the Sapientes (Lüthy
2001, p. 551). Yet, while the choice of the term “sapientes” obviously sug-

5. “[Q]ui minimis naturalibus tanquam principiis constitutis certas ªguras at-
tribuerunt: cum globulis ob rotunditatem cohaerere nequeat perpetuo tractu corpus ullum:
necessario coacti sunt, vacuum altrinsecus statuere in natura. Quibus omnia ªebant unum
per contiguitatem, non per continuationem: quemadmodum agnovere Sapientes.” Lüthy’s
translation. All subsequent translations are my own. I have normalized the use of “u”, “v”,
“i”, and “j” in the Latin quotations and omitted the accents used in the Latin of Scaliger’s
time; also, I use a capital letter for the ªrst word of sentence, even where the original
sources do not do this. Apart from these changes, the spelling, use of capitalization, and
punctuation are those of the original texts.

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Perspectives on Science

141

gests an afªrmative attitude towards what the wise philosophers know, it
is not so clear what it is that Scaliger thinks they know. Is it, as Lüthy
would have it, the claim that it is necessary to posit a vacuum in nature?
Or is it, as an alternative reading would have it, that the Sapientes know
well that it is necessary to posit a vacuum in nature if one makes the
assumption speciªed in the ªrst sentence—namely, the assumption that
natural minima are characterised by certain shapes. This, of course, is a
central assumption of classical atomism.6 However, is it an assumption
that Scaliger would share? If he would not share this assumption, then the
passage just cited would take on a different appearance. In this case,
Scaliger would be discussing the consequences of an assumption that he
rejects. According to such a reading, what the Sapientes know would con-
cern the necessary consequences of an erroneous assumption and, hence,
not something that is necessary tout court.

As Lüthy has emphasized, a passage in which Scaliger discusses the role
of pores in phenomena such as water rising in lime is crucial for character-
izing his views on the vacuum. Fracastoro, too, discusses cases such as
water rising in lime at great length in On the Sympathy and Antipathy of
Things.7 Scaliger mentions Fracastoro at the beginning of the relevant pas-
sage, where he refutes the opinions of some modern philosophers
(Recentiores Philosophi). To be sure, the aim of the explicit reference to
Fracastoro here is to point out a particular error in Fracastoro’s explanation
of the phenomenon. Moreover, at ªrst glance, Fracastoro might not seem
to be a promising starting point when it comes to interpreting Scaliger’s
views. The title of Fracastoro’s book sounds hardly promising in the con-
text of studying the origins of early modern corpuscularianism. Looking at
the title, the reader would expect a Neo-platonic account of supra-natural
causes of the harmony or disharmony between things. But such an expec-
tation would soon be overturned by the anti-occultist stance that
Fracastoro actually takes. Instead of invoking celestial or divine forces,
Fracastoro develops thoroughly naturalistic accounts of causal interaction
between bodies. However, despite his use of the term “atom” and his nods
towards Epicurus and Lucretius, his matter theory should not be charac-
terised as atomistic in an unqualiªed sense.
In discussing the nature of causal

interaction between objects,
Fracastoro holds that in nature no action can take place unless by means of
contact (Fracastoro [1546] 1550 [henceforth: SAR], pp. 45–46). Never-
theless, he observes that similar things are drawn to each other and dis-

6. See Plutarch, De placitis 1, 2.
7. On the history of this work, see Nutton 1990, p. 199, note 7. On Fracastoro’s

sources, see Nutton 1983; on Fracastoro’s anti-occultism, see Peruzzi 1980, pp. 43–55.

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142

Scaliger on Corpuscles and the Vacuum

similar things move away from each other even if they don’t touch. He is
aware of the existence of atomistic explanations of phenomena such as
magnetism: “Some of the ancients such as Empedocles and Epicurus,
whom among our philosophers Lucretius followed, regarded efºuvia of
bodies, which they called atoms, as the cause of this attraction. These
efºuvia should by no means be negated . . . but the way in which these au-
thors treated them was rather rough and unsuitable” (SAR, p. 46).8 The
fact that Fracastoro regards Lucretius as one of “our” philosophers is strik-
ing for it shows the extent of continuity that sixteenth-century philoso-
phers perceived between their own intellectual pursuits and Roman times.
Howeover, Fracastoro’s nod towards Lucretius is seriously misleading in
several respects.

As it turns out, the ancient atomists’ denial of composite unities is un-
acceptable to Fracastoro. In his view, the efºuvia connecting two similar
things are such that “a certain whole and unity arises” (totum quoddam ªt
atque unum) (SAR, p. 47). Maintaining that a composite unity emerges
from two objects connected by efºuvia, moreover, requires a modiªcation
with respect to the nature of the efºuvia themselves. Streams of atoms, un-
derstood as perfectly hard and indivisible bodies, certainly would not
sufªce to constitute a genuine unity. Fracastoro holds that efºuvia of at-
oms cannot account for all cases of causal interaction between two bodies
(SAR, pp. 48–49). For example, according to his view the interaction be-
tween the needle of a compass and the “magnetic mountains” at the poles
of the globe, due to the great distance between them, cannot be explained
by means of an exchange of atoms or corpuscles (SAR, p. 75). This indi-
cates that a fully Lucretian interpretations of Fracastoro’s view of the
causal interaction between distant things cannot be adequate. To account
for all phenomena of mutual attraction, Fracastoro postulates a kind of en-
tity that differs considerably from atoms: so-called “spiritual species”.

“Spiritual species” play a role not only in his theory of magnetism but
also in his account of sensation and intellection. Obviously, these entities
resemble the sensible and intellectual species that, according to medieval
thought, could multiply and provide the perceiver with a structural ana-
logue of the objects perceived (see Spruit 1995). Fracastoro appears to have
thought of them as neither fully material nor fully immaterial, but rather
as peculiar entities that share some properties with both material and im-
material entities, and yet differ from both in some respects. What distin-

8. “Antiqui quidem ut Empedocles & Epicurus, quos e nostras Lucretius secutus est,
efºuxiones corporum quas athomos appellabant, principium eius attractionis ponebant.
Quae quidem efºuxiones ne negandae quidem sunt . . . modus autem quem ipsi tradebant,
sat rudis & ineptus erat.”

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Perspectives on Science

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guishes “spiritual species” from material objects are two characteristics:
(1) They are “thin” (tenuis) in a metaphorical sense: While ordinary thin
objects are still three-dimensional (with a small extension in one dimen-
sion), Fracastoro’s “spiritual species” do not possess even a small extension
in a third dimension. They are two-dimensional objects that represent
the surfaces of the objects from which they originate (SAR, pp. 51–52).
(2) They are momentary entities: they are propagated by waves in a me-
dium such as air or water in such a way that the medium generates at
every moment a new “spiritual species” in a different location on the tra-
jectory between one object and the other (ibid.). At the same time, “spiri-
tual species” are neither quality-like nor fully immaterial. With respect to
the question of whether they are qualities and immaterial, Fracastoro an-
swers that they are substantial and bound to matter, since “nothing can by
itself confer motion which is not either a body or at least a nature and sub-
stance in a body” (SAR, p. 50).9 Although this statement is far from clear,
Fracastoro seems to have held that “spiritual species” are not fully imma-
terial because they are substances whose existence depends on bodies. If
they are thought of as surfaces propagated in a material medium, there is a
clear sense in which they can be thought of as being incapable of existing
independently of bodies.

“Spiritual species” play a crucial role in Fracastoro’s account of compos-
ite substance. He maintains that by means of the exchange of efºuvia of
“spiritual species” a composite substance arises which “is some whole con-
stituted by [the body] a, and [the body] b, and this spiritual something; in
this whole, parts do not simply have their duty and situation, unless they
are mutually constrained in such a way that a and b go together” (SAR
p. 53).10 For this reason, attraction results from “a motion of parts in the
whole, which are moving towards their place, and which is produced by a
form that is a nature and a substance” (ibid).11 Fracastoro’s emphasis on the
role of substantial form in the constitution of composite unities becomes
also apparent when he discusses three possible explanations of the phe-
nomenon of water rising in lime. He regards these explanations as comple-
mentary, even if he gives most weight to the third explanation. According

9. “[N]ihil per se moveri potest quod non sit aut corpus, aut saltem natura & substantia
in corpore.” On the role of “spiritual species” in Fracastoro’s epistemology, see Cassirer
1911, pp. 226–232; Spruit 1995, pp. 46–49; Leijenhorst 1996, pp. 105–106, 112–117;
Hoffmann 2003, pp. 157–162.

10. “[S]ubstantia . . . totum quoddam sit ex a & b & spirituali illo, in quo toto partes
non plane debitum esse, & situm habent, nisi invicem ita astringantur ut simul & a & b
coeant.”

11. “Qui motus tandem est partium in toto sese ad suum situm moventium a forma

factus, quae natura & substantia est.”

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Scaliger on Corpuscles and the Vacuum

to the ªrst explanation, dissimilar substances have contrary substantial
forms by means of which they mutually resist each other (SAR, p. 87). Al-
though Fracastoro does not dismiss this explanation, it is clear that it
could explain the phenomenon only partially: it could explain why water
and air do not mix, but not why water should rise in the pores. According
to the second explanation, lime attracts water not insofar as it is porous
but insofar as it is dryer than in its natural state (SAR, p. 88). Following
this line of argument, lime belongs to the bodies that “are by themselves
and according to nature humid but accidentally dried out; and in these
their form and nature with all their potencies remains . . . to which also
the spiritual form belongs, which is destined to attract what is similar
. . .” (SAR, pp. 88–89).12 The third explanation, ªnally, complements the
role of the agency of the form of a composite substance and invokes an Ar-
istotelian theory of natural places, according to which the air enclosed in
the pores strives towards the natural place of air. While air does not have
enough force to do so in large pores since it would have to move a large
amount of water, it does so in small pores, where it has to draw only a
minimal part of water (pars aquae minima) (SAR, pp. 90–93). In this third
explanation, Fracastoro combines corpuscularian and non-corpuscularian
modes of thought: water behaves in a corpuscularian way in the sense that
a minimal part of water is moved more easily than a greater amount; but
at the same time the motion of natural bodies is determined by their striv-
ing towards their natural place.

Fracastoro’s distance from Lucretius also becomes clear in his treatment
of place and the vacuum. At the beginning of his book, Fracastoro em-
braces a plenist conception of matter. He writes: “A vacuum cannot be in
nature, since nature does not sustain or admit anything that is in vain, and
that impedes the order and laws of the universe” (SAR, pp. 25–26).13 But
why should vacuum be thought to be detrimental to the order and laws of
nature? Fracastoro somewhat cryptically remarks that in a vacuum “noth-
ing could happen nor could anything be received” (SAR, p. 26).14 This re-
mark seems to be ambiguous: Does Fracastoro intend to claim that, if
there were a vacuum, it could not, by its very essence, be occupied by a
body? Or does he intend to claim that, as long as a portion of vacuum is

12. “Alia vero sunt quae per se quidem & natura humida sunt, per accidens autem sunt
exsiccatae, remanet tamen in iis forma sua & natura cum virtutibus omnibus . . . inter quas
est, & spiritualis species, quae attrahere nata est quod simile est . . .”

13. “[V]acuum in natura esse non potest, quoniam nihil natura sustinet, nihil admittit
quod frustra sit, quodque universi ordinem & leges impediat . . .” On medieval theories of
interstitial voids, see Grant 1981, pp. 70–77.

14. “[Q]uae quidem contingant, si vacuus sit ullus locus, in eo enim, nec quicquam

ªeri poterit, nec quicquam recipi.”

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contingently not occupied by a body, no change could take place and no
effect could be received there? Both readings seem to be possible, and
there is nothing in the immediate context of Fracastoro’s remark that
helps decide the matter. In any case, Fracastoro seems to maintain that a
vacuum (no matter whether it essentially or contingently unoccupied by a
body) is contrary to the laws of nature because no change and no causal in-
teraction can take place there. And it is the absence of change and causal
interaction that would be an instance in which nature would do some-
thing “in vain.”

But then, how does nature avoid the occurrence of vacua? Fracastoro

considers two answers that appear unsatisfactory to him:

[I]f someone is not satisªed with [knowing] the ªnal cause but
wants to know also the active cause, and what it is that resists sepa-
rating forces and how it does so, probably he is not that ready to
give a reason for such a connection: since the parts of the universe
do not know this ªnal cause, nor can those parts strive towards it
by nature . . . It is also not to be said . . . that the parts of the uni-
verse, even if they do not know their end, are directed by a cogni-
zant being: for here we do not ask about the universal and ªrst
cause, but about the particular and speciªc cause . . . (SAR, p. 26)15

His own suggestion is that bodies are preserved “by the mutual connec-
tion and contact of their surfaces” (per mutuum nexum & contactum
extremorum), since this is how a vacuum is avoided (SAR, p. 27). He
explains:

Place brings about that a body is one body with respect to another,
from whence people also rightly say that place preserves the thing
that is located in it: which it in fact does in the highest degree,
when it protects it from a vacuum. Hence, substances and bodies
that are in the universe do not know this end, but nevertheless re-
sist by their nature, such that they are not entirely separated. For it
is not necessary that the things that act for some purpose also know
this end; rather, some know it, and some act by their nature. (SAR,
pp. 27–28)16

15. “[S]i quis non solo ªne contentus sit, sed & agens quoque requirat, & quid nam
illud sit, quod divellenti resistat, & quomodo, non erit fortasse ita promptum reddere
rationem tanti nexus: quoniam universi partes neque eum ªnem agnoscunt, neque per
naturam appetere possunt . . . Neque enim dicendum . . . universi partes, tametsi non eum
cognoscunt ªnem, dirigi tamen a cognoscente: quoniam hic non universalem & primam
causam quaerimus, sed particularem & propriam . . .”

16. “[L]ocus enim ªt unum corpus alteri, unde & recte aiunt locum esse locati
conservativum: quod profecto maxime ªt, quum a vacuo praeservet. Non cognoscunt

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146

Scaliger on Corpuscles and the Vacuum

Hence, bodies are dependent on places. Places not only individuate bodies,
they also play a role in the preservation of bodies. This is so because being
at a place implies that the suface of a body is in touch and causal interac-
tion with the surfaces of the surrounding bodies. And, according to
Fracastoro’s view, this is how the preservation of a given body comes
about. If it were not surrounded by bodies throughout, but by portions of
vacuum (which, by hypothesis, do not stand in causal interaction with
their surroundings), the parts of this body would separate from each other.
Due to this essential connection between place and body, space is not only
contingently occupied everywhere by bodies, it is so necessarily since oth-
erwise bodies could not persist. As we will presently see, although
Scaliger’s views on vacuum, place and the preservation of bodies differ
markedly from Fracastoro’s, the view that space is necessarily a plenum is
also found in Scaliger’s version of corpuscularianism.

3. Scaliger on Corpuscles and the Vacuum
Like Fracastoro, Scaliger puts forward corpuscularian explanations of vari-
ous natural phenomena. Like many of his contemporaries, Scaliger uses
both the conception of an actual division of natural bodies into minima and
the conception of a natural minimum not as an actually existing corpuscle
but as an end-point of potential division. To demonstrate the existence of
actual minima, he uses an argument from erosion: The traces that drops of
water leave in the long run on a stone indicate that water takes with it in-
sensible portions of the stone; these smallest movable parts of the stone,
Scaliger suggests, give a good idea of what a natural minimum is like (EE
fol. 35r; see Murdoch 2001, p. 129, note 114). Interestingly, although
this example and others like it are found in Lucretius,17 Scaliger refers the
reader to a passage of Aristotle’s Physics, where erosion of a stone by drops
of water indeed is mentioned.18 As Scaliger puts it, the part of a stone that
is carried away by a drop of water is a minimal part of the stone “because
in it the ªrst motion takes place” (EE, fol. 35r). Scaliger derives other
corpuscularian explanations from the Aristotelian Meteorology. For exam-
ple, Scaliger mentions a passage from the second book of the Meteorology,
according to which hot vapours of water get colder by getting mixed with

igitur eum ªnem substantiae, & corpora, quae in universo sunt, per naturam tamen
resistunt, ne separentur omnino. Non enim necesse est, quae gratia alicuius agunt, ªnem
etiam cognoscere, sed alia cognoscunt quidem, alia per naturam agunt.”

17. See Lucretius, De rerum natura 1. 298–299, 305–328.
18. “Quod autem minima dentur naturalia: nemo sanus dubitabit. Finita enim sunt
corpora naturalia: ergo ex ªnitis. Hoc a praeceptore didicimus veritatis in libris
Physicorum: sed manifestissime, ubi loquitur de lapidis cavatione.” See Aristotle, Phys.
VIII, 3, 253b15–23.

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Perspectives on Science

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cold particles of air (EE, fol. 20r; see Aristotle, Meteor. II, 2, 354b24–33).
Similarly, he points out that according to the ªrst book of the Meteorology
the parts of the world are one not by means of continuity but by means of
connection (coaptatione), in the sense that supralunar and sublunar bodies
are in continuity with each other not because of the unity of a form but
because the supralunar bodies are efªcient causes the effects of which are
received by the sublunar bodies (EE, fol. 19r; see Aristotle, Meteor. I, 2,
339a11–24).

Like Fracastoro, Scaliger’s proposes a corpuscularian explanation of the
phenomena occurring when a piece of lime is immersed partly in water.
To be sure, his explanation of the lime phenomenon diverges from Frac-
astoro’s. He rejects Fracastoro’s suggestion that lime might be dryer than
it would be according to its own nature such that it attracts water due to
the agency of the form of a composite substance (EE, fol. 8v). Moreover, he
rejects Fracastoro’s conjecture that the air included in lime seeks to reach
to the natural place of air. As Scaliger argues, water rises in lime beyond
the level of the water into which the piece of lime is immersed; hence the
air included in the upper part of lime is already in the sphere of air (EE,
fol. 9r).19 Nevertheless, like Fracastoro, he proposes an explanation that is
both plenist and corpuscularian. He also shares Fracastoro’s view that re-
curring to the agency of an immaterial cognizant being does not provide a
satisfactory answer to the question of why corpuscules behave in a way
such as to avoid a vacuum (EE, fol. 5v). However, he criticizes Fracastoro’s
own answer to the question:

Others believe the following: There is no vacuum because all things
strive towards their preservation. Conservation, however, is brought
about by the connection and the contiguity of surfaces. From this it
follows that place provides preservation for what is in a place. This
opinion has some probability but is not true . . . It is not true that
bodies are preserved by place, but by form. (EE, fol. 5v)20

Scaliger distinguishes between attraction (attractio) and succession
(subitio). According to his view, attraction happens by means of an external
force. This, however, is not what happens in cases such as water rising

19. Also his attitude to Fracastoro’s account of magnetism is critical. He repeatedly
mentions Fracastoro’s hypothesis of magnetic mountains on the poles of the globe (EE,
fol. 62v; fol. 186r). However, he rejects Fracastoro’s suggestion that in cases of magnetic
attraction a composite substance with spatially disjoint parts arises (EE, fol. 454r–v).

20. “[A]lii ita existimarunt: Non dari vacuum propterea quod appetunt cuncta sui
conservationem. Eam vero per nexum, atque extremorum continguitatem comparari. Quo
ªt, ut locati locus sit conservatio. Probabile hoc, non verum tamen . . . [N]on est verum, a
loco servari corpora, sed a forma.”

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Scaliger on Corpuscles and the Vacuum

in lime. Rather, a body that succeeds another body (such as a particle of
water succeeding a particle of air in the pores of lime)

is moved by an internal form of its own . . . , namely, a secondary
one, such that no vacuum occurs. For elements not only strive to-
wards their own WHERE: but they enjoy themselves outside their
natural place, such that in order to avoid serious harm for the
universe the place at which they are is not occupied by the most
terrible enemy. In fact, nothing is more hostile to being than non-
being. But vacuum is a non-being (EE, fol. 25r; see EE, fol 6v).21

Hence, bodies are not only preserved by their form, they also move in a
way such that no vacuum occurs due to their form. Yet, Scaliger’s claim
that vacuum is a non-being is puzzling since, a few lines later, he also
claims that “[i]n nature a vacuum exists necessarily. For otherwise, either
there would be no motion or one body would penetrate the other” (EE,
fol. 6v).22 Clearly, Scaliger is committed to the view that, in some sense,
there is no vacuum, while also being committed to the view that, in some
other sense, there is a vacuum. What exactly does he have in mind?

Aristotle understood the vacuum as “that in which the presence of
body, though not actual, is possible” (De caelo I, 9, 279a14–15; see Grant
1981, pp. 8–9). According to Aristotle, because a void place has size but
not body, and because it fails to quality as one of the four basic causes, it is
not a real entity, i.e. a privation of being. Scaliger explains the sense in
which the vacuum is a non-being in exactly the same way (EE, fol. 6v).
But in which sense does he think that the vacuum is a being? He does not
seem to have given much thought to the Stoic conception of an extra-
cosmic void. However, there are two other conceptions that were much
debated in ancient and medieval controversies about the void, and that
could be plausible candidates for a vacuum that, in some sense, is real—
that of small, “interstitial” vacua between particles, and that of larger,
“coacervate” intracosmic vacua (see Grant 1981, pp. 70–71). Let us ªrst
consider interstitial vacua.

Like Fracastoro, and pace Lüthy, Scaliger rejects the idea that matter is
interspersed with micro-vacua. This becomes clear in his discussion of the
phenomena of rarefaction and condensation. On the level of elements,
Scaliger embraces an Aristotelian conception of rarity and density accord-

21. [M]ovetur a forma propria interna . . . , videlicet secundaria, nempe ne vacuum
detur. Non solum enim appetunt suum, UBI, elementa: sed etiam gaudent esse extra
ipsum, ne graviore universi iactura spatium illud a teterrimo hoste occupetur. Nihil
profecto hostile magis enti, quam non ens. Vacuum autem non ens.”

22. “In Natura vacuum dari necesse est. Nempe si non daretur, aut non esset motus, aut

subiret corpus in corpus.”

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ing to which rarity and density are contrary qualities that, at different
times, can be possessed by the same portion of matter.23 His view that
through rarefaction a natural minimum of a given element can be trans-
formed into particles of another element is formulated within the frame-
work of the conception of natural minima as a lower limit of matter
beyond which a given form cannot be maintained (EE, fol. 28v; EE,
fol. 33v). Trivially, interstitial voids do not have a place in such a view of
rarefaction and condensation of elemental particles.

On the level of composite bodies—i.e., bodies consisting of more than
one elemental particle—there is a strongly corpuscularian strand in
Scaliger’s conception of rarity and density. On this level, the question of
the existence of interstitial voids is not trivial. Scaliger holds that a body is
rare if between its parts there are parts of another, less solid kind, like air
or water in a sponge (EE, fol. 112r; see also EE, fol. 154r). For example, he
explains the phenomenon of resonance in metals by suggesting that met-
als are rare because they contain particles of air (EE, fol. 28r). He is also
clear about the view that the particles of a different element contained in
a given body can be minima of a given element or close to the size of
such minima (EE, fol. 33v). In this sense, natural minima provide a
corpuscularian explanation for the rarity of bodies above the size of ele-
mental particles. However, the existence of interstitial voids does not
ªgure in Scaliger’s account of the rarity and density of such bodies. On the
contrary, Scaliger writes: “[N]either thinness nor thickness is the cause of
density, but uniformity . . . For when nothing intercedes between them,
the parts of a body necessarily must be suitable to each other. For there is
no vacuum. In the case of parts of various forms, however, the mutual co-
hesion comes about through humidity . . .” (EE, fol. 356r).24 Hence, while
in dense bodies particles of the same kind are packed in a way such that
neither particles of another kind nor empty spaces occur between them,
less rare bodies admit particles of another, but no empty spaces, between
their parts.

Does coacervate vacuum—vacuum that comes in larger chunks—fare
better than interstitial vacuum? Scaliger rejects the Aristotelian concep-
tion according to which place is the surface of the external surrounding
bodies (EE, fol. 7r).25 He holds that the vacuum is, in some sense, a being,

23. See Aristotle, Phys. IV, 9, 217a20–b19; De gen. et corr. I, 5, 321a10–29.
24. “[N]eque tenuitas, neque crassitia, caussa densitatis, sed uniformitas . . . Nam inter
quae nihil aliud intercedit, eius partes inter se aptas esse necesse est. Non enim datur vac-
uum. In difformium vero partibus, mutua cohaerentia ªt per humidum . . .” On cohesion
by means of “interstitial humidity” (humidum interpositum), see also EE, fol. 22v–23r.

25. Aristotle, Phys. IV, 4, 212a21. Cardano accepts Aristotle’s notion of place; see
Cardano [1550] 1663, 3: 367. On Cardano’s rejection of the vacuum, see Schmitt 1967a.

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Scaliger on Corpuscles and the Vacuum

but makes it clear that he does not what to have this claim understood “in
the way of the Ancients”: “For they supposed a vacuum without body. But
we maintain a vacuum in which there is a body. Vacuum and place are the
same: and they do not differ except with respect to the name” (EE, fol. 6v).
Such a conception of vacuum is not entirely unprecedented in early mod-
ern thought. In his Examen vanitatis (1520), Gianfrancesco Pico uses
Philoponus’ criticism of Aristotle’s theory of place and space to formulate
that theory of place according to which place as characterized primarily by
its quality of receptivity, i.e., as a container. Pico also follows Philoponus
in identifying place with the vacuum (Pico [1520] 1578, pp. 1187–1188;
Schmitt 1967, pp. 138–159). Moreover, Charles B. Schmitt ascribes to
Philoponus and Pico the view that place is not different from but also sep-
arable from the things it contains (Schmitt 1967, p. 142). Note, however,
that Pico also emphazises Philoponus view that “space is never devoid of
bodies, just as we say that matter differs from form but is never devoid
of form (Pico [1520] 1573, p. 1189). Andrew Pyle’s verdict about Phil-
oponus’s move is unºattering: Given the view that vacuum is of its own
nature independent of matter, claiming that vacuum cannot exist without
being occupied by body “is perverse” (Pyle 1995, p. 76).

A similar tension can be observed in Scaliger’s account of vacuum as
place. He maintains that a portion of void without body is a non-being.
Consider the following passage concerning the relation between God and
the world:

[The world] is constituted by parts that are contrary to each other
and develop into each other by means of mutual corruption. Hence,
the eternity of the world [lies] in succession, its unity in continua-
tion . . . Hence the world must have two kinds of ideas of forms.
One is particular, relating each to its own species, to generation,
motion, preservation in those things by means of which it exists;
which does not have unity. The other is universal, for the sake of
the conservation of unity. This is why [God] neither from the be-
ginning produced a vacuum, because it is a non-being; nor can he
allow it to exist later. Therefore, in order that the vacuum does not
exist he brought it about that the particular form, e.g., of ªre, by
means of which ªre ascends, obeys the universal form: since the
world is one . . . (EE, fol. 6r)26

The argument appears to run as follows: Since the created world must be
preªgured in the ideas in the divine mind, the forms of individual objects

26. “Ex contrariis enim ac mutua corruptione inter se grassantibus partibus [mundus]
constitutus est. Eius igitur aeternitas in successione: unitas in continuatione . . . Duas

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in the world, as well as the world as a totality, must be represented in the
divine mind. As far as individual objects go, there can exist only ideas of
(possible) beings in the divine mind, but not of non-beings such as por-
tions of vacuum devoid of body. As far as the world as a totality goes, the
idea in the divine mind can only be one of a totality without such vacua.
Hence, the only conceivable unity of the world is one of continuation.
However, Scaliger’s view of the unity of the world does not entail the
claim that matter forms a continuum. Rather, a little earlier in the same
section he holds that the surfaces of neighboring particles are contiguous,
but not in all cases continuous, since otherwise generation would be im-
possible (EE, fol. 5v).

Since a vacuum without body is a non-being, Scaliger holds that there
is an essential connection between vacuum and the bodies that occupy it.
He writes that place “is in some way a being, and in some way a non-
being. It is a non-being, because a being is contained there; and it is a be-
ing, because it is something that belongs to something else, namely, a cav-
ity within a body” (EE, fol. 7r).27 It is quite possible that Scaliger would
have been better off if he had gone all the way through to a theory of abso-
lute space. However, he did not go the entire way. Although he embraces a
theory of container space, he also thinks that portions of space are not in-
dependent of being occupied by some portion of matter or other. At any
given point in time, any portion of container space must be occupied by
some portion of matter since the extension of any given place is a property
of the body occupying it at this moment. Place is an immaterial dimen-
sion and hence different from bodies, But it is a dimension of a body
and hence cannot exist devoid of body. In this sense, Scaliger’s vacua
are dependent entities: they can be distinguished from the bodies that
occupy them, but they could not exist without the bodies that occupy
them.

Hence, while Fracastoro maintains that bodies depend for their persis-
tence on place, Scaliger holds that places depend for the existence on
bodies. On the one hand, Scaliger’s critique of Fracastoro’s view that the
persistence of bodies is brought about by places leads to a profoundly dif-
ferent view of the relation between body and place. On the other hand,

igitur Ideas formarum habere Mundum oportuit. Una est particularis, sua cuiusque
speciei, ad generationem, motum, prorogationem in iis, per quae est, non unus. Alia est
universalis ad conservationem unitatis. Iccirco [Deus] neque a principio fecit vacuum, quia
est non ens: neque postea dari passus est. Ergo ne daretur, effecit, ut forma particularis,
puta ignis, qua ascendit, obediret universali formae: qua unus est Mundus . . .”

27. “Est autem quodammodo ens, & quodammodo non ens. Est enim non ens, quia ens

continetur ibi: & est ens, quia est aliquid alicuius: nempe cavum intra corpus.”

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Scaliger on Corpuscles and the Vacuum

however, like Fracastoro he defends a position according to which space is
not only contingently but necessarily a plenum. The view that the world
necessarily is a plenum explains why both Fracastoro’s and Scaliger’s cor-
puscles move in pores so as to avoid a vacuum without body—a vacuum
without body, for Fracastoro and Scaliger alike, would be a non-being. At
the same time, holding that the world necessarily is a plenum implies
that, necessarily, there are no micro-vacua without body. As we will see
presently, the view that, necessarily, there are no micro-vacua gives impor-
tant clues as to how corpuscularian and non-corpuscularian strands are
connected in Fracastoro’s and Scaliger’s accounts of mixture.

4. Corpuscles and Mixture
Fracastoro and Scaliger adopt some elements of one of the classical solu-
tions to the problem of mixture, going back to the Persian philosopher
Ibn Sina (Avicenna), according to which the substantial forms of the ele-
ments remain in mixture while their qualities are weakened. Hence,
Fracastoro and Scaliger reject two other classical solutions, the one going
back to the Arabic philosopher Ibn Rushd (Averroes), according to which
both the substantial forms and the qualities of the elements are weakened,
and the one going back to Thomas Aquinas, according to which the sub-
stantial forms are destroyed and only qualities enter into the mixture.28 In
part, however, Fracastoro and Scaliger opt for a minority opinion. As John
Murdoch has pointed out, medieval and most Renaissance authors re-
garded the areas of the theory of natural minima and the theory of mixture
as independent areas of inquiry (Murdoch 2001, p. 130). By contrast,
Fracastoro and Scaliger combine the theory of mixture with minimism.
Some North-Italian background may be helpful for understanding the
peculiarity of this move.

What all three classical solutions to the problem of mixture just men-
tioned have in common is that they try to explicate Aristole’s enigmatic
statement that, while the elements undergo a change and union in genu-
ine mixture, the “dynamis” of elements is preserved (De gen. et corr. I, 10,
327a30ff). Hence, all three classical solutions to the problem of mixture
defend the view that, in some sense, there is a genuine unity arises in mix-
ture. However, minimism is a potential threat to this consensus in the dif-
ferent versions of Aristotelian mixture theory. In his On Elements (1505),29
the Bologna-based Averroist Alessandro Achillini (1463–1512) mentions

28. For an overview of the classical solutions to the theory of mixture, see Maier 1952,

pp. 22–35.

29. On this work and its place in Achillini’s intellectual biography, see Nardi 1954,

pp. 78–85.

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Perspectives on Science

153

the following objection: “The minima of elements are distinct with respect
to their position: for they do not penetrate each other . . . and they pre-
serve their substantial and accidental being integrally” (Achillini [1505]
1545, fol. 116r).30 The objection seems to be that as soon as one reaches
the level of minimal parts of elements, these are preserved with respect to
their substance and accidents. Hence, there is no clear sense in which a
union of minimal parts could be produced. Since minimism in this way
can be used to challenge an Aristotelian account of mixture, Achillini sub-
sequently holds that the division of components of a mixed body has only
to go far enough to the make a change of the substantial forms and quali-
ties of the components possible (ibid., fol. 116v).

Interestingly, however, his Paduan colleague Agostino Nifo, in a work
published in the same year as Achillini’s On Elements, suggests a minimist
version of an Averroist theory of mixture:31

It has to be said that the elements come together at a common
place by means of this celestial and divine power; that they also act
on each other and suffer from each other by means of this power,
and that they come together for the purposes of mixture as agents;
and as soon as they are refracted, and, once they are refracted and
conjoined by means of minima, matter and quantity form a contin-
uum; and in this moment the form of the mixture is introduced by
the celestial power . . . (Nifo 1505, fol. 5r)32

For the present purposes it is not necessary to go into the intricacies of
the mixture theories of North Italian Averroism. It sufªces to note that
the question of whether or not minimism should or should not be con-
nected with the theory of mixture was a clearly deªned and controversial
issue by the time that Fracastoro and Scaliger wrote about mixture. Both
Fracastoro and Scaliger took up the connection between minimism and
mixture without, however, embracing an Averroist theory of the weaken-
ing of forms. Nevertheless, they use the idea that in mixture a continuum
arises to explicate the unity of Aristotelian mixtures. Earlier I mentioned
that Fracastoro held that in genuine cases of mixture minima naturalia fuse
into continuum. He describes mixture as follows:

30. “[M]inima elementorum sunt positione distincta: non enim se penetrant, & . . .

suam esse & substantiale & accidentale integram servant.”

31. For an overview of Nifo’s metaphysics of nature and its historical setting, see

Mahoney 2000.

32. “[D]icendum elementa virtute hac celesti, et divina ad locum communem venire:
virtute hac etiam agere et pati inter se, et sic ad mixtionem concurrunt ut agentia; et tam
diu, quam diu franguntur, quibus fractis et per minima copulatis continuant materia et
quantitas: et in eadem instanti virtute celesti forma inducitur mixti . . .”

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Scaliger on Corpuscles and the Vacuum

Some liquids are well mixable with each other, others are not.
Those are well mixable, which have one and the same substance, or
which at least can be divided into minima. Water with water, and
wine with wine are mixed optimally, because they are one, and go
together into one continuum. Wine . . . is mixed well . . . with
water, because even if it is not one with water and does not make a
continuum, but only a contiguity, which differs with respect to its
form and limits, nevertheless it can be divided easily into minimal
particles if it is brought together with water. [Water and wine] are
divided into minimal parts, because it is the nature both of ele-
ments and of liquids, that their parts take the best possible posi-
tion. The best possible position, however, is the one in which the
parts are away from each other as little as possible; if this is given,
they become continuous with each other; if it is not given because
the forms are not one, the parts want and strive nevertheless to be
as close and as much united as they can be. But the closest position
is the one in which they are away from each other only through the
interposition of one minimum, which cannot be divided further.
(SAR, pp. 99–100)33

In this passage, Fracastoro combines non-corpuscularian and corpus-
cularian intuitions. Moreover, both intuitions are connected with the role
of minimal parts in mixture. The non-corpuscularian side of his account of
mixture has it that natural minima, in some cases, form a continuum. This
happens, according to his view, in cases of homogenous substances as well
as in cases of liquids such as water and wine. The corpuscularian side sup-
plements this view of mixture and analyses other kinds of mixture as in-
volving minimal parts that come as close to each other as possible? Does
Fracastoro introduce in these cases a vacuum interstitiale under another
name? It does not seem so. To be sure, the concept of minimal parts ap-
proaching each other as closely as possible without forming a continuum

33. “Liquidorum enim alia bene miscibilia invicem sunt, alia non bene. Bene quidem
quae aut unam & eandem substantiam habent, aut saltem dividi mutuo ad minima
possunt. Aqua igitur cum aqua, & vinum cum vino optime commiscentur, quoniam unum
sunt, & unum continuum conºant. Vinum autem cum aqua bene & ipsum miscetur,
quoniam si forte unum non est cum aqua, nec continuum facit, sed contiguum solum,
quod forma differat & terminis, dividi tamen cum illa faciliter possit in particulas
minimas. Dividuntur autem ad minimas partes, quoniam natura tum elementorum tum
liquidorum est, ut eorum partes meliorem situm habeant quo possibile sit. Melior autem
situs est ille, quo partes minus distant inter se quo possunt: & si quidem datur, continuae
ªunt inter se, si vero non datur, quia formae non unum sint, propinquiores tamen & unitae
magis quo possunt partes esse volunt & quaerunt. Propinquissimus autem situs est, quo
distant solum per interpositionem unius minimi, quod ultra dividi non potest.”

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could be expressed in the framework of a theory of interstitial voids. In
such a framework, what would be in between two minimal parts of a given
substance would be a micro-vacuum. This is, however, not what Frac-
astoro says. What he suggests is that in cases of minima approaching each
other as closely as possible without fusing with each other what comes
in between these minima is a minimum of another natural minimum.
Hence, his view involves micro-spaces between the natural minima of
substances that mix without forming a continuum. But there is no clear
indication that he thinks of these micro-spaces as micro-vacua.

Although Fracastoro’s account of mixture does not coincide with
Scaliger’s, it contains three conceptions that are found in Scaliger’s as
well:34 the view that the notion of a natural minimum is relevant for an ade-
quate account of mixture; the view that in some cases minima behave in a
corpuscularian way in mixture; and the view that some cases of mixture
involve the fusion of minimal particles into a continuum. Note also that
the way in which minima of a given element are distant from each other is
described as involving the interposition of other minima, but not of a vac-
uum. Fracastoro distinguishes two cases in which particles can fuse into a
continuum: the ªrst case is when particles have the same form, e.g., differ-
ent particles of water; the second case is when particles have been reduced
to natural minima. Scaliger entirely dissociates the issue of mixture from
the issue of sameness of form and focuses only on the role of the reduction
of particles to minima. As he points out, experiment shows that there are
mixtures of heterogeneous substances which turn out to be inseparable
from each other (EE, fol. 148v). His solution is ingenious: One the one
hand, he retains Fracastoro’s view that in mixture minimal parts form a
continuum. On the other hand, since in the case of heterogenous sub-
stances the forms of the minimal parts are different from each other, he
suggests that in the most basic cases (such as the mixture of water and
wine) the constituents of the mixture retain their numerical identity since
they retain their form, even if they give up their boundaries (EE, fol. 144r-
v). Evidently, Scaliger’s minima, like Fracastoro’s, do not behave in a fully
corpuscularian way in such contexts.

It should be clear by now that the above-mentioned passage about the
view of the “wise philosophers” (Sapientes) concerning the vacuum should

34. Confusingly, there is an earlier discussion of mixture in the Exoteric Exercises (chap-
ter 16), which is incompatible with the later discussion (chapter 101). In his ªrst take on
mixture, Scaliger defends the view that in mixture there is only a single substantial form of
the composite. However, he seems to have been dissatisªed with his ªrst discussion, and
presents his second discussion—as the chapter heading tells us—as a “more subtle” take
(repetitio subtilior) on mixture. For the purposes of the present discussion, I will focus on
Scaliger’s second take on mixture.

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be understood not to mean that the Sapientes knew that it is necessary to
assume the existence of a vacuum. Rather, what Scaliger wants to say is
that the Sapientes knew that if one assumes that natural minima have im-
mutable geometrical shapes, it is necessary to assume the existence of in-
terstitial vacua. But since Scaliger rejects the assumption of interstitial
vacua, the passage can be best understood as expressing a reductio ad absur-
dum: Since assuming that natural minima have rigid and immutable geo-
metrical shapes leads to unacceptable consequences (the assumption of the
existence of interstitial vacua), the assumption that minima cannot change
their shape should be rejected. In this way, Scaliger’s views on the vacuum
play a crucial role for his views on the nature of natural minima: rejecting
interstitial vacua excludes understanding natural minima as Lucretian at-
oms. Rather, natural minima are entities that combine corpuscularian and
non-corpuscularian features: they retain their form and boundaries when
they move in pores of other bodies such as in the case of water rising in
lime, but they retain their form and lose their boundaries when they enter
into genuine mixtures.

5. Conclusion
The foregoing considerations were not aimed at establishing that
Scaliger’s views on corpuscles and the vacuum coincide with Fracastoro’s
in all respects. I have pointed out that there are marked differences be-
tween Fracastoro’s and Scaliger’s explanations of phenomena such as water
rising in lime. On the level of the motion of corpuscles in pores Fracastoro
invokes the agency of a form of a composite substance while Scaliger in
this respect tries to do without composite substances and their forms.
Also, Scaliger’s conception of vacuum as place differs profoundly from
Fracastoro’s conception of place as what guarantees the preservation of
bodies. Nevertheless, various sections of the Exoteric Exercises indicate that
Scaliger was closely acquainted with On the Sympathy and Antipathy of
Things.35 I have argued that Fracastoro brings together aspects of a
corpuscularian matter theory with a continuity conception of mixture in a
way that helps us to understand how the different strands of Scaliger’s
matter theory hang together. Both Fracastoro and Scaliger take the minor-

35. In addition to the references to Fracastoro already mentioned, see EE, fol. 28v–29r
and 424v on Fracastoro’s views on contrary qualities and contrary forms; EE, fol. 60r on his
views on serpents; EE, fol. 290v and 455v on his naturalization of some occult qualities;
EE, fol. 417r on his agnosticism regarding the motion of the heart; EE, fol. 455r on his
account of sympathies between the parts of the human body; EE, fol. 358v on his account
of the sense of touch; EE, fol. 371r–v on his account of tastes; EE, fol. 375v–377v, 427v,
and 429r–430r on his accounts of pleasure, sadness, and love; and EE 431v–432r on his
accounts of tickle and laughter.

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ity view according to which minimism is essentially connected with mix-
ture theory. Both Fracastoro and Scaliger hold that space is necessarily a
plenum, thus excluding a conception of natural minima as Lucretian atoms
with immutable geometrical shapes. Both Fracastoro’s and Scaliger’s natu-
ral minima have some corpuscularian characteristics: they do not change
their natures while they are included in the pores of larger bodies, and
they retain their numerical identity in mixture. But Fracastoro’s and
Scaliger’s natural minima also have some non-corpuscularian characteris-
tics: because they do not have rigid and immutable geometrical shapes,
they are capable of fusing with other natural minima into a continuum.

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