Abstract

Francis Bacon critique souvent l ' attitude et les pratiques des alchimistes. Pour autant, il ne rejette pas l ' alchimie, qui est la chimie de son temps. Non seulement il intègre dans sa philosophie naturelle des aspects essentiels de la pensée paracelsienne, mais surtout il fait de l ' alchimie l ' une des sciences auxquelles sa nouvelle méthode doit s ' appliquer de manière privilégiée en vue de la perfectionner. Comme de nombreux philosophes naturels du XVIIe siècle, il n ' hésite pas à développer sa propre conception de la transmutation des métaux. Francis Bacon often criticizes both attitude and practice of the alchemists. Yet he doesn ' t, give away alchemy which is the chemistry of his time. Not only does he integrate in his natural philosophy a few major aspects of Paracelsian thought, but first and foremost does he turn alchemy into one of the sciences to which his new method should be applied in apriviledged way in order to improve it. As was the case with quite a few natural philosophers of the XVIIth century, never does he quavers in developing his own conception of the metallic transmutation.