In science, Torbern Olof Bergman (1735-1784) was a Swedish chemist noted for the publication of his 1775 textbook A Dissertation on Elective Attractions, which contained a 55-row affinity table, the largest ever assembled, an advanced version of French chemist Étienne Geoffroy's famous 1718 affinity table. [1]

Human chemistry

See: Human chemistry

Bergman's textbook later served as a foundation for German polymath Johann Goethe's theories on human chemical affinities as outlined in his 1809 publication Elective Affinities, the founding book of the science of human chemistry. [2] In particular, a year before publication Goethe, who had been studying chemistry for a period of forty-years, told his friend Riemer that ‘his idea for the new novella was to portray social relationships and their conflicts symbolically’, as in a, b, ac, abd, abcd, etc., a statement in reference to a Scottish physician and chemist William Cullen’s 1757 pioneering development of affinity reaction diagrams (of which 64 such diagrams were made in Bergman's textbook):

in which, for instance, as diagrammed above, if chemical species A and B are attached in a weakly bonded chemical union, signified by the bonding bracket “{“, ordered such that if species C were introduced into the system, the greater affinity preference of A for C would cause A to displace B and to thus form a new union with C, which equates to the following in modern terms:

AB + C → AC + B

and that furthermore, according to Goethe: [3]


In other words, what is moral or amoral, in Goethe’s view, is a point of view inherent in the laws of chemistry according to which species react.

References
1. (a) Geoffroy, Étienne F. (1718). Tableau des différentes Rapports Observées entre Différentes Substances (Table of the Different Relations Observed between Different Substances). France.
(b) Bergman, Torbern. (1775). A Dissertation on Elective Attractions. London: Frank Cass & Co.
2. (a) Thims, Libb. (2007). Human Chemistry (Volume Two), (preview), (ch. 10, pgs. 371-421). Morrisville, NC: LuLu.
(b) Goethe, Johann. (1809). Elective Affinities. New York: Penguin Classics (reprint).
3. (a) Wiese, Benno von. (1951). Anmerkungen to Die Wahlverwandtschaften. In Goethe’s Werke, edited by Benno von Wiese. Vol. 19. Pg. 621, Hamberg: Wegener.
(b) Crosland, M. P. (1959). “The use of diagrams as chemical ‘equations’ in the lecture notes of William Cullen and Joseph Black.” Annals of Science, Vol 15, Num 2, June.

Further reading
● Kim, Mi Gyung. (2003). Affinity, That Elusive Dream – A Genealogy of the Chemical Revolution. Cambridge, Mass: The MIT Press.