Jan-Erik Jones (Editor) - The Bloomsbury Companion To Robert Boyle-Bloomsbury Academic (2020)

The Bloomsbury Companion to
Robert Boyle
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The Bloomsbury Companion to
Robert Boyle
Edited by
Jan-Erik Jones
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For Kristen, Erik, Tait and Tara
Contents
List of Contributors viii

Acknowledgements ix
Notes on Text x
List of Abbreviations xi
Introduction Jan-Erik Jones 1

1 Boyle’s Baconianism Harriet Knight 9
2 Boyle’s Influence on Locke Peter R. Anstey 39
3 Boyle’s Chemistry Antonio Clericuzio 65
4 Boyle’s Epistemology: The Interaction between Scientific and
Religious Knowledge J. J. MacIntosh 97
5 Boyle on Explanation and Causality Laurence Carlin 141
6 Boyle on Qualities Laura S. Keating 169
7 Boyle’s Natural Kind Realism Jan-Erik Jones 199
8 Boyle’s Moral Philosophy Sorana Corneanu 225
9 Boyle’s Philosophy of Religion Edward B. Davis 257
10 Boyle on the Application of Science Michael Hunter 283
Index 307
Contributors
Peter R. Anstey, Professor of Philosophy, Department of Philosophy,

University of Sydney, Australia.
Laurence Carlin, Dean of the Honors College and Professor of Philosophy,
University of Wisconsin Oshkosh, USA.
Antonio Clericuzio, Professor, Dipartimento di Studi Umanistici, Roma Tre
University, Italy.
Sorana Corneanu, Associate Professor, Department of English, University of
Bucharest, Romania.
Edward B. Davis, Professor of the History of Science, Department of
Biological Sciences, Messiah College, USA.
Michael Hunter, Emeritus Professor, Department of History, Classics and
Archaeology, Birkbeck, University of London, UK.
Jan-Erik Jones, Professor of Philosophy, Division of Humanities, Southern
Virginia University, USA.
Laura S. Keating, Associate Professor, Philosophy Department, Hunter
College, City University of New York, USA.
Harriet Knight, Henrietta Barnett School, London, and Associate of the
Centre for Editing Lives and Letters, University College London, UK.
Jack MacIntosh, Professor, Department of Philosophy, University of Calgary,
Alberta, Canada.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank the Faculty Development Fund at Southern Virginia

University for helpful support for this project. I am also grateful to Peter Anstey,
Colleen Coalter and Becky Holland for their help and advice on this project,
as well as for the assistance of Travis Chisholm. I am particularly indebted to
Kristen Jones for her constant support.
Note on Text
Conventions for spelling, capitalization and punctuation in the seventeenth

century were different and less rigid than they are now. In fact, it is not unusual
for Boyle to spell the same word two different ways on the same page. Moreover,
seventeenth-century English had an alphabet of twenty-four letters, where the
pairs ‘u’, ‘v’, and ‘i’, ‘j’, were interchangeable. In some places Boyle inserts entire
phrases or arguments in their Latin original. In order to maintain uniformity of
appearance and as much fidelity to the original text as possible, the quotations in
this volume retain the spelling, language and punctuation from the sources cited.
Abbreviations
For the sake of simplicity and clarity, the following conventions have been
employed throughout:
BOA Boyle, R. (2005), Boyle on Atheism, J. J. MacIntosh (ed.),

Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
BP Royal Society, Boyle Papers.
Correspondence Boyle, R. (2001), The Correspondence of Robert Boyle,

M. Hunter, A. Clericuzio and L. M. Principe (eds), 6 vols,
London: Pickering & Chatto.
MS Boyle notebooks and manuscripts at the Royal Society.
Works Boyle, R. (1999–2000), The Works of Robert Boyle,

M. Hunter and E. B. Davis (eds), 14 vols,
London: Pickering & Chatto.
Introduction
Jan-Erik Jones
Born at the western edge of Europe, Robert Boyle (1627–91) was at the centre
of the scientific revolution. While most of us were first introduced to Boyle
as an historical figure in chemistry, he was first and foremost a philosopher
committed to experimentalism in natural philosophy. He was a forward thinker,
anticipating the direction of human philosophical and scientific endeavours.
He was thinking about issues that are currently hot topics in philosophy and
social policy, for example, the importance of science in benefitting humanity,
the need to make the recipes for medicines publicly available, the connections
between science and ethics, the tensions between science and religion, just to
name a few. Moreover, Boyle was providing important philosophical guidance
on each of these topics. He is not merely a relic of the past whose only claims
to fame are his ideal gas law and an improved vacuum pump; he is a leader
in experimental philosophy whose interests span nearly the whole range of
philosophical topics, including morality, philosophy of religion, natural kinds,
causation, epistemology and the philosophy of science.
Boyle was not only the most prolific English author in the scientific revolution
of the seventeenth century, he was arguably the most influential natural
philosopher of the period. His impact on chemistry and experimental science
is important and well documented, but other aspects of Boyle’s philosophical
thought are less widely known, and yet clearly influenced the natural philosophy,
natural theology and philosophy (broadly speaking) of the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries. To conclude, as many scholars do, that he was an important
influence in the formation of the experimentalist and empiricist traditions and
a vital source for understanding subsequent philosophical developments, would
be true, but it would also be selling him short.
2 Bloomsbury Companion to Robert Boyle
Boyle may not be currently ranked among the early modern elites, but he
is not a minor character in the history of philosophy. His impact on modern
thought includes a defence of final causes in nature and a Design argument that
predates William Paley’s (1743–1805) watch argument. While Boyle’s distinctions
between the primary and secondary qualities of bodies influenced Locke – and
thus Berkeley’s famous attack – it should not be missed that Boyle’s discussion of
these qualities comes as a philosophical investigation into the corpuscular basis
for these distinctions. Indeed, Boyle frequently takes outstanding philosophical
problems from the Scholastic tradition, for example, material causes, formal
causes, efficient causes, the qualities of bodies, generation and corruption and so
on, and argues for a corpuscularian basis for them.
Unlike Locke, Boyle really does argue for the philosophical foundations of
the mechanical natural philosophy. Boyle’s works include reconciliations of
religion with science and showing that the study of nature was a religious duty.
He believed that the proper and systematic study of God’s creations helps to
develop the virtues of discipline, self-reflection, intellectual modesty and logical
thinking. He helped defend an account of corpuscles, elements, qualities and
the interactions between insensibly small bodies that helped ground modern
chemistry. While some of these topics were also discussed by Francis Bacon,
Galileo Galilei, Thomas Hobbes, Rene Descartes, John Locke, Gottfried Wilhelm
Leibniz, George Berkeley, David Hume and William Paley (just to name a few),
they were all central to Boyle’s philosophy.
We sometimes say in philosophy that there are hedgehogs and foxes: foxes
know many things and hedgehogs know one important thing. It is a common
mistake to think of Robert Boyle as a hedgehog; a one-dimensional philosopher
whose main interest was defending the mechanical natural philosophy. Boyle
was much more of a system builder than most people think. And although –
as MacIntosh reminds us – Boyle denied being a ‘system builder’, his natural
philosophy, epistemology, metaphysics, philosophical theology, ethical
philosophy and philanthropic endeavours are unified and systematic; they
connect with and support each other in obvious ways. Boyle is no Leibniz, but
he is arguably as systematic as Descartes or Malebranche. And while he is an
experimentalist, a methodological empiricist, and an influence on John Locke
and the empiricist tradition, like Descartes, Boyle is a substance dualist and
corpuscularian who accepts innate ideas (Works, 11: 300–1). In sum, Robert
Boyle is a complex, systematic, engaging and important philosopher who
deserves to be studied in his own right. He is just as important to seventeenth-
century philosophy as any of the other luminaries already in the canon.
Introduction 3
Thus, there are two main aims of this volume. First, to give students and
researchers of Boyle ready access to the wide array of philosophical topics that
Boyle addressed and thereby present a more complete and systematic picture of
both Robert Boyle and his philosophical contributions. Second, to present in
one place the best current research on the philosophy of Robert Boyle that takes
into account the last thirty years of scholarship and points us towards the next
thirty years.
These two aims also inform the choices of chapter topics. In Chapter 1,
Harriet Knight argues that Boyle was deeply influenced by the philosophical
agenda and content of Francis Bacon’s philosophy. She establishes Boyle’s self-
conscious adoption of Baconian strategies of data collection and management
and shows that literary technologies such as ‘the list’ were central to the model of
knowledge creation for both men. She concludes that Boyle was more influenced
by Bacon than by any other thinker, and his philosophical goals and literary
output cannot be understood without the context of this engagement.
In Chapter 2, Peter R. Anstey deploys his encyclopaedic knowledge
of both Boyle’s and Locke’s works to assess the influence of Boyle on his
younger laboratory assistant. Anstey argues that Boyle’s natural philosophical
methodology – the experimental philosophy – had a marked influence on
Locke. He goes on to discuss Locke’s deployment of and attitude towards Boyle’s
corpuscularian hypothesis and argues that Boyle was a major influence on
Locke’s involvement in and practice of chymical medicine.
Boyle’s corpuscularian philosophy is an essential component of any study
of his philosophy, however, his concern to discover the philosopher’s stone
and pursue alchemy are both mildly embarrassing and philosophically
significant, and so Chapters 3, 5 and 6 are crucial to understanding Boyle’s
philosophy of science. In particular, in Chapter 5 Laurence Carlin describes
how his interpretation of the Scholastic four causes within his corpuscular and
mechanical natural philosophy gives Boyle powerful polemical tools against
his critics and Scholastics, while also revealing his theological commitments.
Carlin examines Robert Boyle’s attempts to provide a mechanically respectable
account of Aristotle’s efficient and final causes that intersects with the theology,
natural philosophy and value theory of his time. As a result, Carlin argues that
Boyle is a systematic philosopher who left a profound imprint on early modern
philosophy. Along the way, Carlin points out that, although efficient causes were
unproblematic among mechanist philosophers of the seventeenth century who
sought to explain natural phenomena solely in terms of the ‘structural’ properties
of matter – size, shape, texture and motion – without appeal to substantial forms,
final causes were a different story. He goes on to show both what Boyle took final
causes to be, and how he argued for a mechanical world view that appeals to
both efficient and final causes.
The question of the relationships of bodies to their qualities is further
discussed by Laura S. Keating in Chapter 6. The distinction between the primary
and secondary qualities of bodies is one Boyle weighed in on in a big way. His
account of qualities was polemically important for his intellectual descendants,
but it also revealed what epistemic roles he thought argument and experiment
could play. Keating discusses Boyle’s account of the qualities of bodies. She
shows that Boyle develops a general mechanistic account to explain what he
and others assume to be part of the phenomena of nature – observable, causally
efficacious accidents – the so-called ‘qualities’ of bodies. She argues that qualities
emerge from the threefold basis of the affections of matter, of bodies and of the
corporeal universe. The emergence of the qualities also crucially depends upon
the existence of perceivers – and the facts about their sense organs – within that
threefold basis. She goes on to argue that Boyle’s use of the received conception
of bodies acting by means of accidents, even while reducing any observed action
to insensible mechanisms, helps resolve some key interpretive debates and to
understand why quality is no longer an explanatory concept.
The question of the relationships among the qualities of bodies, as discussed
by Keating, also raises questions concerning the dispositions and chemical
properties of matter. In Chapter 3, Antonio Clericuzio discusses Boyle’s
chemistry. He shows that Boyle shared the Hartlib Circle’s commitment to
both experimentalism and scientific utilitarianism. That is, Boyle stressed the
usefulness of chemistry to medicine and to natural philosophy and was active
in the preparation of new remedies. In this utilitarian strain, Boyle played a
central role in the Oxford scientific community by exploring respiration and
blood composition. Philosophically, Boyle rejected the Paracelsian theory
of the tria prima chemical principles by means of experiments, showing that
fire did not separate the ultimate constituents of bodies. He then discusses
Boyle’s contributions to the foundations of modern chemistry by hypothesizing
corpuscles of the second order, that is, clusters of particles, endowed with
chemical, not just mechanical properties.
These commitments in Boyle’s natural philosophy also raise epistemological
questions about the scope and domains of human knowledge, and on these
topics Boyle has something to say about religious, theoretical and scientific
knowledge. In Chapter 4, J. J. MacIntosh takes us into a discussion of Boyle’s
epistemology. While most readers will be familiar with MacIntosh’s article,
Introduction 5
‘Robert Boyle’s Epistemology: The Interaction between Scientific and Religious

Knowledge’ (International Studies in the Philosophy of Science, 6, 1992, 91–121,
republished here with some changes), I thought it would be important to include
his insightful examination of the scope and depth of Boyle’s epistemological
commitments into our discussion. After all, just as our other authors have
emphasized, Boyle’s theological and scientific commitments must be treated
in tandem. In like manner, MacIntosh argues that even though Boyle sharply
distinguished the areas which we would call scientific and theological, he held
that they overlapped seamlessly, and that the truths we discovered (or which
were revealed to us) in one of these areas would be relevant to us in the other.
He discusses Boyle’s views on the limits of human knowledge, his arguments in
favour of accepting the revelations of the Christian faith and his views on the
kind of epistemological standing that scientific knowledge claims have. With this
background, MacIntosh turns his attention to the relation between hypotheses,
theories and facts in Boyle’s work and considers a particular case, that of Boyle’s
Law, as an exemplification of the claims made in the rest of the chapter.
All of these issues about our knowledge of nature, the qualities of bodies, the
origin of chemical properties and the reinterpretation of the four causes also
come up in his account of natural kinds and human taxonomical practices. Just
as Carlin and Keating focus on Boyle’s project of providing a mechanistically
respectable account of Aristotelian or Scholastic doctrines in natural philosophy,
in Chapter 7, Jan-Erik Jones shows how Boyle gives mechanical respectability to
the Scholastic doctrine of formal causation. In Scholastic philosophy substantial
forms (or ‘formal causes’) play three roles: (a) they tells us to what natural kind
the substance belongs, (b) they account for the substantial unity of substances
and (c) they cause the sensible qualities and properties of substances. Jones
argues that although Boyle rejects substantial forms, he retains the concept of a
formal cause and redefines it in terms of a ‘corpuscular form’ that plays all of
the same theoretical roles as substantial forms. Jones argues that an upshot
of this is that Boyle accepts natural kind realism and that empirical methods of
classifying substances can result in taxonomies that match nature’s kinds. This
understanding of Boyle’s realism helps show why he is an important figure in the
scientific revolution of the seventeenth century and it helps explain how Boyle’s
view relates to the realism of Francis Bacon and the antirealism of John Locke.
While these metaphysical and epistemological positions in Boyle’s work are
important, it is also clear that none of them are independent of his moral and
theological commitments. In Chapter 8, Sorana Corneanu traces Boyle’s interest
in practical morality from his early writings on moral psychology and practices
of self-government, to the late tracts on the contribution of experimental natural

philosophy to natural religion. The two parts of the chapter discuss two main
clusters of themes: first, the interplay of knowledge and affectivity in Boyle’s
conception of felicity, virtue and sin, and the remedial practices of meditation
and self-examination; second, the mooring of his notion of duty to a conceptual
scheme that links together the divine gifts and ends of creation with the acts of
devotion required by the service of God. The chapter highlights the continuities
between the early and the later Boyle and identifies possible sources of influence
on his views.
Continuing the theme of Boyle’s religious motivations and commitments,
and how they impact his overall philosophical position, in Chapter 9, Edward
B. Davis discusses Boyle’s philosophy of religion. He begins by outlining Boyle’s
passion for apologetics and connects them to his reading of the defences of
Christianity by Philippe de Mornay and others. According to Davis, Boyle’s
primary motive was to persuade wayward Christians, including members of his
immediate family, to live more piously and to devote themselves to charitable
works. Davis then shows that after he accepted the mechanical philosophy, Boyle
integrated it fully into his programme to prove the truth of Christianity, especially
against those sceptics who used the new science to justify their godlessness. The
clockwork universe required a Creator, made genuine biblical miracles easier to
identify, enhanced human dominion over the creation and drove pagan notions
of nature to the periphery of natural philosophy. Simultaneously, Boyle carefully
limited the scope of human reason, while underscoring God’s freedom and
sovereignty over the laws of nature. Thus, Davis argues, according to Boyle, the
truths of nature could only be discovered empirically.
As we have already seen, Boyle’s moral and theological views motivated him
to take a number of bold stances. One such stance concerns the relationship
between science and society. In particular, he believed that science should
benefit humanity and improve the condition of the average person. Thus, in
Chapter 10, Michael Hunter discusses Boyle’s moral and theological motivations
for pursuing scientific and technological advancement. Hunter argues that
Boyle’s vision for science and the resulting increase in human understanding
was to improve the human condition. In his chapter, Hunter traces Boyle’s
various programmatic statements to this effect – notably in his The Usefulness
of Natural Philosophy – and he also considers Boyle’s famous list of ‘desiderata’
for science. He then critically assesses Boyle’s results in improving the human
condition through scientific advancement. Hunter concludes that, although
Boyle’s record was somewhat mixed, his enthusiasm for the application of
Introduction 7
science remained undiminished. In this chapter, Hunter shines a spotlight onto

a part of Boyle’s philosophy that is often neglected but crucial for understanding
Boyle’s world view.
In sum, Boyle had something significant and programmatic to contribute to
each of these metaphysical, epistemological, natural theological, ethical and (and
what we would now call) philosophy of science questions that constitute the core
of most early modern philosophical systems. More importantly, Boyle’s accounts
of qualities, causes, knowledge and natural kinds cast a long shadow upon the
western philosophical traditions, and his solutions and arguments are crucial to
understanding Locke, the empiricist tradition, and the early modern discussions
concerning experimental and theoretical philosophy. If there are any lingering
questions of whether Boyle deserves to occupy a more prominent position in the
history of early modern philosophy, it is my hope that this volume helps answer
them in the affirmative.
1
Boyle’s Baconianism
Harriet Knight
Boyle has long been understood as Francis Bacon’s intellectual heir. The
early Royal Society deferred to Bacon as its inspiration and made Boyle its
contemporary hero with elaborate celebrations of him in print as a ‘Noble
Searcher after Nature’: he was presented as ‘the principal exemplar of the
Society’s experimental policy’ (Hunter 2015: 53). Boyle’s correspondent John
Beale suggested, as a Cambridge professor had said when reading Bacon’s
Advancement of Learning for the first time, ‘that he must burn his old bookes
& begin his newe ABC; So would Ld. Bacon now say, if he should arise to
see this progresse in a single Person’ (Hall and Hall 1965–86: 13: 386). This
extravagance is typical of Beale, but the sense of Boyle as Bacon’s inheritor was
general. The ‘congratulatory poem’ to Boyle included in the Latin edition of his
Forms and Qualities links the two: ‘heaven has blessed us with two of heaven’s
greatest gifts, on the one hand Bacon, who restored and repaired everything,
and on the other Boyle, whose name will forever be sacred’ (Works, 5: 489). In
1712, John Hughes, writing in The Spectator, characterized Boyle ‘designed by
Nature to succeed to the Labours and Enquiries’ of Bacon, and having ‘filled up
those Plans and Out-Lines of Science, which his Predecessor had sketched out’
(5 December 1712: 554). Peter Shaw’s eighteenth-century systematized editions
of Bacon and Boyle imply that these were the two crucial natural philosophers
of their generations.
Linking Bacon and Boyle has not always been seen as complimentary,
however. Graham Rees documents the changes in Bacon’s intellectual reputation,
and in particular the ‘astonishing’ and undeserved twentieth-century discredit
which left his reputation ‘reduced to rags’, with the adjective ‘Baconian’ used
by Kuhn, Popper and others to condemn much seventeenth-century work as
‘pre-paradigmatic, fact collecting, and natural-historical’ (Rees and Wakely
2004: xxxvi, xxxii). For Popper, Bacon creates a ‘myth of a scientific method
that starts from observation and experiment and then proceeds to theories’
and rejects hypothesis, and in this context some mid-twentieth-century Boyle
scholars attempted to separate Boyle from Bacon, in order to preserve him from
charges of naïve empiricism (Popper 1959: 279). Richard S. Westfall argues that
Boyle exceeded Bacon’s empirical ‘disorganized collection of heterogeneous
observations’, defying the ‘Baconian’ contention that ‘scientific truth would
emerge almost automatically from the full collection of facts’ requiring only ‘a
natural history, which anyone would be able to collect’, and relying instead on
hypothesis. ‘Boyle set reason above sense’ (1956: 70, 67). Here Boyle’s intellectual
value is proved by his supposed rejection of Baconianism, understood as
narrowly empirical.
Bacon’s rehabilitation involved showing the complexity of his attitude to
experiment and distinguishing strands of Baconianism. Hugh Trevor-Roper
codified a distinction between ‘vulgar’, and ‘pure’ Baconianism: the former,
associated with Hartlib, Dury and Comenius, is characterized as ‘fragmented’
and ‘uncontrolled’. By contrast, members of the Royal Society, ‘Wilkins and
Petty, Boyle and Wren’, transform this ‘vulgar Baconianism’, ‘elevat[e it] again
into the pure Baconianism of Bacon’ (1967: 258, 289). Similarly, and explicitly
revising Popper, Mary Horton (1973) and Peter Urbach (1982) both document
Bacon’s emphasis on the factual but present this as only the preliminary phase of
his work. Dorothea Krook had made a similar argument in the 1950s, suggesting
that Bacon himself transcended, rather than exemplifying the expansive,
disorderly empirical approach. For her, the early Royal Society had tended to
reduce Bacon’s philosophy to a ‘bare empiricism that minimizes almost out of
existence its rationalist aspect’; in which the ‘discovery of ‘axioms’ … seems
to matter much less than the accumulation of facts’. Krook praises Boyle as an
‘honourable exception’ to this and as a true Baconian, because he advocates
applying reason to data (1955: 267). More recently, Lorraine Daston and
Katherine Park have sought to distance Bacon from mainstream Royal Society
Baconianism, claiming that in his natural history information was ‘immediately
put to work in the investigation of causes’ through tabulation and classification,
whereas in the Royal Society, matters of fact ‘were as often as not left to float free
both of a motivating causal inquiry or a unifying causal explanation’ (1998: 231).
The unstable definition of Baconianism has led to some scholars deeming Boyle
too rational and others too empirical to be true to Bacon’s work, with strong value
judgements implied in making or denying the connection (Sargent 1986: 473,
469). In recent Boyle scholarship, therefore, there has been an attempt to return
Boyle’s Baconianism 11
to the works to fully document the links themselves: taking on the topic in 2008
Anstey and Hunter explained the occasion of their essay, ‘No one since Peter
Shaw’s treatment of the subject in 1733 … has mapped the precise contours of
Boyle’s Baconianism’ (2008: 86).
One of the obstacles to mapping these contours lies in the breadth of interests,
methods and attitudes characterized as ‘Baconian’. Rees emphasizes the range of
positions held by ‘Bacon’s supporters’ in the seventeenth century:
most claimed to be in favour of some or all of the following: negotium rather

than otium, an experimental, natural-historical, and broadly inductive approach
to the natural sciences; the institutionalization of science and of the means of
gathering, collating, and communicating knowledge; planned, co-operative
research; rational ‘utilitarian’, and technological solutions to social problems.
Likewise, they claimed to be against some or all of these: useless erudition,
premature system building, metaphysical speculation, superstition, theological
controversy, undue reliance on unaided reason, Aristotelianism, and anything
that smacked of scholasticism. (Rees and Wakely 2004: xxiv)
For Boyle, the crucial threads are the experimental natural historical approach,
the pursuit of a model of planned, cooperative research and the application of
technological solutions to practical problems. On the significance of the first,
Anstey has called the philosophy of experiment ‘developed in England by Francis
Bacon and … further elaborat[ed] at the hands of Robert Boyle and Robert
Hooke’ ‘the most elaborate, nuanced and influential account of experiment in
the period’ (2014: 104). The third, the beneficent application of technology, is
discussed in depth in Michael Hunter’s essay in this collection, as is the question
of Boyle’s use of the romance form in imitation of New Atlantis, and these
will therefore not be considered in detail here, although the former is clearly
a crucial strand of Boyle’s Baconian inheritance. This chapter will document
Bacon’s significance for Boyle and consider the impact on Boyle’s reputation of
their connection, as well as showing how his manuscripts and printed books
offer material evidence of his Baconian impulses.
1. Boyle’s explicit engagements with Bacon
It is firstly helpful to consider the duration and depth of Bacon’s influence upon
Boyle. Discussing Boyle’s early intellectual development, Hunter has shown
that Boyle was engaged with ethical and religious issues before he underwent
a ‘real conversion experience’ to investigating nature by experimental means in

1649 (2015: 36). Boyle’s Baconianism (certainly in its sophisticated form) is an
even later development, occurring under the auspices of the Royal Society in
the 1660s. Moreover, Hunter questions the assumption that Boyle was leading
the Royal Society in terms of the promotion and development of Bacon’s legacy.
Rather, he sees the process by which Boyle and the Royal Society developed their
Baconianism as a reciprocal influence or synergy (2015: 53–80).
Although it may have been a relatively late development, there is ample
evidence that once acquired, Boyle’s Baconianism was profound and significant.
Bacon is repeatedly referenced in early Royal Society publications: Sprat’s History
calls him the ‘one great Man, who had the true Imagination of the whole extent of
this Enterprize’, and Royal Society secretary Henry Oldenburg regularly invokes
him when explaining the remit to new correspondents, ‘It is a great part of our
purpose to put together such a Natural History as our illustrious Bacon designed’
(1667: 35; 1965–86, 4: 422). While Webster (1976) has seen early Royal Society
invocations of Bacon as a publicity stunt, and Wood (1980) has argued that
Sprat’s references to him are mere polemic, Lynch has shown that his influence
was crucial. Systematically named in the Society’s charter, meeting minutes and
earliest published works, ‘Bacon’s influence was the primary touchstone for the
early Royal Society’ (2005: 173–4).
In Boyle’s works, the frequent explicit references to Bacon suggest he was
a primary touchstone here too. Boyle uses a series of flattering epithets,
demonstrating the connection which he sought to draw between them. Bacon
is ‘Illustrious’, ‘judicious’ and ‘justly famous’ (Works, 3: 50; 4: 546; 8: 344). He
is variously ‘so great and so candid’, a ‘Great and Solid’ philosopher; the ‘great
Ornament and Guide of Philosophical Historians of Nature’, ‘one of the first
and greatest Experimental Philosophers of our Age’, ‘one of the wisest of men &
solidest of Filosofers’ and ‘the great Architect of Experimental History’ (Works,
2: 78; 3: 271; 4: 213; 11: 293; 13: 157; 11: 312). While other thinkers are praised by
Boyle (e.g. he draws up two pantheons of philosophers and one of theologians,
both of which feature Bacon), no other figure is referred to so frequently or in
such glowing terms (Works, 13: 190, 197; 8: 88).
Boyle also uses Bacon to frame his works. Baconian epigraphs adorn the title
pages of Colours (1664) and Cold (1665), Essays of Effluviums (1673) and Blood
(1684) as well as Reason and Religion (1675). Boyle’s works also engage directly
with Bacon’s. In places his references take the form of quoted tags which prove
a familiarity with the works but where the application feels commonplace: for
example in Effluviums, needing the concept of universalizability, he refers the
reader to Bacon: ‘or, in the phrase of our Verulam speaking of heat, in ordine ad
Universum’ (Works, 7: 364). Similarly, he twice quotes the aphorism that little
philosophy leads to atheism but a ‘full draught’ of it returns the reader to God
(Works, 3: 271; 13: 157). Elsewhere, the references are more deeply engaged: for
example he cites specific Baconian experiments, variously qualifying, or
reauthorizing, or adding to these. In Certain Physiological Essays, he specifically
presents his work as a test of Bacon’s ‘unlikely truth’ that spirit of wine will float
on oil of almonds. He first found the opposite result in various witnessed trials,
but his ‘tenderness of the reputation’ of Bacon led to experiments with higher
grade of purity and a successful replication of Bacon’s result (Works, 2: 78).
Much later in his career, in Salt Water Sweeten’d (1683), he records that Bacon
had ‘Learnedly’ claimed that there were no health problems associated with
desalinated water, but that Boyle’s tests recorded here were necessary because
of the scepticism of ‘invidious persons, who are no well-wishers to Ingeneous
Designs’ (Works, 9: 430). Elsewhere he contradicts, rather than reconfirming: in
Certain Physiological Essays he records an experiment with egg, referencing
Novum Organum, but contesting Bacon’s analysis and suggesting a new cause,
‘I shall willingly confess he has assign’d the cause ingeniously, but must doubt
whether he have done it truly’ (Works, 2: 170).
Most significant are Boyle’s engagements with Baconian methodology. In
both Reason and Religion (1675) and Things above Reason (1681), he summarizes
Bacon’s idea of ‘Idols’ at considerable length (around one thousand words in
the former) (Works, 8: 256–7; 9: 382). He also applies Baconian terminology: in
his Defence against Linus he uses ‘Experimentum Crucis’ to refer to Bacon’s
concept of the ‘crucial instance’, and refers it to him ‘(to speak with our
Illustrious Verulam)’ (Works, 3: 50). Similarly, in Usefulness he uses and glosses
‘Lucriferousness’: those who ‘impartially consider the Luciferousness (if I may
speak in my Lord of St Albans Stile)’ will realize that valuable remedies have been
dismissed too easily, while in the post script to Blood he refers to the need for an
appendix of ‘designed Experiments’ which have not been tried but should be ‘(to
which ’tis probable our excellent Verulam would have given the title of Historia
Designata)’ (Works, 3: 229; 10: 96). In the second tome of Usefulness, Boyle goes
further, questioning rather than simply repeating a Baconian distinction,
For though that famous Distinction, introduc’d by the Lord Verulam, whereby
Experiments are sorted into Luciferous and Fructiferous, may be (if rightly
understood) of commendable Use; yet it would much mislead those that should
so understand it, as if Fructiferous Experiments did so meerly advantage our
interests, as not to promote our Knowledg; or the Experiments called Luciferous,
did so barely enrich our Understandings, as to be no other waies useful. (Works,

6: 433)
Boyle not only wished to apply Baconian categories but to be seen to do so.
This detailed discussion specifically dates from the 1660s and is absent from
the first tome of Usefulness which, printed in 1663, mainly comprises materials
collected in the 1650s. Within the passage above, the explicit reference to ‘the
Lord Verulam’ has been added to the amanuensis’ draft in Boyle’s own hand,
and the discussion of the relationship of luciferous and fructiferous is a later
addition still, since it postdates the manuscript version. Boyle’s deepening,
explicit engagement with Bacon’s ideas on utility thus dates from the period of
his closest links with the Royal Society (Works, 6: liv–lv).
2. Boyle’s works in the context of Bacon’s

Instauratio Magna
Having surveyed Boyle’s explicit invocations of Bacon, I will now move on to

show how his works across twenty years worth of experimental publications can
be seen as engaging more broadly with the instructions for restoring natural
knowledge laid out by Bacon in his ‘massive, unfinished meta-work, the six-part
Instauratio magna’ (Rees and Wakely 2004: xvix). In the first section of Bacon’s
Great Instauration comes a survey of the ‘partitions of the sciences’, assessing the
current, deficient state of knowledge. Second, an account of Bacon’s new method
for constructing knowledge. Third, a natural historical collection, formed as the
basis of a new ‘interpretation of nature’. The fourth part gives worked examples
of the method in part two being applied to the materials in part three: the
results of this constitute new philosophy and thus belong in part six. Part five
is a temporary repository for ‘anticipations’; hypotheses awaiting confirmation
which will be promoted to part six if they survive testing via implementing
new methods. As Rees emphasizes, this is a ‘meta-work’ of ‘enormous scope
and massive scale’. In so far as it was realized, its parts appeared separately and
under different titles, with the result that it has been underestimated.1 Here I will
show that in its ambition, the details of its design, its incompletion and indeed
in its poor reception by historians, it is an enormously important context for
understanding Boyle.
Boyle does not publish any substantial programmatic investigations of
the scope of current knowledge which map to part one, the Advancement
of Learning, although some of its concerns, such as the paucity of current

knowledge, are addressed in his prefaces. However, the ground covered by
Bacon in section two (the preface of the Novum organum) maps neatly to the
fullest version of Boyle’s experimental methodology: his ‘Designe about Natural
History’. This ‘Designe’, presented as a letter to Oldenburg dated 13 June 1666,
represents Boyle’s ‘appropriation and elaboration of th[e]‌Baconian doctrine’; a
sophisticated explanation of the ideas he had already been enacting, for example
in his History of Cold (1665). Boyle’s ‘Designe’ lays out a four-stage process for the
improvement of natural history: methodological preliminaries, the body of the
history, additions to it and indices. His methodology does not adopt specifically
Baconian headings, but the framework it lays out, with compilation of data as
a crucial first step, carried out in order to advance natural philosophy, is firmly
rooted in Bacon. Key to the natural philosophy of both Bacon and Boyle is the
differentiation between factual data and speculative schemes. However, also
central is the ‘dovetailing of speculative natural philosophy with the compilation
of natural histories’ (Anstey and Hunter 2008: 83, 96).
Bacon and Boyle agree that natural knowledge is currently deficient, that
the collection of natural historical facts is the first step in the amelioration of
this and that a degree of speculation is necessary in order to move beyond the
mere historical collection of instances and into the development of natural
philosophy proper. Both give advice on how to experiment. Both negotiate
the relationship with hypothesis, balancing the need to avoid imposing overly
neat theoretical frameworks upon data prematurely, with the imperative to
produce a reasoned, orderly account rather than a mere collection of facts. On
one hand, Boyle emphasizes the theoretical orientation of ideal natural history.
Preliminaries should thus show ‘the Importance & usefulnes of the compiling
of a Naturall History in Order to Philosophy’ and illustrate what ‘advantage,
both Speculative and Practical, might be reasonably hop’d from such a work’.
The preliminaries should also present a philosophical context for the natural
history, summarizing various current hypothetical positions (e.g. Peripatetic,
Epicurean and Cartesian), and within the history itself, experiments may be
presented in the context of testing such hypotheses. On the other hand, the
different positions should be presented briefly and must not ‘designedly tend
to præpossesse the Readers mind’. Moreover, Boyle insists that no ‘whole Body
of Physicks, according to any particular Hypothesis should be propos’d as the
Basis of our Natural History, which ought not to be Confin’d to any particular
Theorys, but if need be to amplify & correct them’ (Hunter and Anstey
2008: 1–2).
Boyle’s subdivisions refer to Bacon’s and expand on them:
Boyle’s alternative is more comprehensive than Bacon’s … Thus Boyle is self-

consciously improving and augmenting the Baconian scheme for natural history
… not slavishly adhering to the Baconian methodological prescriptions, but
taking them further. (Anstey and Hunter 2008: 110–11)
Boyle directly presents his seven-part division of natural history as an

improvement on Bacon’s categories of natural, preternatural and artificial. His
first five groups collect histories of bodies, qualities, states of matter, natural
processes and casualties. The sixth heading groups ‘loose Experiments … which
are not reduc’d to any particular art’ and the seventh is a ‘various or miscellaneous
History containing such Particulars as are not so conveniently referable to the
foregoing Titles’. Boyle suggests that his scheme better reflects natural variety
than Bacon’s; being ‘more suitable to the Immensity and variety of the Particulars
that pertain to Natural History’ (Hunter and Anstey 2008: 3). Boyle presents his
scheme as an improvement on Bacon, yet it too is ultimately provisional: the
‘vast & multifarious’ subject (nature) makes division essential, yet ‘it may be
very differingly and almost arbitrarily divided, and there is scarce any Division
that wilbe adæquate’. The ‘best’ solution will thus simply be ‘comprehensive and
easy’, and Boyle makes provision for an Appendix into which corrections and
supplements can be placed. The scheme is liminal, ‘a Bridge to pass on from
what is already perform’d in the foregoing History, to a continuation of it, and
a further progress in the discovery of universal Nature’ (Anstey and Hunter
2008: 4–5). In general the process of incorporating Baconian philosophy into
the Royal Society’s framework may have been a collective enterprise, but here
the relevant Royal Society Committee had assumed that they would simply
implement Baconian methods, whereas Boyle ensured the development of a
distinct, improved, ‘neo-Baconian scheme’ (ibid., 111).
Boyle was influenced not only by Bacon’s commitment to data collection but
also by his attitude to hypothesis. The provisional status granted to hypotheses
in part five of the Great Instauration is instructive. While essential, these are
subject to improvement: they are ‘wayside inns, in which the mind may rest and
refresh itself on its journey towards more certain conclusions’ (1857–74, 4: 32).
Hypotheses offer degrees of certitude, to be used temporarily. As Lynch notes,
Bacon allows that his method might be followed either ‘strictly’ or ‘indulgently’,
and this may be the origin of both the methodological debates within the Royal
Society and the disagreements in the historiography of Baconian influence on
Boyle. Lynch emphasizes the tension in Bacon’s attitude to hypothesis: ‘Bacon’s
apparent oscillation between a ‘legitimate, chaste and severe’ limitation on

inference and an affirmative ‘indulgence’ or ‘liberty’ of the understanding is
fundamental to the dynamic quality of Bacon’s methodological discourse’.
Facts are crucial for Bacon, yet knowledge is advanced both by allowing the
facts primacy and by going ahead of or beyond them. Conclusions built upon
facts offer not certainty but rather ‘degrees of assurance’ for ‘rest and relief ’
(2005: 177–8). Bacon required a focus on the things themselves, with the idea
that this would obviate a fruitless or circular scholasticism. However, in Bacon’s
work and in fully worked responses to him, including by Boyle, hypotheses
are not rejected but operate alongside data in a feedback loop: discovered facts
suggest a hypothesis which allows data to be structured and is simultaneously
interrogated by facts,
The men of experiment are like the ant; they only collect and use: the reasoners
resemble spiders, who make cobwebs out of their own substance. But the bee
takes a middle course; it gathers its material from the flowers of the garden
and of the field, but transforms and digests it by a power of its own. (1857–74,
4: 92–3)
Boyle similarly presents an interrelation between fact and philosophy, with

a role for hypothesis. Discussing the status of facts in the seventeenth century,
Shapiro argues that, after the Restoration, divisions between science or certain
knowledge, and opinion, belief and probability break down, producing a scale
of certainty. Mathematical proof is regarded as most secure but is also seen as
inapplicable to law, history, religion and natural science (1983: 28–31). Boyle
identifies three ‘degrees’ of demonstration used in philosophy. The first is
‘Metaphysical Demonstration … where the Conclusion is manifestly built on
those general Metaphysical Axioms that can never be other than true’. The
second contains ‘Physical Demonstrations, where the Conclusion is evidently
deduc’d from Physical Principles’. These are less certain than metaphysical
axioms because they are subject to divine pleasure. Lastly there are ‘Moral
Demonstrations, such as those where the Conclusion is built either upon some
one such proof cogent in its kind; or some concurrence of Probabilities that it
cannot be but allowed, supposing the truth of the most receiv’d Rules of Prudence
and Principles of Practical Philosophy’ (Works, 8: 281). The hypothesis becomes
a crucial means of applying experiment while negotiating the lack of formal
certainty generated by historical descriptions. ‘Boyle willingly went beyond
“bare description” and variously offered hypotheses, conjectures, explications
and theories in connection with his work’ (Shapiro 1983: 53).
Both Bacon and Boyle characterize the collection of data as natural history,
but their goal as natural philosophy. Data collection is necessary but not
sufficient. In this, Boyle exemplifies what Shapiro has called ‘the most commonly
practised form of natural philosophy in England during the Restoration era and
beyond’: studies based on ‘matters of fact and hypotheses of varying degrees of
probability and believability’ (2000: 160). The methodology for moving between
the separate epistemological categories of history and philosophy is not always
entirely clear, however, it is evident in Bacon and Boyle that the process will
involve the literal shaping or arrangement of data. This has been hinted at by
previous scholars: for example, moderating Steven Shapin and Simon Schaffer’s
account of the centrality of facts for Boyle, Michael Hunter insists that ‘such facts
were valuable only insofar as they were given interpretative shape’ (2000: 9).
Similarly, Peter Anstey claims that Boyle ‘plied and sifted’ his heterogeneous
material to provide support for the corpuscular hypothesis (2000: 5). In
both Bacon and Boyle, philosophically orientated histories are regarded as a
specialized subset of natural history more generally, and are differentiated on
the basis of orderliness. If it is to have philosophical potential, natural history
must be methodized at the point of collection (arrangements imposed at this
stage are left relatively flexible, however, to avoid the prejudicial premature
systematization). Methodized collection will not result directly in philosophical
knowledge but can provide the basis for it, which random collection cannot.
The natural history Bacon proposes as the basis of his natural philosophy
cannot be the ‘simple enumeration’ of data, which he condemns as ‘childish’.
Such ‘Narrative’ natural history is pursued simply for ‘pleasure’ or ‘profit’, but
‘Inductive’ natural history forms ‘the primary matter of philosophy’, it is its
‘nursing mother’. All previous natural history is dismissed as ‘quite unfit’ as a
‘Foundation of Philosophy’ (1857–74, 4: 97, 298–9). Traditional models are too
limited in their content (instances are not ‘sufficient either in number, or in
kind, or in certainty’) and, crucially, unsatisfactorily arranged: ‘natural and
experimental history is so various and diffuse, that it confounds and distracts the
understanding, unless it be ranged and presented to view in a suitable order’; it
is an ‘army of particulars’ ‘so scattered and dispersed as to distract and confound
the understanding’ and needing to be ‘drawn up and marshalled’ for the mind
to ‘work upon’ (1857–74, 4: 94, 127, 96). Natural history as the basis of Baconian
induction must then be both copious and methodized. Paolo Rossi emphasizes
Bacon’s appreciation of the need to arrange experiential data in order to deploy
it to belie the Popperian view of Bacon as a model empiricist: ‘the digestion of
experience is a basic notion in Bacon’s philosophy: experience, according to him,

must be duly ordered and digested, not clumsy or erratic’ (Peltonen 1996: 30).
As well as creating philosophical difficulties, Bacon’s method, with its
prioritizing of data collection, necessarily also posed practical problems, as
Lynch emphasizes,
Bacon realised that he could not follow his method strictly while at the same
time actually beginning the project of which he spoke. Without examples of
the kind of enterprise he had in mind, he felt he could not convince others to
contribute to his task. Yet his method was too large for any one person or any
one generation to carry out alone. While in principle, the method could be self-
warranting and automatic, in practice, it had to be begun on imperfect terms
since ‘in the present condition of things and men’s minds’ his great instauration
‘cannot easily be conceived or imagined’. (2005: 177)
Bacon exemplified interim discoveries using an economic metaphor as ‘interest

payable from time to time until the principal be forthcoming’ (ibid.). Those
working in this way will necessarily be involved in presenting imperfect works.
In her study of Bacon, Keller has gone so far as to suggest that the imperfection
becomes the precise strength: she sees his ‘real achievement’ as his ability to
transform his failure to discover a new scientific logic to rival Aristotle’s Organon
… into a primary strategy for advancing knowledge. Unable to discover a logic to
demonstrate certain knowledge, Bacon deployed probabilistic tools drawn from
history, law and politics to manage knowledge as it continued in a doubtful state.
One of these ‘bureaucratic innovations’ was desiderata; advertisements of

failures and omissions designed to encourage others to work:
Rather than papering over the imperfections in his work, Bacon advertised his
failures. Such advertisements served as spurs for others to collaborate upon the
topics Bacon had designated. Through this ingenious technique, Bacon made
failure the key to his future success. (2015: 127–8)
Among the aspects of Baconianism which Boyle inherited, and which is

embodied in his manuscripts and published works, is this tension: the impulse
to gather data unprejudiced by theory and to impose a worthwhile system upon
otherwise incoherent, overwhelming data. Keller posits Bacon’s ‘bureaucratic
innovations’ (such as the list) as strategies to address this problem, and Boyle’s
characteristic policies of piecemeal publication, lists and indexes can be seen in
the same light and will be discussed in the following section.
3. The use of lists, heads and ‘bureaucratic innovations’
The list is a crucial tool of Baconian science, which Boyle adopts.2 In the work
of both, different types of list are used for a range of functions of different
levels of sophistication. One type of list acknowledges the unwieldy scale of the
empirical project to collect knowledge and allows science to be collaborative by
directing the labours of collaborators. Wish lists of desiderata (topics flagged as
worthy of research by others) were conceptualized by Bacon: printed in order
to stimulate others to investigate them, these headings, once filled, would form
‘The New World of the Sciences’. Similarly, Bacon’s Parasceve divides up natural
history into areas of required study to ensure that it will be wide-ranging and
match ‘the measure of the universe’ (1857–74, 4: 255). Natural history may
proceed through the collaborative efforts of the relatively unskilled, but their
compilation of natural history must be guided. Parasceve offers a suitable
framework in Bacon’s explanation of his divisions and in the provision of a
‘Catalogue of Particular Histories by Titles’, which lists 130 topics to be covered.
Bacon also promises questions and instructions on each of these to be provided
at a later date (ibid., 263). Within the headings, entries can be recorded without
regard for order; like materials collected ‘for ship-building or the like’ they need
not be arranged ‘elegantly’ as long as they are ‘sound and good, and … take
up as little room as possible in the warehouse’ (ibid., 254–5). However, data
must not be gathered at random but according to a plan designed to ensure
copiousness and orderliness and expressed in the form of titles and questions
for study. Keller notes the mismatch between the postulated, ‘magisterial
conceptual work’ and the humility of the achieved ‘Catalogue of Particular
Histories’ (2012: 727). The project was never achieved (nor achievable) yet
participation in and imitation of it, by Boyle and others, form a crucial strand
of seventeenth-century Baconianism.
Boyle’s ‘Desiderata for Science’ (also discussed by Michael Hunter), together
with the ‘Optatives’ published in the second tome of his Usefulness of Natural
Philosophy (1671), show Boyle following Bacon in publicizing idealized lists to
inspire and direct the research of others (2015: 26–31). Hunter has collected
Boyle’s various ‘Heads’ and ‘Inquiries’ in an edition, and the centrality of this
mode to his work is clearly evident when they are seen together (2005). Within
the early Royal Society, Boyle both originates and is subject to more and less
focused lists. His ‘General Heads for a Natural History of a Country’, printed in
the Philosophical Transactions, are directed towards ‘the Composing of a good
Natural History, to superstruct, in time, a Solid and Useful Philosophy upon’.
In them, ‘Inquirers’ are ‘furnisht with pertinent Heads’ to direct them (Works,
5: 508). In the explanation for these, Boyle addresses the idea that collecting is an
endless, low status and academically directionless activity. Defending his work
against this notion, Boyle protests that his general heads, together with further
promised ‘Particular and Subordinate ones’ will facilitate a project ‘highly
conducive to the improvement of True Philosophy’ (ibid., 511). While collecting
particulars may be in itself a low status, menial task it is directed beyond this, to
a far more ambitious intellectual goal.
Lists (with the explicitly unfinished published works characteristic of
Bacon and Boyle) are also crucial to another central Baconian goal: the
institutionalization of science. Both facilitate collaboration, allowing others
to be recruited to establish empirical data sets. This is necessary given the
scale of the project: Rose-Mary Sargent observes that Bacon’s emphasis
on collaboration increases in the 1620s in parallel with his insistence upon
natural history (Peltonen 1996: 146–71). In Bacon’s idealized research
institution, ‘Salomon’s House’, the least important and most numerous fellows
gather information which is then compiled and tabulated, allowing not only
practical benefits to be derived and further experiments proposed but finally,
and most importantly, axioms and aphorisms derived. In Boyle’s works, the
Baconian tropes of asking for collaborators, and insistence that his work has
future potential are frequent: having explained that his concern has been with
the content rather than the form of his Final Causes (1688), he suggests that
this can be remedied, ‘if the Materials be Good and Solid, they will easily …
find an Architect, that will Dispose them in a more Artful Way, than I was
either at Leisure or Sollicitous to do’ (Works, 11: 83). In Colours, Boyle predicts
that those readers who ‘are any thing Curious will scarce be able to see’ the
reported experiments ‘without finding themselves excited, to make Reflexions
upon Them’. His publication aims to lay ‘a Foundation whereon either others or
my self may in time superstruct a substantial Theory of Colours’ (Works, 4: 6).
The publisher’s advertisement to Boyle’s Cosmical Qualities (1670) presents
Boyle as hoping that his ‘Experiments and Hints’ will ‘prove serviceable to
Philosophy, by setting divers inquisitive heads on Work, exciting the Curiosity
of some, And exercising the Industry of others’ (Works, 6: 261). Similarly,
Boyle’s ‘Preamble’ to the second part of Usefulness (1671) claims that he aims
to ‘procure [… for the Royal Society] some number of Assistants in a worke,
whose Vastenesse and Difficulty will need very many’ (Works, 6: 394). Like
Bacon, Boyle hopes that his evidently unfinished natural histories will inspire
contributions.
4. The Boyle Papers
The following section will describe how Boyle’s archive reveals his
Baconianism. Underlying this analysis is Michael Hunter’s assertion that
the overall arrangement of collections is intellectually significant. Early-
modern scientific archives are ‘integral to the process of intellectual
change: significance accrues to their individual components, their overall
content, and the way in which the parts are organised to make up the whole’
(1998: 3, 1). Here I will draw out Hunter’s reference to ‘certain clues’ which
suggest that the ‘chaos’ which subsequent commentators have seen in Boyle’s
papers ‘may have been more apparent than real, and that in fact the archive
had an ordering which bore a significant relationship to Boyle’s intellectual
aims and methods’ (1998: 123).
Hunter and Davis have shown that in the early to mid-1650s, Boyle’s
compositions ‘normally took the form of lengthy, continuously paginated
treatises’. However, having been reduced to editing these with scissors, Boyle
began to compose on individual sheets of folded paper, which could be kept
as paired leaves, or quired into slender booklets, or divided and stored singly,
maximizing the ease with which additions and alterations could be made
(1996: 214–6). Elsewhere, Hunter records the problems with Boyle’s papers,
‘as his life went on Boyle was increasingly left with a residue of incomplete
fragments’, and identifies in Boyle’s various and abortive schemes to classify his
papers an ‘unrealised ambition’ to order a section of the archive that ‘remained
less useful than it might have done due to its large scale and heterogeneous
content’. ‘Clearly, there was a failure of document management here’ (1998: 131,
135). This flexible method is accompanied by apologetic comments about lost
material, and in the 1680s the existence of a series of notebooks suggests a
partial shift back to a more structured mode of manuscript management, but the
change can be seen as a bureaucratic technology to promote and enact Baconian
methods. The disorder of Boyle’s archive caused problems, both for himself and
his successors, but is understandable in terms of the Baconian natural historical
criteria. ‘Large scale and heterogeneous content’ are prerequisites for an archive
compiled in the hope of producing a natural history voluminous enough to allow
inductive conclusions to be drawn. There are senses in which the papers are
simply, as Rose-Mary Sargent puts it, a ‘jumble … in part caused by his own lack
of organization’ (1995: 139), and the complexity of the compositional process
they reveal is, as Hunter claims, too ‘haphazard’ to justify Shapin and Schaffer’s
account of a sustained ‘literary technology’ operating in his works (2000: 9).
However, I suggest that the Boyle Papers reveal extensive evidence of Boyle
using ‘bureaucratic methods’ rooted in Bacon to manage data collected from
diverse sources, written out by various scribes and over long time periods. They
illustrate his attempt to take his data from part three of the Great Instauration,
the natural historical collection, towards part six, philosophical history.
Boyle’s archive comprises over twenty thousand leaves in seventy volumes,
among them copious matters of fact recorded with a view to their redeployment
in natural philosophical works, as recommended by Bacon. Lists and heads
are used to add value to this collected factual material. Boyle’s workdiaries, a
series of collections of data dating from throughout Boyle’s life identified as a
group, christened, and presented in an online edition by Michael Hunter and
Charles Littleton hosted by the Centre for Editing Lives and Letters at UCL,
contain various lists and indexing schemes, which represent attempts to provide
frameworks for the orderly distribution of collected data. These are analogous
to Bacon’s proposal to use heads to classify and add value to data, as well as to
collect it.
In some cases (e.g. Workdiary 12) entries are numbered at the time of
composition in an explicit reference to the Baconian practice of collecting data in
‘centuries’, or sets of a hundred entries, while in some later examples numbering
(or lettering) has occurred after the initial compilation of the entries. Workdiary
21, consisting largely of travel reports, reveals Boyle using the list of ‘Heads
for the Natural History of a Country’ which he had printed in Philosophical
Transactions, retrospectively to impose order upon collected observations
(Works, 5: 508–9). From entry 515 to the end of the collection, most entries are
annotated with a number between 1 and 11, or 18 (sometimes an individual
entry is referred to more than one of these). Both the types and the order of
information established by these references tally with the recommendations of
Boyle’s (unnumbered) ‘Heads for a Natural History of a Country’. For example,
Boyle’s article recommends recording information on ‘Supraterraneous’ features
first: the annotation ‘1’ is duly applied to entries on observations of the stars and
on compass readings. Similarly, entries marked ‘2’ correspond to the subheadings
under ‘Air’, ‘3’ to those under ‘Water’ and ‘4’ to ‘Earth’. The information consists
largely of travel reports, making the use of the ‘Natural History of a Country’
heads particularly appropriate, and the scheme shows Boyle using heads to
organize and structure data, with a philosophical ambition. Across the archive
there is extensive evidence of similar types of scheme in use, and while many of
these were evidently applied inconsistently, Boyle’s ambition to use heads in a
Baconian manner is clear.3
Similarly, the various extant copies of a document called ‘The Order of My

Severall Treatises’ evidently aimed to provide a way of linking loose data to
published and unpublished works by Boyle for future collation (Works, 14: 331–
2).4 Having listed published and then currently unpublished but nevertheless
discrete works, this document concludes with various miscellaneous categories.
Following the published works, item 12 contains ‘The History of Qualitys’;
item 13 ‘Spontaneous Generations’; 14 ‘Of the compileing a Naturall History’;
15 ‘Improbable Truths’; and 16 ‘The Scepticall Naturalist’. Item 18 treats ‘Occult
Qualitys’, and 19 the ‘Origine of Mineralls’. Categories 20–24 then represent
miscellaneous repositories for data, broadly differentiated according to subject.
As Hunter notes, the indexing function of ‘The Order’ listings is suggested by the
juxtaposition of the version in BP 8 with Workdiary 22, and the BP 22 version
with Workdiary 24. Thus, the list exists ‘for categorising new experimental and
observational data which Boyle acquired, which was to be labelled according to
the treatise to which it was most appropriate and annexed to it in due course’
(Works, 1: xxxv). The titles are identified by both numbers and letters. ‘The Order’
provides a system for marking-up data which has been recorded in the order of
acquisition, to allow its redistribution under thematic heads. Thus, chronological
recording is followed and complemented by topical organization: narrative
becomes inductive history (Works, 14: xl).
Boyle’s papers prior to 1660 reveal an interest in designing systems for
marking-up and reorganizing collected data, but such schemes abound in
documents dating from the 1680s, when Hunter identifies the Baconian
influence on Boyle as especially strong. These various keys assign letters or
numbers to collected data on the basis of their content, their application to
existing or planned works and sometimes (as in the miscellaneous categories in
‘The Order’) on their level of organization. While the importance Boyle attached
to the process is suggested in the volume and multiple versions of the schemes, it
must be noted that there is no extant evidence of him implementing them. Many
miscellaneous factual passages are marked ‘tbd’ (transcribed), but they are not
labelled according to the listed keys, and overlaps between the keys make it clear
that no universal order was established. Boyle’s classifications are not all of one
type: particular works or topics may be differentiated by number (in systems
which may or may not relate to their order of composition) or by letters that only
sometimes refer to the initials of the titles indicated. The keys from the 1680s
are ultimately confounding in their multiplicity and not implemented. However,
they do very clearly show Boyle’s Baconian attempt to use the bureaucratic
technology of heads to further his intellectual project.
While the schemes discussed above testify to Boyle’s desire to systematize

his papers, it is in his ‘Paralipomena’, a single complex system for organizing
loose data on the basis of its subject matter, that his rationale is stated and links
most directly to Baconian methods. The Boyle Papers contain multiple versions
of a ‘Preface’, a set of ‘Advertisements’, and a list of chapter headings belonging
to ‘Paralipomena’: these all date from the last ten years of Boyle’s life and have
recently been presented in an edition (Hunter 2007: 196–8). ‘Paralipomena’ are
necessary, Boyle argues, as nature is so ‘vast and fertile’, that further experiments
and observations ‘pertinently applicable’ to previously published tracts ‘could
not but, from time to time, occur’ to him, upon either a ‘look’ into his memory,
or a ‘review’ of his ‘loose Memorials’. Finding a ‘not inconsiderable Number’
of such supplements, and deeming it ‘not fit that all those Particulars should
be lost’, Boyle began to record particulars ‘referable to this, or that head, or
Title; without any other order, then that wherein I chanced to light on them’.
He was ‘not solicitous to avoid’ such ‘want of Method’ in this initial compilation,
‘because this indigested heap was meant to be but a Collection of Materials, to
be afterwards rang’d in the places, where they could fitliest be brought in’. The
places, or heads, are listed as ‘twenty foure Chapters’ which comprise the ‘First
Section’ (running from A1 ‘Discernment of Suppositions’ through 10K ‘Materia
Medica’ to Y23 ‘Experimenta & Observationes Physicae’), and a final section,
entitled ‘Chaos’ is reserved for facts which fall outside the main categories (BP
25: 217–19). The preface describes the process through which the reclassification
of data happens: ‘Particulars … are here confusedly set down’ (narrative
history) but will ‘be hence drawn out, and each … refer’d to that Title to which
it belongs’ (inductive history). Provision is made in detailed advertisements
for data collected in different times and locations to be cross referenced. Thus
initially disordered data will be transferred to titled books. In Paralipomena,
Boyle describes a precise and structured method of document management,
based on Baconian principles, and assuming that knowledge will advance based
on collection data. It is an information management system which provides
directions for labour and a means whereby to assemble a book. It is also the
method whereby data achieves philosophical status.
5. Boyle’s printed works
Part three of Bacon’s Great Instauration comprises collections of facts. The

manuscripts described above show Boyle’s accumulation and manipulation
of such materials, and many of his most characteristic printed works can be
seen in the same context. Both Bacon and Boyle publish explicitly unfinished
histories to illustrate the principle of knowledge-creation rather than as claims
to have achieved perfect understanding. Boyle’s volumes of essays, the most
characteristic of his works in print, thus reveal his participation in this Baconian
natural historical project. Boyle’s earliest writing projects were not scientific in
content, rather he experimented with genres including pious reflections and
fictionalized speeches (Works, 1: xxii). However, as his interests shifted in 1649–
50 towards the study of nature, and from the 1660s to experiment, Boyle began
increasingly to publish ‘books of essays’, with these shorter pieces increasingly
prioritized to an extent that suggests that his piecemeal published forms were a
positive choice. In Hunter’s words, ‘it is certainly the implication of the division
of Boyle’s lists of writings of the mid 1660s into longer works and shorter tracts
that he had now come to appreciate the flexibility of shorter, more occasional
pieces of the kind which were to dominate his output over the next decade’
(Works, 1: xxxvii). Here I will show that these printed works, in both their value
and their limitations, reflect Baconian output and ideas.
Exemplified by ‘History of Winds’, and justified in his Great Instauration,
Bacon’s printed writings provide a precedent for the collection and subsequent
arrangement of data under heads and also justify its publication in this relatively
unsystematic state, a privilege taken up by Boyle in his collections of essays. Many
of Boyle’s experimental works present themselves as repositories for data whose
formal instabilities represent the philosophical immaturity of their content.
Along with the contemporary Philosophical Transactions, these books of essays
represent a solution to the anxiety on behalf of Boyle and his peers to find an
appropriate form for the publication of empirical data. Boyle’s ‘Proemial Essay’
provides an early statement of his concerns with the form in which experimental
natural historical discourse should be disseminated. The expectation of
systematic texts leads to work being ‘suppress’d’ by authors: ‘Custome’ forbids
publication of ‘Thoughts and Observations, unless they were numerous enough
to swell into a System’. ‘Books of Essays’, Boyle claims, are more suitable to his
discourse (Works, 2: 11, 13).
Bacon’s posthumously published Sylva Sylvarum (1627) provides a crucial
precedent of a text which justifies its imperfect form by presenting its content
as natural history with the potential to be methodized into natural philosophy.
It has been regarded (and disparaged) as exemplifying a strictly empirical
tradition: Hunter and Wood use it in this context when discussing the various
Baconian strands in the early Royal Society (1986: 66). Certainly, it is far
closer than Bacon’s other publications to factual collection. However, William

Rawley’s preface defends the publication of this seemingly ‘Indigested Heap of
Particulars’, apparently ‘Vulgar and Triviall; Meane and Sordid; Curious and
Fruitlesse’, and lacking ‘that Lustre, which Bookes cast into Methods have’ on
the basis that it can now be applied to philosophy (via rearrangement) by its
readers. In Sylva Sylvarum Bacon has ‘Collected the Materialls for the Building’,
while the Novum Organum provides ‘the Instruments and Directions for the
Worke’, Rawley claims. ‘Man shall now bee wanting to themselves, if they raise
not Knowledge to that perfection, whereof the Nature of Mortall men is capable’
(1627: A1r–A2r). Print publication of unordered material is presented not as
ideal but as an acceptable stage in the natural historical process. In this context,
Graham Rees argues that Sylva has been unduly neglected and disparaged
(1981).
Boyle’s most characteristic publications are clearly the inheritors of this
aspect of Baconianism, both in their forms, and in the rhetorical explanations
for these. From the 1660s on, Boyle typically published sets of tracts. Their
bibliographical complexity is apologized for by Boyle and has been bemoaned
by historians and readers. For example, Flame and Air illustrates both Boyle’s
ambivalence towards issues of ordering and the tendency of critics to make value
judgements on that basis. The volume’s prefatory material blames its anomalies
on the printer: the ‘Advertisement to the Book-binder’ explains that its detailed
instructions are necessary. ‘Some of these Tracts having been misplaced in the
printing’, while the incompletion of the tract on the pressure of fluids and solids
arises from the loss, ‘by the carelesness of the Printer, [of] Eleven written pages,
which he under his hand had acknowledged to have received; and with the
contents of which … the Author cannot now charge his memory’ (Works, 7: 74,
226). Advertisements placed at the start of affected tracts, however, suggest that
their ‘misplacement’ during printing was due to their arrival at the publisher’s
after the bulk of the volume had been printed. The volume thus illustrates
Boyle exploiting the flexibility of the tract form, rather than simply revealing
printerly incompetence. For Falconer Madan, writing in 1929, the collection
is a bibliographical monstrosity, a ‘truly lamentable volume’ that detracts from
‘the name of the Hon. Robert Boyle, the scientist’ which ‘we all revere’. Madan
claims he ‘approached the book with trepidation, knowing Boyle’s untidy ways
in publishing’ but was ‘not prepared for the full truth’ of the volume’s disorder,
whose complexities he recounts in tones of disbelief (1929: 353). Madan’s
objections have been perpetuated by Fulton’s quotation of them in full in his
bibliography (1961: 70–1).
Madan’s comments epitomize the dissatisfaction with Boyle’s piecemeal

publications common among critics. Hunter’s introduction to Boyle’s tract
volumes in the new Works, however, notes the tendency to dismiss these ‘simply
as an eccentricity on his part’, before suggesting that through them Boyle seems
‘to have found a mode of publication which mirrored his intellectual proclivities’.
Boyle’s use of tracts represents ‘an unusual and innovative publishing technique,
taking the practice of issuing composite volumes which was not uncommon
among booksellers to extremes, and clearly reflecting a conscious stratagem
by Boyle’ (Works, 1: xxxviii). Bacon’s writings on the collection and ordering
of facts suggest a detailed intellectual context for this publishing stratagem.
Boyle’s volumes of tracts are self-confessedly imperfect printed records of his
work. However, their shortcomings are compensated for in their provision
of a form where data may be preserved without being frozen. They represent
flexible, intermediate collections of data, to be rearranged at a later date into
authoritative natural philosophy which would justify the publication of a new
kind of systematic book. As a genre, they embody the aims, and the limitations,
of the Baconian project for collecting natural knowledge.
The following section will show how a selection of Boyle’s publications exemplify
his self-conscious participation in the Baconian project, beginning with his
Experiments and Considerations Touching Colours (1664) and New Experiments
and Observations Touching Cold (1665). Like his later tract volumes, these reveal
Boyle’s compliance both with the Baconian injunction to present data unsullied
by misleading systematizing impulses and with the recommendation to sift and
reorganize data in order to move towards philosophical order. The title pages
of both volumes include the same epigraph, attributed to Bacon (Works, 4: 3,
4n, 203). Judging from the overlapping sources of information especially dating
from the late 1650s, these volumes were composed using materials collected
over a period of years and often in tandem. ‘Of Cold’ is the subject of one of the
essays in Boyle’s 1649/50 list of writings, while other sections of manuscript can
be dated to c.1662, and the latest data in the volume post-dates the composition
of the letter which introduces the main work (dated 14 February 1663) by almost
two years, showing a process of gradual collation of information (Works, 4: xvii–
xviii). Boyle continued to collect materials after publication, some of which are
printed in the Appendix to the second edition (1683), and in his archive there is
more material not included there which may have been intended for a further
edition, or simply as a section of his ‘Paralipomena’ (Works, 4: xxiii).
In addition to the epigraph, Boyle begins Cold with a Baconian defence of
studying ‘so barren a subject’ which offers few experiments which are ‘either
very delightful for their surprising prettiness, or very considerable for their
immediate use’. He reminds the reader, ‘our great Verulam did not speak so
inconsiderately, when he called Heat the Right hand of Nature, and Cold her
Left’ (Works, 4: 208). It is also Baconian in the sense that it has an institutional
origin: although the editors note that no specific minute relating to this request
is contained in the minutes of the Royal Society as published by Birch, Boyle
states that his particular inducement to publish was ‘The Command of the
Royal Society’ (Works, 4: 210) (for a discussion, see Hunter 2015: 66). His desire
to stimulate future work echoes in a general sense the aims of New Atlantis;
moreover, he specifically cites Bacon in defending his inclusion of experiments
which should be enacted, alongside accounts of experiments achieved. Referring
to Bacon’s Historia ventorum, he reminds his readers,
Nor is that great Ornament and Guide of Philosophical Historians of Nature, the
Lord Verulam himself, asham’d to substitute, on I know not how many occasions,
his Fiat Experimentum, that is a precept or a wish to have an Experiment made,
instead of an Account of the Experiment made already. (Works, 4: 213)
He uses an agricultural metaphor popular with Royal Society authors of natural

historical works keen to encourage collaboration: his work is ‘but a Beginning’
and its contents ‘things, that do rather Promise then Present a Harvest, and
but … some early Sheaves of that Crop, which mens further Industry will reap’
(Works, 4: 222).
The structure of the works is also Baconian, and the comparison between the
two volumes is instructive here. Colours advertises its provisionality in terms
reminiscent of Sylva: it contains ‘Experiments in Consort, touching Whiteness and
Blackness’ but ends with a series of fifty numbered ‘Promiscuous Experiments’. In
the preface, Boyle preempts charges that he has not presented a ‘particular Theory’
of colours on the grounds that the work is ‘rather Historical than Dogmatical’; he
admits to being less able to answer the objection that ‘the Experiments might
have been better Marshall’d’, however (Works, 4: 5). There is evidence that Boyle’s
stated aim of stimulating research was realized: a letter on colours by Richard
Reed, published in the Philosophical Transactions in 1671, repeatedly name
checks Boyle before defending its imperfect publication via Bacon’s advice:
to set up rests by the way, and refresh ourselves with looking back, though
we have perhaps not much advanced. You will be pleased to excuse the little
cohaerance that I have used in these notes, and attribute it to the readiness
and affection I have to answer such inquiries as you put to me. (Oldenburg,
1665: vol. 6, no. 70: 2135)
By contrast to the chronological order and radical incompletion of Colours,

Hunter presents Cold as ‘seminal’ in its adoption of ‘a more systematic structure’
than previous experimental works. It consists of numbered observations
arranged under 21 heads, and certainly Boyle suggest that this arrangement
under ‘Titles’ is preferable to the relative disorder of Colours. The ‘Method is
not exact’, and is indeed ‘less so then the Scheme of heads of Inquiry’ which he
had drawn up to obtain ‘a general Prospect’ of the subject before beginning it.
However, his titles impose a provisional order on his materials while allowing
for their future enlargement by others. Unable to realize a completely methodical
tract and ‘unwilling to huddle my Experiments confusedly together’, he reached
for the list,
I thought it an expedient, that might in great part decline both these

Inconveniences, to draw up a company of comprehensive Titles, under which
might commodiously be rang’d most of the Particulars I had observ’d, reserving
those few, that were not so easily referable to any of those, to be thrown at last
into a Section by themselves.
Others will be able to add new observations to his titles and indeed new titles
to his list (Works, 4: 210). Favourably received both in England and abroad, the
volume epitomizes Boyle’s debt to Bacon.
The Origin of Forms and Qualities (1666) also illustrates Boyle’s Baconianism.
Here the crucial themes are the sketching out of a project whose scale is far
too grand for any individual to complete and the negotiation of the relationship
between fact and theory. The work begins with a familiar Baconian reference
to the dearth of materials currently available to construct a philosophical
project upon:
we evidently Want That, upon which a Theory, to be Solid and Usefull, must
be Built; I mean an Experimentall History of them. And this we so Want, that
except perhaps what Mathematicians have done concerning Sounds, and the
Observations (rather than Experiments) that our Illustrious Verulam hath (in
some few Pages) say’d of Heat, in his short Esssay, De Formâ Caldi; I know not
Any one Quality, of which any Author has yet Given us an any thing competent
History. (Works, 5: 299–300)
This justifies Boyle’s publication of relatively loose materials, and he also calls
for collaborators in the collection with an eventual aim to produce a theoretical
account. Boyle is ‘Beginning such a Collection of Materials towards the History of
those Qualities’ in order to ‘invite [others] to contribute also their Experiments,
and Observations’. These will represent ‘a foundation’ on which Boyle or others

‘may superstruct a more Distinct and Explicite Theory of Qualities, then I shall
at present adventure at’ (Works, 5: 302). This work is therefore an exemplification
of the system in which facts are prior to theory, but in which hypotheses are
essential to collate and order facts. Boyle specifies the necessity of a theoretical
framework, and here presents this before providing the factual detail: before
he will ‘descend to Particulars’ he offers ‘some General Apprehension of the
Doctrine (or rather the Hypothesis,) which is to be Collated with, and to be
either Confirmed, or Disproved by, the Historicall Truths’. To make the value
of the facts clear he will ‘assume the person of a Corpuscularian’ to frame them
(Works, 5: 305).
Another of Boyle’s projects which exemplifies his Baconian approach is his
work on human blood.5 As Hunter and Knight have shown, the printed volume
is inadequate to understand the extent and complexity of Boyle’s engagement
with the topic:
Boyle carried out the research which he published in 1684 decades earlier;
moreover, he began work to improve the printed text within months of its
publication. Rather than being regarded by Boyle as his definitive statement on
the topic, his printed work on blood appears to have stimulated him to further
research. (2005: vii)
Materials survive from the 1660s and 1680s, presumably produced as part
of Boyle’s preparation for the printed edition, but most interestingly, copious
materials survive which post-date the printed work. In a preface designed for a
second edition Boyle contextualizes his revisions as a response to the reception
of the volume, and describes their dual nature: he has both ‘enlarge[d]‌the Sett of
titles’, and used these to categorize additional dispersed experimental accounts.
Boyle’s account is confirmed by documentary evidence: there are extant accounts
of experiments and observations made on blood, together with extracts copied
from printed books on the topic, supplementing those in the 1684 edition.
Boyle’s attempt to classify these according to his titles is evident in the marginal
endorsements which key these entries to particular heads. There is also evidence
of Boyle recopying experiments collected in miscellaneous Workdiaries into
sequences relating exclusively to blood. These passages survive alongside various
lists of heads, of which the earliest dates from the 1660s. Within the printed
edition (which includes thirty heads) Boyle had called for these to be extended,
and the manuscript versions run to three preliminary and forty-two other
titles, which represent responses to readers and the research of others, as well
as illustrating Boyle’s own evolving research agenda, and illustrating his sense
of his published natural histories as a starting point requiring both enlargement
and refinement.6
In a final example, John Locke’s preface to Boyle’s posthumously published
General History of the Air specifically uses Bacon to explain the research process
and form of the volume. Locke explains that the origin of the project lies in a
printed questionnaire circulated by Boyle to gather data on the subject. In the
‘first Draught’, Boyle
followed my Lord Bacon’s Advice, not to be over-curious or nice in making the

first Set of Heads, but to take them as they occur. But now that thus much comes
to be published, which perhaps may serve to some Men as a common Place for
the History of the Air, the Titles have been a little more increased or methodized,
to which any one may add as he finds Occasion. (Works, 12: 6)
The reader is warned of the presence in the text of ‘Defects, some Dislocations
and other Faults … which the Author’s last Hand would have prevented’, overall,
however, its shortcomings are mitigated by its arrangement, which qualifies it
to assist in the natural philosophical project: it has been ‘ordered’ to create a
‘Foundation’ or ‘Draught’ in order that ‘every one may, if he please, add towards
the compleating of the building’. The work’s potential value is not presented as
inherent in the data, but in its arrangement: it provides a ‘more comprehensive’
framework in a ‘more natural Order’ into which ‘whatsoever any one hath
collected’ on the subject ‘will be easily reducible’. This assessment is reinforced
by the author’s preface: Boyle notes as a deficiency that he has been unable to
‘methodize’ his ‘incoherent Notes, and much less to weave them into continued
Discourses’. Publication is justified by shifting the emphasis from the data to the
frame, and from present to projected achievement: used as ‘a kind of Common
Places’, Boyle’s titles will provide others with ‘some Heads whereunto to refer
what shall occur to them’. It thus provides readers with a tool to methodize
their own incoherent notes. What would at first seem to be the real value of the
volume – its recorded observations – is deprecated: ‘under three or four Titles’
he has provided a ‘somewhat large and Methodical’ collection of particulars, as
‘Specimens’ of what is necessary in a natural history of air (Works, 12: 10). In
confirmation of this claim, as in Bacon’s History of Winds, many of the titles of
the volume contain no observations at all. Title 4 contains only an unglossed
extract from a Latin work, some include extracts from journals or letters, while
a few (titles 6, 11, 17, 19) are copious. There is no attempt in these fuller sections
to produce a single, coherent narrative.
Both the explanations and the form of this work posit an initial disorderly
collection, followed by the imposition of method. They emphasize the
continuing flexibility of the work in this phase: it belongs to the interim
category of philosophical history in which arrangement is required but must
also be evolving. Boyle and Locke’s correspondence about the preparation of his
notes on air for publication confirms that this is literally regarded as a process
of redistributing data using a scheme similar to those seen in the workdiaries.
Writing to Boyle in October 1691, Locke reveals that the process of preparing
the manuscript lies partially in checking the content, but crucially, the form of
the work must also be revised, with all available data reviewed (Locke has ‘read
them all over very carefully’), then marked (‘numbered … according to the titles
they belong to’) and literally distributed under titles (‘laid in that order’). As
natural historians recommend, Locke has allowed the observations themselves
to define the framework into which they are to be inserted: ‘I have a little altered
some of your titles, the better, as I think, to accommodate them to the papers
are to be ranged under them [sic]’. Locke has marked his revisions to the pre-
existing ‘printed’ system of titles on the ‘backside’ of the previous versions, so
that his ‘presumption’ will be transparent (Correspondence, 6: 338–9).7
Locke’s comments to Boyle demonstrate that his aims and rationale
in processing data by sorting it and publishing essays were not personal
eccentricities but part of a programme, recognizable to his contemporaries with
similar intellectual concerns and with explicitly Baconian origins. Looking at
the publishing practices of Boyle’s contemporaries reinforces this: Adrian Johns
points out that Boyle was working in an era of extreme bibliographical innovation,
in which ‘The experimental paper, the philosophical journal, the book review,
the editor, and the experimental author were all original creations’ (1998: 464).
In his analysis of the origins of the scientific periodical, David Kronick provides
an account which shows the link between the natural historical or experimental
content and piecemeal dissemination in terms strikingly reminiscent of Boyle’s
explanations for his volumes of essays:
The single observation or experiment has a unity in itself and the publications in
which it results are likely to be short. Thus, the increase in the use of experiment
led to the formula: one experiment or observation equals one communication,
essay or publication. The characteristic form of publication before the appearance
of the scientific periodical was the book, which is not efficient for presenting the
results of experiments or observations, because the author has to wait until he
has accumulated a sufficient number of them to justify the publication of a book.
(1976: 45)
Bacon’s experimental philosophy led him, and his followers, to develop new
literary technologies to both to realize the importance of and to disseminate
their findings.
6. Peter Shaw’s editions of Boyle and Bacon
As a coda, a brief consideration of Peter Shaw’s eighteenth-century editions

of Boyle (1725) and Bacon (1733) is instructive. Shaw aimed to improve the
reputations of both authors by imposing a philosophical structure on their
work: continuing the project described by both and evident in their explicitly
unfinished printed works and in Boyle’s archive. Shaw’s ‘methodized’ Boyle
opens with the claim that his works have been ‘vastly’ underestimated because
they consist of ‘a miscellany of essays, upon a great variety of subjects’. Valuable
material is latent in the works but few readers have ‘been at the pains to collect,
methodize, and regularly study’ them. Shaw’s ‘just and regular abridgement’
aims to perform this methodizing role, so that the potential of Boyle’s works will
be evident. He has collated observations on particular topics and distributed
these under ‘the respective general heads whereto they naturally belong’d’. This
arrangement will simultaneously reveal the significance of individual works
and of the whole corpus (1725, 1: i–iii). Via Shaw, Boyle’s works begin with
‘fundamental principles’, and ‘doctrine’ is presented ahead of detail so ‘that
the reader might come a little prepared to the consideration thereof ’, ensuring
that particulars will be seen within a theoretical context (ibid., ii, iv). Shaw
provides a catalogue of Boyle’s publications, with their dates, which offers a
means of reinserting a historical frame, and Boyle’s research on pneumatics is
left undistributed in order to illustrate the incompletion of the subject and thus
encourage future collaboration (ibid., xxx–xxxi). He also notes that Boyle ‘was
very far from devising and making experiments, in order to confirm or establish
a system, raised without the help of them’, and ‘draws no dogmatical conclusions
from his premises’. Nor is the work finished here
as Mr. Boyle never design’d to write a body of philosophy, …’tis not to be

expected, that even the most exquisite arrangement, should ever reduce them to
a methodical and uniform system, tho’ they afford abundant materials for one.
(Ibid., v–vi, iii)
Once again the achievement of true philosophy is deferred, but Shaw’s edition is
presented as further progress towards it.
Shaw’s edition of Bacon is driven by similar impulses to his version of Boyle.

The ‘True order’ he imposes is not that of composition, nor of publication, but
is retrospectively imposed on a full corpus (1733, 1: iii). The lack of satisfactory
editions of the de Augmentis and Novum Organon has left Bacon’s ‘grand Design’
inaccessible, Shaw argues, and made his natural historical pieces (and especially
Sylva Sylvarum) appear to be ‘strange and disorderly Things’ (ibid., 3: v). As with
Boyle, some of Bacon’s works are presented historically, to emphasize their current
imperfection and potential relation to the philosophical scheme. The rest of the
corpus is presented as having become a coherent, philosophical body through its
newly unified presentation. These editions show that the shortcomings for which
Bacon and Boyle were criticized in the twentieth century were already evident
in the eighteenth. Shaw however evidently felt close enough to their project to
join in, following their methodological suggestions and attempting to improve
upon their work, raising its intellectual status from history towards philosophy.
7. Conclusion
Boyle’s natural philosophy cannot properly be understood without the context

of Francis Bacon. Boyle’s philosophical aims, and the structure of his writings,
derive from a profound engagement with Bacon’s work. He presents himself as
Bacon’s heir, and was seen as such by contemporaries and later readers, although
the instability of the category Baconian means that he has been differentiated
from Bacon both for being excessively and insufficiently empirical. Boyle was
more influenced by Bacon than by any other thinker. While it is not clear that
Bacon was the origin of Boyle’s interest in experiment, as his work in the field
increased, the connection deepened. Bacon’s influence is traceable not only in
what Boyle studied and wrote, but in the literary methods he used to pursue
his aims. Boyle was valued in his own day and since as an experimenter and
as a coordinator or hub for scientific development, both central Baconian
characteristics. Like Bacon, his publications clearly fail to realize the vast project
he undertook, and in both cases the unfinished and unsystematic nature of
the works has been presented as problematic. By looking at the overall aims
of Bacon’s Instauratio magna and Boyle’s ‘Designe about Natural History’, we
can see that the apparent shortcomings of their works, especially in terms of
them being published while evidently unfinished and unsystematic, have a
philosophical as well as practical basis. Both the perceived problems and the
perceived strengths of Boyle’s legacy are aspects of his Baconianism. While the
reputation of both has fluctuated, and the form of their works (determined by
their methods) has been central to the value they have been accorded, Boyle’s
status as a Baconian is beyond doubt.
Notes
1 On the relation of the six sections to Bacon’s publications see Rees and Wakely
(2004: xx).
2 On listing in Bacon, Boyle and others, see Keller (2012).
3 For more detail see Knight (2003).
4 On the various surviving copies, see Works, 14: xl–xli. On their significance, see
Works, 1: xxxiv–xxxvii, and Sargent (1995: 140).
5 See also Knight and Hunter (2007).
6 For more details on Blood, see Hunter and Knight (2005). On Locke and Bacon, see
Anstey (2002).
7 On the details of the relationship between Workdiary 36 and the printed work, see
Works, 12: xi–xxiv.
Works cited
Manuscript sources
Royal Society: Boyle Papers 8, 22, 25.
Other references
Anstey, P. R. (2002), ‘Locke, Bacon and Natural History’, Early Science and Medicine,
7: 65–92.
Anstey, P. R., and M. Hunter (2008), ‘Robert Boyle’s “Designe about Natural History” ’,
Early Science and Medicine, 13: 83–126.
Bacon, F. (1627), Sylva Sylvarum: Or a Natural History, William Rawley (ed.),
London: by J. H. for William Lee.
Bacon, F. (1857–74), The Works of Francis Bacon, James Spedding, Robert Ellis and
Douglas Heath (eds), London: Longman.
Bacon, F. (2004), The Instauratio magna Part II: Novum organum and Associated Texts,
G. Rees and M. Wakely (eds), Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Boyle, R. (1999–2000), The Works of Robert Boyle, M. Hunter and E. B. Davis (eds),
14 vols, London: Pickering & Chatto.
Boyle, R. (2001), The Correspondence of Robert Boyle, M. Hunter, A. Clericuzio and

L. M. Principe (eds), 6 vols, London: Pickering & Chatto.
Daston, L., and K. Park (1998), Wonders and the Order of Nature 1150–1750,
New York: Zone Books.
Fulton, J. F. (1961), Bibliography of the Honourable Robert Boyle, 2nd edn,
Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Horton, M. (1973), ‘In Defence of Francis Bacon: A Criticism of Critics of the Inductive
Method’, Studies in the History and Philosophy of Science, 4: 241–78.
Hughes, J. (1712), The Spectator, 554, 5 December.
Hunter, M., ed. (1998), Archives of the Scientific Revolution: The Formation and
Exchange of Ideas in Seventeenth-Century Europe, Woodbridge: Boydell.
Hunter, M. (2000), Robert Boyle (1627–91): Scrupulosity and Science,
Woodbridge: Boydell.
Hunter, M., ed. (2005), Robert Boyle’s ‘Heads’ and ‘Inquiries’, Robert Boyle Project
Occasional Papers, No. 1, London: Robert Boyle Project.
Hunter, M., ed. (2007), The Boyle Papers: Understanding the Manuscripts of Robert
Boyle, Aldershot: Ashgate.
Hunter, M. (2015), Boyle Studies: Aspects of the Life and Thought of Robert Boyle
(1627–91), Farnham: Ashgate.
Hunter, M., and P. R. Anstey (2008), The Text of Robert Boyle’s ‘Designe about Natural
History, Robert Boyle Project Occasional Papers, No. 3, London: Robert Boyle
Project.
Hunter, M., and E. B. Davis (1996), ‘The Making of Robert Boyle’s Free Enquiry
into the Vulgarly Receiv’d Notion of Nature (1686)’, Early Science and Medicine,
1: 204–71.
Hunter, M., and H. Knight, eds (2005), ‘Unpublished Material Relating to Robert Boyle’s
Memoirs for the Natural History of Human Blood’, Robert Boyle Project Occasional
Papers No. 2, London: Robert Boyle Project.
Hunter, M., and P. B. Wood (1986), ‘Towards Solomon’s House: Rival Strategies for
Reforming the Early Royal Society’, History of Science, 24: 49–108.
Johns, A. (1998), The Nature of the Book: Print and Knowledge in the Making, Chicago,
IL: University of Chicago Press.
Keller, V. (2012), ‘“The New World of Sciences”: The Temporality of the Research
Agenda and the Unending Ambition of Science’, Isis, 103: 727–34.
Keller, V. (2015), Knowledge and the Public Interest 1575–1752, Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Knight, H. (2003), ‘Organising Natural Knowledge in the Seventeenth Century: The
Works of Robert Boyle’, PhD, Birkbeck College, University of London.
Knight, H., and M. Hunter (2007), ‘Robert Boyle’s Memoirs for the Natural History
of Human Blood (1684): Print, Manuscript and the Impact of Baconianism in
17th-century Medical Science’, Medical History, 51: 145–64.
Kronick, D. A. (1976), A History of Scientific & Technical Periodicals: The Origins and
Development of the Scientific and Technical Press 1665–1790, 2nd edn, Metuchen,
NJ: Scarecrow Press.
Krook, D. (1955), ‘Two Baconians: Robert Boyle and Joseph Glanvill’, Huntington
Library Quarterly, 18: 261–78.
Lynch, W. T. (2005), ‘A Society of Baconians?: The Collective Development of Bacon’s
Method in the Royal Society of London’, in J. R. Solomon and C. G. Martin (eds),
Francis Bacon and the Refiguring of Early Modern Thought, 173–202, Aldershot:
Ashgate.
Madan, F. (1929), ‘Oxford Oddments’, The Library, 4th Series, 9: 341–56.
Oldenburg, H., ed. (1665 on), Philosophical Transactions: Giving Some Accompt of the
Present Undertakings, Studies and Labours of the Ingenious in Many Considerable
Parts of the World, London: by T. N. for John Martyn at the Bell.
Oldenburg, H. (1965–86), The Correspondence of Henry Oldenburg, A. R. Hall and M. B.
Hall (eds), Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.
Peltonen, M., ed. (1996), The Cambridge Companion to Bacon, Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Popper, K. (1959), The Logic of Scientific Discovery, London: Hutchinson.
Rees, G. (1981), ‘An Unpublished Manuscript by Francis Bacon: Sylva Sylvarum Drafts
and Other Working Notes’, Annals of Science, 38: 377–412.
Sargent, R.-M. (1986), ‘Robert Boyle’s Baconian Inheritance’, Studies in the History and
Philosophy of Science, 17: 469–86.
Sargent, R.-M. (1995), The Diffident Naturalist: Robert Boyle and the Philosophy of
Experiment, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Shapin, S., and S. Schaffer (1985), Leviathan and the Air-Pump: Hobbes, Boyle, and the
Experimental Life, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Shapiro, B. (1983), Probability and Certainty in Seventeenth-Century England, Princeton,
NJ: Princeton University Press.
Shapiro, B. (2000), A Culture of Fact: England 1550–1720, Ithaca, NY: Cornell
University Press.
Sprat, T. (1667), The History of the Royal-Society of London for the Improving of Natural
Knowledge, London: by T. R. for John Martyn.
Trevor-Roper, H. (1967), Religion, the Reformation and Social Change, London:
Macmillan.
Urbach, P. (1982), ‘Francis Bacon as a Precursor to Popper’, British Journal for the
Philosophy of Science, 33: 113–32.
Westfall, R. S. (1956), ‘Unpublished Boyle Papers Relating to Scientific Method’, Annals
of Science, 12: 63–73.
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Society’, British Journal for the History of Science, 13: 1–26.
2
Boyle’s Influence on Locke

Peter R. Anstey
Robert Boyle had influence: influence on his peers, influence on his readers,
influence on the practice of natural philosophy, influence on the philosophical
nomenclature of his day and influence on the institutions with which he
interacted. The range and depth of this influence is a measure of his greatness.
Moreover, Boyle influenced others who would eventually become greater still
and whose legacy would eclipse his own. Among them is the philosopher John
Locke (1632–1704) who was five years Boyle’s junior. This chapter documents
the important ways in which Boyle’s life and thought impacted on Locke,
providing an assessment of the extent to which the Locke we know today was
shaped by Boyle.
The question as to the extent and nature of Boyle’s influence on Locke is a
matter of scholarly disagreement, and it is hoped that this chapter will go some
way to advancing our understanding of the issues. There are two matters at
stake, both of which pertain to natural philosophy. First, there is Locke’s attitude
to the principles of Boyle’s corpuscularian hypothesis. It is clear that Locke used
this hypothesis, but it is not clear that he accepted it and this gives rise to an
obvious dilemma. Second, there is the question as to whether at any point in his
intellectual development Locke accepted the existence of causal agents – over
and above God, angels and possibly souls – that act non-mechanically. It has
been argued that early on he did and that this set him in opposition to Boyle, but
that later he came around to Boyle’s ‘austere mechanism’.1
Lines of influence can be difficult to establish in the history of philosophy
and the history of science and medicine. The difficulty is compounded in
seventeenth-century England when the intellectual culture did not put a
premium on precision in identifying sources and naming polemical opponents.
Locke is a case in point. For example, Locke is famous for the ways in which he
distinguishes between primary and secondary qualities in his Essay concerning

Human Understanding of 1690 and it is known that Boyle had earlier once used
the term ‘secondary quality’ in Locke’s sense in his Origin of Forms and Qualities
(LL 4132) first published in 1666. Yet to date, there is no evidence that Locke ever
read the relevant passage from Forms and Qualities, even though this book was in
his library and is mentioned in his chymical notebook and his correspondence.3
It is not enough for us to surmise that they discussed it in person, or to claim that
it is unlikely in the extreme that Locke did not read this particular passage, for
this is the danger with influence stories: the accumulation of likely associations
and possible sources of transmission can never provide a robust evidential base.
Instead we need to turn to the material record: to manuscript evidence, to
correspondence, to notebooks and books. To this end, after summarizing the
key points of intersection between the two men from their early acquaintance
until Locke’s death in 1704 (Locke was involved in Boyle’s affairs well beyond
the latter’s death in 1691), I will provide an entrée to the contours of Boyle’s
influence on Locke through a summary examination of their books and papers.
This, in turn, will be used as a springboard for assessing Locke’s intellectual
debt to Boyle. That debt manifests itself in general and specific ways: in general
in Locke’s acceptance and advocacy of experimental natural philosophy and
chymical medicine, and, more specifically, in the consideration of, and at times,
the adoption of, particular doctrines. Thus, on the one hand, we will see how
Boyle influenced Locke’s overall conception of the nature of natural philosophy
and his understanding of his philosophical project in the Essay. And on the
other hand, we will find specific traces of the influence of Boyle on Locke’s
understanding of the nature and role of natural history, the theory of qualities
and chymical medicine. Boyle’s influence is also to be found, though in a more
muted sense, in his approach to the study of the Greek New Testament. Of course,
Locke must also have influenced Boyle: relationships as close as theirs are almost
always reciprocal. However, the focus here is on Boyle’s impact on Locke.
1. Biographical intersections
Locke had met Boyle by 1658, for there are entries deriving from Boyle in Locke’s
earliest medical notebook that were almost certainly made in 1658, including
an observation on the medicinal value of drinking one’s own urine attributed to
‘M[r]‌B[oyle]’, which later appeared in Boyle’s Usefulness of Experimental Natural
Philosophy (LL 465).4 This is consistent with what we can glean from Boyle’s first
Boyle’s Influence on Locke 41
appearance in Locke’s correspondence. On 20 May 1660 when they were both

were residing in Oxford, Dr Ayliffe Ivye wrote to Locke recommending that he
cultivate his relationship with Boyle and asking him to follow up some chymical
queries that he had sent to Boyle (Locke Corr., 1: 146–7). The letter also implies
that Locke already had a well-developed interest in chymistry. Three months later,
in a letter to a J. O. Locke reveals that he has access to Boyle’s study and chymical
papers (Locke Corr., 1: 150–2), thus confirming what the letter from Ivye suggests,
namely that Locke and Boyle were conversing on chymical matters. This was the
beginning of the first of three periods of close involvement between Boyle and
Locke. It spanned roughly 1658 to 1666. At this time Locke was equipping himself
with a medical education and from his notebooks and correspondence it is clear
that he was strongly influenced by the approach of the chymical physicians.
During these years Locke gave close attention to Boyle’s early published works.
There are notes on Boyle’s Spring of the Air (LL 462), Certain Physiological Essays
(LL 439), and Usefulness of Natural Philosophy, The Sceptical Chymist (LL 444),
Hydrostatical Paradoxes (LL 415) and Style of the Scriptures. For example, there
are extensive subject indexes in Bodl. MS Locke d. 11 for Usefulness of Natural
Philosophy, Sceptical Chymist and Certain Physiological Essays. Furthermore,
there is much evidence that Boyle was giving Locke advice in experimental
chymistry and that Locke had access to Boyle’s chymical laboratory. Of particular
interest is Locke’s detailed description of Boyle’s sand furnace in Bodl. MS Locke
f. 27, pp. 56–7. This complements the careful descriptions of the furnaces he used
in the course in chymistry he attended in 1663 given by the German chymist
Peter Stahl whom Boyle had brought to Oxford to teach the first ever course in
chymistry at the University. Further evidence is found in Locke’s first letter to
Boyle written in December 1665 during his visit to Cleves in which he refers to
the state of chymical medicine there (Locke Corr., 1: 228).
Towards the end of this period, in May 1666, Boyle asked Locke to carry
out a barometric experiment on the air in the Mendip mines and this was the
occasion of Locke’s second extant letter to Boyle (Locke Corr., 1: 273–6). In the
event, the experiment was unsuccessful. Soon after, Locke began to record daily
weather conditions in one of his notebooks following the method that Boyle had
prescribed in a recent article in the Philosophical Transactions.5 These records,
along with his letter to Boyle, were later published in Boyle’s A General History
of the Air (LL 460) in 1692. When in May 1667 Locke moved to London to take
up residence in the household of Anthony Ashley Cooper, their contact seems to
have lessened. To be sure, Boyle and Locke had dealings with each other after their
remove to London. (Boyle moved permanently to London in November 1668.) So,
for example, they served on the committee for the ‘considering of and directing
experiments’ of the Royal Society after Locke became a Fellow in November 1668
(Birch 1756: 328). However, the manuscript evidence of their interactions in the
period from 1667 to 1675 is far thinner than that of their time in Oxford.
The second period of more intense involvement occurred between Locke’s
return from his travels in France in May 1679 and his exile to the Netherlands in
September 1683. Interestingly, Locke’s manuscript notes relating to Boyle from
this period have a less deferential, more familiar air. In 1681, Locke commented
on a draft of Boyle’s The Christian Virtuoso.6 Their mutual interactions also
concerned chymical medicine, natural philosophy and matters pertaining to
the New Testament. During this time Boyle pulled together his Memoirs for a
Natural History of Human Blood which, while dedicated to Locke, only appeared
after Locke had slipped across the Channel in the wake of the Rye House Plot.
The third period of close involvement between the two virtuosi occurred
between Locke’s return from the Continent in February 1689 and Boyle’s death
on 31 December 1691. Again, the manuscript record reveals their mutual interest
in chymical medicine. It was during this time that Boyle’s health began to fail
and that he sought Locke’s assistance in the preparation of A General History of
the Air for the press.
Of course, one should not assume that during his absences from England,
Locke was disengaged with Boyle. He corresponded with him, he acted as
an intermediary for him and he reviewed the Latin edition of Boyle’s Specific
Medicines (1686) in the Bibliothèque universelle while in the Netherlands in
1686. Likewise, in the two years after Boyle’s death, Locke was busy dealing with
Boyle’s chymical papers, in accordance with Boyle’s will, and with seeing two of
his posthumous works through the press. That Locke maintained a keen interest
in Boyle’s writings and his thought is evident in the fact that he recommends that
his works be read in Some Thoughts Concerning Education (1693) and in the fact
that he acquired Richard Boulton’s edition of Boyle’s works in 1699.
2. Books
Locke had a large personal library of over three thousand books and he owned
more books by Boyle than by any other author.7 These included nearly all of
Boyle’s writings on natural philosophy and medicine. But Locke was not merely
an owner of Boyle’s books, in some cases he was involved in the process of their
composition. Boyle allowed Locke to read some of his books in manuscript
before publication. For instance, in addition to the draft of Boyle’s The Christian
Virtuoso (1690), there is clear evidence that he had access to material that
eventually found its way in to Boyle’s most Helmontian work, his Usefulness of
Experimental Natural Philosophy (1663).8 And it is well known that Locke saw
through the press both Boyle’s posthumous A General History of the Air (1692) –
in which he included a number of items of his own – and (at least) the second
volume of Medicinal Experiments (1693, LL 459).9 If we add to this Boyle’s
Memoirs for a Natural History of Human Blood (1684) which was dedicated to
and apparently solicited by Locke, then Locke seems to have been more closely
involved in the composition of Boyle’s books than any other person, apart from
Henry Oldenburg.
Furthermore, Boyle gave Locke copies of some of his books and Locke
reciprocated.10 Boyle lent books by third parties to Locke and borrowed books and
journals from him. Boyle also recommended many books by others to Locke and
Locke frequently recorded Boyle’s assessment of the book or the author. Likewise,
Locke borrowed books from third parties and lent them to Boyle and discussed
Boyle’s books with his friends. For example, a comment on Boyle’s Colours (1664,
LL 469) to Isaac Newton elicited Newton’s famous description of his dangerous
experiment of looking directly at the Sun.11 Finally, in his own books and writings,
Locke discussed and recommended some of Boyle’s books to his readers. In fact,
Locke referred to Boyle in three of his published works. He speaks of Boyle as one
of the great ‘Master-Builders’ in the famous underlabourer passage in the ‘Epistle
to the Reader’ of the Essay (Essay, 9). In Some Thoughts Concerning Education, he
recommends the reading of Boyle’s works as representative of those writers who
have ‘imploy’d themselves in making rational Experiments and Observations’
rather than commencing with ‘barely speculative Systems’ (Locke 1989: 248). And
he refers to Boyle twice in his Second Reply to Stillingfleet: first, with reference to
Boyle’s Notion of Nature (1684, LL 470) and second in reference to his discoveries,
aligning him with Galileo, Bacon and Newton (Locke Works, 4: 364–5, 402).12
It is safe to say then that there was a very strong bibliographic strand to their
friendship. In Locke’s case this mutual interest in books was stronger than with
any other of his friends and acquaintances.
3. Notebooks and papers
We turn next to Boyle’s and Locke’s notebooks and papers. Locke had access
to Boyle’s papers by 1660, perhaps earlier, and over the years Boyle sent Locke
various items, including material pertaining to his natural histories and drafts of
his works. Boyle’s lists of queries or articles of inquiry for natural histories that are
found among Locke’s papers provide valuable evidence both for our knowledge
of Locke’s involvement in the formation of a number of Boyle’s natural histories
and for evidence of the evolution of those natural histories.13 They include heads
for a natural history of diseases and heads on flame and fire (Boyle 2005: 33–6).
More importantly, however, Boyle appointed Locke (along with Dr Edmund
Dickinson and the chymical physician Daniel Coxe) to examine his chymical
papers on his death. Locke had copies made of over two hundred pages and
these have proven crucial for our understanding of the development of Boyle’s
chymistry, and in particular, the influence of the American émigré George
Starkey.14 Likewise, some of Locke’s papers are found among the Boyle Papers,
including his recipe for Mercury of antimony which was given to Boyle ‘sub
sigillo’ (under seal).15
In addition to this sharing of their papers, there are well over three hundred
references to Boyle among Locke’s notebooks, journals and books. These entries
derive from two sources: first, there are entries deriving from Locke’s reading
of Boyle’s published works and, second, there are entries that derive from Boyle
himself. Locke’s ‘Boyle entries’ fall roughly into six categories: there are chymical
notes, medical notes, bibliographical notes, notes recommending authors or
natural philosophers, notes about firsthand interactions with Boyle and queries
to ask of Boyle. Of course, there are many miscellaneous entries as well. Given
the sheer volume of this material, even a summary survey of these entries is
beyond the scope of this chapter. The best that can be offered here is a sampling
to illustrate Locke’s record of his engagement with Boyle to whet the reader’s
appetite.
Let us begin with an example of a bibliographic note from 1679. In a
memorandum book, Bodl. MS Locke f. 28, p. 127, the last in a list of five queries
for Boyle is this:
Q whether his Tutenâg mentioned in of flame Exp: 12 be the same metall

mentiond by Pyrard p.2.c.13 & there called Calin & in what other of his writeings
he describes it.
Locke here is referring to Boyle’s reference to an experiment on a zinc alloy from

India named Tutenâg in his essay on fire and flames in Of Effluviums (1673),
and he draws a link with another work he had been reading, namely, François
Pyrard’s recently republished Voyage de François Pyrard, de Laval, contenant sa
navigation aux Indes Orientales, Maldives, Moluques, & au Brésil (1679, LL 2411).
This entry is revealing of their mutual interest in travel literature (an essential
constituent of natural history) as well as the depth of Locke’s reading of Boyle’s
writings.
A second query of interest is the following: ‘Boyle enquire of him a way to
preserve insects for Mr [William] Charleton’ (Bodl. MS Locke f. 28, p. 107).
Locke received an answer because he wrote in his journal on 3 October 1681,
‘To preserve any insect put it in a litle box & fill the box with the fumes of
Brimstone 9 or ten times & it will imbalme them Mr Boyle’ (Bodl. MS Locke
f. 5, p. 130). As for direct experimental observations, Locke wrote in his journal
on 4 June 1679,
Saw with Mr Romer16 when he was here at Mr Boyles a limpid liquor as cleare
as rock water that turned skie colour only by admission of the aire, it began to
change colour on the surface & soe dessended into the body of the liquor by
blewish streaks. (British Library Add. MS 15642, p. 97)
Finally, on Sunday 6 July 1679, perhaps after attending church with Boyle,
Locke recorded in his journal: ‘ἐν οἱς 2 Pet 3.16 is amongst the points treated
of by St Paul Mr Boyle’ (British Library Add. MS 15642, p. 113). Locke is
referring, somewhat elliptically, to the earlier ἐν οἱς in verse 13 of 2 Peter 3 in
the Greek New Testament to which the apostle Peter refers a few verses later in
verse 16. The entry is a good example of their mutual interest in the Greek New
Testament.17 All four of these ‘Boyle entries’ are indicative of the closeness of
their friendship.
4. Experimental philosophy
Having summarized the many connections between Boyle and Locke with
regard to books, notebooks and papers, we now turn to substantive areas of
overlap in the thought of Boyle and Locke for which there is evidence of Boyle’s
influence. We begin with experimental philosophy. This new approach to the
study, practice and writing of natural philosophy was pioneered by Boyle from
the late 1650s. Boyle, of course, was not its only practitioner, but he was the most
important one and, together with Robert Hooke, developed the methodology of
experimental philosophy with a sophistication not found in other writers before
the end of the seventeenth century. More importantly, there is clear evidence that
his understanding, advocacy and practice of experimental natural philosophy
had a direct influence on Locke.
When it came to natural philosophy, Robert Boyle was an experimental

philosopher before all else; before he was a chymist, a natural historian, a
mechanical philosopher. What does this mean? Boyle elaborated a new approach
to natural philosophy in a series of works from the late 1650s to the mid-1660s,
especially in Certain Physiological Essays, Spring of the Air and Usefulness of
Experimental Natural Philosophy, which was the first book ever to have the
term ‘experimental philosophy’ in its title. The key tenets are as follows: (1)
experimental philosophy gives epistemic priority to experiment and observation
over a priori theorizing and speculation in the acquisition of knowledge about
nature; (2) it is not opposed to theorizing per se but rejects systems of natural
philosophy that are based upon speculative principles and hypotheses that are
accepted without adequate recourse to experiment and observation; (3) by
the mid-1660s Boyle had come to the view that the most efficacious way of
acquiring the requisite experimental and observational foundation for natural
philosophizing was to construct natural histories after the manner of Francis
Bacon; that is, the method of Baconian or experimental natural history.18
(4) This entire methodology was set within the broader theory of knowledge
acquisition that derived from Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics. This is the view,
virtually ubiquitous in the early modern period, that a science (scientia) is a set
of propositions demonstrated from a finite set of principles. Here, for example,
is how Boyle describes his approach to chymistry:
But as I cultivated Chymistry not so much for itself, as for the sake of Natural
Philosophy, & in order to it; so most of the Experiments I devis’d & pursu’d,
were generally such as tended not to multiply Chymical Processes or gain
the Reputation of having store of difficult & Elaborate ones; but to serve for
Foundations, & other useful Materials for an Experimental History of Nature; on
which a solid Theory may in process of time be superstructed. (Works, 12: 365)19
Boyle is saying that he does not pursue chymistry for its own sake but in order
to provide materials for a history of nature that will eventually provide the
foundation on which to build a solid natural philosophical theory. That theory
will be demonstrated from natural philosophical principles.
Locke imbibed this approach to natural philosophy in the mid-1660s. He shows
familiarity with the nascent experimental philosophy in his many comments on
his reading of Boyle’s early writings and Henry Power’s Experimental Philosophy
(1664) in Bodl. MS Locke f. 14, a notebook he used between c.1659 and c.1666–7.
Locke’s early medical essays ‘Anatomia’ (1668) and ‘De arte medica’ (1669)
exemplify the anti-speculative sentiment of the experimental philosophers,20 but
his first explicit endorsement seems to be in a short essay on understanding and

knowledge in his journal from 8 February 1677:
we need no other knowledge for the attainment of those ends [being happy
in this world and the next] but of the history and observation of the effects
and operations of natural bodies within our power, and of our duties in the
management of our own actions as far as they depend on our wills, i.e. as far
also as they are in our power. One of those is the proper enjoyment of our bodies
and the highest perfection of that, and the other of our souls, and to attain both
those we are fitted with faculties both of body and soul. Whilst then we have
abilities to improve our knowledge in experimental natural philosophy. (Locke
1997: 264, underlining added)
Of course, by this time Locke had been involved in Boyle’s history of the air and
was fully apprised of his method of natural history. All of this would have been
reinforced when Locke read the draft of the first part of Boyle’s The Christian
Virtuoso in 1681 which contains his most sustained discussion of the persona
of the Christian experimental philosopher.21 It is hardly surprising then that we
find the method of experimental philosophy endorsed in the first edition of the
Essay (1690).
Where our Enquiry is concerning Co-existence, or Repugnancy to co-exist,

which by Contemplation of our Ideas, we cannot discover; there Experience,
Observation, and natural History, must give us by our Senses, and by retail,
an insight into corporeal Substances. The Knowledge of Bodies we must get by
our Senses, warily employed in taking notice of their Qualities, and Operations
on one another: … He that shall consider, how little general Maxims, precarious
Principles, and Hypotheses laid down at Pleasure, have promoted true Knowledge,
or helped to satisfy the Enquiries of rational Men after real Improvements; How
little, I say, the setting out at that end, has for many Ages together, advanced
Men’s Progress towards the Knowledge of natural Philosophy, will think, we
have Reason to thank those, who in this latter Age have taken another Course,
and have trod out to us, though not an easier way to learned Ignorance, yet a
surer way to profitable Knowledge. (Essay IV. xii. 12, underlining added)
The emphases on experiment and observation, natural history and the danger
of systems with their ‘precarious principles’ encapsulate Boyle’s experimental
philosophy. So too does Locke’s emphasis on testimony four chapters later in
Essay IV. xvi. In fact, there are parallels between Locke’s treatment of testimony
and Boyle’s sustained discussion of the subject in The Christian Virtuoso. In
that work, Boyle, in introducing the subject of testimony, tells us that ‘when …
I speak of an Experimental Philosopher … the Person I here mean, is such a one,

as by attentively looking about him, gathers Experience, not from his own Tryals
alone, but from divers other matters of fact, which he heedfully observes, though
he had no share in the effecting them’ (Works, 11: 306). He goes on to claim
that it is by testimony ‘that we know, that there were such Men as Julius Caesar,
and William the Conqueror’ (ibid., 307–8). Locke too speaks of any ‘particular
matter of fact’ being vouched for by testimony and gives as an example that
‘there lived in it [Rome] a Man, called Julius Caesar’ (Essay IV. xvi. 8). Needless
to say, Locke’s outlook as an experimental philosopher continued through to the
Of the Conduct of the Understanding written in the late 1690s:
the surest and safest way is to have no opinion at all till he has examined, and
that without any the least regard to the opinions or systems of other men about
it. For example, were it my business to understand physic, would not the safer
and readier way be to consult nature herself, and inform myself in the history
of diseases and their cures; than espousing the principles of the dogmatists,
methodists or chymists, to engage in all the disputes concerning either of those
systems, and suppose it to be true, till I have tried what they can say to beat me
out of it? (Locke Works, 3: 270, underlining added)
5. The corpuscularian hypothesis
It is one thing to assemble a factual base of experiments, observations and

testimony, it is quite another to arrive at the true principles on which a science
of nature can be based. Almost from the outset of his natural philosophical
career, however, Boyle was very clear as to the most likely principles: they are
the principles of what he dubbed the corpuscularian hypothesis. When Boyle
claimed that he cultivated chymistry for the sake of natural philosophy this is
the natural philosophical theory that he had in mind. It comprised a pair of
ontological principles, matter and motion that together with a theory of qualities
and a clutch of explanatory principles, he believed would generate a science
of nature. It was also conceived by Boyle as via media between atomism, and
Aristotelian and Cartesian natural philosophy, in so far as it was neutral on the
questions of the divisibility of matter and the possibility of a vacuum. To this
end, in a series of works, Boyle advanced three types of arguments in its support.
Thus, in Forms and Qualities, he sets out a theory of material qualities based
on the ‘mechanical affections’ of shape, size, motion and texture, according
to the corpuscular hypothesis, and provides copious experimental arguments
in its favour and against the scholastic theory of qualities and forms (we will
examine one of these below).22 In Excellency and Grounds of the Mechanical
Hypothesis (1674, LL 442), he provides a suite of philosophical arguments for
the superiority of the principles of the corpuscular hypothesis: they are simpler,
more parsimonious and more intelligible than their rivals.23 And in both The
Sceptical Chymist (1661) and the accompanying essay to its second edition,
Producibleness of Chymical Principles (1680), he provides a host of arguments
based on the comparative plausibility of his theory over prominent rival chymical
principles, such as Paracelsus’ tria prima. The diffident Boyle would not presume
to claim that any of these arguments were knock-down arguments against his
rivals and for corpuscularianism. Yet he remained enormously optimistic that a
definitive science of nature would take something like this form.
Was Locke cognizant of all of this? And if so, how did he respond? The
short answer is ‘Yes’: he was aware of the details from very early on, and
he acknowledged the utility and explanatory efficacy of the corpuscular
hypothesis (I am varying the terms to reflect the rich nomenclature that Boyle
introduced) and even deployed it himself. Corpuscular matter theories were
undergoing a revival in the seventeenth century and Boyle was certainly not
Locke’s only source for this approach to matter and its qualities.24 Both Daniel
Sennert and Joan Baptiste van Helmont were corpuscularians and they were
important influences on Locke.25 Yet, as Locke set about reading Boyle’s early
natural philosophical works in depth in the early 1660s, he encountered easily
the most sustained and nuanced exposition and defence of the doctrine from
the period.
For example, we noted above that to date only one reference to Boyle’s Forms
and Qualities has been found among all of Locke’s notebooks and papers. This
might suggest that the work was not of great importance for Locke. However,
it is worth examining this entry in detail for what it tells us about his exposure
to Boyle’s claims about the relation between his corpuscular theory and his
chymistry. The entry, made within weeks of the book’s publication in 1666, occurs
as an addendum to an entry from the German chymist Johann Schard, whom
Locke had recently met on his trip to Cleves. Locke records Schard’s recipe for
Crystals of Antimony and then writes, ‘This is Boyle’s menstruum peracutum, see
Origin of Formes, p. 351 66’ (Bodl. MS Locke f. 25, p. 313, Latin entry). This is
a non-trivial reference, for, as Lawrence Principe has shown, Boyle’s menstruum
peracutum, which is linked to the second and third ‘keys’ of the pseudonymous
Basil Valentine, is one of his most important and revealing chymical substances.26
Boyle believed that by using this menstruum, he had transmuted gold into
white silver, and – this is the point of interest for us – he gave a clear and explicit
corpuscular introduction to the rationale for undertaking this experiment:
supposing all Metals, as well as other Bodies, to be made of one Catholick

Matter common to them all, and to differ but in the shape, size, motion or
rest, and texture of the small parts they consist of, from which Affections of
Matter, the Qualities, that difference particular Bodies, result, I could not see
any impossibility in the Nature of the Thing, that one kind of Metal should be
transmuted into another. (Works, 5: 418)
That Locke picked up the connection between Schard’s recipe and Boyle’s
menstruum peracutum shows the extent to which Locke was familiar with Boyle’s
chymistry and his appreciation of the importance of this substance for Boyle.
That it is presented by Boyle as an argument for the corpuscular hypothesis is
not mentioned by Locke but could hardly have escaped his notice.
Locke clearly found Boyle-style corpuscular explanations plausible, for in his
early Drafts of the Essay of 1671, he argues, ‘had we but senses that could discover
to us the particles of water their figure site motion &c … we should as well know
the very modus or way whereby cold produces hardness & consistency in water’
(Draft A, §15, Locke 1990, 31).27 His point is that knowledge of the nature of the
particles of water would give us knowledge of the cause of phenomena such as
freezing. However, Locke’s only known treatment of Boyle’s own corpuscular
explanations is to be found in his 1686 review of the Latin translation of Boyle’s
Of the Reconcileableness of Specifick Remedies with the Corpuscular Philosophy
(LL 468) which appeared in the Bibliothèque universelle et historique. Locke
frames his discussion in the following manner. After dismissing the ancients’
appeals to occult qualities he claims (quoting from the (at times loose) English
translation in John Dunton’s The Young-Students-Library),
It was but in this latter Age, that People began to Discourse according to the
Rules of Geometry, and to explain by Properties; by which we clearly conceive
the different Effects of Bodies, the most universal Properties of Body and
Extension, Figure and Motion. And whereas Bodies do not always act by their
whole Bulk, but sometimes by their insensible Particles, it is necessary to speak
of the Figure and Motion of these Particles. There have been an infinite number
of Conjectures made upon these little Bodies, and some have made it their
endeavour to draw hence Consequences, not only for Natural and Experimental
Philosophy, but also for Medicine. (Locke 1692: 184)
Next, he introduces Boyle’s project to defend corpuscular explanations of the

operation of specific medicines: ‘Mr. Boyle intends to shew in the first of these
two short Dissertations, That the common Opinion concerning Specificks, is not
at all incompatible or inconsistent with the Modern Philosopher’s Thoughts of
the Operation of the insensible Particles of Bodies’ (Locke 1692: 184). He then
gives some of Boyle’s experimental evidence:
The Blood impregnated with certain Particles may become a proper Menstruum
to dissolve the morbifick Matter, as Water impregnated with Sal Armoniac is
proper to dissolve Brass [sic. Copper] and Iron; and all such Menstruums act by
their Figure, Bigness or Solidity, or by some other such like sensible Property,
which is manifestly included in our Notion of a Body, and not by certain
sensible Qualities of [sic. as] their Humidity and Acidity. An infinite number of
experiences persuade us that this is so. (Ibid., 185)
Locke here seems to accept the plausibility of Boyle’s corpuscular explanations

of the operation of specifics in terms of the qualities of their insensible particles.
There is no indication that he has reservations about Boyle’s general approach or
is sceptical of Boyle’s determinate corpuscular explanations in the work under
review.
It is hardly surprising then, to find that Locke expounds his ways of
distinguishing between primary and secondary qualities in Book Two of the
Essay using the corpuscular hypothesis. Thus, for instance, in setting out his
resemblance criterion for distinguishing primary and secondary qualities,
he says,
the Ideas of primary Qualities of Bodies, are Resemblances of them, and their
Patterns do really exist in the Bodies themselves; but the Ideas, produced in us by
these Secondary Qualities, have no resemblance of them at all. There is nothing
like our Ideas, existing in the Bodies themselves. They are in the Bodies, we
denominate from them, only a Power to produce those Sensations in us: And
what is Sweet, Blue, or Warm in Idea, is but the certain Bulk, Figure, and Motion
of the insensible Parts in the Bodies themselves, which we call so. (Essay II. viii.
15; see also §§10, 17)
Yet, in stark contrast to Boyle’s optimism, Locke was pessimistic as to the

chances of the principles that constituted the corpuscular hypothesis ever being
established and he was resigned to the fact that we would have to settle for less.
In a famous expression of this corpuscular pessimism, Locke says,
I have here instanced in the corpuscularian Hypothesis, as that which is

thought to go farthest in an intelligible Explication of the Qualities of Bodies;
and I fear the Weakness of humane Understanding is scarce able to substitute
another, which will afford us a fuller and clearer discovery of the necessary
Connexion, and Co-existence, of the powers, which are to be observed united
in several sorts of them. This at least is certain, that which ever Hypothesis
be clearest and truest, (for of that it is not my business to determine,) our
Knowledge concerning corporeal Substances, will be very little advanced by
any of them, till we are made to see, what Qualities and Powers of Bodies
have a necessary Connexion or Repugnancy one with another; which in the
present State of Philosophy, I think, we know but to a very small degree. (Essay
IV. iii. 16)
When Locke says he has ‘here instanced in the corpuscularian Hypothesis’, he

uses the now obsolete expression ‘to instance in’ to mean that in the Essay, in this
very chapter, he has used the corpuscular hypothesis as a working example.28
Thus, soon after this comment, in section 25, Locke says, ‘Did we know the
Mechanical affections of the Particles of Rhubarb, Hemlock, Opium, and a Man
… we should be able to tell before Hand, that Rhubarb will purge’ (Essay IV. iii.
25). What is striking here is that Locke uses Boyle’s signature technical term
‘mechanical affections’ four times in this passage. It appears nowhere else in any
of his writings.29 And in this very section he also uses Boyle’s famous example
lock-and-key analogy from Forms and Qualities, as well as Boyle’s immediately
ensuing chymical examples of the solubility of silver in aqua fortis and gold in
aqua regis. He really is ‘instancing in’ the corpuscular hypothesis with its Boylean
terminology and examples.30 His point is that the corpuscular hypothesis gives
the most intelligible explanations of the qualities of bodies among the competing
speculative hypotheses, even though we are not in a position to know whether
it is true. He makes a very similar point about its intelligibility in Some Thoughts
Concerning Education:
I think the Systems of Natural Philosophy, that have obtained in this part of
the World, are to be read, more to know the Hypotheses, and to understand
the Terms and Ways of Talking of the several Sects, than with hopes to gain
thereby a comprehensive, scientifical, and satisfactory Knowledge of the Works
of Nature: Only this may be said, that the Modern Corpuscularians talk, in most
Things, more intelligibly than the Peripateticks, who possessed the Schools
immediately before them. (Locke 1989: 247–8)
This, in my view, goes a long way to resolving the ostensible tension suggested
by those commentators who question how Locke can both regard the task of
determining the truth of the corpuscular hypothesis as beyond the remit of the
Essay, and at the same time deploy it in his actual philosophizing in that work.31
Locke never unreservedly embraced the corpuscular hypothesis, but he did use
it because he agreed with Boyle that it was the most intelligible hypothesis on
offer and he could scarce conceive how we could come up with one that gave
‘fuller and clearer’ explanations of the qualities of bodies.
6. Chymical medicine
We can be certain that while Locke acquiesced in the principles of the corpuscular
hypothesis on the grounds of their intelligibility, he was never fully convinced
of their truth. But this does not exhaust the issues of philosophical interest that
pertain to his writings on natural philosophy and especially chymical medicine.
One recurring issue for Locke was the modus operandi by which the insensible
particles that constituted chymical substances, pathogenic agents, and animal
bodies brought about their effects. The default position on this question for a
mechanical philosopher or corpuscularian, like Boyle, was that all change at
the submicroscopic level is brought about through the contact of corpuscles in
motion: there are no non-mechanical causes and, apart from human souls, that
is, no non-material causal agents.
This, however, did not preclude Boyle from positing qualities that were
intermediate causes, such as the spring of the air, which would ultimately be
explained using corpuscular principles.32 Yet, Boyle went further than this in
so far as he posited theoretical entities and this move gave rise to an unresolved
tension in his thought. When he could not explain a phenomenon such as
generation, he appealed to seminal principles, but when he tried to explain their
mode of operation he either reverted to speculative mechanical explanations or
gave up and declared his nescience.33 Locke faced the same dilemma.
Perhaps the most interesting way in to the manner in which Locke grappled
with this problem is through his theory and practice of chymical medicine and
it is worth digressing to set out just what chymical medicine entailed before
turning to the question of submicroscopic causal agents. All the evidence shows
that from the late 1650s Locke equipped himself as a chymical physician, as
distinct from a Galenic one. (In doing so he was taking a similar position to
that of Boyle.34) The manner in which he developed his understanding of physic,
that is, therapeutic medicine, was in terms of the production and application of
chymical remedies.
Locke’s training in chymical medicine was broadly Helmontian. The
particular approach to chymistry that he learnt from Boyle, Peter Stahl and his
reading and experimentation was a fusion of Helmontianism and mercurialist

transmutational alchemy. This does not mean that Boyle and Locke accepted van
Helmont’s metaphysics which included non-material causal agents, or even all of
van Helmont’s signature doctrines. For example, van Helmont famously claimed
that the primordial substance to which everything can be reduced is water, but
Boyle and Locke denied this. A central theoretical posit in their approach to
chymical medicine was the view that there is a single underlying homogeneous
matter.35 Nevertheless, the Helmontian universal solvent, the alkahest, was
a prized chymical substance that featured in their chymical reasoning, as
did the Sophic Mercury – a necessary preliminary for the preparation of
the philosopher’s stone. It is not possible to prise apart the Helmontian and
mercurialist components to this chymical outlook; they involve interdependent
explanatory categories and experimental techniques that undergird their
programs of chymical experimentation and the rationale for the formulation of
chymical remedies for disease.
We can get a feel for Locke’s views on these matters and how they were
influenced by Boyle through some sample extracts from Locke’s notebooks and
correspondence. In his chymical notebook Locke recorded the following in
c.1666:
Alkahest: Or a menstruum like it dissolvd crud antimony, & when drawn of[f]‌
left christall of very great efficacy in physic … Mr Boyle (Bodl. MS Locke f. 25,
p. 301)
Sulphur of copper is combustible burns with a green flame, there are two ways of
making it one per alkahest & the other without it this Mr Boyle has seen. (Ibid.,
p. 315)
It is clear that in the mid-1660s Locke accepted the existence and efficacy of the
alkahest. He also accepted Boyle’s commitment to the possibility of transmutation
of metals. We have seen one example of Boyle’s commitment to this in his
preamble to the menstruum peracutum. Another, this time dealing explicitly
with Helmontian matter theory, is found in his Producibleness of Chymical
Principles from years later in 1680. Boyle was attempting experimentally to test
van Helmont’s claim that water is the primordial element. In doing so he relates
a report of another experiment:
Relating to a very ingenious and sober Physitian of my Acquaintance what had

befaln me in distilling Mercury, …, he assured me that he and a friend of his,
had some years past provided a very large Dutch Retort of good Earth, furnished
with a Pipe of about a foot long, to cast in the Mercury at, and that having by little
and little conveyed through that pipe a pound of Quicksilver into the candent
Retort, they obtained four ounces of Water, and lost in spite of their care two
ounces of matter (whatever it were,) the remaining part of the pound having
been elevated in the forme of Mercury. … he told me, that his friend and he
poured both their distilled Mercury and their Water into a kind of China cup,
and though it were in June, left it open in a Garret for two or three dayes, upon a
Presumption his friend had that this Mercuriall Water thus ordered would turne
a good part of the Quicksilver into it’s own nature, and so multiply it selfe upon
it. But when they came to visit their Cup againe, they were much surprized to
find their Water all gone, and that the greatest part thereof was turn’d againe into
Mercury. (Works, 9: 109)
It may well be that the ‘sober Physitian’ and his friend were Locke and the
Helmontian physician David Thomas, for we know that they were experimenting
together in June 1666.36 Be that as it may, the salient point here is that in 1680
Boyle is still committed to transmutation and testing the veracity of Helmontian
theory. Then at some point a decade later Boyle entrusted to Locke the first
of three ‘periods’ for his secret recipe for the Sophic Mercury. The other two
periods he gave to Isaac Newton. Locke wrote to Boyle on 25 September 1691, ‘I
have water, I have vessels, I only want soap to be at work’ (Locke Corr., 4: 321).37
By this he meant that he had the cleansing alloy for the internal purification
of mercury, the first step in the process of producing the Sophic Mercury. It
is clear from this, and Locke’s subsequent exchange with Isaac Newton on the
three parts of the recipe for the Sophic Mercury, that Locke continued to believe
in transmutation and that this belief was framed in terms of the combination
of Helmontian and mercurialist chymistry that he had learned from Boyle and
Stahl in the 1660s.
Let us return then to the question of causal agency. It was in the context of his
medical formation, c.1666, that Locke penned a short essay positing a seminal
theory of some diseases entitled ‘Morbus’. Such theories were common among
chymical physicians and reflected the influence of van Helmont, and in Locke’s
case it was a ‘more rationall’ alternative to the Galenist and Paracelsian theories.
In his discussion of how the ‘seminal ferments’ operated such that they could
turn an egg into a chick or enable grafted branches to produce different fruit,
Locke admitted that he had no idea of their mode of operation: ‘[h]‌ow these
small & insensible ferments, this potent Archeus works I confesse I cannot
satisfactorily comprehend’ (Walmsley 2000: 391).
Now there is a striking continuity between this claim in ‘Morbus’ and both
claims by Boyle and passages in Drafts A, B and C of Locke’s Essay and the
Essay itself. Just as Boyle claimed of generation that these effects ‘depend …
upon an internal principle, but the difficulty consists in conceiving how that
internal principle produces its effects’ (Works, 2: 192, underlining added),
so Locke would claim in the Essay and its drafts that substances like eggs
and cherries are ‘producd in the ordinary course of nature by an internal
principle’, but that we cannot ‘comprehend’ or perceive how it works (Draft
A, §16, Locke 1990, 32, underlining added).38 Note that both Boyle and
Locke use the term ‘internal principle’ and that Locke consistently uses the
examples of the egg and fruit. Like Boyle, Locke was never able to get beyond
the claim of nescience when it came to explaining certain operations at the
submicroscopic level.
When it came to macro-phenomena, such as inexplicable events, there
was another option: one can always appeal to a divine cause. Thus, in his 1681
comments on the draft of Boyle’s Christian Virtuoso, in the context of a comment
by Boyle on phenomena (that in the published version he claimed) ‘cannot be
justly expected or pretended from the mechanical powers of matter’ (Works,
11: 316), Locke says such phenomena could never ‘have place in the settled
constitution of the universe without the extraordinary interposition of a divine
power’ (Anstey 1998). Then, in the first edition of the Essay he claims that all
body–body interactions are ‘by Impulse, and nothing else. It being impossible to
conceive, that Body should operate on what it does not touch’ (Essay1 II. viii. 11).
When Locke modified this passage in response to an objection by Stillingfleet
concerning Newton’s gravity, he also made other changes to the Essay, such as at
Essay4 IV. x. 19, which confirm that he continued to believe, in spite of gravity,
that we can only conceive of material causes in terms of the collisions of bodies
in motion.39
It must be conceded, therefore, that there is no evidence that Locke ever
countenances non-material causal agents, apart from God and angels. In spite
of the discovery of universal gravity, he consistently claims that he cannot
conceive of any mode of causal interaction between material bodies apart from
impact. And this brings us back to the corpuscular hypothesis. For Pierre Coste’s
translation of the term ‘corpuscularian Hypothesis’ at Essay IV. iii. 16 in the
1700 French edition of the Essay is ‘l’hypothese des Philosophes Materialistes’
which is accompanied by a marginal note claiming the materialists are those
‘who explain the effects of nature by the sole consideration of the size, figure
and movement of the parts of matter’ (Locke 1700: 696). That Locke did not
object to this gloss on Boyle’s term is further evidence that his views on this issue
remained consistent throughout.
7. Conclusion
Where then does this leave us when it comes to summing up Boyle’s influence
on Locke? One of the striking things about Boyle’s engagement with Locke is
the lack of open discussion of philosophy narrowly construed. There is nothing
resembling the metaphysical or epistemological content of the Stillingfleet
correspondence or, say, Locke’s letters to Philipp van Limborch on the unity of
God and the nature of space.40 Nor is there any evidence of Locke discussing the
contents of the Essay with Boyle.
There is no doubt that Locke became and remained a chymical physician
under the influence of Boyle. There is no doubt that Locke became an advocate
of experimental philosophy with its method of natural history and prioritizing
of experiment and observation over speculative theory in large part because of
Boyle. And there is no doubt that Locke found the corpuscular hypothesis to
be the most intelligible on offer because of his familiarity with Boyle’s writings.
Locke conceived of his major work, the Essay, as the work of an underlabourer,
removing rubbish that lies in the way to knowledge rather than that of a master
builder, like Boyle, leaving monuments to posterity (Essay, 9–10). Yet, even in
this Locke can be construed as having a conception of his project that dovetails
with that of Boyle. The Essay itself can be regarded as following a ‘Historical,
plain Method’ (Essay I. i. 2) analogous to that of Boyle. Locke even speaks
of ‘experimenting and discovering’ in ourselves knowledge and the power of
voluntary motion in a way that is analogous to how we ‘experiment, or discover’
cohesion in external bodies (Essay II. xxiii. 32). Thus, in the Essay, introspection
becomes the means by which we gather the materials for an experimental natural
history of the understanding. Boyle himself intimated as much, though in a late
writing that remained unpublished during his lifetime:
for an experimental knowledge of several things, that highly concern us, we

need, neither mathematical instruments, nor chemical furnaces, but only a
due attention to those things, that are transacted within our own selves, and
make impressions on us, whereto we can scarce avoid the finding of ourselves
conscious. (Works, 12: 508)
Might this reflect Boyle’s reading of Locke’s Essay? We will probably never
know. We can be sure, however, that Locke continued to believe that it was
chymists like Boyle, that is, the ‘Philosophers by fire’, who had the best chance of
advancing our knowledge of the inner natures of things. For, in a telling change
to the second edition of the Essay added after Boyle’s death, and most probably
with Boyle in mind, Locke claimed in the paragraph in which he mentions the
corpuscularian hypothesis:
And if others, especially the Philosophers by fire, who pretend to it [knowledge

of nature], had been so wary in their observations, and sincere in their reports,
as those who call themselves Philosophers ought to have been; our acquaintance
with the bodies here about us, and our insight into their Powers and Operations,
had been yet much greater. (Essay2–5 IV. iii. 16)
Notes
I should like to thank Michael Hunter and J. R. Milton for comments on an earlier
version of this chapter.
1 See Milton (2001), Walmsley (2000, 2016). For the contrary view, see Anstey
(2002a) and Jacovides (2017: 8).
2 Catalogue numbers for books in Locke’s library are from Harrison and Laslett
(1971) and are prefixed ‘LL’.
3 Bodleian Library (hereafter Bodl.) MS Locke f. 25, p. 313; Locke Corr. 4: 285.
4 Compare the entry ‘Obstructio’, Bodl. MS Locke e. 4, p. 59 with Boyle’s Works,
3: 385.
5 Boyle, ‘Some Observations and Directions about the Barometer’, Philosophical
Transactions, no. 11, 2 April 1666 (LL 2302), Works, 5: 504–7, at 506.
6 See Anstey (1998).
7 Harrison and Laslett (1971, 13). Harrison and Laslett list sixty-two separate titles,
though these include titles of individual essays that were published together. See LL
413–73.
8 British Library Add. MS 32554, pp. 101, 238–40, 247 is a transcription of an essay
on Balsam of Sulphur addressed to Boyle’s nephew, Richard Jones. See Usefulness of
Natural Philosophy, Works, 3: 393–4.
9 This was first pointed out in Stewart (1981, 39–40).
10 Boyle gave Locke Languid Motion (LL 445), the Latin edition of A Continuation
of New Experiments Touching the Spring and Weight of the Air (LL 447) and Of
Effluviums (LL 453). Locke sent Boyle (via Edward Clarke) a copy of the Abrégé of
the Essay and the Essay itself. See Locke to Edward Clarke, 2 March 1688, Locke
Corr., 3: 389 and ibid., 8: 455.
11 Newton to Locke, 30 June 1691, Locke Corr., 4: 288–90.
12 Boyle’s Spring of the Air is also recommended in Elements of Natural Philosophy,
but the authorship of this work is problematic. See Locke Works, 3: 313 and Milton
(2012).
13 See Bodl. MS Locke c. 42 (part 1), pp. 266–7 (flame and fire), ibid., p. 98 (diseases),
Bodl. MS Locke f. 19, pp. 272–3, 302–3 (blood).
14 See Bodl. MS Locke c. 44 and Starkey (2004), 3–4 and 15–31.
15 Royal Society Boyle Papers 26, fol. 102.
16 Ole Rømer (1644–1710), the Danish astronomer who was the first to calculate the
speed of light.
17 See also Locke’s journal entry made eleven days earlier on 25 June 1679 (British
Library Add. MS 15642, p. 106): ‘Lent Mr Boyle Toinard’s Sheets’, that is, the sheets
of Nicolas Toinard’s unpublished harmony of the Gospels, posthumously published
as Evangeliorum Harmonia (1707) which Locke had interleaved. See LL 2934.
18 See Anstey and Hunter (2008).
19 See also Hunter (2000a, 155).
20 See Dewhurst (1966, 79–93). Dewhurst wrongly attributes these essays to Thomas
Sydenham. For Locke’s authorship of the essays, see Anstey and Burrows (2009).
21 For an exploration of this theme, see Nuovo (2017).
22 He attacks Daniel Sennert’s theory of subordinate forms in the second edition of 1667.
23 For further discussion, see Anstey (2019).
24 See Lüthy, Murdoch and Newman (2001).
25 For Sennert and van Helmont’s influence on Boyle, see Newman (1996, 2006) and
Newman and Principe (2002). For van Helmont’s influence on Locke, see Anstey
(2010 and 2011, ch. 9) and for Sennert’s influence on Locke’s conception of the
structure and scope of medical theory and practice, see Biblioteca Marciana MS
Latin VII, 22.
26 See Principe (1990, 1998: 80–9). For Locke’s notes from c.1666 on Valentine’s
keys from Valentine 1658 (LL 3035), see Bodl. MS Locke d. 9, pp. 135–7. See also
Meynell (2002: 182–9).
27 For further examples from Drafts A and B and detailed analysis, see Downing
(2001).
28 For this use of ‘instanced in’ elsewhere in Locke, see Of the Conduct of the
Understanding, Locke Works, 3, 211–12. For Locke and corpuscular pessimism, see
Anstey (2011, ch. 3).
29 Locke does quote this passage in the Stillingfleet correspondence, Locke Works,
4: 359.
30 For Boyle’s famous lock-and-key example and the examples of the solubility of
silver and gold, see Forms and Qualities, Works, 5: 309–10. It is worth pointing out
that at the end of the examples of silver and gold, Boyle alludes to his menstruum
peracutum, ibid., 311.
31 See, for example, Downing (2001: 515). For an interpretation of Locke and
corpuscularianism that starts from the assumption of a tension between an
agnostic and a dogmatic attitude to corpuscularianism, see Kochiras (2017).
32 See Chalmers (2017) for Boyle on intermediate causes.

33 See Anstey (2002b) for Boyle on seminal principles.
34 For Boyle’s suppressed critique of Galenism, see Hunter (2000b).
35 See the quote from Forms and Qualities above (Works, 5: 418) and Locke’s Essay
III. x. 15.
36 See Bodl. MS Locke f. 25, p. 322.
37 For detailed discussion, see Anstey (2017).
38 For references and further discussion, see Anstey (2011, 192–3).
39 For Locke’s response to Stillingfleet, see Locke Works, 4: 467–8; see also Anstey
(2011, 154–5).
40 Locke to Philipp van Limborch, Locke Corr., 6: 320–5, 783–93.
Works cited
Manuscript sources
Biblioteca Marciana MS Latin VII, 22
Bodleian Library MS Locke c. 42
Bodleian Library MS Locke c. 44
Bodleian Library MS Locke d. 11
Bodleian Library MS Locke e. 4
Bodleian Library MS Locke f. 5
British Library Add. MS 15642
British Library Add. MS 32554
Royal Society Boyle Papers 26
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Anstey, P. (2002a), ‘Robert Boyle and Locke’s “Morbus” Entry: A Reply to J. C.
Walmsley’, Early Science and Medicine, 7 (4): 358–77.
Anstey, P. (2002b), ‘Boyle on Seminal Principles’, Studies in History and Philosophy of
Biological and Biomedical Sciences, 33 (4): 597–630.
Anstey, P. (2010), ‘John Locke and Helmontian medicine’, in C. Wolfe and O. Gal
(eds), The Body as Object and Instrument of Knowledge: Embodied Empiricism in
Early Modern Science, 93–117, Dordrecht: Springer.
Anstey, P. (2011), John Locke and Natural Philosophy, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Anstey, P. (2017), ‘Newton and Locke’, in E. Schliesser and C. Smeenk (eds),
The Oxford Handbook of Newton, Oxford Handbooks Online: http://www.
oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199930418.001.0001/
oxfordhb-9780199930418-e-8.
Anstey, P. (2019), ‘Robert Boyle and the Intelligibility of the Corpuscular Philosophy’,
in A. Vanzo and P. R. Anstey (eds), Experiment, Speculation and Religion in Early
Modern Philosophy, 36–57, New York: Routledge.
Anstey, P., and J. Burrows (2009), ‘John Locke, Thomas Sydenham, and the Authorship
of Two Medical Essays’, Electronic British Library Journal, 3: 1–42.
Anstey, P., and M. Hunter (2008), ‘Robert Boyle’s “Designe about Natural History” ’,
Early Science and Medicine, 13 (2): 83–126.
Birch, T. (1756), The History of the Royal Society of London, vol. 2, London: A. Millar.
Boyle, R. (1999–2000), The Works of Robert Boyle, M. Hunter and E. B. Davis (eds), 14
vols, London: Pickering & Chatto.
Boyle, R. (2005), Robert Boyle’s ‘Heads’ and ‘Inquiries’, M. Hunter (ed.), London: Robert
Boyle Project, Occasional Paper No. 1.
Chalmers, A. (2017), One Hundred Years of Pressure: Hydrostatics from Stevin to
Newton, Cham: Springer.
Dewhurst, K. (1966), Dr. Thomas Sydenham (1624–1689): His Life and Original
Writings, London: Wellcome.
Downing, L. (2001), ‘The Uses of Mechanism: Corpuscularianism in Drafts A and B of
Locke’s Essay’, in C. Lüthy, J. Murdoch and W. R. Newman (eds), Late Medieval and
Early Modern Corpuscular Matter Theories, 515–34, Leiden: Brill.
Harrison, J., and P. Laslett (1971), The Library of John Locke, 2nd edn, Oxford:
Clarendon Press.
Hunter, M. (2000a), ‘Self-Definition through Self-Defence: Interpreting the Apologies
of Robert Boyle’, in Robert Boyle (1627–1691): Scrupulosity and Science, 135–56,
Woodbridge: Boydell.
Hunter, M. (2000b), ‘Boyle versus the Galenists: A Suppressed Critique of
Seventeenth-Century Medical Practice and Its Significance’, in Robert Boyle (1627–
1691): Scrupulosity and Science, 157–201, Woodbridge: Boydell.
Javovides, M. (2017), Locke’s Image of the World, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
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Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2017 Edition), <https://plato.stanford.edu/
archives/win2017/entries/locke-philosophy-science/>.
Locke, J. (1692), ‘Review of Robert Boyle’s De specificorum remediorum, in John
Dunton, The Young-Students-Library, 184–7, London: John Dunton. First published
in Bibliothèque universelle et historique, 2, 1686: 263–77.
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Coste, Amsterdam: Henri Schelte.
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Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1st edn 1690. Abbreviated as Essay. Different editions are
indicated by subscripts, e.g., Essay1.
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Oxford: Clarendon Press. Abbreviated as Locke Corr.
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(eds), Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1st edn 1693.
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(eds), Oxford: Clarendon Press.
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Attribution’, Intellectual History Review, 22 (2): 199–219.
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16: 167–94.
3
Boyle’s Chemistry
Antonio Clericuzio
Boyle’s chemical studies, which covered a wide range of topics, were an

integral part of his experimental program and in turn were aimed at providing
experimental foundation to his corpuscular theory of matter. As we shall see, the
relationship of his chemical practice to his theory of matter has been disputed
among Boyle scholars. For a long time, historians of science have celebrated
Boyle as the father of modern chemistry and as a champion of the mechanical
philosophy – paying little attention to the intellectual context of his ideas and
practice. A milestone in the history of Boyle studies, Marie Boas’s 1958 study
provided scholars with a comprehensive account of Boyle’s chemistry. In her
influential book, Boas aimed at vindicating the role of chemistry in the scientific
revolution of the seventeenth century, claiming that Boyle triggered a radical
change in chemistry, by providing it with rational foundations, that is, the
mechanical theory of matter (1958).1
In order to highlight the innovative role played by Boyle, Boas overemphasized
the difference between Boyle and the chemists who flourished in the first half
of the seventeenth century, including Joan Baptista van Helmont, whose work –
she stated – was outside the mainstream of the scientific revolution. She looked
with embarrassment at Boyle’s alchemy as, for her, alchemy was mystic science.
Finally, she downplayed the importance of Boyle’s early career, claiming that
Boyle’s serious science only started when he moved to Oxford.
Since the publication of Boas’s book, our knowledge of alchemy, of early
seventeenth-century chemistry, and of Helmontianism changed radically.
Following the studies of Charles Webster and the publication of the Hartlib
Papers, scholars have highlighted the role of Samuel Hartlib and of his
correspondents in Boyle’s early career (Webster 1975).2 More recently, Newman
and Principe have shed new light on the influence of George Starkey (an active
member of the Hartlib Circle) on the young Robert Boyle’s chemical studies
(2002).
It is apparent that Boyle’s intellectual career was incremental, showing no
dramatic ruptures. His early studies, and notably his collaboration with the
Hartlib Circle, can hardly be overestimated. Utilitarian aspirations played an
important part in his scientific endeavours and spurred much of his chemical
and alchemical investigations. When he moved to Oxford, Boyle added new
themes to his previous research and did not put an end to his relationships with
the Hartlibians. He played a central role in the Oxford scientific community
giving a strong impulse to chemical research. Like the Paracelsians and Jean
Baptiste van Helmont, Boyle insisted on the usefulness of chemistry to medicine
and was active in the preparation of new powerful remedies. In addition, he
pursued the study of human physiology in terms of chemical reactions and
thoroughly explored the composition of blood and respiration. He kept
working on nitre and took issue with the theory of aerial nitre put forward by
most of Oxford physiologist. One of his tasks during the Oxford years was to
question the so-called hypostatical principles. To this end, he devised a number
of experiments to show that fire did not separate the ultimate constituents of
bodies, culminating with the publication of The Sceptical Chymist in 1661.
The relationship between Boyle’s chemistry and mechanical philosophy
has proved somewhat of a thorny issue. Thomas Kuhn claimed that Boyle’s
mechanical philosophy was the major source for his emphasis, in chemistry,
on structure, configuration and motion. The mechanical philosophy brought
about his rejection of explanations in terms of inherent characteristics of the
ultimate corpuscles. For this reason, he concluded, Boyle’s views had little or
no influence on the development of chemistry (1952: 19). This interpretation
has been challenged by a number of scholars who have shown that Boyle did
not espouse Descartes’ rigid mechanism and often explained chemical reaction
by resorting to chemical corpuscles, that is, concretions of corpuscles endowed
with chemical and not just mechanical properties. Thus, Boyle’s chemistry was
not incompatible with the existence of chemical species (Clericuzio 2000: 129–
48; Banchetti 2012: 221–34; Newman 2014: 63–77).
As a new and more sophisticated understanding of alchemy has emerged
in the last decades, Boyle’s alchemical pursuits are no longer seen with
embarrassment. The study of his papers devoted to the transmutation of metals
have shown that Boyle pursued alchemical investigations throughout his career
and saw his effort to manipulate metals as an integral part of his research on the
chemical composition of bodies.
Boyle’s Chemistry 67
1. Early career
Boyle’s early chemical studies took shape in the context of the Hartlib Circle
and continued during his stay in Oxford, where he played a central role in the
local flourishing scientific community. As we shall see, his intellectual career,
and notably his chemical studies, had an incremental character, showing no
significant discontinuity.3 Before moving to Oxford, Boyle shared the Paracelsian
and Helmontian commitment to make chemistry the key to the investigation of
natural phenomena and of living organisms. From the outset, Boyle’s chemical
research was closely linked to his effort to provide an experimental foundation
to the corpuscular theory.
When Boyle started his contacts with the Hartlibians (1646), most members
of the group pursued chemical investigations in order to produce new medicines
and to improve husbandry. As attested by a letter to Benjamin Worsley of 1646,
Boyle shared the latter’s commitment to agricultural chemistry (Correspondence,
1: 43).4 The first part of Usefulness, largely written, according to Boyle, when
he ‘was scarcely above 21 or 22 years old’, that is, 1648–9 (Works, 3: 195)
provides some clues to his early readings, which included books on philosophy,
botany, medicine and chemistry. Young Boyle was familiar with a number of
(al)chemical texts, including those of Angelo Sala, Basil Valentine, Alexander van
Suchten (Works, 3: 207–8).5 As we gather from Hartlib’s ‘Ephemerides’, in 1649
Boyle became acquainted with the works of Etienne de Clave, who combined the
chemical principles with the corpuscular philosophy.6
Boyle’s investigation of natural philosophical and chemical matters was by no
means confined to book reading. In a letter of 19 March 1647 to Hartlib he stated
that he was eager to improve Mersenne’s instruments ‘to discover the weight
of the air’ (Correspondence, 1: 54). Boyle’s early experimental work included
chemistry too, as shown by his letter to Worsley of 27 February 1647, where he
referred to ‘time and paines’ he spent experimenting in his chemical laboratory
(ibid., 48–9). He was eager to provide his laboratory with an improved furnace
(likely one produced on the Continent), but, very much to his disappointment, it
arrived ‘crumbled into as many pieces, as we into sects’ (Boyle to Lady Ranelagh,
6 March 1647, ibid., 50). It is however very unlikely that this setback put an
end to Boyle’s experiments. Indeed, the making of new medicines was part
of Boyle’s chemical labour. As he wrote to Hartlib from Stalbridge on 8 May
1647, ‘I often divert myself at leisure moments in trying such experiments, as
the unfurnishedness of the place, and the present distractedness of my mind,
will permit me’ (ibid., 1: 60). In the same letter Boyle refers to an epistle he
‘had drawn up to persuade men to communicate all those successful receipts,

that relate either to the preservation or recovery of our health’ (Correspondence,
1: 60), evidently the short tract that was published with the title of An epistolical
discourse of Philaretus to Empericus … inviting all true lovers of vertue and
mankind to a free and generous communication of their secrets and receits in
physic (Works, 1: 3–12).7 In it, Boyle took issue with the chemists and physicians
who refused to divulge their receipts. Boyle criticized secrecy claiming that it
was contrary to science and to religion. Secrecy, he stated, would ‘deprive the
writer both of the praise of his labours and of the possibility to reform his errors’
(Works, 1: 3–12). He went on by saying that the chymists who (as they claim)
discovered the universal medicine received this knowledge from God, who
dispensed it ‘for the good of all mankind’ (Works, 1: 3–12). So those who received
it were not to be ‘the grave but the steward of his graces’ (Works, 1: 8). Boyle’s
tract shows that Boyle shared Hartlib’s ideals of communicating knowledge and
of promoting chemistry for the public good. Yet, as we shall see, Boyle was rather
ambivalent about secrecy.
In 1649 Boyle was engaged in alchemical work, notably the transmutation of
metals, making use of antimony (Hartlib, ‘Ephemerides’, 1649, HP 28/1/A–B).
The same year Worsley sent him (via Hartlib) information about a new furnace
for melting lead ore without bellows (Royal Society MSS, Boyle Letters 7.1: 1A).
Extant work-diary of January 1649/50 contains evidence of Boyle’s chemical
and medical investigations, including chemical apparatus, fermentation and a
number of medical recipes (BP, 28: 309–12). Boyle’s list of titles of works he was
writing in January 1649/50 includes the following items: ‘Of Natural Philosophy
& Philosophers’; ‘Of Atoms’; ‘Of Cold’, ‘Of the Mechanicks’, ‘Of the Weapon-
Salve’, ‘Of Chymistry and Chymists’, ‘Occasional Reflections’. Further evidence
of his early chemical investigations is to be found in the unpublished tract
entitled ‘Of the Study of the book of Nature’ – to be identified with the work
Boyle referred to in the letter to his sister Katherine of 31 August 1649 as ‘A
Discourse… of the Theologicall Use of Natural Philosophy’ (Works, 13: xxxvii–
xxxviii; 147–72).8 In this tract Boyle adopted the Sendivogian view that the
ultimate origin of mercury and sulphur of the philosophers was the spirit of the
world, a sal centrale contained in the ‘Juice of Clouds’, namely, rain and dew. He
also shared the theory that precious stones originate from the sand, a theory
propounded by Glauber – whose writings had wide circulation in the Hartlib
circle in the late 1640s (Works, 13: 158–9).9
Boyle and his correspondents were attracted to Jean Baptiste van Helmont’s
works, that is, Opuscula medica inaudita (1644) and Ortus Medicinae (published
posthumously in 1648), which soon became immensely popular in England.

Van Helmont’s arguments and experiments against the Paracelsian doctrine
of principles provided young Boyle with conceptual and experimental tools
for reassessing the status of the tria prima (Clericuzio 1993: 317–19). For van
Helmont, the principles of all bodies were water (material) and seeds (spiritual) –
semina being the primordial out of which all things are formed, they convert
water into different substances. Their generative power is not owed to matter
but to the operative and formative images that are sealed in them. Water, once
volatilized and ‘signed’ by a ferment contained in the seed, becomes a specific
‘Gas’, a substance which chemical analysis can make manifest by destroying the
material shell concealing the spiritual active principle (Pagel 1982: 24; 35–6;
60–76). All natural bodies could be reduced into water by means of the universal
solvent, the Alkahest, arguably the most searched chemical in the second half of
the seventeenth century. Van Helmont’s works contain circumstantial accounts
of the transmutation of mercury into pure gold by means of a grain of the
philosophers’ stone – a red powder, which he ‘projected’ on to hot mercury (van
Helmont 1648a: 671, 793; van Helmont 1648b: 69–70; Pagel 1982: 117).
As we shall see, following van Helmont’s teachings, Boyle devoted much of
his energies to disprove the Aristotelian and Paracelsian theory of chemical
composition. During the so-called Stalbridge period, Boyle collaborated with
three chemists, all versed in Helmontian theories and experiments, namely
Worsley, Frederick Clodius and George Starkey. We have already referred to the
correspondence between Boyle and Worsley. The latter’s chemical investigations
were motivated by utopian aspirations and were aimed at pursuing ambitious
projects such as the artificial production of niter. Worsley was one of the most
active members of the Hartlib Circle and a close associate of Boyle and of his
sister Katherine.10 His chemical work covered a variety of themes, such as the
transmutation of metals, the artificial production of saltpetre and fertilizers.
Worsley’s undated tract on niter (‘De nitro theses quaedam’) testifies to his
investigation of niter and notably of its double nature, fixed and volatile. Worsley
might have derived his knowledge of nitre from Rudolph Glauber, whom he
had met in the Netherlands in 1648–9 (Newman and Principe 2002: 242–4).11
Glauber’s experiments, notably his work on furnaces and on metals, aroused the
Hartlibians’ interest.
Besides the theses on niter – containing views that Boyle developed in Certain
Physiological Essays (1661) – and papers on distillation, Worsley circulated
alchemical tracts, including a tract (possibly written in 1654) on the so-called
mercury of metals. In it, he denied that the philosophical mercury could
be obtained from quicksilver, therefore rejecting the so-called ‘mercurialist’

school of alchemy, originating from Pseudo-Geber’s Summa Perfectionis.
Worsley maintained that gold and mercury were the starting materials for
the philosophers’ stone. The ‘mercurialists’ claimed instead that it was not
common mercury but the ‘philosophical mercury’, which had to be prepared by
animating common mercury with the regulus of antimony.12 Worsley followed a
different path: he maintained that the first matter of metals was a central salt and
criticized those who tried to obtain the philosophic mercury from quicksilver.
For Worsley, the materia prima metallorum, or the philosophers’ mercury, was
obtained by putrefying metals – a difficult and uncertain procedure. Worsely
took issue with van Helmont’s water theory:
it is one thing to bee a great master of experiments another thing to bee a great
master of the reason which is in Nature for these experiments, for as I am not
convinced that all things are made meerly out of ordinary water alone by cause
his liquor Alkahest seemes to resolue them soe. (HP 42/1/26A–27B)
Worsley’s objections to van Helmont’s water theory were similar to those Boyle
voiced in The Sceptical Chymist. The quest for the material principle of bodies
was clearly at the center of debates in the Hartlib Circle. The arguments deployed
by Worsley prompted a reply from Clodius, who vindicated van Helmont’s water
theory.13 A skilled chemist from Germany, after travelling through the German
states and the Low Countries, in 1652 Clodius settled in London, joined the
Hartlib Circle and established a laboratory in the house of Hartlib, his father-
in-law. Clodius prepared a number of chemical remedies based on the writings
of Jean Baptiste van Helmont and forwarded some of them to Boyle, who
declared himself his disciple in this matter.14 In a letter to Clodius of April/
May 1654, Boyle thanked him for sending ens veneris saccharinum, mercurius
vitae, antimonial preparations, and the so-called van Helmont’s Drif, namely, a
mineral medicine endowed with a fermentative power, being able to sedate the
Archeus (Correspondence, 1: 166).15
A further contact of Boyle, Starkey stands out for his experimental skills
and for his unconditional support to the Helmontian attacks against traditional
medicine. A graduate from Harvard, Starkey established contacts with the
Hartlib Circle soon after arriving in England in 1650. He impressed Hartlib’s
associates for his chemical expertise and for his thorough knowledge of van
Helmont’s works. In 1651 and 1652 he collaborated and corresponded with
Robert Boyle on alchemical and pharmaceutical matters. His letters to Boyle
dealt with the volatilization of alkalis, and notably the making of volatile tartar,
the preparation of Alkahest, medicines made with mercury, the cinnabar of

van Helmont, volatile gold (aurum volatile) and the production of perfumes
and medicines for the Boyle family.16 Unfortunately, only one side of the
correspondence is extant, while Boyle’s letters (he wrote at least six letters to
Starkey) are missing (ibid., 90 and 107 for the missing letters; 100 for Boyle’s
queries).17 Thus, one might be tempted to overemphasize the role Starkey played
in this collaboration and to see Starkey as the teacher and Boyle as the pupil.
Starkey certainly helped Boyle elucidate a number of van Helmont’s obscure
passages and provided him with instructions on some processes, such as the
volatilization of alkalis. Yet, when Boyle started his collaboration with the
American chemist, he was by no means ‘a newcomer not only to chymistry and
experimental philosophy, but to the realm of learning as well’, as Newman and
Principe have claimed (1994: 222). The earliest extant letter written by Starkey
to Boyle (undated, but likely written in April/May 1651) was transcribed by
Clodius and circulated (though not in its entirety) in English, German and
Latin (Starkey 2004: 14–15). In the event, a copy of it reached Isaac Newton.
The letter deals with the preparation of Helmontian medicines (as the mercurius
vitae), of sophic mercury, the extraction of gold and silver from antimony, the
production of the alkahest and finally with the volatilization of alkalies. Starkey
attached special importance to the latter process, as he regarded it as the key to
the preparation of new chemical medicines. Van Helmont had presented volatile
alkalis as an alternative to the inaccessible alkahest, providing some hints for its
preparation. Starkey devoted much energy to the production of volatile alkalis,
notably the volatilization of tartar, which he claimed he had achieved in 1656
after a long series of sophisticated chemical experiments (Newman and Principe
2002: 136–52).
Boyle adopted aspects of Helmontian iatrochemistry though he did not
subscribe to van Helmont’s (and the English Helmontians’) head-on attack
on traditional medicine. When the conflict between the College of Physicians
and the Helmontians reached a climax, Boyle did not endorse Starkey’s sharp
criticism of official medicine, contained in works like Natures Explication (1657)
and Pyrotechny Asserted (1658). Boyle argued for the middle way supporting
the introduction of new chemically prepared medicines while not rejecting
traditional therapeutics. Among the numerous Helmontian medicines prepared
by Boyle, the so-called Ens Veneris was one of the most famous. In 1651 Boyle
prepared it in collaboration with Starkey, who (rightly) considered it as his own
preparation. The Ens Veneris was a remedy made of copper sulphate and sal
ammoniac and was meant to cure a variety of diseases, including headache,
worms, rickets and fevers (Works, 3: 500–5).18 The preparation was based on
van Helmont’s description of the so-called ‘Butler stone’ – a stone owned by
the Irishman Butler – that performed extraordinary cures by radiation, without
diminution in its weight (1648a: 584–96).19 When preparing this medicine,
Boyle and Starkey followed hints contained in van Helmont’s Ortus Medicinae
and decided to begin the process with vitriol (copper sulphate). Though Boyle
was somewhat sceptical about the extraordinary power van Helmont believed
Butler’s stone possessed, he deemed Ens Veneris a most effective drug: for many
years he kept sending it to some of his correspondents. One of the reasons why
Boyle promoted this drug was its low cost. Therefore, he maintained that it could
be used as a medicine for the poor:
Ens Veneris will not cure chronical diseases but is very excellent for any other
diseases as agues feavers headache French pox etc and is Medicina Pauperum
because for 5 shillings so much may be prepared with it as may serve 100 poore
people. (‘Ephemerides’, 1653, HP 28/2/72b)
The list of Helmontian remedies to be found in Boyle’s works is impressive.

Some recipes he simply adopted from van Helmont, others he modified. The most
popular were laudanum opiatum (originally from Paracelsus and Croll); offa
alba (a white precipitate obtained by mixing ammonium carbonate with spirit of
wine) also prepared by Starkey and described in his Liquor Alchahest (published
posthumously in 1675); and Paracelsus’ Ludum (possibly magnesium borate).20
Boyle adopted Paracelsus’ mercurius vitae (antimony oxychloride), a purgative
which became popular in the seventeenth century. He also shared Paracelsus’
and van Helmont’s view that chemists can turn poisons into medicines – the
very subject of an unpublished essay possibly written in 1657 or slightly before
that date. As Boyle put it,
This Enquiry seems of no mean consequence to the Therapeutique art of

Physique, for it is not improbable, what Helmont observes, that Nature has, as it
were, hidden the great Activity of things under the disguises of seeming poisons,
which being once tamed, without the destruction of the other properties of the
concretes, those things, that before frightened us, prove as fatall to our diseases,
as, before they were corrected, they were to our natures. (Works, 13: 256)
Some of the examples contained in Boyle’s essay on poisons were borrowed

from van Helmont, as those aimed at ‘correcting’ quicksilver (i.e. reducing its
corrosiveness), while a number of remedies were obtained by modifying van
Helmont’s recipes (for instance van Helmont’s Laudanum – an opiate) which
Boyle corrected with Salt of Tartar – possibly following suggestions from Starkey
(Works, 13: 252–7). 21
Boyle believed in the medical virtues of Paracelsus’ electrum (arsenic melted
with copper), as well as in the therapeutical power of van Helmont’s ring, made
with the electrum. In The Usefulness Boyle reported that a boy was cured by van
Helmont’s amulet. The boy, who, according to his father had been bewitched
and refused food, was cured by means of van Helmont’s electrum minerale
immaturum which was applied as an amulet around his neck – performing its
cures at a distance (Works, 3: 422). Boyle kept an open mind on van Helmont’s
controversial weapon-salve (and on the sympathetic powder), though he did
not subscribe to the theories contained in van Helmont’s tract on those cures,
centered on the power of imagination. Boyle suggested to one virtuoso (possibly
Hartlib) the use of the powder of sympathy for the cure of ulcers in the bladder.
In this case, Boyle reported, the sympathetic powder was successfully applied
to the ulcerous matter and operated at a distance. This action was for Boyle the
outcome of corpuscles’ effluvia (Works, 3: 431).
There is however a difference between van Helmont’s account of magnetic
cures and transplantations, and the one given by Boyle. While for van Helmont
the sympathetic cure was the outcome of attraction produced by the power of
imagination, Boyle explained its action at a distance by means of subtle and
invisible effluvia of particles.
In Usefulness Boyle spelled out his own view of the human body, by putting
forward a synthesis of mechanical and iatrochemical theories. Human bodies –
he stated – were not to be conceived (in the manner of Descartes) as simple
machines, but rather as complex engines in which chemical reactions were as
important as the motions, size and positions of the constituent parts (Works,
3: 310–11; 435). The key factors for the understanding of physiology were,
according to Boyle, ferments and fermentation, and spirits (Works, 3: 321). As
we shall see, Boyle saw chemistry as the key to the understanding of physiology.
2. Chemistry and medicine
When Boyle moved to Oxford (winter 1655–6), medicine and chemistry

flourished there and a number of Oxonians were familiar with the particulate
theory of matter via the works of Descartes and Gassendi. Chemical experiments
were carried out by William Petty, Seth Ward, Jonathan Goddard, Ralph Bathurst,
Thomas Willis and Edmund Dickinson, among others (Webster 1975: 164–5
and Frank 1980: 50–1).22 During the twelve years of his stay, Boyle played a
leading role in Oxford science, giving impulse to chemical studies. He kept his
contacts with the Hartlibians, shared projects to promote useful knowledge and
continued to research the topics he had investigated in the previous years. In
1657 he started a correspondence with Henry Oldenburg who provided him
with a flow of information on chemical matters, notably on Continental chemical
books and chemists, including the German Johann Joachim Becher. The latter
moved to England in 1679 and collaborated with Boyle. In 1659 Boyle brought
to Oxford Peter Stahl, a chemist from Alsace (whom Hartlib had recommended
to him), to act as his operator and to teach chemistry on the High Street, in
the house of the apothecary John Crosse – where Boyle had his lodging. Stahl’s
Oxford classes attracted a number of people, including Christopher Wren, Ralph
Bathurst, John Wallis, Richard Lower, Thomas Millington and John Locke.
Boyle took active part in the Oxford investigations of digestion, blood
circulation and respiration. In Oxford, Ralph Bathurst stood out for his
innovative investigations of physiology and endorsed van Helmont’s theory that
an acid ferment (fermentum acidum) secreted from the walls of the stomach was
responsible for digestion.23 Like the Helmontians and Bathurst, Boyle argued
that heat was no digestive agent.24 He shared van Helmont’s view that digestion
was a chemical process produced by some acidic substance (Works, 3: 306). He
articulated his explanation of the way fermentation brings about the assimilation
of food in living organisms as follows:
For in fermentation, the Sulphurous (as Chymists call them) Active and the
Spirituous parts of Vegetables, are much better loosened, and more intirely
separated from the grosser and clogging parts, in most Mixts, then they are by
the vulgar ways of Distillation, wherein the Concrete is not opened by previous
Fermentation. And these nobler parts being incorporated with our Aliments,
are with them received freely, and without resistance carryed into the mass of
Blood, and therewith, by circulation, conveyed to the whole body where their
operation is requisite. (Works, 3: 355)
Vital heat, respiration and blood were the focus of the Oxford physiologists’
investigations. In his 1654 lecture on respiration, Bathurst claimed that
the main use of the inspired air was to provide animals with what he styled
pabulum nitrosum, that is, nitrous spirit, a volatile salt contained in the air that
was responsible for the life of plants and animals – a view that was initially
formulated by Michael Sendivogius. Bathurst’s lecture spurred the Oxford
research on aerial nitre, which became the focus of John Mayow’s work. Since
the late 1640s, Boyle had paid close attention to Worsley’s projects for the
production of niter. As we gather from his Work-diary for 1655, Boyle tested
Starkey’s method for multiplying nitre and worked with Clodius on the artificial
production of saltpetre (Work-diary 12 January 1654/5, BP 8, fol. 142). Boyle
thoroughly investigated the uses of saltpetre as a reagent and as a fertilizer,
researched its medical properties and tested the theory claiming that nitrous
spirit was the agent of life. In 1654–6, he set out to explore the composition of
nitre (i.e. its double nature, fixed and volatile) and explained it in corpuscular
terms. He published his experiments on nitre in Certain Physiological Essays
(1661), discussed below in the fourth paragraph.
Boyle did not question the view that the volatile niter was contained in the
air and identified the former with the volatile parts of saltpetre. For Boyle, air
possessed both mechanical and chemical properties. He was convinced that by
means of solid experimental evidence he had established the physical properties
of air, notably the spring, but was somewhat uncertain about its chemical
properties. He kept exploring this topic throughout his career. In Suspicions
about the Hidden Qualities of the Air (1674), we read that ‘there is scarce a more
heterogeneous body in the world’ than air, which is ‘a confus’d Aggregate of
Effluviums’ and has a ‘dissolving, or at least a consuming power on many Bodies’
(Works, 8: 121–2). In the General History of the Air (published posthumously by
Locke in 1692), we read that air is impregnated with saline corpuscles, including
those of marine salt, nitrous, aluminous and vitriolic salts (Works, 12: 31). He
described the action of air on bodies both as a mechanical action, performed
by the ‘Aerial Corpuscles, some hitting and some rubbing themselves every
minute against those particles of expos’d Bodies’, and as a chemical reaction
brought about by the sulphurous and saline particles therein contained. The
substances that impregnate air – he wrote – ‘give it a greater affinity to Chymical
Menstruums more strictly so called’ (Works, 8: 123).
Though no powerful solvent, air – given its quantity – can act on bodies
exposed to it (Works, 8: 121–3).25 He performed a series of experiments to identify
the salts that impregnate air, testing substances that change colour when exposed
to air (Works, 12: 36–7; 139–42). Furthermore, he aimed to assess the influence
of air in chemical reactions. He noticed that having dissolved silver in aquafortis
(nitric acid), and having precipitated it with spirit of salt (hydrochloric acid),
the matter looked white, but after exposure to air it became dark and almost
black, while the subjacent part was white. In Experiments Touching Colours
(1664), Boyle surmised that ‘a soluble salt’ contained in the air was responsible
for the colour change (Works, 4: 143–4).26 He heated copper filings with vinegar
in a closed glass flask, and he failed to notice any apparent reaction. But having
poured the liquor and the copper filings into a flat glass, he saw that ‘the Filings
exposed to the Air changed Colour and became of a greenish Blew; whilst those
that were under the Liquor manifested no Change of Colour’ (Works, 12: 140).27
It has to be stressed that Boyle, who observed that metals gained in weight when
heated in air, maintained that the gain was not due to air, but to the absorption
of fire corpuscles – which passed even through the glass (Essays of the Strange
Subtility … of Effluviums, Works, 7: 325–33).
Experiments with the air pump provided Boyle with a good deal of information
about animal respiration and convinced him that one of the uses of respiration
was the carrying away of ‘the recrementitious steams that are separated from the
mass of Blood in its passage through the Lungs’ (Works, 6: 248).28 He noticed
that ‘the Ventilation and Depuration of the Blood’ were not the sole functions of
inspired air (Works, 1: 286). Like Willis and Lower, Boyle admitted that inspired
air contributed something to blood, yet he was committed to assess how this
happened and what substance entered the blood. He took into account the
Paracelsian view that air contained a kind of quintessence that restored the vital
spirits. Yet, he put forward some objections to this theory. First – he said – the
theory was rather asserted than proved. Second, he maintained that ‘it seems
not probable that the bare wont of the Generation of the wonted quantity of vital
Spirits, for less than one minute, should within that time be able to kill a lively
Animal, without the help of any external violence at all’ (Works, 1: 287). Third,
he noticed that the spirits of blood were subtle and unctuous particles and of
‘a very differing Nature from that of the lean and incombustible Corpuscles of
Air’ (Works, 1: 282). He surmised that one of the functions of inspired air was to
‘cherish the vitall flame residing in the heart’, but – he noticed – this was not ‘free
from difficulties’, as it was not clear yet how air could get into the animals’ blood
and ‘how in case it could, it were able to increase the heat’ (Works, 1: 288–9).
Boyle was convinced that the role of air in the body was somehow related to
combustion and tested the ‘Relation between air and flamma vitalis in animals’,
as the title of his 1672 tract reads. He had no doubts that air was necessary
for maintaining flame and animals alive, yet, he was aware of the differential
sensitivity of flame and animals to air, as shown by the trial with animals that
outlived the flame when air was evacuated from the air pump (Works, 7: 117–21).
His concern was to explore the relationship of air to blood. He thoroughly
investigated the chemical composition of blood, which in fact had been the focus
of van Helmont’s research and was a key concern within the Oxford scientific
community. For van Helmont, the vital spirit of blood was a volatile salt produced
in the left ventricle of the heart by the local ferment (1648a: 183–4). Willis
spelled out his view of blood composition in his tract on fevers, maintaining that
it contained spirits, the most active corpuscles, sulphur and salt. Spirits cause
the fermentation that occurs in blood as it does in other liquors, like wine and
beer. In turn, Willis wrote, fermentation brings about the vital heat (1659: 12).
Whereas Willis adopted a speculative approach and made extensive use of
chemical analogies to explain biological phenomena, Boyle conducted detailed
experiments in order to assess the composition of blood and its relationship to
air. Since the 1660s he pursued research on the chemical composition of blood.
Like Carlo Fracassati in Italy and the Oxford physiologists, Boyle put different
substances into warm sheep’s blood. In 1664 he reported to the Royal Society
that volatile salts, like spirit of sal ammoniac, spirit of hartshorn and spirit of
urine (all containing ammonium hydroxide) ‘render the blood florid, and keep
it uncongealed and sweet, as long as one pleases, heightening also the colour’
(Birch 1756–7: 1: 508).
Boyle kept investigating the composition of blood and much of the material
included in Memoirs for the History of Humane Blood (1684) originated from the
experiments he performed when in Oxford. His research programme on blood
was very ambitious: he aimed at establishing the quantity of blood in the body,
the difference between arterial and venal blood, the specific gravity of blood and
of the two distinct parts into which blood naturally separates, that is, serous and
fibrous components.29 His main goal was however to assess blood composition
and the chemical properties of the substances he had obtained by distillation,
namely, oils, volatile salts and phlegm; he also tried to establish their respective
quantities. By distilling dried human blood he obtained volatile parts, including
spirit, a little phlegm, white salt, a coloured oil and thick oil. He identified the
clear liquor separated by distillation as spirit ‘because it was fully satiated with
Saline and Spirituous parts’ (Works, 10: 28).30 Like van Helmont, he claimed that
spirit of human blood was one of the noblest volatile alkali. He declared that
spirit of blood ‘is totally composed of Volatile Salt and Phlegm’. The latter was
not pure water as it was ‘still impregnated with some Particles of Oil and perhaps
also with some volatile Salts’ (Works, 10: 44).
In 1668 Boyle moved permanently to London and kept investigating the
relation between human blood and air. As we have seen, Hooke and the Oxford
physiologists (notably Mayow) claimed that volatile nitre was the substance
communicated to the blood.31 Boyle provided experimental support to the view
that there is ‘a great cognation or affinity (for I know not well what name to give
it) between the spirit of human blood and the air’ (Works, 10: 63). Boyle pursued
a series of experiments with spirit of human blood and tested the nitro-aerial
theory that most of his Oxford colleagues advocated. He stated that a variety
of salts were contained in the air, and nitre was just one of them, adding that it
was not so abundant in the air as some physiologists believed. Furthermore, he
pointed out that spirits of nitre ‘being so far from being refreshing to the Nature
of Animals, that they are exceeding corrosive’ (Works, 12: 32). The experiments
to be found in the History of Human Blood provided further evidence to
undermining the volatile nitre theory. He wrote that, as chymists maintained,
there was ‘a manifest hostility’ between spirit of human blood and acid spirits.
This is what happened when he mixed spirit of human blood with strong spirit
of nitre. He noticed a ‘conflict’ generating a ‘great quantity of thick white Fumes’
(Works, 10: 65).
Boyle kept investigating the medical uses of the spirit of human blood, which
he identified as a volatile alkali. He noticed that spirit of human blood dissolved
some substances, coagulated and precipitated others (Works, 10: 57–8). He
stressed that spirit of human blood ‘is like to have notable operations upon the
Humane Body and afford Medicines of great Efficacy in many of its Diseases’
(Works, 10: 66) and therefore he recommended to employ it both internally and
externally especially to cure a series of nervous system diseases.
For Boyle, spirit (like other substances distilled from the blood) was not
to be conceived of as a simple and homogeneous substance. This brings us to
consider Boyle’s justly famous rejection of the chemical principles and his effort
to produce new chemical classifications.
3. Fire analysis and chemical principles
Boyle dealt with the Aristotelian elements and the chemical principles in a
tract entitled ‘Reflexions on the Experiments Vulgarly Alledged to Evince the
4 Peripatetique Elements, or ye 3 Chymicall Principles of Mixt Bodies’. It was
written in the mid-1650s and was published by Marie Boas Hall in 1954 as a
first draft of The Sceptical Chymist. Most of Boyle’s arguments came from van
Helmont (Boas 1954).32 Boyle maintained that the substances that fire analysis
yields were not pre-existing in the mixed body but are actually produced by
the fire. Boyle similarly questioned the Paracelsian view that fire can separate
mixed bodies into their ultimate components, that is, salt, sulphur and mercury,
to which some chemists added water and earth. Following van Helmont, Boyle
maintained that salts, oil and spirits extracted from compound bodies show ‘a
great disparity, either to our senses, or in their operations’ (Boas 1954: 162). These
arguments reappeared almost unaltered in the published version of The Sceptical
Chymist. A large portion of Boyle’s ‘Reflexions’ was devoted to the examination
of van Helmont’s theory of water as the material principle. Boyle remarked that
van Helmont’s main arguments to support this theory were based on the alleged
extraordinary operations of the Alkahest, which in fact nobody had been able
to produce. Nonetheless, Boyle did not deny that ‘a liquor may be found which
may much outdoe all our corrosif menstrua’ (Boas 1954: 165). In his view, the
Helmontian theory of water appeared to be confirmed by chemical analysis of
plants that yielded a great deal of water, as well as by the famous Helmontian
willow-tree experiment. For van Helmont, this experiment demonstrated that,
as the earth maintained its original weight unaltered, then the willow tree
must have sprung from the water used for moistening the earth during the
period of the experiment (five years). Thus van Helmont concluded, all natural
bodies (not just vegetables) were made of water (Webster 1966). Boyle did not
subscribe to the Helmontian water-theory entirely. He questioned the view that
metals and minerals could be generated from water. In addition, according to
Boyle, the status of water could only be assessed after a good deal of chemical
experiments had established whether water was indeed (as van Helmont had
claimed) a simple and elementary substance – a view he unambiguously rejected
in The Sceptical Chymist. It is however noticeable that in ‘Reflexions’ Boyle did
not question the role of seminal principles in the production of natural bodies.
In ‘Reflexions’ Boyle discussed the ‘willow-tree experiment’ and – echoing van
Helmont’s theory – stressed the generative power of the seminal principles.33
The Sceptical Chymist, arguably Boyle’s most famous work, was published
in the form of a dialogue. Boyle took inspiration from classical precedents
and presented his dialogue as a model of civility, a conversation among
gentlemen. His work pursued a twofold end: to undermine the chymists’ (and
the Aristotelians’) doctrines of the ultimate constituents of bodies and to raise
chymistry from the rank of a purely operative practice by showing that it was
part of natural philosophy. Boyle noticed that some natural philosophers
harboured suspicions against chymistry, which they saw as a purely practical
art, and against chymists, whom they considered illiterate empiricks. Boyle
aimed at turning chymistry into a branch of natural philosophy. To achieve this
goal, he pursued a reform of chymistry, notably the theory of principles and
the current terminology.34 One of his targets were the chemical textbooks, such
as Beguin’s very popular Tyrocinium Chymicum, which – for Boyle – failed to
provide proper philosophical interpretation of chymical experiments.
For Boyle, the experimental evidence chymists produced to support their

theory of principles was inadequate; he set out ‘to question the very way of
Probation employed by Peripateticks and Chymists to evince the being and
number of the Elements’ (Works, 2: 225). Boyle’s main argument was that fire
analysis did not produce the ultimate constituents of bodies. Some substances
yield more than three or five components, while others, like metals, fewer – and
gold none. Different ways of applying fire, that is, burning and distillation, in
an open or closed vessels, and different degrees of heat brought about different
results, as it happened with lead, which with one degree of fire was turned
into minium [lead oxide] and with another was vitrified (Works, 4: 80–1). He
concluded that the substances fire yields were not pre-existent in the mixed
bodies, they were rather produced de novo by a rearrangement of its parts.
Some of the arguments Carneades (Boyle’s spokesman in the dialogue)
deployed against the ‘vulgar chymical opinion’ of the three principles were
admittedly taken from ‘the Bold and Ingenious Helmont, with whom he yet
disagrees in many things’ (Works, 2: 210). Yet, Boyle questioned the Helmontian
doctrine of water arguing that the water obtained by the analysis of some natural
bodies could not be conceived of as an elementary substance just because it
was insipid. Boyle reinforced his argument with an important observation –
which was absent in ‘Reflexions’ – namely, that water, though an insipid body,
was composed of corpuscles of different natures, which were not perceptible to
senses (Works, 2: 258–61; 359–61). He claimed that ‘out of fair Water alone; not
only Spirit, but Oyle and Salt, and Earth may be Produced’ (Works, 2: 275). Boyle
also took into account a further key Helmontian principle, the semina rerum –
whose generative power he did not question in ‘Reflexions’. In The Sceptical
Chymist he expressed doubts on van Helmont’s doctrine of seeds as agents of all
generations, maintaining that whereas plants and animals (and possibly some
minerals and metals) were produced by semina, other bodies were the outcome
of the rearrangement of particles of the universal matter (Works, 2: 356).
At the end of The Sceptical Chymist, Carneades appeared to hold a
conciliatory attitude, by saying that his objections were meant to urge chymists
‘to alter and Reform their Hypothesis’ (Works, 2: 376). Furthermore, he claimed
that chymists failed to understand the results of their experiments: ‘I told You
already (sayes Carneades) that there is a great Difference betwixt the being able
to make Experiments, and the being able to give a Philosophical Account of
them’ (Works, 2: 294). Having denied the validity of fire analysis, Boyle explored
other methods of analysis, while he had little hope to obtain the Helmontian
alkahest. He implemented colour tests (including colour indicators), flame tests
and the crystal forms as a means to identify a substance in a mixture and to test
its purity (Boas 1958: 127–34).
The reform of chemical classification and terminology played an important
role in Boyle’s agenda. This was a topic Boyle addressed in the appendix to the 2nd
edition of The Sceptical Chymist (Producibleness of Chemical Principles, 1680),
which he decided to publish since he found that most chymists and physicians
still adopted the doctrine of principles. The new edition was meant to include
four new sections, but he only published the first one, aimed to show that what
chymists called principles (i.e. simple and incorruptible substances) were in
fact produced by the action of fire (Works, 9: 23–4).35 There he complained
that the chymists’ current classification was based on a limited number of
characteristics. They grouped together a variety of different substances under
the same ‘family’, blurring essential distinctions. Chymists called salts different
substances because they were easily dissoluble in water and affected ‘the Palat
with a sapor, whether good or evil’. Boyle recognized different kinds of salts,
‘some being fixt, some volatile, some Acid and some Urinous, &c.’ (Works,
9: 33).36 Spirits were likewise a confusing category. Chymists called spirits ‘any
distill’d Volatile liquor that is not insipid, as is Phlegm, or inflammable, as Oyle’
(Works, 9: 52). In fact, they had no clear notion of what spirits were, as they put
under the same category substances having different and often ‘quite contrary
nature’, such as acid ones (as spirit of nitre), alkaline spirits (as spirit of urine)
and vinous or inflammable spirits (Works, 9: 52–66). This was also the case with
Sulphur, which included at least three differing substances, that is, oils, ardent
spirits and common Sulphur. He complained that chymists gave the name of
oil to substances that displaced very different characteristics, as organic oils,
and oil of vitriol on the grounds that they did not mingle with water (Works,
9: 67–77).
The acid/alkali theory did not escape Boyle’s criticism. The theory, originating
from van Helmont, was later advocated by the famous Leyden professor Sylvius
(Franciscus de le Boë), who applied it to almost all physiological processes,
claiming that all diseases were the outcome of excess of acidity or of alkalinity.
Otto Tachenius, a German chymist who lived in Venice, and François de
Saint’André, a physician from Caen, maintained that all chymical substances
were to be divided into two categories, that is, acidic and alkaline, which were
said to react with effervescence. Taste was a way to identify acid and alkalis as
well as the effervescence they produced. Boyle pointed out that all acids turned
the blue syrup of violets (and other vegetable substances) red and all alkalis
turned it green. Furthermore, he found that some substances caused no colour
change. He classified the latter as neutral. So he argued that what he called ‘the
duellist’ theory failed to recognize that there were substances that were neither
acidic nor alkaline. Furthermore, he argued that the division of all substances
into acid and alkali was arbitrary as it was possible to classify salts according
to other properties. Finally he claimed that alkaline salts differed under many
respects (Works, 8: 409–19).
4. Mechanical philosophy and chemistry
As we read in Certain Physiological Essays, Boyle aimed at pursuing ‘a good

understanding betwixt the Chymists and the Mechanical Philosophers’ (Works,
2: 90). Boyle often criticized the chymists who failed to ‘give philosophical
accounts’ of their experiments and stressed the gap that existed between
chymistry and the corpuscular philosophy (Works, 2: 294). The gap however was
not as large as Boyle claimed. In the first half of the seventeenth century, Etienne
De Clave, a French chymist and author of a textbook, and Daniel Sennert,
the Wittenberg professor of medicine, provided corpuscular explanations for
chymical processes. De Clave claimed that the five principles were units of
matter that could not be split or transformed into other substances.37 By contrast,
Boyle saw the chemical principles as compound corpuscles that could be split
and transformed. Sennert explained the reduction to the pristine state, namely,
the recovery of metals dissolved in strong acid by precipitation, contending
that they were not destroyed but concealed, since the atoms of metals retained
their own form.38 In his early tract on atoms Boyle adopted Sennert’s reduction
to the pristine state as a proof of the existence of atoms and used it on many
occasions to prove that no changes occurred to corpuscles during a given
reaction (Newman 2006: 208–15). His debts to Sennert, however, ought not to
be exaggerated, as Boyle explicitly criticized Sennert’s theory of forms on various
works and notably in a tract entitled ‘Free Considerations about Subordinate
Forms’ (added to the second edition of The Origin of Forms and Qualities
(hereafter Forms and Qualities) 1667), specifically aimed at questioning Sennert’s
views. For Sennert, there were many forms in one continued body; while each
living being had a single substantial form, its body contained a large number of
corpuscles that were endowed with their own substantial forms (Michael 1997).
Boyle argued that the properties Peripatetic philosophers explained in terms of
forms were in fact the outcome of a mechanical rearrangement of corpuscles. He
concluded his tract on subordinate forms by invoking a reform of philosophical
language – very much as he did with the chymical terminology – in order to

avoid useless disputes:
And I am apt to think that if the meaning of the words, Form, Life, Soul, Animal,
Vegetative, and some few other termes were clearly defined and agreed on, a
great part of the perplexing Controversies that are agitated about subordinate
Forms… would appear to be Disputes about Words or Termes. (Works, 5: 481)
As we have seen, scholars have been accustomed to celebrate Boyle as the

champion of the mechanical philosophy and have claimed that it was its goal
to subordinate chemistry to a mechanical theory of matter (Kuhn 1952; Boas
1958). Boyle’s mechanism – this was the standard view – was aimed at reducing
all natural phenomena to the ‘catholick affections’ of matter: as a consequence,
chemistry was subordinated to the mechanical philosophy. This view seems to
be confirmed by Boyle’s statement that chemical experiments confirmed the
corpuscular philosophy, thereby establishing a kind of ideal division of labour
that seemed to accord chemistry an ancillary role (Works, 2: 88). The properties
of bodies, including the chemical ones, ultimately derived from the size, shape
and motion of particles of the universal matter. There is evidence that on several
occasions Boyle shared the mechanical philosophers’ recourse to analogies
taken from visible mechanisms in order to explain the microstructure of bodies.
Since the changes of textures bring about different sensible qualities, it is not
absurd to think that – at least among inanimate bodies – by changing the texture
‘almost of anything may at length be made Any thing’ (Works, 5: 332). The latter
statement might be interpreted as denying the existence of distinct homogeneous
substances. As we shall see, Boyle’s position was in fact more nuanced and it is
useful to scrutinize his writings with care in order to make sense of the way in
which he managed to combine mechanical philosophy and chemistry.
Let’s start with Boyle’s mechanical philosophy and with his supposed
reductionist program, namely, the explanation of all phenomena in terms of
size, shape and motion (or rest) of the simplest particles of universal matter. On
closer examination, it is evident that when investigating natural phenomena
(and notably chemical ones), Boyle was often reluctant to frame hypotheses
on the shape of simple corpuscles and on their motions.39 Boyle’s non-
reductionist attitude becomes clear if one compares his investigation of natural
phenomena with those of Descartes and of Gassendi. He distanced his views
from Descartes’s reductionism, by maintaining that though the explanations
based on the mechanical affections of matter were more general and seemed
to be more satisfactory to naturalists, yet there were many phenomena they
still could not account for. Some phenomena – he argued – were ‘deduc’d from
the more obvious and familiar Qualities or states of Bodies, such as Heat,
Cold, Weight, Fluidity, Hardness, Fermentation, & c., though these themselves
do probably depend upon those three universal ones’ (Works, 2: 21). Boyle
very seldom evoked the shapes of particles to explain the sensible qualities.
He rather referred them to the change of textures, which in turn were the
outcome of the continuous interactions of corpuscles. Boyle’s investigation of
cold – and notably the interpretation of chemical experiments he produced to
study cold – elucidated his attitude towards the reductionism of mechanical
philosophers. Boyle took issue with Descartes’ theory that ether and eel-like
particles were the cause of water expanding when frozen, as well as with
Gassendi’s view that cold was produced by ‘frigorific atoms’, that is, atoms
having the form of a tetrahedron with sharp edges and slow motion (Works,
4: 329; 381). Boyle argued that cold had a privative nature and criticized the
widespread notion of primum frigidum, namely the view held by chymists and
natural philosophers that a distinct substance produced cold.40 He took pain
to produce experimental evidence to reject Gassendi’s claim that nitre was the
primum frigidum (Works, 4: 376–81). Boyle showed that saltpetre could yield
both cold and heat – according to the substances it reacted with. The evidence
was provided by a series of endothermic (ammonium nitrate with water) and
exothermic reactions, which he interpreted as changes of textures. He showed
that saltpetre mixed with water produced cold, but it produced heat when mixed
with oil of vitriol (sulphuric acid). Then he mixed water, sal ammoniac and oil
of vitriol, finding that they produced not cold, but heat. Cold – he stated –
was not produced by one single substance, but by the interaction of different
substances, being the outcome of the changes of their textures (Works, 8: 331–
42). Boyle’s experiment with nitre as contained in Certain Physiological Essays
and his correspondence with Baruch Spinoza (via Oldenburg) on this topic
provide further evidence for his non-reductionist view of chemical change.
Boyle maintained that by distillation he had analysed nitre into spirit of nitre
and fixed nitre. In his view, nitre was no simple substance and he saw these
two products of analysis as two chemically distinct substances. By recombining
them, he obtained the same nitre. By contrast, Spinoza claimed that the two
parts into which nitre was analysed were not different substances, but just the
fixed and the volatile parts of nitre, something like water and ice. Boyle held a
different view. He described the experiments with nitre as a chemical change
brought about by corpuscles endowed with distinct chemical natures. Indeed,
he maintained that he succeeded to obtain the same nitre by combining spirit
of nitre with salt of tartar, instead of fixed nitre, as they had the same chemical
nature, being both of them lixiviate salts (Clericuzio 1990).
In order to understand the relationship of chemistry to corpuscular
philosophy in Boyle’s work, it is necessary to consider the notion of chemical
corpuscles, which in turn is related to the hierarchy of corpuscles. The simplest
particles, which were rarely broken and remained unchanged in nature, brought
about primary clusters of corpuscles. In Forms and Qualities he argued,
there are also Multitudes of Corpuscles, which are made up of the Coalition of
several of the former Minima Naturalia; and whose Bulk is so small, and their
Adhesion so close and strict, that each of these little Primitive Concretions or
Clusters (if I may so call them) of Particles is singly below the discernment of
Sense, and though not absolutely indivisible by Nature into the Prima Naturalia
that composed it, or perhaps into other little Fragments, yet, for the reasons
freshly intimated, they very rarely happened to be actually dissolv’d or broken,
but remained entire in a great variety of sensible Bodies, and under various
forms or disguises. (Works, 5: 326)
Boyle often referred to corpuscles of the second order, that is, clusters of the
simplest ones, as being endowed with chemical, and not just physical properties.
Such chemical corpuscles played a central part in his explanations of chemical
reactions.
It is to be stressed that Boyle did not rule out the existence of simple and
homogeneous substances, which in fact might have been established by means
of newly devised experiments. He elucidated the point as follows:
I will not peremptorily deny, but that there may be some Cluster of Particles,
wherein the Particles are so minute, and the Coherence so strict, or both, that
when Bodies of Differing Denominations, and consisting of such durable
Cluster, happen to be mingl’d, though the Compound Body made up of them
may be very Differing from either of the Ingredients, yet each of the little Masses
or Clusters may so retain its own Nature, as to be again separable, such as it was
before. (Works, 2: 272)
The so-called chemical principles he conceived of as compound corpuscles:
The Chymist’s Salt, Sulphur, and Mercury themselves were not the first and most
simple Principles of Bodies, but rather primary Concretions of Corpuscles, or
Particles more simple than they, as being endowed with the first, or most radical
(if I may so speak) and most Catholic Affections of simple bodies, namely, Bulk,
Shape and Motion, or Rest; by the different Conventions or Coalitions of which
minutest portions of matter are made those differing Concretions that Chymists
name Salt, Sulphur, and Mercury. (Works, 8: 401)
When dealing with the chymical principles, Boyle gave mercury a special
status, taking into serious consideration the hypothesis that metals contained
mercury, though he cast doubts on the view that substances commonly called
mercury were simple and homogenous, as they often differed the one from
the other. It is however remarkable that he did not deny that metals contained
mercury. This seemed to be confirmed by the fact that mercury easily
amalgamated with other metals – possibly because it had a kind of cognation
with mercuries of other metals. Moreover, he said, it is likely that mercury was
the cause of the gravity of metals, though he noticed that gold was heavier than
common mercury. He surmised that the mercury contained in metals was ‘more
ponderous than common mercury’ (Works, 9: 94). When dealing with the status
of mercury Boyle took into serious consideration the experiments to be found
in alchemical texts, notably those of the pseudo-Lull. This brings us to consider
Boyle’s alchemical pursuits.
5. Alchemical investigations
Boyle started pursuing alchemical research, and notably the transmutation

of metals, from the beginning of his intellectual career and acquired further
expertise by collaborating with Starkey in the early 1650s. Unlike Newton, Boyle
did not keep his alchemical investigations confined to his private papers. He
dealt with the transmutation of metals in a number of published works, notably
in Forms and Qualities. In The Philosophical Transactions for 1676, he published
the results his experiments on the incalescence of mercury and in 1678 he sent to
the press a short tract on what he called the ant-elixir, a powder that supposedly
transmuted gold into base metals. The latter was a fragment of a larger work
(in form of a dialogue) devoted to the transmutation of metals, where Boyle
examined the arguments pro and contra the transmutation of metals (Works,
9: 3–17).41 Finally, in 1689 Boyle advocated, and was instrumental in securing,
the repeal of the Act of Henry IV forbidding the multiplication of gold and silver.
He established contacts with alchemists and with self-styled adepts, some of
whom turned out to be cheats, like George Pierre, who apparently demonstrated
transmutation to Boyle in 1677 (Principe 1998: 115–34 and passim).
In The Sceptical Chymist he extolled the true adepts and criticized the
‘vulgar chymists’, stressing that alchemical texts contained profound knowledge
about metals and chymical procedures. As we have seen, Boyle criticized the
alchemists’ obscurity and advocated free scientific communication, as attested
by his first published work (Works, 1: 3–12). His attitude to secrecy was
however not univocal. He invoked free communication of chemical processes as
related to the investigation of the constituents of mixed bodies, yet, he excused
adepts for concealing information about the opus, and oftentimes he turned to
secrecy both in public and in private papers. He was careful to avoid divulging
knowledge that could be employed for dangerous purposes. Occasionally, he
refrained from communicating secrets on medical and chemical matters when
he received information about processes and materials on condition that he
did not disclose them. When dealing with chrysopoeia, he often provided
incomplete information about preparations and materials, thereby following the
alchemical technique of concealment, namely, the dispersion of knowledge, and
(in private papers) used codes to veil the chrysopoetic content.42
Whereas in the past historians were silent about, or strove to excuse,
Boyle’s alchemical pursuits, we are now in a better position to understand
Boyle’s alchemy. Old prejudices about alchemy have been abandoned and the
experimental contents of much of the alchemical texts have been elucidated by
a number of historians. It is however appropriate to see what kind of alchemical
research Boyle practiced and which were the motivations behind his lifelong
alchemical pursuits.
As other aspects of Boyle’s chemical research, the transmutation of bodies,
notably of metals, was consistent with his corpuscular theory of matter. He
repeatedly argued that the transmutation of metals was ultimately brought about
by a change of texture (Works, 5: 332). Boyle followed two kinds of explanations
of the supposed transmutations, one strictly mechanical, that is, resorting to
the ‘catholick affections’ of simplest particles of matter, the other (which he
employed more often) resorting to chemical corpuscles. This is apparent if we
turn to what he wrote of the transmutation made by means of the menstruum
peracutum, a powerful solvent he prepared by distilling aqua fortis with butter
of antimony. This solvent, he reported, transmuted gold into silver. For him,
gold, as other metals, was a compound and the solvent separated what he called
the anima auri (soul of gold, i.e. the alchemists’ sulphur of gold) leaving a white
powder as a residue that Boyle fused into a white metal he identified as silver.
Boyle explained the operations of the menstruum as follows:
however the Chymists are wont to talke irrationally enough of what they call
Tinctura Auri, and Anima Auri; yet, in a sober sense, some such thing may be
admitted … there may be some more noble and subtle Corpuscles, being duely
conjoyn’d with the rest of the Matter, whereof Gold consists, may qualifie that
Matter to look Yellow… yet these Noble Parts may either have their Texture
destroy’d by a very piercing Menstruum, or by a greater congruity with its
Corpuscles, then with those of the remaining part of the Gold, may stick more
close to the former, and by their means be extricated and drawn away from the
latter. (Works, 5: 420–1)43
When Boyle referred to the tinctures of metals, or to the ‘tinging parts’ of gold and
to their congruity with the parts of the menstruum, he referred to compounded
corpuscles, having chemical, not just mechanical properties.
As Principe has pointed out, Boyle distinguished two ways of pursuing the
chrysopoeia, namely, ‘universal’ and ‘particular’ transmutations. According
to a well-established alchemical tradition, the universal transmutations were
produced by the philosophers’ stone, capable of transmuting any metal into
gold. The Lapis could have been augmented in quantity (the alchemist could
have multiplied it) and in quality (i.e. its transmuting power). Particular
transmutations, by contrast, did not require the philosophers’ stone, but
different substances (particularia), that were not so difficult to prepare. The
power of particularia was limited as they could only transmute silver into gold
and only a comparatively small amount of metal. The philosophers’ stone acted
by projection, whereas particulars were generally ground, digested or fused with
the metal to be transmuted. This distinction helps explain Boyle’s statement as
contained in Forms and Qualities:
I speak not here of projection, whereby one part of an Aurifick Powder is said to
turn I know not how many 100 or 1000 parts of an ignobler Metal into Silver or
Gold … because, though Projection includes Transmutation, Transmutation is
not all one with Projection, but far easier than it. (Works, 5: 422)
Boyle spelled out his reasons for dealing with alchemy by stressing that the
artificial transmutation of bodies was ‘the rarest and difficultest production’,
as well as ‘one of the noblest and usefullest effects of humane skill and power’
(Works, 5: 429). Echoing Francis Bacon, he extolled the transmutations as they
enhanced natural philosophy and had utilitarian relevance. The transmutation
of metals – he believed – would potentially improve our knowledge of the origin
and structure of metals. Boyle saw alchemy as consistent with the philanthropic
ideals and his utilitarian attitude to knowledge he pursued throughout his career.
Boyle thought that alchemy (the one requiring particularia) was a way to employ
the poor. As we read in one of his unpublished alchemical papers: ‘[particulars]
being skillfully wrought, even in small quantitys may enable a poor and
industrious Artist, especially if he be a single man to get a Livelihood, though

not to grow rich’ (Principe 1998: 303). Such an alchemical industry could ‘set
many poor people at work & thereby releive great numbrs enabling them or at
least assisting them to get maintenence for themselves & their distrest familys’
(ibid., 304). Finally, Boyle pursued alchemical research in order to produce new
powerful medicines.44
6. Conclusion
Boyle promoted chemistry among natural philosophers showing that it was an

exact and empirical science: it disclosed the qualities and properties of bodies
and provided insights on their invisible structure. Moreover, Boyle highlighted
chemistry for its utilitarian relevance, notably for its uses in medicine, mining,
metallurgy and husbandry. While he dealt with a wide range of chemical
subjects, he did not pursue a system of chemical philosophy. He criticized the
chymical philosophers who adopted all-encompassing theories based on a small
number of experiments, often ill-understood or imperfectly devised. He was very
meticulous in providing readers with details of his chemical experiments, the
processes and the materials he employed. He strove to enhance the experimental
practice by improving furnaces and by searching new fuels in order to produce
a more durable heat. Furthermore, he paid special attention to the heat control
in chemical processes.
Though Boyle aimed to raise chemistry above the status of practical art, he
recognized that he had learned much from illiterate practitioners and employed
both artisans and skilled assistants in his laboratory – some of them playing
an important part in his chemical research, as Ambrose Godfrey Hanckwitz,
who helped Boyle investigate the production of phosphorus and developed a
technique for the production of pure solid phosphorus (Principe 1998: 134–6).
Boyle promoted a reform of chymistry by questioning the foundation of the
chymical doctrine of principles, namely the view that fire analysis yielded simple
substances, being the ultimate components of bodies. As part of his programme,
he took issue with the current chymical terminology and classification. ‘Vulgar
chymists’, he complained, adopted an ambiguous language and failed to define
technical terms. Moreover, he claimed, the common chymical classification was
based on a small number of similarities. He complained that chymists grouped
together a variety of different substances under the same ‘family’. He thus
produced experimental evidence in order to reassess the chymical classification.
Like other works by Boyle, his chemical tracts enjoyed enormous

popularity, their reception is however difficult to assess. It is not appropriate
to provide here a detailed survey of the impact of Boyle’s chemistry. On the
whole, though his experimental achievements were widely admired, his
rejection of the chymists’ doctrine of principles was not equally successful.
Indeed, one can single out Daniel Coxe, a Fellow of the Royal Society who
collaborated and corresponded with Boyle, as a faithful follower of Boyle’s
chemical programme. Yet, most chymists and physicians kept employing the
tria prima or other versions of the chymical principles. It would be wrong,
however, to assume that Boyle’s arguments on fire analysis and the chymical
principles were a seed that fell among thorns. Boyle’s critique of chymical
theories and methods brought about a shift in the interpretation of the
chymical principles, as attested by Nicolas Lemery’s Cours de Chymie, one
of the most influential chymical textbooks in Europe. Lemery adopted the
corpuscular theory and did not reject the traditional chymical principles, but
reinterpreted their status. He maintained that they were not extracted from
all bodies and did not see them as the ultimate components of all bodies, but
saw them as compound substances that might be further divided. In the 1683
edition of the Cours, he argued that the chymical principles were principles
for us, not in nature. Members of the Paris Academy of Sciences thoroughly
examined Boyle’s chemical works and Samuel Cottereau Duclos, a critique
of Boyle’s corpuscular philosophy, agreed that the tria prima were not the
ultimate constituents of bodies (Boantza 2013).
Notes
1 The first comprehensive study of Boyle’s chemistry was Rowbottom (1955).

2 An enlarged edition of the Hartlib Papers, incorporating Hartlib’s materials from
libraries around the world, was published by the Humanities Research Institute’s
own HRI Online electronic press in July 2002. Hunter (1992) was published in a
revised version in 2007, containing an introduction to the Boyle Archive and a
collection of essays on Boyle’s manuscripts. Further impetus to the study of Boyle’s
alchemy and chemistry came from the publication of the complete works of Robert
Boyle (Works) and his correspondence (Boyle 2001).
3 This is not the place to discuss Boyle’s early career in detail. A different view of
Boyle’s early career is held in Hunter (1995) and in Hunter (2015).
4 For Boyle’s interest in agriculture and plants, see Clericuzio (2018).
5 For the date of composition of the first part of Usefulness, see Works, 3: 195.
6 Hartlib Papers (hereinafter as HP) 28/1/32A and 28/1/56B. For Etienne de Clave,
see Clericuzio (2000: 42–7).
7 The tract was published anonymously in Chymical, Medicinal and Chyrurgical
Addresses made to Samuel Hartlib, London, 1655, repr. in Works, 1.
8 Boyle’s letter to his sister Katherine is in Boyle, Correspondence 1: 82–3. The aim
and contents of this tract are very similar to those of the first five essays of The
Usefulness. In the unpublished ‘Essay of the Holy Scriptures’ (which appears in
the 1650 list of Boyle writings and contains subsequent additions dating after
1651), Boyle provides the reader with a retrospective account of his early career,
maintaining that he had been ‘noe lazy nor niggardly votary to Vulcan’ and had
thoroughly investigated the book of nature (Works, 13: 203).
9 Sendivogius maintained that rain takes from the air a vital force and joins it to
the sal niter of the earth. According to Sendivogius, from water of dew it would
be possible to extract the saltpetre of philosophers. Newman and Principe
(2002: 209–13).
10 Worsley died about the same time as Henry Oldenburg in 1677. Lady Ranelagh
wrote to Robert Boyle as follows: ‘I can’t, My Brother, but condole with you the
remove of our true honest ingenious friends in their severall ways Dr Worsley
& Mr Oldenburg since it has pleased god to call them hence soe soone one after
another. … They each of them in their way diligently served their generation &
were friends to us.’ (Lady Ranelagh to Boyle, 11 September 1677, Correspondence,
4: 454). For Worsley, see Leng (2008).
11 For Worsley’s visit to the Netherlands, see Leng (2008: 35–7).
12 For the mercurialist theory of transmutation, see Newman (1994: 148).
13 ‘And for the doctrine of which you state you have not been convinced … Helmont
depicts it as the very basis of his philosophy, i.e., the fact that everything is made
from water that is the material principle, and it is possible for everything to be
dissolved again into water. For, until now, no-one has questioned the definition
of elements as those substances into which things are ultimately dissolved, and
from which things are compounded. And so, if you are unable to reduce water into
any other substance, water will be the material principle’. Clodius (to Worsley),
undated, HP 42/1/36a–37b. Clodius followed the ‘mercurialist’ alchemical school,
maintaining that the ‘sophic mercury’ can be obtained from quicksilver. See his
letter of 4 July 1654, possibly to Worsley, HP 16/1/7A–B. Cf. Newman and Principe
(2002: 249).
14 Clodius is often referred to as ‘Doctor C’ in Boyle’s Usefulness, in connection
with Helmontian remedies. See Boyle Works, 3: 341, 348. Newman and Principe
conjecture that Clodius borrowed heavily from Starkey for chemical preparations
(Newman and Principe 2002: 262–6). We are less confident that this was the case
since Boyle (who was well informed about Starkey’s work) credited Clodius for the
chemical remedies the latter sent him.
15 Van Helmont maintained that Drif acted specifically on the Archeus without any
quantitative loss or substantial change. It was obtained from sea salt and ens veneris.
God destined for the medical care of the wretched and the poor. See ‘Butler’, van
Helmont (1648a: 595–6). Mercurius vitae was Antimony oxychloride, a powerful
emetic and laxative.
16 For Starkey’s life and chemical work, see Newman (1994) and Newman and
Principe (2002). In their book Newman and Principe have thoroughly explored
Starkey’s experimental chemistry, which they described as ‘laboratory practice
guided by the methodical application of theoretical principles and direct
observation’ (p. 111). For Starkey’s letters to Boyle and his laboratory notebooks,
see Starkey (2004).
17 Boyle’s query was on the sulfur of antimony mentioned by van Helmont’s ‘In verbis,
herbis, et lapidibus est magna virtus’, van Helmont (1648a: 577).
18 See Newman (1994: 71–2; 75).
19 Van Helmont became familiar with Butler when the latter was detained at Vilvorde.
Information on Butler’s life is to be found in Katherine Ranelagh’s letter to Hartlib of
5 April 1659. Katherine Ranelagh’s letter is in the James Marshal and Marie-Louise
Osborn Collection, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University.
Document 38. A transcription of the letter can be found in the Hartlib Papers.
20 There were two laudanums of Paracelsus, one was red oxide of mercury, the other
was made with chloride of antimony, aloes, rose-water, saffron and ambergris. The
recipe for the laudanum given by Oswald Croll was a compound tincture of opium.
21 ‘An Essay on turning Poisons into Medicines’ was never published. Oldenburg’s
notes from this essay survive in Royal Society MS 1, fols 74–88. It is now published
in Works, 13: 239–57. It is mentioned in a letter from Oldenburg to Boyle of 29
August 1657, see, Oldenburg, 1, pp. 133–5.
22 Edmund Dickinson was appointed (with Daniel Coxe and John Locke) to inspect
Boyle’s chemical papers after his death.
23 Bathurst maintained his view of digestion in his 1651 disputation, see Frank
(1980: 107).
24 ‘and it seems a mistake to imagine (how many soever do so) that Heat must
needs be the Efficient of all the changes the matter of our Aliments may happen
to undergoe in a humane body: where there are Streiners, and Solvents, and new
Mixtions, and perhaps Ferments, and diverse other powerfull Agents, which by
successively working upon the assumed matter, may so fashion and qualifie it, as, in
some cases, to bring the more disposed part of it to be not unlike even fossile Salts
or other mineral substances’ (Works, 3: 319).
25 In Essays of the Strange Subtility … of Effluviums (1673), Boyle maintained that
the invisible particles of bodies swimming in the air retain their ‘distinct and
determinate natures’ (Works, 7: 277).
26 The same experiment is to be found in General history of Air (Works, 12: 39).
We now know that the colour of silver chloride changed because it was exposed
to light.
27 Hooke claimed that air was the universal solvent of all sulphureous bodies. See
Frank (1980: 137).
28 ‘New pneumatical experiments about respiration’, Philosophical Transactions, 5,
2011–31, 2035–56 (8 August and 12 September 1670).
29 Boyle paid special attention to gravimetric tests both in chymistry and in medicine.
In Medicina hydrostatica (1690) he stressed the utility of assessing specific gravity
in examining drugs, Works, 11: 223.
30 For the composition of, and the material related to, Boyle’s History of Human Blood,
see Knight and Hunter (2007).
31 See Frank (1980: 207–8; 221–45).
32 For the date of its composition, see Clericuzio (1994: 79–80).
33 ‘I must admire the strange power of the formative power of the seeds of things,
which doe not only fashion the obsequious matter according to the exigency of
their owne natures, and the parts, they are to act; but doe also dispose and change
the matter, they subdue, as to give it a consistency, which it seemed incapable of
admitting’ (Boas 1954: 167).
34 Certain Physiological Essays, Works, 2: 85: ‘There are many Learned Men, who
being acquainted with Chymistry but by report, have from the Illiterateness, the
Arrogance and the Impostures of too many of those that pretend skill in it, taken
occasion to entertain so ill an opinion as well as of the Art as of those that profess
it, that they are apt to repine when they see any Person capable of succeeding in
the study of solid Philosophy, addict himself to an Art they judge so much below
a Philosopher, and so unserviceable to him: Nay, there are some that are troubled
when they see a Man acquainted with other Learning countenance by his Example
sooty Empiricks, and a Study which they scarce fit for any but such as are unfit for
the rational and useful parts of Physiology.’
35 The other three were: the uncertainty of the common analysis made by distillation,
the various effects of fire according to the ways of employing it, doubts whether
there be any elements in the sense vulgarly received.
36 See also pp. 33–51. On the seventeenth-century theories of salts, see Roos (2007).
37 For De Clave, see Clericuzio (2000: 42–4).
38 Meinel (1988), Clericuzio (2000: 28–9), Newman (2006: 99–100).
39 It is to be noticed that he did adopt the reductionist strategy when explaining
fluidity and firmness, see Newman (2006: 204–6).
40 ‘The dispute, which is the Primum Frigidum, is very well known among Naturalists;
some contending for the Earth, others for the Water, others for the Air, and some of
the Moderns for Nitre’. Experiments Touching Cold (Works, 4: 364).
41 From Historical Account of a Degradation of Gold Made by an Anti-Elixir, 1678.

Fragments of the dialogue, to be found among his papers, were published in
Principe (1998: 222–95).
42 The Sceptical Chymist (Works, 2: 292) and Certain Physiological Essays (Works,
2: 31). On Boyle’s secrecy, see Principe (1998: 143–9) and Hunter (2011).
43 See Principe (1998: 82–3).
44 BP, 17: 43, published in Principe (1998: 302–4).
Works cited
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Corpuscles in the Chemical Philosophy of Robert Boyle: The Redintegration of
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4
Boyle’s Epistemology: The Interaction

between Scientific and Religious Knowledge
J. J. MacIntosh
Foreword
This is a slightly revised version of ‘Robert Boyle’s Epistemology: The Interaction

between Scientific and Religious Knowledge’, International Studies in the
Philosophy of Science, 6, 1992, 91–121. I am grateful to the editor and publisher
of International Studies in the Philosophy of Science for permission to publish this
revised version. At the time that paper was written the most accessible full edition
of Boyle’s works was Thomas Birch’s 1772 edition. Since then Edward Davis and
Michael Hunter’s definitive edition has appeared, and I have replaced quotations
from, and references to, Boyle (1772) with their version. In my transcriptions
from the Boyle Papers, I have here omitted Boyle’s deletions and used his
insertions without noting them as insertions. I have printed in full standard
manuscript shortened forms that were normally so changed for printing (see
Hunter 1995, 2006). In transcribing, I have, again following Hunter, used the
modern forms, writing ‘have’ for ‘haue’ and so on. in transcriptions. However,
where a word such as ‘haue’ occurs in a quoted printed work I have left it as is.
Various fragments and longer pieces from the Boyle Papers have now been
published in Boyle on Atheism (BOA), and where these have been referred to
I have also given the BOA page numbers.
Workers on the Boyle manuscripts know how helpful the Librarian and staff
of the Royal Society Library are, and I should like to thank them once again for
that help, as well as thanking the Royal Society for permission to quote from the
Boyle Letters and the Boyle Papers (BP).
1. Boyle’s character
To a surprising extent, Boyle’s scientific epistemology mirrors his character, so it

is useful to prefix an account of the former with a note on the latter. Very briefly,
Boyle was a prosy, pious prig who wrote atrociously.1
But that is far too brief: for almost all his readers become fond of him.2 He
has a sort of gawkily earnest charm that leads most of us to overlook both his
undoubted stylistic faults as well as his personal faults, if faults they be.
Besides, it is hard not to like someone who had so much fun experimenting.
Reporting on his experimental replication of Archimedes’ result to the Royal
Society, Boyle wrote,
filling a large and deep glass to a convenient height with fair water, we plac’d
in it another deeper glass, shap’d like a Goblet or Tumbler, that it might be
the fitter for swimming; and having furnish’d it first with Ballast, and then,
for merryment sake, with a wooden Deck, by which a tall Mast, with a Sayle
fasten’d to it, was kept upright; we fraughted with wood, and by degrees pour’d
Sand into it, till we had made it sinck just to the Tops of certaine conspicuous
marks, that we had fasten’d on the outside of the Glass to opposite parts thereof.
(Works, 5: 231)3
Five features of Boyle’s character shine through and strongly affect his
epistemological stance: he was honest, abstemious, cautious, confidently humble
and pious. From his earliest youth, Boyle, like Matilda’s aunt, ‘had kept a strict
regard for truth’. Referring to himself in the third person in his unpublished
juvenile autobiography (BP 37.170r–184v, with some misordering.; transcribed
in Hunter 1994), he tells us that his father commended him for
his Veracity: of which … he would often give him this Testimony; that he never
found him in a Lye in all his Life time.4 And indeed Lying was a Vice both so
contrary to his nature & so inconsistent with his Principles, that as there was
scarce any thing he more greedily desir’d then to know the Truth, so was there
scarce any thing he more perfectly detested; then not to speake it. Which brings
into my Mind a foolish Story I have heard him jeer’d with, by (his Sister,) my
Lady Ranalagh; how she having given strict order to have a Fruit-tree preserv’d
for his sister in Law, the Lady Dungaruan, then big with Childe; he accidentally
comming into the Garden & ignoring the Prohibition, did eate halfe a score of
them: for which being chidden by his sister Ranalagh; (for he was yet a Childe5)
& being told by way of aggravation, that he had eaten halfe a dozen Plumbs; Nay
truly Sister (answers he simply to her) I have eaten halfe a Score. So perfect an
Robert Boyle’s Epistemology 99
enemy was he to a Ly, that he had rather accuse himselfe of another fault, then
be suspected to be guilty of that. (BP 37.173v; Hunter 1994, 4–5)
He was abstemious. The Rev. John Ward said of him, about 1673,
Mr. Boyl never drinks any strong drink: hee every morning eats bread and butter,
with powder of eyebright6 spread on the butter. His supper is water-gruel and a
couple of eggs: his dinner is mutton, or veal, or a pullet, or walking henne, (as
hee calls them,) which goe to the barne door when they will. (Quoted Maddison
1969, p. 186n)
He was cautious. In 1661 he wrote,
Perhaps you will wonder … that in almost every one of the following Essays
I should speak so doubtingly, and use so often, Perhaps, It seems, ’Tis not
improbable, and such other expressions as argue a diffidence of the truth of the
Opinions I incline to, and that I should be so shy of laying down Principles, and
sometimes of so much as venturing at Explications. But I must freely confess to
you … that having met with many things of which I could give my self no one
probable cause, and some things of which several Causes may be assign’d so
differing, as not to agree in any thing unless in their being all of them probable
enough, I have often found such Difficulties in searching into the Causes and
Manner of things: and I am so sensible of my own Disability to surmount those
Difficulties, that I dare speak confidently and positively of very few things,
except of Matters of fact. And when I venture to deliver any thing by way of
Opinion, I should, if it were not for meer shame, speak yet more diffidently than
I have been wont to do. (Works, 2: 19)
Scientifically this caution operated in at least two important ways: it

prevented Boyle from too readily either accepting or rejecting accounts of
strange observations or experimental results,7 and it led him to be very wary of
generalizing his results beyond the limits his experiments set: he was not fond
of erecting global theories on limited observations, and explicitly preferred
to work with no theory rather than with a dubious one. Thus he wrote, with
reference to the views of Linus,
This Hypothesis of our Authors does to me, I confess, appear liable to such
Exceptions, that though I dislik’d that of his Adversaries, yet I should not
imbrace his, but rather wait till time and further Speculation or tryals should
suggest some other Theory, fitter to be acquiesc’d in then this; which seems to
be partly precarious, partly unintelligible, and partly insufficient, and besides
needless. (Works, 3: 30)
Boyle was pious and confidently humble. Aubrey refers to him as ‘The
Honourable Robert Boyle, Esq., that profound Philosopher, accomplished
Humanist, and excellent Divine, I had almost sayd Lay-Bishop’ (Aubrey 1957,
‘Boyle’).8 After Boyle’s death, Burnet wrote,
he had the purity of an angell in him, he was modest and humble rather to a
fault. He despised all earthly things, he was perhaps too eager in the pursute of
knowledge, but his aim in it all was to raise in him a higher sense of the wisdome
and glory of the Creator and to do good to mankind, he studied the Scripture
with great application and practised universall love and goodnes in the greatest
extent possible, and was a great promoter of love and charity among men and a
declared enemy to all bitternes and most particularly to all persecution on the
account of religion. (Foxcroft 1902: 464, quoted Maddison 1969: 185)9
Burnet was right, Boyle was humble: he really did think that he was not
particularly clever, nor was it likely that he would unlock any deep secrets of
nature. However, he was confident enough in his own ability to believe that
others were also unlikely to: his humility came from his recognition of his
humanity, not from his feeling particularly inferior to others, and indeed he did
not feel so, either by birth or by attainment.10
2. The limitations of human knowing
For Boyle, scientific knowledge is of a piece with our general knowledge of the
universe; it attaches seamlessly to our theological knowledge. ‘I do not think
the Corporeal World’, he wrote, ‘nor the Present State of Things, the Only or
the Principal Subjects, that an Inquisitive Man’s Pen may be worthily employed
about’ (Works, 11: 285). He constantly invoked the two books metaphor, and
though for him the ‘Booke call’d Scripture’ was paramount, we also gain insight
into the nature of God by studying the book of nature, indeed, ‘the World is the
great Book, not so much of Nature, as of the God of Nature, which we should
find ev’n crowded with instructive Lessons, if we had but the Skill, and would
take the Pains, to extract and pick them out’ (Works, 5: 39).11
Both types of knowledge are limited, partly by our historical circumstances,
partly by our nature – we are as humans limited in what we can know by
reason of our limited faculties: ‘to complaine that we cannot comprehend some
Misteries is to repine that we are but men’ (BP 36.48r, BOA: 115). Thus (i) there
are undoubtedly things knowable in themselves which are, however, too difficult
for us to comprehend.12 Further, (ii) it is quite possible that the world was not
made for us but for the angels, so there is no reason to think that we could
unaidedly discover all the truths available to superior created intellects:
if God be allowed to be, as indeed he is, the Author of the Universe, how will
it appear that He, whose Knowledge infinitely transcends ours, and who may
be suppos’d to operate according to the Dictates of his own immense Wisdom,
should, in his Creating of things, have respect to the measure and ease of Humane
Understandings; and not rather, if of any, of Angelical Intellects, so that whether
it be to God, or to Chance, that we ascribe the Production of things, that way
may often be fittest or likelyest for Nature to work by, which is not easiest for us
to understand. (Works, 3: 257)
It follows at once that the simplicity of a theory need not necessarily commend
it. Moreover (iii) it may be that there are truths which we can comprehend when
they are explained to us, but which we could never discover on our own:
how will it be prov’d that the omniscient God … can exhibit Phænomena by no
wayes, but such as are explicable by the dim Reason of Man? I say, Explicable,
rather then Intelligible; because there may be things which though we might
understand well enough, if God, or some more intelligent being then our own,
did make it his Work to inform us of them, yet we should never of our selves
finde out those Truths. (Works, 3: 257)
There are also truths which remain above our reason, such as whether or
not physical lines are infinitely divisible. Bivalence (which Boyle accepts
unquestioningly) assures us that one of the contradictory claims is true, but
’tis plain to those, that have, with competent Skill and Attention, impartially
examined this Controversy, that the side that is pitched upon, whichsoever it
be, is liable to be exposed to such Difficulties, and other Objections, as are not
clearly answerable; but confound and oppress the Reason of those that strive to
defend it. (Works, 11: 341–2)
There are things above reason just as there are things above imagination.13
Additionally, we have a tendency to rely on imagination rather than reason,14
and a tendency too to be swayed by the vicious aspects of our character.15
Again, we have a tendency to leap to theories: to attempt to generalize too
soon and on too little evidence.16
if men could be perswaded to mind more the Advancement of Natural

Philosophy than that of their own Reputations, ‘twere not methinks very
uneasie to make them sensible, that one of the considerablest services that they
could do Mankind, were to set themselves diligently and industriously to make
Experiments and collect Observations, without being over-forward to establish
Principles and Axioms, believing it uneasie to erect such Theories as are capable
to explicate all the Phænomena of Nature, before they have been able to take
notice of the tenth part of those Phænomena that are to be explicated.
And after noting that ‘it is sometimes conducive to the discovery of truth, to
permit the Understanding to make an Hypothesis, in order to the Explication of
this or that difficulty, … by examining how far the Phænomena are, or are not,
capable of being salv’d by that Hypothesis’, Boyle goes on to urge that nonetheless
natural philosophers should
forbear to establish any Theory, till they have consulted with … a considerable
number of Experiments in proportion to the comprehensiveness of the Theory
to be erected on them. And in the next place, I would have such kind of
superstructures look’d upon only as temporary ones, which though they may
be preferr’d before any others, as being the least imperfect, or, if you please, the
best in their kind that we yet have, yet are they not entirely to be acquiesced in,
as absolutely perfect, or uncapable of improving Alterations. (Works, 2: 13–14)
3. Revealed knowledge
Despite the limitations on human knowing, God’s goodness is such that there
are truths available to us – including scientific truths – which we could not have
come to know otherwise than by revelation. Boyle, it is worth remembering,
wanted a complete picture of the universe. For him this involves as complete
a knowledge of God and the creation as is possible – a knowledge which lies
outside the realm of natural philosophy but explains its possibility – and within
the realm of natural philosophy, as complete an account, without recourse to
God, as possible.17 Boyle was interested both in what an earlier age called God’s
potentia ordinata (God’s ‘ordinary and general Concourse’, for Boyle, Works,
10: 457) and his potentia absoluta. Revealed truth has a part to play in both
aspects. After all, ‘The last and correctest Edition of the law of nature is the
Gospel’ (BP 5.96, BOA: 243). Revelation gives us:
1) truths which we could not otherwise acquire such as the order and time
of the Creation of the World and of the first man and woman, the certain
history of Adam’s fall & the other Transactions that preceeded the universal
deluge: divers particulars about the Creation, Immortality, employments

and performances of good Angels; the decrees that God has made about the
destruction of this World or of this Vortex of ours, and the state of mens souls
and Bodys after Death, the way of worshipping him, that is the most pleasing
to him, the mystery of the blessed Trinity, the incarnation of the son of God;
his satisfactions for the Sins of men, and in Sum, the Oeconomy of mans
Salvation. (BP 7.242)
2) details of truths which we can otherwise obtain ‘but very dimly, incogently,
and defectively’ such as … That the World had a beginning, that ’tis upheld
and govern’d by Gods general concourse & providence; that God has
a peculiar regard to mankind; and a propitious one to good men; that he
foresees those future things, we call contingent: that mens souls shall not dye
with their bodyes, and many other articles of the Philosophers, as well as the
Christians Creed. (BP 7.242)
3) ‘hints’ as to truths which would otherwise pass unnoticed, such as that the
Angels were Created before the visible World, or at least before ’twas half
compleated, and that they do not unconcernedly contemplate the Corporeal
Works of their Maker, … that particular Angels may be the Tutelar presidents
of particular communitys of men, and have particular parts of the universe
assignd for their charge, … and that whatever men have generally believ’d,
Vegetables had their Origine independent from the Sun, the earth having
producd all kinds of plants a day before God made that Luminary. (BP 7.243)
In addition, through a contemplation of these revealed truths we may be

brought to a greater love of truth, ‘and those other dispositions to discern and
welcom it, that are the best preparitives to the discovery and entertainment of all
kinds of Truth’ (BP 7.244). Allied to this is Boyle’s belief that God, either directly
or through the agency of the good angels, may sometimes help us more directly
in our search for truth:
yet perswaded I am, that the favor of God does (much more then most Men are
aware of) vouchsafe to promote some Mens Proficiency in the study of Nature,
partly by protecting their attempts from those unlucky Accidents which often
make Ingenuous and Industrious endeavors miscarry; and partly by making
them dear and acceptable to the Possessors of Secrets, by whose Friendly
Communication they may often learn that in a few Moments, which cost the
Imparters many a Years toyl and study; and partly too, or rather principally,
by directing them to those happy and pregnant Hints, which an ordinary skill
and industry may so improve as to do such things, and make such discoveries
by virtue of them, as both others, and the person himself, whose knowledge is
thus encreased, would scarce have imagin’d to be possible: And in effect, the
chiefest of the Secrets that have been communicated to me, the Owners have
acknowledg’d to me to have been attain’d, rather, as they were pleas’d to speak,
by accidental Hints, then accurate Enquiries: confessions of this nature I have
divers times met with in the Writings of the more Ingenious of the Chymists,
and of other Naturalists. (Works, 3: 276)
How do we know that we can rely on revelation? Boyle was clear that there
are spurious as well as genuine revelations, and clear too that it is reason that
judges the acceptability of a revelation, even when the revelation is of something
above reason. How does reason judge that some revelations are acceptable, and
which are they? The answer comes in two stages, in both of which the scientific
‘virtuoso’ has an advantage over other inquirers. First we must prove that there
is a God. Then we must see how that God reveals himself. Boyle thinks that
we have at least three good methods at our command for demonstrating God’s
existence, though he does remark that he will not attempt to convert convinced
atheists, partly because their vicious characters make them unamenable to
conviction, partly because the arguments are not strong enough.18 The first, on
which I shall not dwell, involves a fairly standard kind of design argument.19 The
other two are more interesting.
3.1. The argument from rational souls

Boyle considers the possibility that mere unassisted matter could rise to the
heights of intellection required to prove that the sides and the diagonal of a
square are incommensurable and finds that claim totally implausible. This
incommensurability point, incidentally, was one of his favourite examples and
was almost inevitably rung in when an example was needed to show that there
are things which, even when we know them, seem incomprehensible.20 But if we
have an incorporeal soul it seems once again a matter beyond nature for it to
interact with the body:
the very notion we have of spirits in general, is, to me, no small argument how
little we really and particularly know of them. For though superficial considerers
take up with the vulgar definition, that a spirit is an immaterial substance,
yet that leaves us exceedingly to seek, if we aim at satisfaction in particular
enquiries. For it declares rather what the thing is not, than what it is; and is as
little instructive a definition, as it would be to say, that a curve line is not a strait
one. … The operations of spirits upon bodies and vehicles, and much more upon
one another, we are in the dark about. (Works, 12: 474–5)21
We need, then, a superior power, and it seems reasonable enough to let this
be God. Boyle’s slightly younger contemporary John Locke pointed out that
there is an alternative: God could have superadded the power to think to ‘some
Systems of Matter fitly disposed’ (to human bodies, for example).22 However, for
Locke this requires divine intervention as much as the corporeal/incorporeal
interaction does, and so in either case we have evidence for God’s existence.
3.2. The argument from the necessary failure of materialism

Materialism fails on two counts: plausibility and parsimony.
(i) Materialism (‘somatism’) relies too much on chance: once we start to think
about the way in which the present state of the world came about we see that
simple materialism is pretty implausible. Laws are required, for example, and
cannot simply be assumed. Somehow, nomological regularities were instituted
and, somehow, are maintained. Chance is a most improbable mechanism for
the order we see around us.23 Indeed, chance, remarked Boyle, ‘is really no
natural Cause or Agent, but a Creature of Man’s Intellect’ (Works, 11: 105). Even
more to the point is the fact that materialism seems quite unable to explain the
existence of animals, let alone their ability to breed. It is straining probability,
Boyle thought, to argue that atoms could by chance produce animals, and even
if, by chance, an animal was produced, it is most unlikely (a) that it would have
generative organs, (b) that they would be in working order and (c) that chance
would have produced a contemporaneous mate for it which also just happened
to have working, appropriate and matching generative organs. Moreover, it is
noteworthy that in the history of the world no one has ever seen such animals
formed in this manner.24
The currently fashionable anthropic argument is formally very similar
to Boyle’s argument: we are presented in both cases with a claim that certain
observable features of the world are highly improbable on the basis of current
scientific theory alone. But – the argument goes – such improbabilities need
explanation. Therefore we must invoke some explanatory factor outside the set
of currently accepted scientific explanatory notions. Now this, the argument
concludes, is what everyone calls God, though Leslie (1989) argues interestingly
for a more neo-Platonic conclusion: either a traditional God, or a ‘creatively
powerful’ set of ‘ethical requirements’.
In neither the seventeenth nor the twentieth century case, however, are we
offered any reason for moving to an external explanatory device such as God,
rather than simply accepting our temporary inability to provide a satisfactory

internal account. The theistic temperament, it seems, requires the form of an
explanation even when, as here, the explanation can never be more than a
mere form.
(ii) Parsimony: If we take seriously the doctrine of an eternal atomistic
universe we will find that we must supply the atoms with just those qualities
which puzzle people in a deity. For example, they must be self-existent, eternal,
incorruptible, indestructible, and possessed of a number of (necessarily)
inexplicable qualities, their ‘emanative qualities’ as Boyle called them, ‘By which’,
he explained, ‘are meant such as flow immediately from it’s own nature, wthout
the intervention of any cause or Agent’ (BP 2.4, BOA: 339). Examples are each
atom’s determinate bulk or size, and its particular figure. It is analytic that each
atom have some size, but contingent and unexplained that it has just the size it
does. Thus the materialist, denying that there is a god, cannot avoid believing
things that
confound his understanding; since the most abstruse and perplexing Attributes,
such as selfe-existence, Eternity, selfe-motion, &c. must necessarily belong
either to God or to matter; and if he will not ascribe them to the Deity, he must
doe it to the despicablest Atome. And sure tis less inconvenient in Philosophy
to admit one Being to be endowed wth Properties that we cannot perfectly
comprehend, then to allow many millions of Beings, each of them endowed wth
some such Attributes and Propertyes; and with some others of which no reason
can possibly be given, how it came by them. For in effect the Epicurean makes
his Atomes so many little gods: And we can noe more give our understandings
satisfaction about the perplexing Difficulties that incumber the notion of an
eternally Existent Being, when tis affirm’d of an Atome, then we can when tis
ascrib’d to God. (BP 2.7, BOA: 341)
It is, then, reasonable, Boyle thought, to accept that there is a God. This being
so, we may ask: what truths are knowable about God? Boyle was pretty clear
that human beings (and perhaps particularly divines) get a lot of things wrong
about God:
I do not think my self obliged to have the same regard and respect for the
explications, that the schoolmen and many other divines give us of the mysteries
of Christianity, that I have for the Articles themselves; since for the mysteries
I have the divine authority of the revealer, who can oblige my faith to assent
even to dark truths; but for the expositions and consequences, I have but human
authority: and though clearness is not always necessary to divine mysteries, yet
it may be justly exacted in a good explication; since to explicate a thing is to

render it at least intelligible. (Works, 12: 422)25
Isn’t it better, Boyle asked, to find out what God says he is, than what humans
say he is? Isn’t God the best authority about the nature and wishes of God?
But how shall we find out God’s view of God? Boyle thought it reasonable to
suppose, having established independently that there is a God, that God will have
revealed such truths about himself as he wishes us to know. Thus we should look
to an instituted religion for the truth about God. But which instituted religion?
That is the function of miracles: they let us discover which instituted religion
is the correct one. Of course until we are ‘duely satisfyed that the Miracles
themselves are Divine and not Diabolical’, we must ‘in reason refrain from
acknowledgeing them’. But, he added,
for this examination I take only the General Principles of Natural Reason &
Religion, which teaching me antecedently to all particular Revelations, That
there is a God; That he is, & can be, but One; That [he] is Just, Wise, Good,
Gracious &c.; and That he has the Care and Government of Humane Affairs; if a
Supernatural Effect be wrought to authorize a Doctrine that plainly contradicts
these Truths, I cannot judge such a Miracle to be divine, and therefore am not
bound to suffer my selfe to be swayed by it. But if the Revelation backd by a
Miracle proposes nothing that contradicts any of these Truths, taught us before
hand by right Reason; & much more if it proposes a Religion that illustrates and
confirms them; I then thinke my selfe oblig’d to admit both the Miracle, and the
Religion it attests. (BP 7:121–2, BOA: 294)26
What religion does it attest? when Boyle came to investigate the miracles on
offer, it turned out, by what can only be thought of as a fortunate coincidence,
that the ones which were intrinsically the most convincing were precisely those
which grounded the faith in which he had been brought up: Christianity’s
miracles are superior to those of other faiths, and so the Christian revelation is
the one we should accept.27
Boyle’s arguments, it may be felt, do not really make the case. The miracles
which purportedly uphold religions other than the Christian do not really get
even a mention, let alone a hearing. This neglect was, however, common at the
time. Slightly later, Locke was to write,
Of such who have come in the name of the one only true God, professing to
bring a law from him, we have in history a clear account but of three, viz. Moses,
Jesus and Mahomet. For what the Persees say of their Zoroaster, or the Indians of
their Brama (not to mention all the wild stories of the religions farther east)28 is
so obscure, or so manifestly fabulous, that no account can be made of it. Now of

the three before-mentioned, Mahomet having none to produce, pretends to no
miracles for the vouching of his mission; so that the only revelations that come
attested by miracles, being only those of Moses and Christ, and they confirming
each other, the business of miracles, as it stands really in matter of fact, has no
manner of difficulty in it; and I think the most scrupulous or sceptical cannot
from miracles raise the least doubt against the divine revelation of the gospel. (A
Discourse of Miracles, Locke 1823, 9.258)
Locke did not consider the argument that the very existence of the Koran is
itself a miracle (in view of the disparity between it and what might reasonably
have been expected of its author in the absence of divine inspiration), but Boyle
had already taken explicit, if somewhat smug, notice of the point:
the Saracens press’d with their Religions being destitute of attesting Miracles,
will not scruple to reply, That though there were no other Miracle to manifest
the Excellency of their Religion above that taught by the Prophets, yet the
Alcoran it Self were sufficient, as being a Lasting Miracle that transcends all
other Miracles. How Charming its Eloquence may be in its Original, I confesse
my self too unskilfull in the Arabick Tongue, to be a competent Judge; my other
Studies and Distractions having made me forget most of the little Knowledge,
I had once acquir’d of that flourishing Language. … but the Recent Translations
I have seen of it in French, and (as to divers of it, in) Latin, elaborated by great
Scholars, and accurate Arabicians, by making it very Conformable to its Eastern
Original, have not so rendred it, but that Persons that judge of Rhetorick by
the Rules of it current in these Western Parts of the World, would instead of
extolling it for the Superlative, not allow it the Positive Degree of Eloquence;
would think the Style as destitute of Graces, as the Theology of Truth. (Works,
2: 452–3)
Boyle, then, felt himself equipped with a Deity who could not only supply
the theoretical underpinning necessary for the scientific endeavour, but a Deity
about whom quite a bit was known, and one who, as we have already seen, might
well have dropped us a few hints about scientific secrets. But now, given all this,
what can we hope to know about the world, and how can we discover it?
4. Scientific knowledge
From the time of Grotius’ Truth of the Christian Religion (1624) at least, and
probably earlier, theologians had been operating with a notion of moral
certainty.29 That there is a clear train from Grotius through Chillingworth

and on via Tillotson, Wilkins, and Glanville, to Boyle and Newton, has been
persuasively argued in van Leeuwen (1970), and it is clear that Boyle has simply
taken over many of the arguments put forward by others.30 However, his views
are distinct, and are, moreover, aimed particularly at an application in the realm
of natural philosophy, so they have a definite interest of their own.
At any rate, whatever the avenue of transmission, Boyle certainly did
operate with a notion of moral certainty. He distinguished three degrees of
demonstration:
besides the Demonstrations wont to be treated of in vulgar Logick,31 there are

among Philosophers three distinct, whether kinds or degrees, of Demonstration.
For there is a Metaphysical Demonstration, as we may call that, where the
Conclusion is manifestly built on those general Metaphysical Axioms that can
never be other than true; such as Nihil potest simul esse & non esse; Non Entis
nullæ sunt Proprietates Reales, &c. There are also Physical Demonstrations,
where the Conclusion is evidently deduc’d from Physical Principles; such as are,
Ex nihilo nihil sit. Nulla substantia in nihilum redigitur, &c. which are not so
absolutely certain as the former, because, if there be a God, He may (at least
for ought we know) be able to create and annihilate Substances; and yet are
held unquestionable by the ancient Naturalists, who still suppose them in their
Theories. And lastly, there are Moral Demonstrations, such as those where the
Conclusion is built either upon some one such proof cogent in its kind; or some
concurrence of Probabilities that it cannot be but allowed, supposing the truth
of the most receiv’d Rules of Prudence and Principles of Practical Philosophy.
And this third kind of Probation, though it come behind the two others
in certainty, yet it is the surest guide, which the Actions of Men, though
not their Contemplations, have regularly allow’d them to follow.32 And the
Conclusions of a Moral Demonstration are the surest that Men aspire to, not
only in the conduct of private Mens affairs, but in the Government of States,
and ev’n of the greatest Monarchies and Empires. And this is considerable in
Moral Demonstrations, that such may consist, and be as it were made up of
particulars, that are each of them but probable; of which the Laws establisht
by God himself among his own People, as well as the practice of our Courts
of Justice here in England, afford us a manifest instance in the case of Murder,
and some other Criminal Cases.33 For, though the Testimony of a Single
Witness shall not suffice to prove the accus’d party guilty of Murder; yet the
Testimony of two Witnesses, though but of equal Credit, that is, a second
Testimony added to the first, though of it self never a whit more credible than
the former, shall ordinarily suffice to prove a Man guilty; because it is thought
reasonable to suppose, that, though each Testimony single be but probable, yet
a concurrence of such Probabilities (which ought in Reason to be attributed
to the Truth of what they jointly tend to prove) may well amount to a Moral
certainty, i. e. such a certainty as may warrant the Judge to proceed to the
sentence of death against the Indicted party.
To apply these things, now to the Christian Religion: If you consider, with
how much approbation from discerning Men that judicious Observation of
Aristotle has been entertain’d, where he says, that ’tis as unskilful and improper
a thing to require Mathematical Demonstrations in Moral Affairs, as we take up
with Moral Arguments in matters Mathematical;34 you will not deny, but that
those Articles of the Christian Religion that can be prov’d by a Moral, though
not by a Metaphysical or Physical, Demonstration, may without any blemish to
a Man’s Reason be assented to; and that consequently (by vertue of the foregoing
Considerations) those other Articles of the Christian Faith, that are clearly and
legitimately deducible from the so demonstrated Truths, may likewise without
disparagement be assented to. (Works, 8: 281–2)35
Elsewhere Boyle expands on the third sort of evidence and makes it clear that
it has applicability outside the sphere of religion:
I call that Personal Experience, which a Man acquires immediately by himself,

and accrews to him by his own Sensations, or the exercise of his Faculties,
without the Intervention of any external Testimony. …
By Historical Experience I mean that, which, though it were personal in
some Other man, is but by his Relation or Testimony, whether immediately or
mediately, conveyed to us. …
By Theological Experience I mean that, by which we know, what, supposing
there is some Divine Revelation, God is pleas’d to relate or declare concerning
Himself, his Attributes, his Actions, his Will, or his Purposes, whether
immediately, (or without the intervention of Man) as he sometimes did to Job
and Moses, and Constantly to Christ our Saviour: or by the Intervention of
Angels, Prophet, Apostles, or Inspird Persons, as he did to the Israelites, and the
primitive Christian church; and does still to us, by those written testimonies we
call the Scriptures.
By Personal Experience, we know that there are Stars in Heaven; by Historical
Experience we know, that there was a new Star seen by Tycho and other
Astronomers in Cassiopæa, in the year 1572, and by Theological Experience
we know, that the Stars were made on the Fourth Day of the Creation. (Works,
11: 307–8)36
In his own mind at least, Boyle neither wanted nor needed an answer such as
Descartes’ to the sceptic.37 This view was thoroughly in tune with the temper of
the times. Boyle’s friend Locke had produced a very similar pragmatic answer to
the sceptic, and the much more systematic Leibniz was in agreement. Moreover,
as van Leeuwen has shown, this pragmatic answer is a fairly direct application to
science of the theological solution to the sceptical problem.
5. Hypotheses, theories and facts
I turn now to the relation between theory and experiment in Boyle. Like all of
us, Boyle used the term ‘hypothesis’ in a number of different ways. Here are
three of the most common. First, he used it of very general world views: this is
perhaps the most common occurrence of the term in his writings. He refers, for
example, to the Cartesian hypothesis, the Epicurean hypothesis, the corpuscular
hypothesis and so on. Second, he used the term for more detailed hypotheses
within the framework of a general hypothesis: in his case within the framework
of corpuscularianism. Thus he mentions the hypothesis that cold is caused by
frigorific atoms, for example, or that the spring of the air is caused by particles
that themselves have a spring. On the negative side, he considered the hypothesis
that a vacuum is impossible. Third, he used the term for particular hypotheses or
predictions about how certain experiments will turn out: that a pendulum will
behave differently in air and in vacuo,38 that doubling the pressure on a quantity
of gas will halve the volume, and so on. Indeed, he speaks of the air’s having
weight and a spring as a hypothesis which can be used to explain observed
results (Works, 3: 30). This latter was, of course, a hypothesis which was very
quickly confirmed. At this point it is worth noting the interest and commitment
Boyle brought to each of these notions.
5.1. The first sense of ‘hypothesis’

Boyle had a definite conceptual commitment to the corpuscular hypothesis, and
he often spoke as if he were devising experiments to confirm it, but this is in fact
somewhat misleading. The picture is something like this.
Like many other thinkers of the time Boyle felt that the only intelligible
explanations were those in terms of material particles and their motion. Within
this overriding general view there was room for disagreement about details, even
quite central and important details, such as whether or not there is a vacuum,
whether or not the particles in question are atoms or whether they are such
that they behave as minima naturalia in most of the interactions they enter into
(Works, 2: 87). But the general corpuscular hypothesis must be accepted because
it is the only one that has any chance of providing us with an explanation we can
understand:
the indefinite divisibility of Matter, the wonderful efficacy of Motion, and the
almost infinite variety of Coalitions and Structures, that may be made of minute
and insensible Corpuscles, being duly weighed, I see not why a Philosopher
should think it impossible, to make out, by their help the Mechanical possibility
of an corporeal Agent, how subtil, or diffus’d, or active soever it be, that can be
solidly proved to be really existent in Nature, by what name soever it be call’d
or disguis’d. … if an Angel himself should work a real change in the nature
of a Body, ’tis scarce conceivable to us Men, how he could do it without the
assistance of Local Motion; since, if nothing were displac’d or otherwise mov’d
than before, (the like hapning also to all external Bodies to which it related,) ’tis
hardly conceivable, how it should be in it self other, than just what it was before.
(Works, 8: 109–10)
Even Leibniz, who turned away from corpuscularianism for metaphysical

reasons, accepted the basic underlying point:
I take it to be certain that all things come about through certain intelligible
causes, or causes which we could perceive if some angel wished to reveal them
to us. And since we may perceive nothing accurately except magnitude, figure,
motion, and perception itself, it follows that everything is to be explained
through these four.39
And Huygens in 1679 felt that there was quite general agreement on the matter:
[it is] accepted by almost all modern philosophers that it is only the figure and
motion of the corpuscles of which all things are composed that produces all the
admirable effects we see in nature. (Huygens to Paul Pellisson, 15 August 1679,
in Huygens 1899, 8: 198)
Not only was the corpuscular hypothesis the one that could provide
understandable explanations, it could also accommodate any possibly acceptable
competing hypothesis:
From the fore-going Discourse it may (probably at least) result, That if, besides
Rational Souls, there are any Immaterial Substances (such as the Heavenly
Intelligences, and the Substantial Forms of the Aristotelians) that regularly are
to be numbred among Natural Agents, their way of working being unknown to
us, they can but help to constitute and effect things, but will very little help us to
conceive how things are effected; so that, by whatever Principles Natural things
be constituted, ’tis by the Mechanical Principles that their Phænomena must be

clearly explicated. … But if the Principles propos’d be corporeal things, they will
be then fairly Reducible, or Reconcilable, to the Mechanical Principles; these
being so general and pregnant, that, among things corporeal, there is nothing
real … that may not be deriv’d from, or be brought to, a subordination to such
comprehensive Principles. (Works, 8: 113–14)
That is, any hypothesis that appeared to be a competitor would be either

unacceptable or would be simply a more detailed version of corpuscularianism.
Thus Boyle, though he called corpuscularianism an hypothesis, and certainly
referred to what were, in his view, subspecies of it such as Cartesianism as
hypotheses, didn’t really think of it as something that was up for dispute.
Something of this kind must provide our explanatory framework or nothing will:
And indeed to explicate a Phænomenon, being to deduce it from something

else in Nature, more known to Us, then the thing to be explain’d by It, how can
the imploying of Incomprehensible (or at least Uncomprehended) substantial
Forms40 help Us to explain intelligibly This or That particular Phænomenon? For
to say, that such an Effect proceeds not from this or that Quality of the Agent,
but from its substantial Form, is to take an easie way to resolve all difficulties in
general, without rightly resolving any one in particular; and would make a rare
Philosophy, if it were not far more easie than satisfactory. (Works, 5: 351–2)
It is not so much the case that the corpuscular hypothesis is confirmed by

experiment and observation as that the other prima facie competing hypotheses
(in particular the Aristotelian or the Parcelsan) are disconfirmed or rendered
otiose.41 Boyle devised experiments to show that the other systems, to the extent
that they lent themselves to predictions, led to unsatisfactory results. He did
not, however, agree to facile victories. For example, against those who held that
Paracelsus’ early death was a sufficient refutation of his theories, he wrote,
on the one side I think the Arguments which Helmont and others draw from the
Providence of God, for the curableness of all Diseases are not very cogent, and
somewhat irreverent … on the other side, I am not much convinc’d by the grand
Argument alleadg’d against Paracelsus, and the Chymists, that hold all Diseases
to be in their own Nature curable; namely, That they themselves, many of them
(no nor even their very Master) lived not to the Age attain’d by many Strangers
to Chymistry.
For this, That many of them … died young enough, and … by Sickness … is
a much stronger Objection against the Men, then against their Opinion; for it
infers indeed plausibly, that they had not such Remedies as they boasted of …
but concludes not, that no such Remedies can be prepar’d by any other. (Works,
3: 345–6)
It should perhaps be mentioned explicitly that there are many features of

our experience which cannot be explained mechanically. For Boyle what we
really have is a cross table of the mechanically explicable/inexplicable, and those
things subject to generalization, as opposed to those things which are unique or
non-lawlike:
instead of dividing the operations of God, here below, into two sorts only,
natural and supernatural; I think we may take in a third sort, and divide the
same operations into supernatural, natural in a stricter sense, that is mechanical,
and natural in a larger sense, which I call supra-mechanical. (Works, 12: 477)
Miracles provide us with a paradigm case of things which are both non-
mechanical, and non-generalizable, but there are various phenomena which are
non-mechanical but nonetheless lawlike. That looking at a red object in standard
conditions gives rise to a conscious sensation of redness is law-like, but not
mechanically explicable. There are ‘laws of union between the soul and body’,
‘freely, and arbitrarily established’ by God (Works, 12: 479).42 Boyle also points
out that the various tales of witches and communion with evil spirits would, if
they were true (which he thinks is a logical possibility), provide us with another
set of non-mechanical law-like phenomena:
That the Supernatural things, said to be perform’d by Witches and Evil Spirits,
might, if true, supply us with Hypotheses and Mediums whereby to constitute and
prove Theories, as well as the Phænomena of meer nature, seems tacitely indeed,
but yet sufficiently, to be acknowledg’d, by those modern Naturalists, that care
not to take any other way to decline the Consequences that may be drawn from
such Relations, than sollicitously to shew, that the Relations themselves are all
(as I fear most of them are) false, and occasion’d by the Credulity or Imposture
of Men. (Works, 8: 278–9)
5.2. Hypotheses in the second sense

For Boyle these functioned mainly as devices to suggest experiments or as
pictures to guide our reasoning.43 Thus, for example, when he measured the
‘spring’ of the air he clearly did not much care which of two radically different
(subsidiary) hypotheses concerning the nature of the corpuscles was correct,
and in fact opted for what from our point of view seems somewhat the less
plausible of the two:
This Notion may perhaps be somewhat further explain’d, by conceiving the Air
near the Earth to be such a heap of little Bodies, lying one upon another, as may
be resembled to a Fleece of Wooll. For this (to omit other likenesses betwixt
them) consists of many slender and flexible Hairs; each of which, may indeed,
like a little Spring, be easily bent or rouled up; but will also, like a Spring, be still
endeavouring to stretch it self out again. For though both these Haires, and the
Aerial Corpuscles to which we liken them, do easily yield to externall pressures;
yet each of them (by vertue of its structure) is endow’d with a Power or Principle
of self-Dilatation …
There is yet another way to explicate the Spring of the Air, namely, by
supposing with that most ingenious Gentleman, Monsieur Des Cartes, That
the Air is nothing but a Congeries or heap of small and (for the most part) of
flexible Particles; of several sizes, and of all kinde of Figures … according to
this Doctrine, it imports very little, whether the particles of the Air have the
structure requisite to Springs, or be of any other form (how irregular soever)
since their Elastical power is not made to depend upon their shape or structure,
but upon the vehement agitation … which they receive from the fluid Ether that
swiftly flows between them …
By these two differing ways … may the Spring of the Air be explicated …
I shall for the most part make use of [the former] in the following Discourse: yet
I am not willing to declare peremptorily for either of them, against the other.
(Works, 1: 165–6)
It is clear that Boyle was not gripped by the question of which of these
two hypotheses was correct:44 he was interested, however, in what the actual
experimental result was, regardless of the underlying hypothesis.45 And that
result he was willing to defend against the attacks of others based on their faulty
hypotheses. This was the point that people like Linus and Hobbes seem never to
have come to grips with.
Boyle’s interchange with Spinoza over the existence of the vacuum is relevant
in this connection. On 3 April 1663, Oldenburg wrote a letter to Spinoza much
of which was taken up with Boyle’s careful refutation of Spinoza’s theoretical
objections by means of experimental observations (Hall and Hall 1966, 2.37–40,
40–3). In the course of the letter Oldenburg wrote, ‘Nor does the author see that
the necessity for that very fine matter, which you also postulate, is proved by any
phenomenon; but that it is assumed only from the hypothesis that a vacuum is
an impossibility’ (Hall and Hall 1966, 2.38, 41). Oldenburg went on to observe,
Our Boyle is one of those who are distrustful enough of their reasoning to wish
that the phenomena should agree with it. Moreover, he remarks that there is a
great difference between ordinary experiments, where we do not know what

nature contributes and what other factors intervene, and those experiments
where it is known for certain what these factors are.
He continued,
he replies that he has made use of the Epicurean principles, which have it that
motion is innate in the particles, for it was necessary to use some hypothesis
to explain the phenomenon. Although he uses it to maintain his own opinion
against the chemists and the schoolmen, showing that the facts can be well
accounted for on that hypothesis, he does not, for that reason, make it his own.
(Hall and Hall 1966, 2.38–9, 42)
Spinoza replied on 17 July 1663,
When I further said that the particles of niter in the larger pores are surrounded
by a finer matter, I inferred this, as he notes, from the impossibility of a vacuum;
but I do not know why he calls this an hypothesis since it clearly follows from the
fact that nothing has no properties. (Hall and Hall 1966, 2.88, 93)
Oldenburg wrote back (4 August 1663) to say that Boyle was aware of, but
unconvinced by, this argument: ‘As regards the reasoning which you advance
to deny the existence of a vacuum, Boyle says that it is known to him & he has
seen it before, but by no means assents to it’ (Hall and Hall 1966, 2.102, 103). In
other words, Boyle was not really interested in arguing the point from Spinoza’s
perspective: the experimental results were in, and Spinoza’s ‘hypothesis’ could be
left to fend for itself.46
5.3. Hypotheses: The third sense

What we are left with as the real centre of Boyle’s interest are hypotheses in the
third sense: he was interested in the behaviour (often predicted behaviour) of
objects in the macro world, preferably elicited by designed experiments, which
could then be used as the basis of further experiments:
although the Peripatetick, and some other Philosophies, do also pretend to be

grounded upon Reason and Experience; yet there is a great difference betwixt
the use that is made of these two Principles, by the School-Philosophers, and
by the Virtuosi. For those, in the framing of their System, make but little use of
Experience; contenting themselves for the most part to employ but few and obvious
Experiments, and vulgar Traditions, usually Uncertain, and oftentimes False; and
superstructing almost their whole Physicks upon Abstracted Reason; by which
I mean The rational Faculty endowed but with its own Congenit or Common
Notions and Idea’s, and with Popular Notices; that is, such as are common among
men, especially those that are any thing Learned. But now, the Virtuosi I speak
of … make a much greater and better use of Experience in their Philosophical
Researches. For they consult Experience both frequently and heedfully; and,
not content with the Phænomena that Nature spontaneously affords them, they
are solicitous, when they find it needful, to enlarge their Experience by Tryals
purposely devis’d; and ever and anon Reflecting upon it, they are careful to
Conform their Opinions to it; or, if there be just cause, Reform their Opinions
by it. So that our Virtuosi have a peculiar Right to the distinguishing Title that is
often given them, of Experimental Philosophers. (Works, 11: 292)
Boyle thought of his experiments as being ultimately confirmatory of the

corpuscular hypothesis, but he was more interested simply in the experimental
result itself. One reason for this was his dubiety, shared by many of the leading
thinkers of the day, concerning the possibility of ever knowing the actual inner
structure of things.47 Boyle was not an ontological anti-realist,48 but he was an
epistemological anti-realist: in the seventeenth century little was known about
the actual structure of the supposed minima naturalia, and there was little
optimism about coming to know this structure.
Thus one of Boyle’s overriding scientific interests lay in the accumulation of
theory-neutral facts. He stressed, though, the fact that some experiments were
more valuable than others. He prized, he tells us, ‘luciferous experiments’, and
preferred, on occasion at any rate, experiments that promised long term gains in
a research programme to those which might yield short term benefit:
to those that think it strange, that among my other Experiments about Mettals &
Minerals, I have not produc’d those gainful Ones that Chymists call Particulars;
it may I hope suffice to represent, that being a Batchelor, & through God’s
bounty furnish’d with a competent Estate for a young’r Brother, and freed
from any ambition to leave my Heirs rich; I had no need to pursue Lucriferous
Experiments. To which I so much prefer’d Luciferous Ones, that I had a kind
of ambition (which I now perceive to have been a vanity) of being able to say,
that I cultivated Chymistry with a disinterest mind; neither seeking nor scarce
careing for, any other advantages by it, than those of the Improvement of my
own knowledg of nature, the gratifying the Curious & the Industrious; and the
Acquist of some useful helps to make good & uncommon Medicins. (Boyle
Letters, 1.108r, 1.131r. reprinted in Works, 12: 365 & n)49
Boyle was then, as a scientist, very cautious about either accepting or rejecting
both observational claims and what he often refers to as particular hypotheses.
Being committed to corpuscularianism as the only possible general hypothesis

he was constantly aware of, and urges on his readers an awareness of, the wide
possibilities it allows, both in the matter of observable fact and in the choice of
more particular explanatory hypotheses. He did not have any general sceptical
concerns: the doctrine of moral certainty he inherited from the theological debate
seemed to satisfy him in the scientific sphere. He saw his place as a provider of
collections of experiments for others to build on, and conscientiously reported
negative results. He was not only not concerned to build a systematic theory,
he was explicitly concerned not to do this, and in the particular case of the law
which bears his name he was – as we shall see – unwilling to extend the result
outside the experimental set-up.
6. The function of experiments
6.1. The interaction of theory and experiment

Boyle had a number of things to say about the way in which experiment and
theory interact, but the point I wish to stress here is that he thought they do
interact, and that this interaction is important. In the preface to the History
of Cold, for example, showing his humanity as well as his awareness of the
methodological point, he remarked,
when once a Man is in the right way of making Inquiries into such subjects,
Experiments and Notions will reciprocally direct to one another, and suggest
so many things to him, that if I were now to begin this work again, and had
Cold, and fitly shap’d Glasses, and Instruments, with other Accommodations
at command, there are divers parts, on which my Inlargements would not
perchance be much Inferiour to what is Already extant there, if they did not
much Exceed it. But besides That, I have other work enough, and that of a
quite other Nature upon my hands; the Truth is, that I am plainly Tired with
writing on this subject, having never handled any part of Natural Philosophy,
that was so Troublesome, and full of Hardships, as this has proved. (Works,
4: 222)50
At one time Boyle drew up a pair of tables to indicate the types of experiment
he felt would most aptly exhibit the interaction between hypothesis and
experiment. As M. B. Hall has remarked, Boyle ‘was far more interested in
methodical thinking when it was a question of experiment than he was when it
was merely a question of writing a book’ (Boas 1958, 139).
Of the use of Experiments to Speculative Philosophy

1. To supply and rectify our Sences 1. Spirit of wine Amber, & Campfire,
2. To suggest Hypotheses both more Vitriol & Iron, Verdigrease,
generall & particular. calcin’d sulphur of Oyl of Vitriol
3. To illustrate Explications praæcipitate &c.
4. To determine doubts 2. The adhæsion of Glass & Marbles,
5. To confirme Truths. Pumps. Induration of Bodys, by
6. To confute Errors. Amalgam & Chymicall Mixtures &
7. To hint Luciferous Inquiries & fumes of Mercury and the weight of
Experimts and contribute to the Air in a Bladder.
makeing them skillfull. 3. The feeding of a Cherry Apple and
through the stalke the productions
of Winds & Hailes, Imitation of
Earth-quakes.
4. The Effect of the Earths Magnetisme.
The Instance of the Touchstone.
5. Artificial congelations. the Air
of distillation and almost all the
Chymicall operation. An Experimt of
Polychristr.
Of the Use of Speculative Philosophy to Experiments
1. To devise philosophicall Expts 1. The Torricellian Experimt made with
which depend only and mainly water Pendulums.
upon Principles Notions and 2. Anatomical Fooles, Outaconsticon
Ratiocinations. Diveing Engine.
2. To devise instruments both 3. The Tor. Expt on a Mount, the Ballon.
Mechanical & others to make 4. The perp. motion. The raiseing of
Inquiries & Tryalls with. water over Hills wth Pumps or Pipes.
3. To vary & otherwise to emprove 5. Engines, Pumps, The Phænom. of the
known Expts. T. Expt and Pecquets bladder Magnet
4. To help a man to make Estimates Phænom. The Equivelocity of fall
of what is Physically possible & bodies, & the fall of a stone to the foot
practicable. of the mast in &c.
5. to foretell the Events of 6. The ascention of water in Pumps.
untryed Expts. The resistance of severall Bodys to
6. To ascertaine the Limits & breaking.
causes of doubtful and seemingly 7. The length of Guns in reference
indefinite Expts. &c The acceleration of descent
7. To determine accurately the Pendulum’s at land & Sea The
Circumstances & proportions, as weight of an inch of ☿ in the T. Expt.
weight, measures & duration &c of Hydeost. weights of Body’s (BP 9.30).
Expts.
It is noteworthy that Boyle had clearly in mind particular experiments which

he felt would flesh out the general points in the left hand columns. (To illustrate
his practice I shall look, in the final section of this paper, at one of his most
famous experiments, that concerning the inverse relation between pressure and
volume in gases at or near normal temperature.)
6.2. The importance of experiments

Boyle, as we have seen in his remarks against Linus, was perfectly willing to
dispense with theories altogether:51 his true love lay in experimenting, and
although he had the financial resources to employ assistants and so like most
modern scientists was the director of experiments in his laboratory, rather than
its sole practitioner, he was
not … so nice, as to decline dissecting Dogs, Wolves, Fishes, and even Rats and
Mice, with my own Hands. Nor, when I am in my Laboratory, do I scruple with
them naked to handle Lute and Charcoal. (Works, 3: 211)
Boyle’s willingness to dispense with every theory, or at least with every

promulgated theory, in order to concentrate on the facts may ring oddly in an
age when facts are supposed always to be theory laden, but people at the time
agreed with Boyle about this. If I read him rightly, Ian Hacking also agrees with
Boyle about this. Hacking is unhappy with Boyle, but his complaint against
Boyle is really that Boyle wasn’t Boylean enough: that Boyle, unlike Hooke, for
instance, was a theoretician who experimented, rather than an experimenter
who also theorized. Hacking writes,
History of the natural sciences is now almost always written as a history of

theory. Philosophy of science has so much become philosophy of theory that
the very existence of pre-theoretical observations or experiments has been
denied. I hope the following chapters might initiate a Back-to-Bacon movement,
in which we attend more seriously to experimental science. Experimentation
has a life of its own. (Hacking 1983, 149–50. For the unhappiness with Boyle,
see 150–1)
Boyle thought it was not only possible, but in some cases desirable also, to
collect facts in the absence of any theory whatever. Perhaps he was deceiving
himself, but that at least is what he said, apparently sincerely. Moreover, we find
him constantly lamenting the lack of what he called ‘histories’, that is, collections
of what Hacking calls pre-theoretical facts. Boyle felt that histories of almost
every important quality were lacking, and set out to begin to fill some, at least,
of these gaps:
it was not my chief Design to establish Theories and Principles, but to devise
Experiments, and to enrich the History of Nature with Observations faithfully
made and deliver’d; that by these, and the like Contributions made by others,
men may in time be furnish’d with a sufficient stock of Experiments, to ground
Hypotheses and Theories on. (Works, 3: 12)
and again,
whether we have treated of the Nature and Origine of Forms and Qualities
in a more comprehensive way then others, whether we have by new and fit
Similitudes, and Examples, and other means rendred it more intelligible then
they have done, whether we have added any considerable number of Notions
and Arguments, towards the compleating and confirming of the propos’d
Hypothesis, whether we have with reason dismissd Arguments unfit to be relyd
on, and whether we have propos’d some Notions and Arguments so warily, as
to keep Them from being lyable to Exceptions or Evasions, whereto they were
obnoxious as others have propos’d them, whether (I say) we have done all or any
of these in the first or Speculative part of this Treatise, we willingly leave the
Reader to judge: But in the second or Historical part of It, perhaps he will be
invited to grant, that we have done that part of Physicks, we have been treating
of, some little service: since by the Lovers of real Learning, it was very much
wish’d, that the Doctrines of the new Philosophy (as tis call’d) were back’d by
particular Experiments; the want of which I have endeavour’d to supply, by
annexing some, whose Nature and Novelty I am made believe will render them
as well Acceptable as Instructive. (Works, 5: 295–6)
Yes, indeed, ‘particular experiments’ which will be ‘as well acceptable as

instructive’ were ever Boyle’s aim and, almost as often, his achievement. Boyle was
also well aware of the possibility of theory unchecked by experiment misleading
us badly. Reporting by request to the Royal Society on Pascal’s Treatise of the
Aequilibrium of Liquors, he indulged himself in some gentle humour at Pascal’s
expense:
the Reasons why, notwithstanding that I like most of Monsieur Paschall’s

Assertions, I decline imploying his way of proving them, are principally these.
First, Because though the Experiments he mentions be delivered in such a
manner, as is usual in mentioning matters of fact; yet I remember not that he
expresly says that he actually try’d them, and therefore he might possibly have
set them down as things that must happen, upon a just confidence that he was
not mistaken in his Ratiocinations. And of the reasonableness of this Doubt of

mine, I shall ere long have occasion to give an instance.
Secondly, Whether or no Monsieur Paschall ever made these Experiments
himself; he does not seem to have been very desirous, that others should make
them after him. For he supposes the Phænomena he builds upon to be produc’d
fifteen or twenty foot under water. And one of them requires, that a Man should
sit there with the End of a Tube leaning upon his Thigh. But he neither teaches
us how a Man shall be enabled to continue under water, nor how in a great
Cistern full of water, twenty foot deep, the Experimenter shall be able to discern
the alterations, that happen to Mercury and other Bodies at the Bottome.
And Thirdly, These Experiments require not only Tubes twenty foot long, and
a great Vessel of at least as many feet in depth, which will not in this Countrey
be easily procured, but they require Brass Cylinders, or Pluggs, made with an
exactness, that, though easily supposed by a Mathematician, will scarce be found
obtainable from a Tradesman. (Works, 5: 206)
Boyle’s admiration for Pascal was clearly sincere, but it was admiration
for the mathematician, not for the experimenter, and indeed, since Pascal’s
‘experiments’ were ‘more ingenious than practicable’, Boyle went on to give a
number of his own.52
7. Boyle’s Law
Most of us, I suppose, were taught at school that Boyle’s Law held for ideal
gases, and could be summarized as PV = k, where k is a constant, and P and
V are pressure and volume respectively.53 Well, that is Boyle’s Law, because the
physicists tell us it is, and it’s their discipline. But it is not what Boyle took himself
to have established.
As background, we note that Boyle was arguing specifically against a Jesuit
scientist, Franciscus Linus, who claimed, not that ordinary atmospheric air
does not have any pressure (a spring), but that its pressure was not sufficiently
powerful for it to do all the things it does in fact do. So Boyle decided on an
experiment to show the way in which, as we would say, the pressure and the
volume of the air vary, when the air is, in Boyle’s words, either ‘compressed or
dilated’.
He and his assistant, presumably Robert Hooke, made a J shaped tube and
began to make a few measurements, but ‘were hindered from prosecuting the
tryal at that time by the casual breaking of the Tube’ (Works, 3: 58).54
Subsequently they made another, larger, better piece of apparatus and taking
particular care that the measurements should be accurate, tested the hypothesis
‘that supposes the pressures and expansions to be in reciprocal proportion’
(Works, 3: 59). The results are set out, with misprints, in two tables, and Boyle’s
conclusion was that the experimental findings matched the predicted results
very well in the case of compression, less well in the case of rarefaction. Boyle
suggested that the divergence from the expected result in the case of rarefaction
may have been due to ‘some little aerial bubbles in the quicksilver’ (‘so easy is it
in such nice experiments to miss of exactness’, he added.)
Now, what did Boyle take himself to have shown? First, that there is, as a
matter of experimental fact, a spring to the air: this is not in the sense in which
Boyle understands the term, any longer an hypothesis: it is now obvious from
the experimental results: what explains, or purports to explain this fact will be
a theory or an hypothesis, but the result itself is in no sense an hypothesis, and
the fact that Boyle continued to refer to it as a ‘spring’ certainly doesn’t make it
one. As Boyle said,
to determine whether the motion of Restitution in Bodies, proceed from this,

That the parts of a Body of a peculiar Structure are put into motion by the
bending of the spring, or from the endeavor of some subtle ambient Body, whose
passage may be oppos’d or obstructed, or else its pressure unequally resisted by
reason of the new shape or magnitude, which the bending of a Spring may give
the Pores of it: To determine this, I say, seems to me a matter of more difficulty,
then at first sight one would easily imagine it. Wherefore I shall decline medling
with a subject, which is much more hard to be explicated, then necessary to be
so, by him, whose business it is not … to assign the adequate cause of the Spring
of the Air, but onely to manifest, That the Air has a Spring, and to relate some of
its effects. (Works, 1: 166)
Shapin and Schaffer (1985) suggest that Boyle ‘did not clearly discriminate
between the air’s spring and pressure as hypothetical causes of experimental
facts and as matters of fact in their own right’, but as they go on to note, for
Boyle, ‘their real existence had been proved by experiment, and he entertained
no doubt on that score’ (p. 50).
Second, Boyle takes himself to have shown that, for atmospheric air, within
the limits of his experimental set-up, ‘the pressures and expansions [are] in
reciprocal proportion’, or, as we would say, pressure and volume vary inversely.
He doesn’t take himself to have shown anything more than this. He does remark
that further experiments may show that the relationship holds outside the
boundary conditions imposed by the experimental set-up, but the experiments

he has just made certainly don’t show that. What Boyle expressly said was,
till further tryal hath more clearly informed me, I shall not venture to determine
whether or no the intimated Theory will hold universally and precisely, either
in Condensation of Air, or Rarefaction: all that I shall now urge being, That
however, the tryal already made sufficiently proves the main thing for which
I here alledge it; since by it ’tis evident, that as common Air when reduc’d to
half its wonted extent, obtained near about twice as forcible a Spring as it had
before; so this thus-comprest Air being further thrust into half this narrow
room, obtained thereby a Spring about as strong again as that it last had, and
consequently four times as strong as that of the common Air.
Thus Boyle’s Law, for Boyle, was not a universal generalization about ideal
gases: it was a strictly limited claim about common or atmospheric air. Boyle
did add that
there is no cause to doubt, that if we had been here furnisht with a greater quantity
of Quicksilver and a very strong Tube, we might by a further compression of
the included Air have made it counter-balance the pressure of a far taller and
heavier Cylinder of Mercury. (Works, 3: 60)
But he did not claim that the same ratio between pressure and volume would
hold in such more extreme cases. Nor did he claim that there are no limits to the
possible compression. It is worth stressing that Boyle had this limited view of his
result, for Shapin and Schaffer (1985) suggest that
The work Boyle undertook in reply to Linus was … done … with a specially
constructed J-shaped tube in which pressures higher than atmospheric could be
attained. Using this apparatus Boyle showed that if he compressed air twice as
strongly as usual he could produce twice as strong a spring. He concluded that
the process could go on indefinitely, so that there were no limits to the power of
the air’s spring. (pp. 168–9)55
But Boyle was quite happy not to draw such conclusions, simply because his
experiments didn’t allow that kind of jump. There are other important ways in
which he thought that generalizations about nature might fail of universality. He
had a very healthy notion of the complexity of the world and thought that the
Creator had really done rather well if things went more or less as planned. This is,
I think, one of the strong differences between Boyle’s views on these matters and
those of more mathematically inclined scientists such as Descartes or Leibniz56
or, come to that, Newton. Cudworth had pointed out that there appear to be
‘Errors and Bungles’ in the design of the world (1678, 1.3.4, pp. 149–50),57 and
Boyle was inclined to agree. Boyle had an acute sense of the difficulties to which
even apparently simple experiments could give rise, and perhaps in consequence
had more sympathy than stricter theologians for the problems which universe
construction might involve, even for the Almighty. For example, after having
noted that ‘the Power as well as Wisedom of the Great Creator’ is shown by the
solar system’s having been completely orderly ‘for many Ages; during which no
Watch for a few hours, has gone so regularly’, despite the ‘Wonderful … quantity
of Motion’ and ‘stupendiously rapid Motions’ involved, his own constant
intellectual honesty led him to note that the universe as a whole does not seem
to be behaving quite so regularly:
if the Firmament it self, whose Motion in the vulgar Hypothesis is by much

the most rapid in the World, do fail of exactly completing its revolution in 24
hours, that retardation is so regulated, that since Hipparchus’s time, who liv’d
2000 years ago, the first star in Aries, which was then near the beginning of it, is
not yet come to the last degree of that Sign. (Works, 10: 167–8)
Though the pious Boyle would have been horrified to think of himself as
patronizing God, it is clear that he thought God had done an acceptable, even if
not a perfect, job. As Daniel Beck remarks in a slightly different context, ‘Sprat’s
view of God as a Latitudinarian gentleman on his country estate has appeared
once again’ (Beck 1986: 144).
Boyle also entertained the possibility that laws of nature might fail of universal
application since God might simply have decided that in other solar systems
(say) the laws of motion might themselves be different, or the matter on which
they act might be different. He even suggested that we have some experimental
evidence that makes such possibilities more than merely logical:
if we grant, with some modern Philosophers, that God has made other Worlds
besides this of ours, it will be highly probable that he has there display’d His
manifold Wisedom, in productions very differing from those wherein we here
admire it. … Now, in case there be other Mundane Systemes (if I may so speak)
besides this visible one of ours, I think it may be probably suppos’d that God
may have given peculiar and admirable instances of His inexhausted Wisedom
in the Contrivance and Government of Systemes, that for ought we know may
be fram’d and manag’d in a manner quite differing, from what is observ’d in that
part of the Universe, that is known to us.
Boyle added, as a suggestive piece of evidence,
here on Earth the Loadstone is a Mineral so differing in divers affections, not

onely from all other Stones, but from all other bodies, that are not Magnetical,
that this Heteroclite Mineral scarce seems to be Originary of this World of
ours, but to have come into it, by a remove from some other World or Systeme.
(Works, 10: 172–3) 58
For Boyle, then,
The Primordial System of the Universe, or the great and Original Fabrick of the
World; was, as to us, arbitrarily establish’d by God. Not that he created things
without accompanying, and as it were regulating, his Omnipotence, by his
boundless wisdom; and consequently did nothing without weighty reasons: but
because those reasons are à Priori undiscoverable by us: … the only reason we
can assigne, is, that it pleas’d God at the begining of things, to give the world
and its parts that disposition. (BP 9.60r. MS 185:29 with the same content is
reprinted in BOA: 143)
Thus it is not surprising that, from Boyle’s point of view, a priori speculation
was unlikely to be useful, and global theories should be advanced, if at all,
but tentatively. As far as the deep structure of the world goes, we should be
content with plausible hypotheses, so long merely as they are intelligible, that
is, mechanical. What was of interest, and what went beyond mere plausibility,
was the everyday business of finding results that could be turned to practical
purpose: producing what certainly appeared to be a vacuum, and finding that it
could preserve food, for example.59 What was of almost no interest to Boyle was
system building; what was of considerable interest was fact finding.
Notes
A version of this paper was given in March 1991, at the annual International
Conference for Philosophy of Science in Dubrovnik; a later version was given at a
joint session of the Canadian Society for the History and Philosophy of Science and
the Canadian Society for the Study of European Ideas in May 1991. I am grateful
to members of the audience on both occasions for helpful suggestions. I have also
benefitted from a number of conversations with Margaret Osler on Boyleana and
related seventeenth-century matters.
1 As might be expected, opinions vary. My remark occupies the middle ground.
Thus More (1944) tells us that despite being favoured by his teachers ‘the boy did
not become a prig’, and goes on to speak, somewhat bizarrely, of Boyle’s ‘innate
manliness’ (p. 28). On the other hand, Dean (1959), discussing Theodora, finds
‘Boyle’s … prurient self-righteousness … acutely distasteful’ (p. 558).
2 Not quite all. Besides Dean’s downright dislike, already noted, a tone of irritation
pervades Shapin and Schaffer (1985), but most readers are more sympathetic.
It should be mentioned, too, that Shapin and Schaffer (1985) offer an ingenious
account of the reason for Boyle’s scientific style.
3 Boyle is offering this ‘physical’ experiment to confirm the Archimedean result
because … a Truth, which is one of the main and usefullest of the Hydrostaticks,
and may be of so much importance to Navigation, has not yet (that I know of)
been attempted to be demonstrated otherwise then upon Paper: it will not be
amiss, for the satisfaction of such of those whom it may concern, as are not
vers’d in Mathematical Demonstrations, to add an Experiment which I made
to prove it Mechanically; as exactly as is necessary for the satisfaction of such
persons.
Although he was enjoying himself, Boyle was making two important points: all
past results should be checked and replicated whenever possible, even those
vouched for by giants; and second, physical experiments are necessary in addition
to mathematical demonstrations, for as Boyle remarked on the same occasion,
‘Experiments that are but speculatively true, should be propos’d as such, and may
oftentimes fail in practise; because there may intervene divers other things capable
of making them miscarry, which are overlook’d by the Speculator, that is wont
to compute only the consequences of that particular thing which he principally
considers’ (Works, 5: 224).
4 This is a less all-embracing tribute than it might seem. Boyle was sent off to Eton
‘at somewhat past the Eighth yeere of his Age’ and stayed there ‘not much beneath
Foure Yeares’, at which time his father ‘tooke him absolutely away’ (BP 37.174r,
177r; Hunter 1994 5, 10). Almost immediately however he and his brother Francis
left for the continent in the care of a tutor. Since Boyle’s father died while Boyle
was still abroad, he knew Boyle only as a young child. However, given what we
know of Boyle’s life and character there seems no reason to doubt either the lasting
correctness of his father’s early assessment or his own somewhat self-congratulatory
self-assessment.
5 Boyle tells this story as though it happened before he went away to Eton on 9
September 1635. Boyle’s brother Richard and his wife were in Dublin at the time,
having arrived in Ireland 14 September 1634. Lady Dungarvan gave birth to her
first child in 1636. If we assume the incident occurred in August or early September
of 1635, Boyle would have been 8, his sister Katherine 20.
6 Eyebright is the popular name of the plant Euphrasia officinalis. Tinctures of the
herb are astringent and if applied to the eye can cause redness, itching and swelling.
The Oxford English Dictionary quotes Salmon (1671, III, xxii, p. 399): ‘Eye bright …
strengthens the head, eyes and memory, clears the sight.’ Boyle suffered from bad
eyesight throughout his life. At the very beginning of his scientific career he tells
us that he suffered from a ‘distemper’ in his eyes which prevented him ‘not onely
to write my self so much as one experiment, but even to read over myself what
I dictated to others’ (Works, 1: 145).
7 Boyle has Carneades’ remark, regarding van Helmont’s claim to have a universal
solvent: ‘I cannot but say on this Occasion what (you know) our Friend Mr. Boyle
is wont to say, when he is askt his Opinion of any strange Experiment; That He that
hath seen it hath more Reason to beleeve it, than He that hath not’ (Works, 2: 244).
And indeed, we find Mr. Boyle saying the same thing concerning reports of
locating metals by dowsing with hazel rods: ‘But of this Experiment I must content
my self to say, what I am wont to do when my opinion is ask’d of those things which
I dare not peremptorily reject, and yet am not convinc’d of; namely, that they that
have seen them can much more reasonably believe them than they that have not’
(Works, 2: 69).
8 Michael Hunter has pointed out to me that Aubrey was quoting from Anthony
Walker’s funeral sermon for Boyle’s sister, Mary Rich, Countess of Warwick.
9 There is in fact some reason to suppose that Boyle’s own views were not, for the
England of his time, strictly orthodox.
10 Boyle was pleased with his station in life. As a young man he wrote (referring
to himself as Philaretus), ‘To be such Parent’s Son, & not their Eldest, was
a Happinesse that our Philaretus would mention with greate expressions of
Gratitude; his birth so suiting his Inclinations & his Desseins, that had he been
permitted an Election, his Choice would scarce have alter’d God’s Assignement.
For as on the one side a Lower Birth, wud have too much expoz’d him to the
Inconveniences of a meane Discent; which are too notorious to need specifying;
soe on the other side, to a Person whose Humor indisposes him to the distracting
Hurry of the World; the being borne Heire to a Greate Family, is but a Glittering
kind of Slavery; whilst obliging him to a Publick & entangled course of Life to
suport the Credit of his Family & tying him from satisfying his dearest Inclinations,
it often forces him to build the Advantages of his House upon the Ruines of
his owne Contentment. … But now our Philaretus was borne in a Condition,
that neither was high enuf to prove a Temptation to Lazinesse; nor low enuf to
discourage him from aspiring’ (BP 37.170v; Hunter 1994: 2–3).
Concerning his scientific achievements he remarks that he has ‘been look’d
upon as no undiligent Cultivator of Experimental Philosophy’ (Works, 11: 284),
and elsewhere describes himself as one ‘who has made the Indagation of Nature
somewhat more than a Parergon, and having by a not-lazie nor short Enquiry
manifested, how much He loves and can relish the Delight It affords, has had
the good Fortune to make some Discoveries in it, and the Honour to have them
Publickly, and but too Complementally, taken notice of by the Virtuosi’
(Works, 8: 9).
11 Boyle sometimes adds a third book, the book of conscience (see e.g. BP 8.123), but
in the main he stays with the more common dichotomy.
12 Boyle makes this point in a number of places and discusses the whole matter
at length in such works as The Reconcileableness of Reason and Religion (Works,
8: 233–313) and A Discourse of Things above Reason (Works, 9: 361–424). Boyle
offers as an example of the kind of thing he has in mind the ‘Controversy about
the endless Divisibility of Quantity’ suggesting that, although one of the opposing
opinions must be true, we are unlikely to find out which. There are, he suggests,
many such cases, in which each of two contradictory positions ‘is maintainable
by such Arguments, as very Learned and Subtle Men do both Acquiesce in, and
Enforce, by loading the Embracers of the opposite Opinion, with Objections they
cannot directly answer’ (Works, 11: 341).
13 It should be remembered that for Boyle imagination was neurophysiological
in nature and as such involved definite limitations. In addition to cases such as
Descartes’s chiliagon, there are, for example, things which are literally too big for us
to imagine, and things which are too small (Works, 3: 221; BP 6.307–8, BOA: 56).
I have discussed this point at slightly greater length in MacIntosh (1983) and
MacIntosh (1991).
14 ‘[W]‌e are so accustomed from our Infancy to employ our Imagination, when we
would conceive things, that most men find it very uneasy, and therefore thinke it
impossible, to frame any conceptions that are not Phantasms. And when we strain
to exercise acts of pure Intellection, we thinke our thoughts want somewhat, that
ought, as it was wont, to accompany them’ (BP 2.146; 7:162; BOA: 253).
15 ‘[N]‌ot only desperately wicked men as such, but the generality of men (I had almost
added as they are men) are subject to an inbred Temptation upon the account of
selfe Love’ (BP 6.303–4; BOA: 54), and again, more strongly: ‘Philosophers are
subject to humane frailties in general, & not only so, but to personal weaknesses &
defects, as Lazynes, Envy, Ambition, Arrogance, Hatred &c They often contradict
one another, and not seldom themselves. Th many of them, have been actually
mistaken, & some of them grossly so’ (BP 9.34).
16 This problem had already been noticed by Bacon: ‘[T]‌he Empirical school of
philosophy gives birth to dogmas more deformed and monstrous than the
Sophistical or Rational school. For it has its foundations not in the light of
common notions (which though it be a faint and superficial light, is yet in a
manner universal, and has reference to many things), but in the narrowness and
darkness of a few experiments’ (New Organon, in Bacon (1857, 1.174–5); English
translation, 4.65).
17 The exception to this would be an account of human cognition and human action.
That would require reference to God: ‘The Rational Soul or Mind of Man, as it is
distinct from the sensitive Soul, being an immaterial Spirit; is a substance of so
Heteroclite a kind, in reference to things so vastly differing from it as mere Bodies
are, that since I could neither, without injuring it, treat of it promiscuously with the
Corporeal Works of God, nor speak worthily of it, without frequently interrupting
and disordering my Discourse by Exceptions, that would either make it appear
intricate, or would be very troublesome to you or any other that you may think fit
to make my Reader; I thought I might, for others ease and my own, be allow’d to
set aside the considerations of it in the present Treatise: And the rather, because
all other parts of the Universe being, according to the receiv’d Opinion, the Works
of Nature, we shall not want in them Subjects more than sufficiently numerous,
whereon to make our Examen. Though I shall here consider the World but as the
great System of things Corporeal, as it once really was, towards the close of the
sixth day of the Creation, when God had finish’d all his material Works, but had
not yet Created Man’ (Works, 10: 452). However Boyle was in fact very pessimistic
about the possibility of our explaining human cognition (see e.g. Works, 12: 475–6).
18 See e.g. BP 2.63–4, BOA: 283–5; BP 6.301, BOA: 52–3. I have discussed Boyle’s
views on this matter at greater length in MacIntosh (1991).
19 See e.g. Works, 11: 293: ‘[T]‌he Experimental Philosophy giving us a more clear
discovery, than Strangers to it have, of the divine Excellencies display’d in the
Fabrick and Conduct of the Universe, and of the Creatures it consists of, very much
indisposeth the mind, to ascribe such admirable Effects to so incompetent and
pitiful a Cause as Blind Chance, or the tumultuous Justlings of Atomical Portions
of senseless Matter; and leads it directly to the acknowledgment and adoration
of a most Intelligent, Powerful and Benign Author of things, to whom alone such
excellent Productions may, with the greatest Congruity, be ascrib’d.’
Or again, ‘I must needs acknowledge, … that when with bold Telescopes, I survay
the old and newly discovered Starrs and Planets that adorn the upper Region of
the World; and when with excellent Microscopes I discern in otherwise invisible
Objects the unimitable Subtlety of Nature’s Curious Workmanship; And when, in
a word, by the help of Anatomicall Knives, and the light of Chymicall Furnaces,
I study the Book of Nature, and consult the Glosses of Aristotle, Epicurus,
Paracelsus, Harvey, Helmont, and other learn’d Expositors of that instructive
Volumne; I find my self oftentimes reduc’d to exclaim with the Psalmist, How
manifold are thy works, O Lord? in wisdom hast thou made them all’
(Works, 1: 85–6).
20 Other favourites are the equality between denumerable infinities and their
denumerably infinite supersets, and the apparent, though incomprehensible,
coexistence of human freedom and divine prescience.
21 Locke was equally aware of our ignorance concerning the operation of the
Cartesian soul, ‘He that considers how hardly Sensation is, in our Thoughts,
reconcilable to extended Matter; or Existence to any thing that hath no Extension
at all, will confess, that he is very far from knowing what his Soul is’ (Locke 1975,
4.3.6).
22 Locke (1975, 4.3.6) and see further Locke (1823, 4: 468).

23 The notion of chance was in transition during Boyle’s lifetime (see Hacking 1975
and Schneider 1980); nonetheless it seemed clear to Boyle that some things
required by the materialist’s hypothesis were massively improbable.
24 In Usefulness I, Works, 3: 255&n, Boyle refers with approval to Lactantius’s attack
on the Lucretian account of the generation of animals (Divine Institutiones, Book 2,
ch. 11 (ch. 12 in Migne 1844, vol. 6)). The attack in Book 3 is also very much in line
with Boyle’s views.
25 The text follows BP 1.4; BP 1.61 replaces the crossed out ‘alwayes necessary to’ with
‘to be requird in’.
26 Boyle considers the possibility of a competing (‘Lying’) miracle, ‘as in the case of
the Egyptian Sorcerers and Moses; Simon Magus and the two Apostles, Peter &
John; or … God [may] permit it to try men’. BP 7.123, BOA: 295.
27 Boyle does realize that ‘usually, such as are born in such a place, espouse the
opinions, true or false, that obtain there’ (Works, 12: 421) but clearly considers that
his grounds are strong enough to override this worry.
28 Other writers of the time took the religions farther east more seriously. See e.g.
Leibniz (1977) and Malebranche (1980). In both these works the Christian view
of the world is accepted as the correct one, but alternative views are given serious
consideration in both cases. For interesting discussions of Leibniz’s position, see
Mungello (1977) and Roy (1972).
29 Boyle was an admirer of Grotius and arranged when a young man to have Edward
Pococke translate The Truth of the Christian Religion into Arabic. Pococke did so,
leaving out as counter-productive however, the parts that he thought might offend
Muslims: ‘In the sixth booke, I thought it necessary to put no other things for matter
of history, than will be acknowledged by the Mahometans. and indeed Grotius
himselfe was of that opinion. and therefore I have left out what is sayd of the pigeon
flying to Mahomets ear; and that the mouse was bred of the Camels dong; and that
halfe the Moone came into his sleeve. and some few things are so altered, as that they
might rather agree with what they themselves affirme, than what others Rhetorically
descant on the story’ (Pococke to Boyle, 5 October 1660, Correspondence, 1:427).
30 Van Leeuwen’s early study rather underestimates the acuteness of Descartes in the
matter of moral certainty. For useful correctives, see Garber (1978) and Morrison
(1989). It should also be mentioned that though Grotius is often mentioned by
Boyle, he does not refer to Tillotson and Chillingworth.
31 With a few notable exceptions (see e.g. Ashworth 1974) historians of philosophy
currently somewhat neglect seventeenth-century ‘vulgar’ logic, but the vulgar
logicians had a number of epistemologically interesting suggestions to offer. As an
example of the treatment of these topics in an early logic text cf. Blundeville (1599):
Whereof dependeth the certainety of mans knowledge?

Of three things, that is, of vniuersall experience, of principles, & of naturall

knowledge that a man hath in iudging of Consequents: for these be three
infallible rules of certitude or truth in all kinds of doctrine. …
Principles be certaine generall conceptions & naturall knowledges grated
in mans minde of God, to the intent that by the helpe thereof he might inuent
such artes as are necessarie in this life for mans behoofe, for by the naturall
knowledge of the mind we vnderstand, number, order, proportion, and all
other necessary artes and sciences.
… the third thing whereof the certainety of mans knowledge dependeth
… is the knowledge that man hath in iudging of consequents, which is not
altogether artificiall, but partly naturall, for God thought it not sufficient
for mans behoofe to know simple propositions as principles or common
conceptions gotten by experience, vnlesse hee could also compare them
together, and ioyne thinges like: and agreeable together, and seuer things
vnlike, and disagreeing one from another, and by such comparison and
composition to finde out thinges before not knowne. (Book 5, ch. 18, ‘Of the
Certainty of Mans Knowledge’, p. 141)
32 This certainty, Locke remarked, ‘is not only as great as our frame can attain to, but
as our Condition needs’ (Locke 1975, 4.11.8).
33 Correcting the printed ‘causes’ to the ms. reading ‘cases’ (BP 2.113).
34 ‘Our discussion will be adequate if it has as much clearness as the subject-matter
admits of: for precision is not to be sought for alike in all discussions, any more
than in all the products of the crafts’ (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 1094b12–14,
in Aristotle 1984).
35 In manuscript Boyle wrote but eventually decided to omit the following: ‘Wee may
indeed wish that about matters that doe soe nearly concerne us we had soe much
evidence to make our determinations by as might enable us to answer fully all
obiections & scruples. But tho we may wish this: yet we must [not] always expect it,
nor think resolutions Unreasonable or Precipitate that are made upon inducements
that are not soe clear & satisfactory as such an Evidence would be’ (BP 2.114. The
ms. has ‘must always expect it’).
36 Note that Boyle’s ‘personal experience’ is Blundeville’s universal experience. For a
further discussion of Boyle on moral certainty, see Rogers (1966).
37 This point is argued persuasively and at length in van Leeuwen (1970), though
van Leeuwen does make one important slip in his discussion. He offers evidence
that Boyle believes, concerning each knowledge claim, that it may be false, but
sums this up by saying, ‘Boyle seems, then, to recognize as a real possibility that
all knowledge … may in fact be false’. This move from ∀x◊Fx to ◊∀xFx (where x
ranges over knowledge claims, and F is the semantic operator ‘it is false that’) is
fallacious, and is not Boyle’s.
38 This case also provides us with an interesting example of Boyle’s treatment of

negative results: ‘We observ’d also, that when the Receiver was full of Air, the
included Pendulum continued its Recursions about fifteen minutes before … it
left off swinging; and that after the exsuction of the Air, the Vibration of the same
Pendulum … appeared not … to last sensibly longer. So that the event of this
Experiment being other than we expected, scarce afforded us any other satisfaction,
than that of our not having omitted to try it. And whether, in case the tryal be
made with a Pendulum much less disproportionate to the Air than Steel is, the
event will much better answer expectation, experience may be consulted’
(Works, 1: 229).
39 ‘On a Method of Arriving at a True Analysis of Bodies and the Causes of
Natural Things’ (1677), in Gerhardt 1875, 7.265, trans. Loemker (1956, 1.265).
This continued to be Leibniz’s view. In 1685, for example, he wrote to Arnauld,
‘[H]‌owever much I agree with the Scholastics in this general and, so to speak,
metaphysical explanation of the principles of bodies, I am as corpuscular as one
can be in the explanation of particular phenomena … One must always explain
nature along mathematical and mechanical lines, provided one knows that the
very principles or laws of mechanics or of force do not depend upon mathematical
extension alone but upon certain metaphysical reasons’ (Leibniz to Arnauld 4/14
July 1686, Gerhardt 1872, 2.58, trans. Mason 1967, p. 68).
And in the last year of his life he wrote, ‘These [Chinese] interpreters [of
Confucius] are correct when they do not accept – as the ignorant people of
antiquity did – that Jupiter, or some aerial genie, throws thunderbolts, that there
are certain greybeards, residing in the mountains and the hollows of the earth
who pour out the rivers from their urns; they are correct when they believe that all
comes about naturally by virtue of the qualities of matter’ (Leibniz 1977, 46, p. 125).
40 It is worth noting that Boyle does not on this account rule out substantial forms
altogether: ‘[W]‌hen ever I shall speake indefinitely of Substantiall forms, I would
alwayes be understood to except the Reasonable Soule, that is said to inform the
humane Body; which Declaration I here desire may be taken notice of once for all’
(Works, 5: 300).
41 Thus Boyle wrote, against the Aristotelians, ‘’tis but an ill grounded Hypothesis to
suppose that new Qualities cannot be introduced into a mixt Body, or those that it
had before be destroyed unless by adding or taking away a sensible portion of some
one or more of the Aristotelian Elements, or Chymicall Principles. For there may
be many changes as to Quality, produc’d in a Body without visibly adding, or taking
away any Ingredient, barely by altering the Texture, or the motion of the Minute
Parts it consists of ’ (Works, 6: 271).
Boyle gave various examples, among them that water sealed up in glass loses
fluidity, transparency; acquires firmness, brittleness, opacity, when frozen and
exhibits the reverse effects when thawed, but no ‘Element or Hypostatical Principle
can be prov’d to get into or out of this seal’d Glass’. See also, for example, his
account of why the Copernican hypothesis is to be preferred to that of Ptolemy
(Works, 12: 436).
42 For an important and ingenious argument to the conclusion that such lawlike
connections leave physicalism at a loss see Crane (1991).
43 To some extent this was true of Descartes as well: ‘[I]‌t suffices if I have explained
what imperceptible things may be like, even if perhaps they are not so. And
although perhaps in this way it may be understood how all natural things could
have been created, it should not therefore be concluded that they were in fact so
created. For just as the same artisan can make two clocks which indicate the hours
equally well and are exactly similar externally, but are internally composed of
an entirely dissimilar combination of small wheels: so there is no doubt that the
greatest Artificer of things could have made all those things which we see in many
diverse ways. And indeed I most willingly concede this to be true, and will think
that I have achieved enough if those things which I have written are only such that
they correspond accurately to all the phenomena of nature, whether these effects
are produced by the causes I have explained or by others. And indeed this will also
suffice for the needs of everyday life’ (Descartes 1983, Pt. 4 204, p. 286).
Descartes refers in the same section to Aristotle’s view that ‘[w]e consider a
satisfactory explanation of phenomena inaccessible to observation to have been
given when our account of them is free from impossibilities’. (The reference is to
Aristotle, Meteorology, 344a5–8 in Aristotle 1984.)
Certainly Boyle felt that he and Descartes were at one on this issue: ‘[B]‌ut that
severe Philosopher Monsieur Des Cartes himself somewhere says, that he scarce
thought, that he understood any thing in Physiques, but what he could declare by
some apt Similitude; of which, in effect, he has many in his Writings; [As, where
he compares the Particles of fresh Water, to little Eels; and the Corpuscles of Salt
in the Sea-water, to little rigid Staves; and where, after the Stoicks, he compares the
Sense of Objects by the intervention of Light, to the Sense that a blind Man hath of
Stones, Mud, &c. by the intervention of his Staff.] To which I shall add, That proper
Comparisons do the Imagination almost as much Service, as Microscopes do the
Eye; for, as this Instrument gives us a distinct view of divers minute Things, which
our naked Eyes cannot well discern; because these Glasses represent them far more
large, than by the bare Eye we judge them; so a skilfully chosen, and well-applied,
Comparison much helps the Imagination, by illustrating Things scarce discernible,
so as to represent them by Things much more familiar and easy to be apprehended’
(Works, 11: 287–8, square brackets in original).
Descartes sometimes took a stronger position, however. Morrison (1989:
61) draws our attention to Descartes to Mersenne, 11 March 1640: ‘As far as physics
is concerned, I believed that I knew nothing at all if I could only say how things
might be, without being able to prove that they could not be otherwise’ (Adam and
Tannery 1964, 3:39).
44 Nor was he moved by the question, whether and to what extent macro properties
can be explained by postulating corpuscles with the same properties writ
small, though he flirts with the problem both when discussing the hypothetical
‘frigorifick’ atoms, about which he is clearly sceptical, and when discussing the
emanative properties Epicurean atoms must have.
45 Compare his suggestion that any of three very different corpuscular hypotheses
about cooling will serve to displace the Aristotelian explanation: ‘[W]‌hen the
Liquor is remov’d from the fire, this acquir’d Agitation must needs by degrees be
lost, either by the avolation of such fiery Corpuscles as the Epicureans imagine to
be got into heated Water, or by the Water’s communicating the Agitation of its Parts
to the contiguous Air, or to the Vessel that contains it, till it have lost its surplusage
of Motion, or by the ingress of those frigorifick Atoms, wherewith (if any such be
to be granted) the Air in these Climates is wont to abound, and so be reduc’d into
its former Temperature: which may as well be done without a substantial Form’
(Works, 5: 345).
46 There is, however, more to be said on this matter. For an ingenious defence of
Spinoza’s position, see Bennett (1984, ch. 4).
47 Locke’s dubiety is well-known. (For an interesting discussion, see Mackie 1976,
ch. 3.) Here is a less well-known figure, Richard Burthogge, on the matter: ‘I infer
… that human knowledge (at least for the most part) is but Intentional, not Real;
and that we have no Perception of any thing, (In any degree to speak of,) just as it
is in its own Reality and being. … for example, as to Water; we have no knowledge
of it by all, or any of our senses, what really it is in it self, just as it is, and absolutely
speaking; for we are utterly ignorant (otherwise than by Conjecture) of the
Magnitude and size of the little parts that compose it; Ignorant of their figure and
shape; and Ignorant also of the kind, and degree of motion they have; all this we are
Ignorant of, and yet this is all that is Real in Water (Burthogge 1694, 1.3.2, 66–7).
48 Rom Harré has pointed out that Boyle was a realist on Hacking-esque
grounds: ‘Boyle in the Origin of Forms and Qualities … argues for corpuscularian
realism by trying to show that mechanical manipulations mechanical
manipulations of the invisible particles brings about visible changes in properties of
materials’ (Harré 1989: 56–7).
49 Boyle was also acutely aware that ‘advantage’ was a term to be used with care.
Making the point that iron is of more use than gold, he wrote, ‘For though it [the
Invention of Extracting Gold and Silver out of the Oar, with Mercury] have vastly
enrich’d the Spaniards in the West Indies, yet ’tis not of any solid advantage to the
World; no more than the Discovery of the Peruvian and other American Mines;
by which (especially reckoning the multitudes of unhappy men, that are made
miserable, and destroyed in working them,) Mankind is not put into a better
condition than it was before’ (Works, 8: 62).
50 Hooke agreed with the methodological point which, he suggested, is a Baconian
one: ‘I judge there is noething conduces soe much to the advancement of
Philosophy as the examining of hypotheses by experiments & the inquiry into
Experiments by hypotheses, and I have the Authority of the Incomparable Verulam
to warrant me’ (Hooke to Brouncker, June 1672, in Newton 1959, 1: 202).
51 This is a common theme in Boyle. For example: ‘[T]‌hough I freely confess to you,
that I think the generation of Hail difficult enough to be solidly explicated; yet
I scruple not to reject the receiv’d doctrine about it, for several reasons’ (Works,
4: 475).
52 For further discussion of Pascal’s views concerning experiment, see Arnold (1989a,
1989b) and Dear (1990).
53 In the mid-nineteenth century James Joule demonstrated that, given certain
assumptions about the number, size and random motion of molecules, if we
identify the pressure P on the wall of any vessel containing a gas with the force per
unit area exerted by the molecules in their collisions with the container, we can
2
Nm0 v
then prove PV =
3
where N is the number of molecules in the container, m0 is the mass of each
2
molecule, v is the mean-square speed of the molecules and V is the volume of the
2
container. If we further assume that v remains constant when the temperature
of the gas remains constant, then this formula expresses Boyle’s law, for all
the quantities on the right-hand side of the equation are constant. For further
discussion of the interrelation of idealization and actuality in Boyle’s Law after
Boyle’s time, see Harré (1989) and Savitt (1993).
54 Such mishaps were not uncommon in Boyle’s real world laboratory. Here is another
example: ‘Some time after the foregoing Account had been written, when I came to
look upon the Liquor (which in the mean time had been several times viewed, and
appeared to retain its motions) I found to my trouble, that some body’s impertinent
curiosity and heedlessness had crackt the lower part of the Earthen Pot; at which
overture the Liquor, tho’ not the Scum, was run out: which had put a period to our
Observations, but that, foreseeing, that such an Accident might happen, I had long
before taken out some spoonfulls of the Liquor, and kept it close stopt in a Vial’.
[Later, Boyle took it out of the vial and put it in a ‘China cup’ to gratify the curiosity
of a foreign minister ‘and that of some ingenious men there present’. He put] ‘the
Vessel into divers postures in a Window, the better to discover the true cause of
this Phænomenon; but whilst I was busy about this, which ingrossed my attention,
a mischance overturned the Cup, and by throwing down the Liquor, put an end to
my speculation’ (Works, 9: 451).
55 It should be noted, however, that Shapin (1988: 36) points out explicitly that Boyle
does indeed ‘not venture to determine, whether or no the intimated theory will
hold universally’.
56 For Descartes, see Osler (1985); for Leibniz see Okruhlik (1985) and McRae (1985).
57 Cudworth opted for a ‘Plastic Nature’ intervening between God and the world in
order, inter alia, to explain away these apparent defects in the design.
58 Compare Works, 8:122: ‘[T]‌he very small knowledge we have of the structure
and constitution of Globes so many thousands or hundreds of thousands of
miles remote from us, and the great ignorance we must be in of the nature of the
particular Bodies, that may be presum’d to be contained in those Globes … may
keep it from being unreasonable to imagine, that some, if not many, of those Bodies
and their effluxions may be of a nature quite differing from those we take notice
of here about us, and consequently may operate after a very differing and peculiar
manner.’
59 See e.g. A Continuation of New Experiments, Physico-Mechanical, touching the
Spring and Weight of the Air, and Their Effects. The Second Part, where Boyle, after
reporting on a series of experiments on preserving a variety of foodstuffs in vacuo,
remarks, ‘All these Experiments about the preservation of Aliments, what great use
they may be of for the transporting of Fruits, Venison, or other Flesh from places
far remote to great Cities, and for the affording better nourishment to Mariners,
I leave to the Reader to judge’ (Works, 9: 255).
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5
Boyle on Explanation and Causality

Laurence Carlin
Aristotle famously maintained that to have knowledge of some phenomenon is

to grasp the cause of that phenomenon. Thus, if knowledge of nature is our goal,
explanations of natural phenomena, he argued, should invoke causes (cf. Phys
II.3, 194b16–195a4). He identified four such causes to which one can appeal in
response to ‘why’ questions that call for explanations:
The material cause: ‘that out of which’ something comes to exist.

The formal cause: ‘the nature’ or ‘essence’ of something, or that which determines
what it is.
The efficient cause: ‘the primary source of change or rest’.
The final cause: ‘that for the sake of which’ of something comes to exist, or the
end or goal of a certain substance or phenomenon. (cf. Phys II.3, 194b16-195a4;
Met. V.2, 1013a24-1013b16)
Consider Aristotle’s example of the statue: the bronze is the material cause, since
it explains that from which the statue comes to be. The shape of the bronze is the
formal cause, since it explains why it is, for example, a statue and not a table. The
efficient cause is the knowledge and movements of the sculptor, the source of
change that brought the statue into existence. The final cause is the statue itself,
that for the sake of which the entire process is aimed.
Aristotle’s ‘doctrine of the four causes’ (as it is frequently labelled) was closely
tied to his hylomorphism. This is (roughly) the view that physical objects are
substances that are compounds of form and matter. Each natural object is a hunk
of matter with a form that makes it what it is; it makes it this particular kind
of substance as opposed to some other. Thus, nature consists of hylomorphic
substances (compounds of matter and form), and scientific knowledge of them
comes via explanations that appeal to the four causes.
It would be difficult to exaggerate the extent to which Aristotle’s hylomorphism

and its attendant theory of causality influenced subsequent thinking. In the
hands of Aquinas and others, Aristotelianism turned Christian, and the result –
‘Scholastic’ medieval philosophy – is replete with references to the doctrine of the
four causes.1 Scholastic explanations of natural phenomena in terms of the four
causes were common throughout the sixteenth century and early seventeenth
century. It was partly against this intellectual background that later seventeenth-
century thinkers revolted.
Boyle was a major figure in the revolt. He was one of the leading proponents
of the mechanical philosophy (or mechanism), an explanatory scheme that
banished hylomorphism and any use of Aristotelian formal and material causes.
Mechanist philosophers sought to explain natural phenomena solely in terms of
the ‘structural’ (cf. Nadler 1998: 520f.) properties of matter – size, shape, texture
and motion – without appeal to forms.2 Accordingly, Boyle campaigned for an
explanatory scheme that made heavy use of efficient causes to account for natural
phenomena. And while other seventeenth-century thinkers (e.g. Descartes)
eschewed final causes, Boyle argued at length for a mechanical worldview
explainable by both efficient and final causes. The result shows that Boyle was a
systematic philosopher whose views on causality intersected with the theology,
science and value theory of the time and thereby left a major impact on early
modern philosophy.
1. Boyle on why mechanical explanations are superior
Boyle’s rejection of the Aristotelian (or ‘Peripatetic’) explanatory framework

came with a mechanical (or ‘corpuscularian’) worldview fundamentally at odds
with hylomorphism. While an analysis of the ontology of Boyle’s mechanism
is not my primary concern here, it is necessary to note some of its basic tenets,
since they are essential ingredients of a proper understanding of Boyle’s views
on causality.
In The Origin of Forms and Qualities According to the Corpuscular Philosophy
(1666), one of Boyle’s first systematic expositions of his philosophy of nature,
he presented a summary of his corpuscularian commitments. He argued that
‘the matter of all natural bodies is the same, namely, a substance extended and
impenetrable’, and that ‘all bodies thus agreeing in the same common matter,
their distinction is to be taken from those accidents that do diversify it’ (Works,
5: 333). Here Boyle presented the most fundamental belief of the mechanists,
Robert Boyle on Explanation 143
namely, that all bodies are made up of one kind of material substance that is both
extended in space and impenetrable. While this may not seem to be a substantial
thesis, it is worth noting that not all Scholastic thinkers held it. Rather, many
believed that there were four different kinds of fundamental matter (earth, air,
fire and water – the four ‘elements’).3 But for Boyle, since the matter of all bodies
is exactly the same, we need to look for other modes (‘accidents’) of matter when
it comes to the task of distinguishing one body from another.
Among these modes of matter, motion is particularly important for Boyle:
That motion, not belonging to the essence of matter … and not being originally
producible by other accidents as they are from it, may be looked upon as the first
and chief mood or affection of matter. (Works, 5: 333)
The point Boyle made here about motion is crucial for our purposes, since it is
motion that does a lot of the efficient causal work in Boyle’s world. The motion
that matter exhibits is imposed externally upon it (by God – more on that later);
it does ‘not belong to the essence of matter’. In other words, motion is not a
property that ‘follows from’ or is necessarily linked to the essence of matter in the
way that (say) the property of being extended follows from the essence of matter.
Note also Boyle’s claim that motion is the most fundamental of all mechanical
‘affections, for nothing can produce motion except other motion, though motion
can produce other ‘accidents’ or properties (e.g. motion can cause changes in
shape and texture). In this sense, motion is the most fundamental mode of
matter, that is, ‘the chief mood or affection of matter’.
When God adds motion to matter, the motion divides that matter into parts
and fragments, thus creating little particles of matter, particles too minute to be
sensed by us. As a result, the world is ultimately constructed out of tiny bits of
matter, each endowed with the familiar mechanical properties:
Whence it must necessarily follow that each of these Minute Parts, or minima
Naturalia (as well as every particular Body made up by the Coalition of any
number of them,) must have its Determinate Bigness or Size, and its own Shape.
And these three, namely Bulk, Figure, and either Motion or Rest … are the three
Primary and most Catholic Moods or Affections of the insensible parts of Matter.
(Works, 5: 333)
Boyle emphasized that even the tiniest bits of matter do not differ mechanically
from the macroscopic ones of ordinary experience, for they too are hunks
of matter endowed with size, shape and motion. Nature is corpuscularian
‘all the way down’ (as it were), and it is partly in virtue of the interactions of
mechanical matter at this microscopic level that nature exhibits an apparent

macroscopic order.
According to Boyle, while the accidents of bodies arise from the three
primary ones of size, shape and motion, there are other properties to which we
might appeal in our explanations. For example, when many particles are brought
together, ‘there will necessarily follow here below both a certain position … and a
certain order’ with respect to each other (Works, 5: 334). And when the particles
are arranged with such specific positions and orders, ‘there results that by which
one comprehensive name we call the texture of that body’ (Works, 5: 334). Boyle
placed emphasis on the ‘second-order’ property of texture, as he thought it
was an important mechanical property of bodies, one causally responsible in
natural interactions.4 So, while we might appeal to a bit more than size, shape
and motion, still there is ‘no necessity of admitting in Natural things any such
substantial Forms’, since ‘matter and the Accidents of Matter [are] sufficient to
explicate as much of the Phenomena of Nature, as we either do or are like to
understand’ (Works, 5: 340).
Such is a brief sketch of Boyle’s ontology. It came with a rejection of
traditional material and formal causes as ways of explaining the natural
operations present in that ontology. Of course, since there are no substantial
forms in bodies, an appeal to Aristotelian formal causes might be a bad fit, and
since the matter of all bodies is the same, an appeal to an Aristotelian material
cause might be vacuous at best. But his reasons for rejecting the Aristotelian
explanatory framework extend far beyond their lack of fit with the strictly
corpuscularian natural world. Indeed, Boyle provided explicit criteria for
acceptable explanations, and the ones offered by the Aristotelian ‘four causes’
tradition did not meet those criteria nearly as well as those offered by the
mechanical philosophy.
In general, Boyle consistently maintained that to ‘explicate a phenomenon …
we must intelligibly shew the particular manner’ in which it is produced (Works,
10: 558), and ‘in Physical enquiries’ an appeal to efficient causes is preferable
for this task (Works, 3: 40). Perhaps the clearest statement of Boyle’s views
on explanation is in his Of the Excellency and Grounds of the Corpuscular or
Mechanical Philosophy (1674). In this work, he listed a number of criteria for
acceptable explanations and argued that the mechanical philosophy met those
criteria and its Aristotelian (and other) competitors did not.
‘The first thing that I shall mention to this purpose’, wrote Boyle, ‘is the
Intelligibleness or Clearness of Mechanical Principles and Explications’ (Works,
8: 104). In offering intelligibility and clarity as virtues of mechanism, Boyle clearly
implied that mechanism’s competitors, Aristotelian Scholasticism and others

that Boyle noted,5 are not frameworks for intelligible and clear explanations.
Indeed, Boyle remarked that ‘among the Peripateticks, the Disputes are many and
intricate about Matter [and] Substantial Forms’ (Works, 8: 104). The theoretical
employment of these notions makes the theories themselves ‘superficial’, and
so ‘the Authors have better plaid the part of Painters than Philosophers’ (Works,
8: 104). At best, it is superficial to explain the redness of a rose by a real quality of
‘red’. More likely, the meaning and application of such terms are unclear, as they
have no grounding in empirical observation, a grounding upon which Boyle the
empiricist would surely have insisted.
On the other hand, the ‘corpuscular philosophy’ suffers no such weakness:
But to come now to the Corpuscular philosophy, men do so easily understand

one another’s meaning, when they talk of local motion, rest, bigness, shape, order,
situation, and contexture of material substances. (Works, 8: 105)
Boyle held that the notions employed by the mechanist are so clear and
intelligible that the explanations that include these terms must be acceptable
even to the Aristotelian. After all, mechanism employs notions of structural
properties grounded in empirical observation and utilized in common-sense
discourse about ordinary objects. Boyle’s point, then, is that no matter what
framework one endorses, one has to admit that mechanism employs clear and
intelligible notions.
Another advantage Boyle cites also involves tacit criticisms of
Aristotelianism: ‘In the next place, I observe that there cannot be fewer
principles than the two grand ones of Mechanical philosophy – matter and
motion’ (Works, 8: 105). Mechanism makes use of only two principles, matter
and motion, through which natural phenomena can be explained. Clearly,
Boyle thinks it is a virtue of a good scientific framework that it employs as
few fundamental principles as possible, and fans of Occam’s Razor will agree.6
His criticism here of the Aristotelian natural philosophy is that it makes use of
too many irreducible explanatory principles. The use of forms in explanations
of natural phenomena meant that there was a real entity corresponding to
each sensory quality: roses are red because they have the form of redness – a
real quality – and this real quality cannot be reduced to matter and motion.
‘Substantial Forms, Real Qualities, and the like [are] Un-mechanical Principles
and Agents’ (Works, 8: 107). Boyle takes this Aristotelian approach to entail
an ontologically bloated explanatory framework, and on that score, an
inferior one.
Two other virtues cited by Boyle seem to be related:
Nor can we conceive any principles more primary than matter and motion.
… Neither can there be any physical properties more simple than matter and
motion, neither of them being resoluble into any things whereof it may be truly,
or so much as tolerably, said to be compounded. (Works, 8: 105f.)
In calling them ‘primary’, Boyle seems to mean that matter and motion are
first in production (so to speak). That is, they are the tools that produce
everything else in the world, as all the endless diversity in nature is the causal
result of the activity of matter and motion. And matter and motion are ‘simple’
in the sense that they cannot be reduced to anything else. That is, they are not
composed of other things into which they may be broken down or analysed.
Consider again the second-order property of texture. Presumably it can be
resolved into its primary constituents as an arrangement of corpuscules with
a certain size and shape, a resolution that can be carried no further then
these simple constituents.7 Texture is therefore not simple in the way that
matter and motion are, the fundamental principles at which all explanations
must end.
Finally, Boyle argued at length that the mechanical explanatory framework
is comprehensive (Works, 8: 106ff.). In calling the mechanical principles
‘comprehensive’, Boyle meant that, despite there being few of them, they can
be used to explain all physical phenomena. In this connection, he took aim at
Aristotelians who grant that mechanical principles may be useful for explaining
the operations of sensible bodies, but ‘who will not admit, that these Principles
can be apply’d to the hidden Transactions that pass among the minute Particles
of Bodies’, and therefore they ‘refer to … Substantial Forms, Real Qualities, and
the like’ (Works, 8: 107). Whether the subject matter is the insensible particles in
chemical transactions or planetary motion, mechanical principles can provide
the explanations, for in the end, all such subjects, Boyle held, reduce to matter
in motion.8
Understood in its historical context, this claim of comprehensiveness was
bold, for the idea that the same explanatory principles apply throughout all of
nature, from terrestrial to celestial, was of course, a relatively novel hypothesis,
one whose confirmation would not arrive until Newton’s Principia in 1687.
But Boyle famously made this point a number of times and often employed
an analogy with the alphabet – again, with a thinly veiled criticism of those
Aristotelians (and Chymists) who disagree:
I am apt to look upon those who think the Mechanical Principles may serve
indeed to give an account of the Phenomena of this or that particular part of
Natural Philosophy, … but can never be applied to all the … things Corporeal;
I am apt, I say, to look upon those, otherwise learned, men, as I would upon
him, that should affirm, that, by putting together the letters of the Alphabet, one
may indeed make up all the words to be found in one Book, … but that they can
by no means suffice to supply words to all the Books of a great Library. (Works,
8: 106–7)
Boyle’s point was that from very few primary mechanical qualities, one can
generate many kinds of phenomena by way of compounding them in various
sizes, shapes and degrees of motion. His use of the alphabet is somewhat
instructive: even though there are only a small number of letters, one can
generate from them countless sentences and books in virtue of their shape and
by manipulating their relative position to one another. Boyle saw the richness
of the mechanical philosophy in a similar way: it posits a small number of basic
explanatory principles that can generate explanations of natural phenomena
by appeal to the size, shape and relative position of the parts of matter. In this
scheme, traditional material and formal causes have no place. Matter and motion
do all the work, and they do the work via mechanical efficient causal impact.
In putting forth a rigorous mechanical worldview, Boyle was eager to show
that it did not lead to atheism. Many seventeenth-century thinkers believed that
mechanism wreaked of Epicurean atheism.9 Boyle went out of his way at times
to distance himself from Epicurus on this point (cf. Works, 5: 353f.). Boyle’s
mechanism is a thoroughly religious one, and he believed that the mechanical
ways of nature, far from leading to atheism, strongly vindicated traditional
religious belief. According to Boyle, the fact that the world is mechanically
ordered as described above is evidence of an intelligent designer. In support
of this, he often compared mechanical nature to the clock at Strasbourg
Cathedral: just as anyone who examines the ‘wheels, springs, weights, and other
pieces of which the engine consists’ will conclude that the celebrated clock was
produced ‘by the skill of an intelligent and ingenious contriver’ (Works, 3: 259),
so Boyle believed it was reasonable to infer that nature – since it is also a big
mechanical machine that Works: by the size, shape and motion of bodies – was
designed by a divine mechanical genius.10 And so, Boyle’s mechanical worldview
was closely tied to a picture of creation and divine providence:
[A]‌ccording to my apprehension, it was at the beginning necessary that an

intelligent and wise Agent should contrive the universal matter into the world …
and settle the laws according to which the motions and actions of its parts upon
one another should be regulated. … And thus in this great automaton, the world
(as in a watch or clock), the materials it consists of being left to themselves could
never at the first convene into so curious an engine: and yet, when the skillful
artist has once made and set it a-going, the phenomena it exhibits are to be
accounted for by the number, bigness, proportion, shape, motion, rest, coaptation,
and other mechanical affections. (Works, 5: 354)
This integration of mechanism and divine providence was partly what led
Boyle to believe that, in addition to explaining things through their efficient
mechanical causes, we could explain them through final causes or the goals and
purposes of God. ‘God having an Understanding infinitely Superior to that of
Man, … we may rationally be suppos’d to have framed so Great and Admirable
an Automaton as the World, and the subordinate Engines compriz’d in it for
several Ends or Purposes’ (Works, 10: 566). As we shall see, this made Boyle’s
final causes of a different nature than those found in the Aristotelian tradition.
2. Boyle’s final causes
Boyle began the ‘Preface’ to his Disquisition about the Final Causes of Natural
Things (1688) by underscoring the importance of studying final causes (or a
teleological study of nature): ‘There are not many Subjects in the whole compass
of Natural Philosophy, that better deserve to be Inquired into by Christian
Philosophizers, than That which is Discours’d of in the following Essay’ (Works,
11: 81). Clearly, he thought the study of final causes was important, and the
breadth and depth of the ensuing discussion testifies to its importance for Boyle.
For example, the text is replete with reports of experimental observations and the
(often) teleological conclusions to be drawn from them. 11 Boyle distinguishes
four kinds of final causes that one might find in the natural world (Works,
11: 87), and some comments on each might help illuminate Boyle’s vision.12
2.1. Human ends

These ends concern how some of nature’s productions are for human welfare.
Boyle claimed there were two kinds: corporeal ends and mental ends.
Corporeal ends involve the structure of human bodies and the way in which
humans are equipped to provide for their own preservation, the propagation of
their species, and for dominion over nature. By far, Boyle had more to say about
human and animal corporeal ends than any other type of end. In this case, Boyle
makes extensive use of his favourite example: the eyeball, which according to
Boyle, is ‘little fitted for almost any other Use in the Body’ other than seeing
(Works, 11: 126).13 He draws on the work of various anatomists, who show to his
satisfaction that organs such as the liver, the heart, the kidneys and the spleen are
all fitted for unique uses (Works, 11: 126ff.). Moreover, the parts of the human
body are fitted together in symmetrical ways (two eyes, two hands and so on)
that are suited for the purpose of preservation and dominion over nature (Works,
11: 126; cf. 113). Boyle’s point with respect to all of these examples (and the
following ones) is that the relevant bodily parts can be explained and understood
by reference to their purpose: the eyeball is constructed in such a way for the
purpose of seeing.
Mental ends have to do with those natural arrangements that benefit the
mind. Boyle had less to say in the Disquisition about mental ends, but in other
writings he is more forthcoming. For example, in the early Aretology (1647),
Boyle writes about how the process of becoming ‘Privy Counsellors of Nature,
and conscious of all her Secrets’ is one of the pleasures of the mind (Ethics: 29).
The idea is that nature aims to provide circumstances to enlighten and delight
the mind, and this is a claim that Boyle would repeat throughout his career.
In the Usefulness of Natural Philosophy (1663), in the midst of discussing the
‘pleasantness of Natural Philosophy’, he notes that the ‘Study of Physiologie is
not only Delightful, as it teaches us to Know Nature, but also as it teaches us in
many Cases to Master and Command her’ in a way that is quite pleasing to the
mind (Works, 3: 211). Some empirical evidence that nature does so aim for this
mental end can be found ‘in the Delight Children take to do many things … that
seem to proceed from an Innate Propensity to please themselves in imitating or
changing the productions of Nature’ (Works, 3: 212). Indeed, Boyle reports that
he himself has found working with ‘dead and stinking Carkases’ more pleasing
to the mind than going to courts and libraries (Works, 3: 201). Lest one think
that only the scientist can discover mental ends, Boyle reports in the Disquisition
itself that ‘if the Innocent Delight of Man is intended’, nature has provided
diverse flowers, singing birds, and peacock trains (Works, 11: 144).
2.2. Animal ends

These ends have to do with the bodies of animals and the way in which they
are conducive to the welfare of the whole animal, qua ‘System of organiz’d
parts’ (Works, 11: 87). Formally, Boyle tells us, they do not differ significantly
from certain kinds of human corporeal ends (Works, 11: 87). In this case too,
Boyle draws on his own laboratory work, as well as that of others, and cites
numerous examples of how parts of animals serve their unique purposes: frogs
have transparent eyelids for the purpose of seeing while jumping through
areas of dense plants; fish, Boyle has observed, have appropriate eyes for their
environment; moles have feet appropriate for digging and so on.
2.3. Cosmical ends

These ends are about the ‘number, fabrick, placing, and wayes of moving the
great Masses of Matter’ (Works, 11: 87). That is, these concern the purpose of
the mechanics of large bodies, such as the earth, the moon, the sun and the fixed
stars. Here Boyle is cautious, for while he will not ‘quarrel with the Allegation’
(Works, 11: 121) that the cosmical end of the arrangement of the celestial bodies
is to display the power of God, he is certainly not ready to hang his hat on such
a claim since the evidence is scant, especially since some of the fixed stars might
be out of observational reach. 14 In general, ‘we are not yet sufficiently acquainted
with the true system of the world’ to draw teleological conclusions (Works,
11: 96).15 Similar remarks apply, he reports, to other inanimate objects, such as
stones and clays (Works, 11: 123).
2.4. Universal ends

These are the ends or purposes of the created universe in toto. With respect to
these, Boyle did not hesitate, as he believed there are two: the manifestation of
the glory (power, wisdom and so on) of God, and the communication of his
goodness to humans by bestowing them with benefits. From early to late, Boyle
repeated his claim that these are two ends of the whole universe (cf. Works,
3: 213; 10: 496; 13: 149) – though they were not necessarily of equal importance,
as we will see in the next section. And while it might seem odd that an empiricist
such as Boyle should write about these two universal ends with such epistemic
confidence, we shall also see in the next section that Boyle did not simply wave
his hands in deference to revealed theology here.16
What is more important for present purposes is the particular kind of final
cause endorsed in his writings. Following Osler (1996), we might understand
Boyle’s teleology as a form of extrinsic final causality, according to which nature
is governed by divine purposes, and natural objects are the instruments used
for attaining these purposes. God imposes these ends on creation; they are
imposed from without. Moreover, as we have seen, it is clear that Boyle wished
to banish Aristotelian forms or internal natures in favour of a mechanical view
of nature, according to which there is only inert matter with motion extrinsically
imposed upon it. That is, he wished to banish immanent final causality (or
immanent teleology) from his philosophy. Those in the Aristotelian tradition
who believed in such immanent final causality held that natural objects have
an innate tendency – an immanent active power of their own that they have in
virtue of their form – to realize a certain end. On this conception, the relevant
object itself strives for an end and is not merely the inert instrument used to
attain another agent’s end. Since Boyle rejected Aristotelian forms and powers
in favour of mechanism, he ipso facto rejected immanent causality in favour of
extrinsic causality.
This much is clear, and there appears to be scholarly consensus on the matter.
What is less than clear is whether Boyle was successful at ridding his philosophy
of nature of immanent causality. Osler (2001b) has argued that he was not
successful:
Boyle’s best intentions notwithstanding, immanent finality crept through the

back door of his corpuscular philosophy. This point becomes evident if the
Disquisition about Final Causes is read in the context of some of his natural
philosophical writings devoted to matter and its properties. At least two
examples of immanent finality are evident in the details of Boyle’s theory of
matter: one is his explanation of how God imparted his purposes to the created
world; the other occurs in his attempts to explain what he called the spring of
the air. (Osler, 2001b: 152)
It would be surprising if, given his many anti-Aristotelian writings, Boyle

allowed immanent final causal powers to play a role in his corpuscularian theory
of matter. Whether he did so is a matter of scholarly debate. It is worth noting
some of the issues, as they highlight the challenges that thinkers such as Boyle
faced as they attempted to distance themselves from the Aristotelian views of
explanation and causality. As Osler suggests in the quote above, one relevant
example concerns ‘seminal principles’, and the other concerns ‘the spring of
the air’.
2.5. Seminal principles

As we have seen, Boyle often explained creation as involving God’s adding
motion to inert matter. However, there are a number of texts in which Boyle
appears to add another ingredient to the creation recipe over and above mere
matter and motion. He often claims that God created ‘seminal principles’, or
‘seeds’, and these are entities with special powers.17 He claims, for example, that
with respect to some of the parts to which God imposes motion, ‘some were
so curiously contriv’d as to be fit to become the Seeds, or Seminal Principles, of
Plants and Animals’ (Works, 10: 469; my emphasis). Boyle does not go on to
explain these seminal principles after writing this, but Osler (2001b) sees in his
employment of seminal principles a form of immanent finality. She writes,
Boyle considered seminal principles to be the physical vehicle by which God

impresses finality into crystals, plants, and animals. These seminal principles are
compound corpuscles of matter which God had endowed with special motions
that enabled them to reproduce themselves and thus to direct the development of
their progeny. In this way Boyle significantly modified his matter theory in order
to explain how God imposes his purposes on the creation. (Osler 2001b: 166;
my emphasis)
As a result, according to Osler, Boyle exhibited a ‘seeming inconsistency about

immanent final causes’ (Osler 2001b: 167), for the seminal principles constitute
a ‘modification of his matter theory’ and are active teleological principles –
immanent finality – existing in matter.
Others have argued that there is no reason to see his doctrine of seminal
principles as a modification of his matter theory since the seminal principles
themselves seem to be purely mechanical entities.18 We are told in the early
Usefulness of Natural Philosophy (1663) that God via ‘motions and crossings’
of small parts of matter formed ‘occursions and coalitions’ that just are ‘the
seminal Principles of animated Concretions’ (Works, 3: 253). Thus, in passages
such as these, it appears that seminal principles are physical, mechanical entities
endowed with size, shape, peculiar structural properties and extrinsically-
imparted motion. And several years later in the Origin of Forms (1666), Boyle
seems to have made the material nature of seminal principles even more explicit,
again in the context of his theory of creation:
I think, that the wise Author of Nature … did more particularly contrive some
portions of that Matter into Seminal Rudiments or Principles … and others into
the Bodies of Plants and Animals: one main part of whose Contrivance, did,
as I apprehend, consist in this, That some of their Organs were so fram’d, that,
… some Juicy and Spirituous parts of these living Creatures must be fit to be
turned into Prolifick Seeds, whereby they may have a power … to propagate
their Species. (Works, 5: 354; cf. 8: 104)
There is no doubt that Boyle found seminal principles an attractive way to

account for the propagation of species. Indeed, animals and plants exhibit a
level of complexity that, according to Boyle, require the explanatory apparatus
of seminal principles, entities with a ‘power’ to carry on their kind. But one
might point out that in this passage too Boyle insisted that seminal principles
should be understood as tiny aggregates of matter: God ‘contrived some
portions of Matter into Seminal Rudiments or Principles’, and this matter
gave rise to a generative power. As Antonio Clericuzio has pointed out, Boyle
conceived of these portions of matter as having a unique texture that gave rise
to a power of organic generation.19 But as we have seen, texture is a paradigm
mechanical quality for Boyle. In any event, it remains an issue of scholarly
debate whether Boyle reserved special, non-mechanical status for seminal
principles, the sort of status that permits ascribing immanent finality to his
theory of matter.
2.6. The spring of the air

There are a number of early texts in which Boyle discussed the ‘spring of the
air’. That is, he was interested in accounting for the pressure of air in terms of
elasticity, and so the ‘spring of the air’ refers to the air’s property of ‘pushing
back’ when compressed. The task was to explain the mechanism by which that
occurs and, in particular, the air’s tendency to restore itself. In The Spring of the
Air (1660), Boyle remarked ‘That our Air either consists of, or at least abounds
with, parts of such a nature, that in case they be bent or compress’d … they do
endeavor, as much as in them lies, to free themselves from that pressure’. He went
on to explain this in terms of a ‘Power or Principle of self-Dilatation; by vertue
whereof, … whilst the compression lasts, there is in the fleece they compose an
endeavor outwards, whereby it continually thrusts against the hand that opposes
its Expansion’ (Works, 1: 165). Citing Boyle’s claim in this passage that it is in
virtue of the ‘structure’ of the hair and relevant corpuscles that each hair has a
power of self-expansion, Osler (2001b) remarks that Boyle ‘left unanswered the
question of how that structure could produce a seemingly goal-directed process
by which the fleece “endeavors” to stretch itself out to its original shape’. This
constitutes, according to Osler, another example in which Boyle ‘appealed to
immanent finality’ (Osler 2001b: 166).
It is true that Boyle remained somewhat agnostic when it came to an
account of how the relevant expansion worked. Some scholars have argued that
an examination of other texts suggests that he understood the entire process
in terms of the mechanical redistribution of motion and not in teleological

terms at all.20 He employs the (Hobbesian) concept of ‘endeavour’, which in
the context of seventeenth-century natural philosophy is often understood
as an instantaneous ‘striving’ or ‘tendency’ for motion and is sometimes
characterized as itself motion that happens instantaneously.21 In his Exam
of Hobbes (1663), Boyle seems to indicate that he understood the power of
endeavour to be mechanically acquired, mechanically productive and not
irreducibly teleological as the Aristotelian doctrine of immanent finality
requires. He writes,
I do not think it improbable what the Learned Gassendus had taught, and what
Mr. Hobbs here teaches, that the Restitution of bent Springs may proceed from
a certain Endeavour or Motion in their internal Parts (left from the time of their
Compression or Extension) which when the Impediment is remov’d, makes every
Part resume its former place, and thereby makes the Whole restore itself. (Works,
3: 122f.; my emphasis).
The relevant endeavour seems to be articulated in familiar Boylean terms: the

impact of compression (or extension) distributes motion to the ‘internal parts’
of the spring, motion which then gets redistributed upon ‘removal of the
impediment’. And though Boyle seems to have remained uncommitted to one
particular account, he appears to have remained committed to a mechanical
account: ‘there is no need to assert, that in all bodies, that have it, the Elastical
power flows immediately from the Form, but that in divers of them it depends
upon the Mechanical structure of the Body’ (Works, 6: 77; emphasis mine). But
this, of course, is just a corollary of a position of his with which we are now
familiar: ‘I am not very forward to allow acting for ends to bodies inanimate,
and consequently devoid of knowledge; and therefore should gladly see some
unquestionable Examples produc’d of Operations of that nature’ (Works, 3: 40).
So while it is true that Boyle struggled to find a mechanical explanation of the
spring of the air, it is also unclear whether this led him to immanent finality.22
Scholarly debates aside, the two cases – seminal principles and the spring
of the air – are clear examples of the challenges that Boyle confronted when it
came to explaining the world with a framework of inert matter devoid of forces,
powers, forms, or any residue of Aristotelian immanent finality. Regardless of
how those challenges were met, the success or failure of Boyle’s mechanical
philosophy had little relevance to his view on why we must continue to discover
final causes of all sorts, a view that somewhat aligned him with the Aristotelian
tradition but distanced him from Descartes and other early modern thinkers.
3. Boyle on the importance of discovering

efficient and final causes
Regardless of whether Boyle allowed immanent finality into his mechanical

philosophy, we might wonder precisely why he placed so much importance on
the study of final causes. In the beginning of the Disquisition, he outlined his
view about why the study of final causes is so important:
There are not many Subjects in the whole compass of Natural Philosophy, that
better deserve to be Inquired into by Christian Philosophizers, than That which
is Discours’d of in the following Essay. For Certainly it becomes such Men to
have Curiosity enough to Try at least, Whether it can be Discover’d, that there
are any Knowable Final Causes, to be Consider’d in the Works of Nature. Since,
if we neglect this Inquiry, we live in danger of being Ungrateful, in Overlooking
those Uses of Things, that may give us Just Cause of Admiring and Thanking
the Author of them, and of Losing the Benefits, relating as well to Philosophy as
Piety, that the Knowledge of them may afford us. (Works, 11: 81)
Clearly, when it comes to teleological study, Boyle thought the stakes were high.
His remarks here are not merely promotional fluff.23 In addition to insisting
that knowledge of nature must include knowledge of efficient mechanical
causes, he sincerely believed that there were dire consequences for neglecting
a study of final causes. In fact, he developed a systematic line of reasoning that
incorporated precisely those ‘dangerous’ consequences referred to in the above
passage.
Boyle tells us in the passage quoted above from the preface that there are
three consequences for neglecting the pursuit of final causes:
1. One overlooks the uses of things.

2. One is tarnished with ungratefulness to the ‘Author’ (i.e. God) of the uses
of things.
3. One loses benefits having to do with Philosophy and Piety.
Analysis of the texts Boyle offered in support of these three claims shows that
his views on causality intersected with his theology, science and value theory in
a way that made a significant, if often unnoticed, philosophical contribution.
But even though his views must stand as significant philosophical
contributions, Boyle’s methodology in the Disquisition is substantially different
than those employed in the standard ‘system-building’ philosophical texts of the
time (e.g. Descartes’ Meditations, Leibniz’s Monadology, or Spinoza’s Ethics).24
As we have seen, the Disquisition is replete with reports of experimental

observations and the ‘useful’ conclusions to be drawn from them – conclusions
about the ‘uses of things’. It is in this way that Boyle sought to show that a
consideration of final causes enables one to take notice of the usefulness of the
structure and operation of natural bodies. This is particularly true with respect
to organic bodies, for like many in the pre-Darwinian era, Boyle thought that
the experimental observations demonstrated that adaptive features of organisms
could arise only from purposeful design.
Moreover, according to Boyle, not only is it reasonable to infer that
the natural realm is a product of design, but the product itself contains
‘sensible representations’ of its designer. He writes in the Usefulness about
‘the sensible Representations of Gods Attributes to be met with in Creatures,
occurring almost every where to our observation’ (Works, 3: 278). As a result,
a knowledge of nature instils in one an admiration for nature and a sense
of the divine perfections: ‘the knowledge of the Works of God proportions
our admiration of them, they participating and disclosing so much of the
inexhausted Perfections of their Author’ (Works, 3: 235; cf. 1: 85). Here we
begin to see why Boyle thought that the study of final causes will promote
‘gratefulness’ in those who study, thereby avoiding the second dangerous
consequence noted above.
The idea that the world contains traces of divine architecture is obvious to
anyone, according to Boyle. On the other hand, only the natural philosopher has
a type of deep understanding of the divine attributes:
in the World, though every Peruser may read the existence of a Deity, and be in
his degree affected with what he sees, yet he is utterly unable to descry there those
subtler Characters and Flourishes of Omniscience, which true Philosophers
are sharp-sighted enough to discern. The existence of God is indeed so legibly
written on the Creatures, that … even a perfunctory Beholder, that makes it not
his Business, may perceive it. But that this God has manifested in these Creatures
a Power, a Wisdom, and a Goodness worthy of himself, needs an attentive and
diligent Surveyor to discover. (Works, 3: 235–6)
According to this passage, the successful natural philosopher has a deeper

comprehension of the divine nature. And because the ‘diligent’ natural
philosopher possesses an elevated understanding of the ways of God, the natural
philosopher ipso facto understands that grateful praise is due to God.
Throughout his career, Boyle drew a distinction between, on the one hand,
merely knowing that God exists, and on the other, understanding his greatness
in such a way that motivates veneration (cf. Works, 11: 118; 10: 193). Even
in his early scientific phase, Boyle claimed that ‘there is a greate Disparity
betwixt that generall lazy Idea we commonly have of his Power and Wisdome;
& the distinct, rationall & affecting Notions of those Attributes, which are
formed by an attentive inspection of the creatures in which they are most
legible; & which were made cheefly for that very End’ (Works, 13: 162). It
is, of course, the latter sort of understanding that the natural philosopher
possesses, an understanding that there are ‘sensible representations’ of God
in nature,
and the Impressions made on the Minds by these Representations, proceeding

not from a bare (and perhaps languid) whether Belief or Notion of the Perfections
express’d in them, but from an actual and operative intuition of them, would
excite an admiration (with the Devotion springing thence) by so much the more
intense, by how much (it would be) more rational. (Works, 3: 278; my emphasis;
cf. 3: 213)
Here and elsewhere Boyle seems to make a noteworthy claim: the natural
philosopher does not simply recognize that there are reasons for devotion, but
indeed the ‘impressions’ made upon such a person ‘springs’ him to devotion.
Boyle seems to think that motives for religious devotion are ‘internal’ to a proper
natural philosophical understanding of the world. That is, the natural philosopher
who understands the divine representations in nature via a teleological study
also is one who is motivated to devotion. It might be that Boyle believed there
is an intrinsic connection between a teleological understanding of nature and
motivation for religious devotion.25 Indeed, such passages may suggest that the
natural philosopher who possesses a deep teleological understanding of nature,
yet is not ‘sprung’ to devotion, is a natural impossibility.26
Whatever Boyle’s view on that matter, note that his analysis went further, for
in some passages we learn precisely for what we should be grateful. We should
in the first place, according to Boyle, be grateful for God’s having created us
as natural philosophers. This involves gratefulness for a number of things. He
notes in the Excellency of Theology (1674) that ‘[o]‌bjects are as well requisite
as Faculties’ when it comes to acquiring knowledge. ‘Wherefore God having
as well made the World, as given Man the Faculties whereby he is enabled to
contemplate it; Naturalists are as much obliged to God for their Knowledge’
(Works, 8:41). In making natural philosophers, God not only endowed them
with rationality but also provided a proper object of study, namely the realm of
natural objects. Moreover, in a curious (and perhaps humorous) passage from
that same work, Boyle claims that humans should be grateful that they were
created in an environment where they are not objects of study:
For by God’s endowing of none but Man here below with a Reasonable Soul;
not onely he is the sole visible Being that can return Thanks and Praises in the
World, and thereby is oblieged to do so, both for himself and for the rest of the
Creation; but ’tis Mans advantage, that God has left no other visible Beings in the
World, by which he can be studied. (Works, 8: 41)
Thus, Boyle believed that a teleological study of nature reveals not only that
there is a powerful and wise being but that natural philosophers owe that being
gratitude for providing the conditions that make such knowledge and veneration
possible.27
In short, teleological science reveals that God is due veneration for creating
the actual world’s epistemic conditions. These conditions include the reign of
scientific law and the human capacities that permit a teleological study of nature.
And so, given these connections between an experimental study of nature,
the discovery of final causes, the discovery of representations of God’s
attributes and the sincere veneration such discoveries necessarily motivate in
the natural philosopher, Boyle concluded that we are obligated to engage in
natural philosophy, for our failure to do so would ‘frustrate and Disappoint
the Author of it’ (Works, 13: 150). Here is Boyle’s reasoning: Boyle believed
it to be morally incumbent upon a person receiving benefits to inquire into
the motive and character of the benefactor, and the neglect to do so in this
case by refusing to study natural philosophy, ‘is not onely not to use him as a
Benefactor, but as if we meant to punish him (so to speak) for having oblieged
us, since we so abuse some of his Favours, as to make them Inducements to
our Unthankful Disregard of his Intentions in the rest’ (Works, 8: 41). Boyle
was so convinced of the connections between teleology, theology, and the
relevant moral obligation that for him, to study nature just is to satisfy a moral
obligation (since, presumably, it is a way to avoid ‘abusing his favours’) and it
just is a form of worship: it is what he called the ‘Philosophical Worship of God’
(see Works, 3: 278).28
Thus, we are now in a position to see why he held the second of the
‘dangerous consequences’ noted at the beginning of this section, the claim that
a failure to investigate final causes puts one ‘in danger of being Ungrateful’
(Works, 11: 81): the failure to investigate final causes is a failure to engage in
philosophical worship, which in turn is to fail to meet a moral obligation to God
to avoid abusing God’s favours.
Clearly, the story thus far is not without philosophical problems. The claim
that one ought morally to engage in natural philosophy is implausible on the
face of it, for it suggests that those (unlike Boyle, who had access to a laboratory)
who are not in a position to engage in natural philosophy are morally negligent.
Perhaps Boyle thought that only those who have the means to study nature are
morally required to do so in order to benefit humanity with useful discoveries
and the knowledge of God’s greatness.29 But even so the plausibility of the claim
and line of reasoning that led him to it are clearly subject to objection.
However curious we might find Boyle’s reasoning thus far, note that we are
not at the end of it. Recall that the third consequence of neglecting to pursue
final causes is that one loses benefits having to do with philosophy and piety
(Works, 11: 81). Indeed, he believed that the study of nature – philosophical
worship – delivers the greatest benefit of all: human happiness.
In the Usefulness of Natural Philosophy, Boyle indicated that he accepts what
many moral philosophers before him accepted: ‘as the Understanding is the
highest faculty in Man, so its Pleasures are the highest he can naturally receive’
(Works, 3: 201). And with respect to ‘the Delightfulness of the study of Natural
Philosophy’, it is true ‘That those pleasing truths it teacheth us, do highly gratifie
our intellectual Faculties’ (Works, 3: 202). Following a long tradition, Boyle
maintained that the intellectual pleasures were superior to the sensual ones, and
he made this point in many of his writings. Accordingly, he held that the pursuit
of natural philosophy affords a person some of the highest pleasures available.
In the Excellency of Theology (1674), speaking specifically of the ‘contemplative’
natural philosopher, Boyle wrote that
the Contemplator, we are speaking of, does in all the Wonders of Nature discover,
how wise, and potent, and bountiful that Author of Nature is, … and when he
makes greater discoveries in these Expresses and Adumbrations of the Divine
Perfections, the delightfulness of his Contemplation is proportionately increas’d.
(Works, 8:59; cf. 3: 212)
Thus, by engaging in natural philosophy and discovering that nature contains

the purposeful design of a supreme being, one learns more about that being and
becomes proportionately more delighted by such discoveries.
Furthermore, Boyle believed that the connection between the study of
nature on the one hand, and genuine pleasure and happiness on the other,
would also naturally lead one to engage in revealed theology. As he put it
later in the Usefulness, ‘Religion being not only the great Duty of Man, but the
grand Instrument of his future Happinesse … what ever increases or cherishes
his Religion deserves to be lookt on as a great contributor to his Happinesse’

(Works, 3: 218). Not surprisingly, Boyle held teleological natural philosophy to
be that great contributor, to be that which serves as the bridge between natural
theology and revealed theology. The philosopher who discovers this link is
highly rewarded. In The Christian Virtuoso (1690), a work published the year
before his death, Boyle laid out his reasoning thus:
[W]‌hen we duly consider the very differing ends, to which many of God’s
particular Works:, especially those that are Animated, seem design’d … we
cannot but think it highly probable, That so Wise, and so Benign a Being, has not
left his noblest visible Creature, Man, unfurnish’d with means to procure his own
Welfare, and obtain his true End, … And since Man is endowed with Reason,
which may convince him, … that God is both his Maker, and his continual
Benefactor; … since, (farthermore) finding in his own Mind … a Principle
that dictates to him, That he owes a Veneration, … to the Divinely Excellent
Author of his Being, and his continual and munificent Benefactor; … and since,
lastly, his Reason may convince him, That his Soul is Immortal, and is therefore
Capable, as well as Desirous, to be everlastingly Happy, after it has left the Body;
he must in reason be strongly inclin’d to wish for a Supernatural Discovery of
what God would have him Believe and Do. … And thus the Consideration
of God’s Providence, in the conduct of things corporeal, may prove, to a well
dispos’d Contemplator, a Bridge, whereon he may pass from Natural to Reveal’d
Religion. (Works, 11: 303; Boyle’s emphasis)
Notice that Boyle’s reasoning here summarizes the interpretative line urged
in this section. He begins by citing the final causes in nature and how created
things are designed for their respective ends. It is reasonable to infer from these,
he argues, that God has established conditions for humans (‘noblest visible
Creatures’) to achieve their ultimate end. And since reason, upon a careful
study of nature, motivates one to engage in veneration to God (via ‘a Principle
that dictates to him, That he owes a Veneration’), coupled with the fact that one
wishes for one’s own eternal happiness, one naturally wishes for God to reveal
(or provide a ‘supernatural discovery’ of) what it is that one should do in order
to secure such happiness. And it is at this point, Boyle suggests, that we are in the
realm of revealed theology.
In short, a teleological investigation of ‘the conduct of things corporeal’ leads
the natural philosopher (as the ‘Bridge’ for the ‘well dispos’d Contemplator’) to
his highest end: eternal happiness.
Finally, notice that according to this reasoning, natural philosophy may
not be an end in itself. For as we have just seen, it is the ‘Divine Truths’ that
are the ultimate goal, for they ‘are of a much higher and nobler Order’. So, the
picture that emerges is one according to which natural philosophy leads one to
knowledge of the divine, which in turn gives pleasure to the natural philosopher
and motivates (‘strongly inclines’) her to engage in revealed theology in order
to learn how to secure eternal bliss. This is essentially what Boyle wrote in the
Excellency of Theology:
Man’s End and Happiness consist of the exercise of his noblest Faculties on the
noblest Objects. And surely the seat of Formal Happiness being the Soul, and
that Happiness consequently consisting in the Operations of her Faculties; as
the Supreme Faculty of the Mind is the Understanding, so the highest Pleasures
may be expected from the due Exercise of it upon the sublimest and worthiest
Objects. … For, the chief Objects of a Christian Philosophers Contemplation,
being as well the Infinite Goodness, as the other boundless Perfections of God,
they are naturally fitted to excite in his mind an ardent love of that adorable
Being, … [T]‌he contentment afforded by the assiduous discovery of God and
Divine Mysteries, has so much of the affinity with the Pleasures, that shall make
up mens Blessedness in Heaven it self, that they seem rather to differ in Degree
rather than Kind. (Works, 8: 45; second emphasis mine)
Thus, the most valuable aspect of natural philosophy for the ‘Christian
Philosopher’ is that it heightens one’s awareness of the most noble ‘object’,
namely, God and his perfections. It is this awareness, Boyle wrote, that naturally
incites in us adoration, true pleasure and is at least partly constitutive of eternal
happiness.
Note Boyle’s claim that the link between God’s perfections, qua objects of
knowledge, and the human mind is such that happiness is ‘naturally’ caused,
suggesting again that things were designed in this way and that true knowledge
of God’s perfections necessarily makes one happy. That is, happiness is internal
to a knowledge of God. This claim sits well, of course, with Boyle’s claim
(discussed earlier) that motivation for divine worship is internal to a teleological
understanding of the world. The claim also meshes with the two Boyleian
universal ends noted earlier: the primary one of manifesting those perfections
and the secondary one of providing benefits for humans (in this case, the benefit
of being happy). In fact, Boyle goes so far in the above passage as to suggest that
the happiness afforded by means of natural philosophy is something akin to a
taste of the beatific vision, for the two ‘differ in degree rather than in kind’. Indeed,
Boyle should be understood at his word when he claimed in the Disquisition to
believe that one loses benefits having to do with philosophy and piety when one
fails to pursue final causes (Works, 11: 81).
But taking Boyle at his word when it comes to the importance of final causes also
serves to underscore the fact that his relationship with the Aristotelian tradition
is anything but straightforward. He rejected the doctrine of the four causes in
favour of a mechanical framework for scientific explanation; but he retained two
of those four causes in his own philosophy and seems to have redefined a third,
formal causes, in mechanical terms.30 He rejected the Aristotelian ontology that
the four causes were intended to subsume; but he struggled to rid his mechanical
world view of Aristotelian active principles and immanent finality. He argued
for a teleological worldview that is in ways reminiscent of Aristotle; but when
he made the study of that mechanical teleology, the bridge between natural
theology, on the one hand, and revealed theology and human happiness on
the other, he made that teleological world view an offering of his own. Along
the way, Boyle emerged as a systematic philosopher whose views on causality
intersected with the theology, science and value theory of the time and left a
major contribution to early modern philosophy.31
Notes
1 This is not to suggest, of course, that subsequent philosophers adopted Aristotle to

the letter. But they surely adopted him in spirit. See Des Chene (1996) for detailed
discussions of Aristotle’s influence in later medieval thought. For a discussion that
situates Boyle in relation to Aristotelian final causes, see Osler (1996) and Carlin
(2012).
2 But as Jones (Chapter 7) argues in this volume, Boyle seems to have viewed
structural explanations as corpuscularian versions of formal causes. Thus, Boyle in a
sense retains formal causes, but they are redefined in corpuscularian terms.
3 For example, followers of Parcacelsus, whom Boyle often referred to as the
‘Chemists’, typically held that certain non-mechanical agents (such as mercury) were
primary explanatory elements. See Des Chene (1996).
4 This also partly reveals the sense in which the properties that figure into mechanical
explanations are structural properties. Such explanations appeal to the way in which
the surface properties of a set of constituent entities are positioned to one another,
or to the relative position and order of the insensible corpuscular parts of a body.
Understood in this way, such properties determine the structure of a body. See
Nadler (1998: 520).
5 Boyle also took aim at the ‘Chymists’ – early sixteenth and seventeenth century
involved in alchemy – who employed concepts that were also unintelligible,
according to Boyle. See Works, 8: 104.
6 Boyle was clearly a fan of Occam’s Razor, and he occasionally appealed to it when
touting the advantages of mechanical principles over Aristotelian principles. See,
for example, Works, 7: 159.
7 As noted by Nadler (1998: 527).
8 But see Clericuzio (1990) for possible exceptions. In his classic article on
the relationship between Boyle’s chemistry and his corpuscular philosophy,
Clericuzio argues that Boyle did not subordinate his chemistry to his mechanical
principles and that he was reluctant to believe that chemistry could be explained
mechanically. See Clericuzio (1990). The relationship between Boyle’s experimental
science and his theoretical writings on the virtues of mechanism is a controversial
topic. See Chalmers (1993), Anstey (2002), Chalmers (2002), Pyle (2002).
9 For example, the Cambridge Platonists Henry More and Ralph Cudworth typically
argued that if mechanistic principles were not supplemented by non-mechanical
spiritual agents – ‘hylarchic principles’ or ‘plastic natures’ or a ‘spirit of nature’ –
that animate matter, a materialistic atheism might be the result. See More (1662)
and Cudworth (1678).
10 The reasoning here, of course, is a sketch of an argument from analogy. In
seventeenth-century England, it was a popular way of arguing for the existence of
intelligent design, especially for those espousing a mechanical world view. Boyle
found considerations about ‘the excellent Contrivance of the great System of the
World’ to provide ‘one of the best and most successful Arguments to convince
Men that there is a God’ (Works, 11: 94). A century later, Hume pointed out in his
Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion that the reasoning relies on the premise
that like effects prove like causes, and he used this fact to subject the reasoning to
scathing criticism.
11 In addition to these experimental observations, many portions of Boyle’s
Disquisition are devoted to arguing against the Cartesians, who held that final
causes are unknowable and thus irrelevant to scientific inquiry, and against the
Epicurians, who held that there are simply are no final causes in nature. Shanahan
(1994) discusses Boyle’s arguments against the Cartesians. For a discussion of
Boyle’s arguments against Epicurean atheism, see J. J. MacIntosh (1991). For an
interesting discussion of the history and composition of the Disquisition, see Davis
(1994).
12 I present them in the reverse order that Boyle presented them. This should not
distort Boyle’s intentions in any way, for although he presents them in one order, he
discusses them in another (or perhaps in no discernible order at all). It is perhaps
not surprising that in the preface to the Disquisition, Boyle writes that he had ‘more
Regard to some Other Things, than to the Symmetry of the Parts whereof this Tract
consists’, and that hopefully ‘if the Materials be Good and Solid, they will easily,
in so Learned an Age as This, find an Architect, that will Dispose them in a more
Artful Way, than I was either at Leisure or Sollicitous to do’ (Works, 11: 83). Despite
that he had worked on the Disquisition for many years, in the end he apparently
found it to be an unorganized manuscript.
13 Davis (1994) has shown that Boyle influenced and was influenced by Robert
Hooke’s study of the eyeballs of flies in his Micrographia (1665). Indeed, each
thinker seems to reference the other in his work, and Davis shows, by drawing on
handwriting analysis, that Hooke commented on an early draft of the Disquisition.
14 Boyle was cautious throughout his career when it came to drawing teleological
conclusions about the celestial realm, and unlike many of his contemporaries, he
was not fully prepared to acknowledge purposefulness in the regular orbiting of the
celestial realm. Notice how cautious he is in the Usefulness of Natural Philosophy:
‘perhaps it will be no great venture to suppose that at least in the Creating of the
Sublunary World, and the more Conspicuous Stars, two of God’s Principal Ends
were, the Manifestation of His own Glory, and the Good of Men’ (Works, 3: 215;
my emphasis). As we are about to see, Boyle believed these to be the two great
universal ends of creation, and yet even with respect to these, due to the lack of
observational data, he could not get himself to include the celestial realm. Likewise,
in the Free Inquiry Into the Vulgarly Received Notion of Nature, Boyle does not
‘deny that there are divers things – as the number and situation of the stars, the
shapes and sizes of animals, etc. – about which even a philosopher being asked can
say little, but that it pleased the author of the universe to make them so’ (Works,
10: 450).
15 The Disquisition was published in 1688, a year after Newton’s Principia was
published. Boyle died in 1691, just before Newton’s accomplishments gradually
became appreciated. Thus, as passages such as this indicate, he was unaware of
how far Newton had advanced our understanding of the celestial bodies and the
‘system of the world’. This is true despite that he received a presentation copy of the
Principia from Edmund Halley. See the letter of 5 July 1687 from Halley to Newton
in Newton (1960, 2: 481). It is worth noting in passing that Newton did see his own
work as vindicating the search for final causes.
16 With respect to Boyle’s claim that one of the universal ends is the manifestation
of God’s glory, Sargent (1995) writes, ‘So that his reader would not think that this
proposition was merely “affirmed gratis”, Boyle subjoined a number of instances
from scientific practice where these attributes of God were manifest’ (92).
17 The classic discussion of Boyle on seminal principles is Clericuzio (1990).
A thorough and more recent coverage is Anstey (2002). Clericuzio argues that
Boyle rarely explained chemical phenomena and seminal principles in mechanical
terms, and that therefore he was not a thoroughgoing mechanist. Similarly, Henry
(1986) offers the interpretation that Boyle recognized intrinsically active matter
whose motion is not the result of redistribution through mechanical impact.
Anstey (2002), on the other hand, provides evidence that Boyle always held out
hope for a purely mechanical world view, according to which motion is always the
result of redistribution through impact and is not intrinsic to the nature of matter.
18 See for example Carlin (2012).
19 Clericuzio (1990: 586). On some accounts, such as that of McGuire (1972),
the powers exhibited by matter are identified with the divine will – a form of
occasionalism. This view is controversial. For discussions, see Jacobs (1994),
Shanahan (1988) and Anstey (2002: 158ff.).
20 See Carlin (2012).
21 It is not entirely clear (to me at least) that all seventeenth-century natural
philosophers understood ‘endeavour’ (conatus) in the same way. For a discussion
of how the idea was employed in Descartes, see Garber (1992: 218ff.). For a
discussion of the idea in Spinoza, see Della Rocca (1996). See also Carlin (2004) for
a discussion of its use in Leibniz. Osler also briefly discusses Hobbes’ employment
of the idea in his Elements of Philosophy. See Osler (2001b: 166–7).
22 It is worth noting that in an unpublished appendix to the Disquisition, Boyle
explicitly cited the spring of the air as an example of a phenomenon that awaits
further reduction:
There are a great many things of which we may have some knowledge, and
discourse to one another rationally & usefully; which yet cannot with any
convenience be immediately deduc’d from the First and simplest Principles;
namely, Corpuscles and Motion: but must be deriv’d from subordinate
Principles; such as Gravity, Fermentation, Springiness, Magnetism, &c.
(Works, 13: 169; my emphasis)
Here the point seems to be that further research is needed to reduce springiness
to its mechanical composition and not that springiness is an irreducible non-
mechanical immanent power.
23 As I argued in Carlin (2011).
24 This is not surprising, since it is well known that Boyle rejected ‘system
building’ in natural philosophy of the sort done by the Cartesians and others.
See Correspondence, 3: 171; Works, 2: 14; 8: 82ff.; 11: 304. For discussion, see,
for example, Kaufman (2007). Kaufman (2007) plausibly suggests that Boyle’s
emphasis on experiment and aversion to system building ‘apriorism’ ‘accounts
both for his relative neglect by contemporary historians of philosophy and for
the overwhelming amount written on Boyle by historians of science’ (184).
Indeed, all of the numerous discussions of Boyle’s experimentalism seem to be
from historians of science, and different approaches are available. For example,
Shapin and Schaffer (1985) focus primarily on the social and political context
in which Boyle advocated for experimentation. Sargent (1994, 1995) focuses on
Boyle’s adoption of the activity of experimentation in light of his predecessors

and contemporaries (including those engaged in ‘practical’ endeavours). Hunter
(1995) focuses exclusively on the early Boyle’s development as an experimenter as
revealed by analysis of his early unpublished papers. As we are about to see, Boyle’s
experimental approach is often evident in the details of his treatment of final causes
as well – though in the end, he drew significant conclusions reminiscent of those
typically derived from system building.
25 It seems Boyle acknowledged a link between the practice of natural philosophy
and the sincere devotion it instills very early in his career. In a document from the
early 1650s (‘Of Naturall Philosophie’), Boyle noted that ‘The usefulnes of naturall
Philosophie’ is ‘To excite & entertaine Devotion’ (BP, vol. 36, fols 65v).
26 The same point is suggested in the Disquisition, though with specific reference to
‘the Doctrine of Final Causes’, which ‘furnishes [philosophers] with just Arguments
for Gratitude to the Author of so many good things’. This, we are told, is different
from looking upon the world merely as the vulgar do, ‘as a vast and curious piece
of Workmanship, [which] may give a Man a great Idea of the Power and Skill of
the Divine Architect: But will rather exact his Wonder, than his Gratitude’ (Works,
11: 118; my emphasis).
27 But creatures need not have gratitude for being placed in the best possible world.
Although Boyle believed natural philosophy leads to the discovery that high praise
is due to the author of nature for creating such amenable conditions for knowledge,
Boyle did not think natural philosophy reveals a world of the best sort that could
be created. Boyle was quite open about his belief that the world was not made
primarily for the welfare of humans, and he also did not accept the Leibnizian
claim that God is bound to create the best world possible (cf. Works, 10: 493ff. and
497; cf. Atheism, 267). This means that Boyle’s two universal ends discussed at the
end of the previous section – the manifestation of the glory (power, wisdom etc.) of
God, and the communication of his goodness to humans by bestowing them with
benefits – were not on a par, for in Boyle’s system, God continues to manifest his
glory (the primary universal end) by upholding the system of natural mechanical
laws, and the specific interests of creatures (the secondary universal end) might
therefore have to give way.
28 For discussion of the historical significance of the idea of ‘philosophical worship’,
see Sargent (1995: 90ff.).
29 Thanks to Jan-Erik Jones for this suggestion. It is also possible that Boyle’s
arguments of this sort are political. Perhaps he saw such arguments as useful ones
for the purpose of gaining support for the Royal Society, something for which he
clearly wanted political support. This is, of course, speculative.
30 Again, see Chapter 7 in this volume.
31 I am grateful to Jan-Erik Jones for very helpful comments on an earlier draft of
this paper.
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Dispositive Qualities’, Oxford Studies in Early Modern Philosophy, 3: 153–98.
MacIntosh, J. (1991), ‘Robert Boyle on Epicurean Atheism and Atomism’, in M. Osler
(ed.), Atoms, Pneuma, and Tranquility: Epicurean and Stoic Themes in European
Thought, 197–219, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
McGuire, J. E. (1972), ‘Boyle’s Conception of Nature’, Journal of the History of Ideas,
33: 523–42.
More, H. (1662), A Collection of Several Philosophical Writings, London: James Flesher.
Nadler, S. (1998), ‘Doctrines of Explanation in Late Scholasticism and in the
Mechanical Philosophy’, in D. Garber and M. Ayers (eds), The Cambridge History of
Seventeenth-Century Philosophy, 513–53, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Newton, I. (1960), The Correspondence of Isaac Newton, H. Turnbull (ed.),
Osler, M. (1996), ‘From Immanent Natures to Nature as Artifice: The Reinterpretation
of Final Causes in Seventeenth-Century Natural Philosophy’, The Monist,
79: 388–407.
Osler, M. (2001a), ‘How Mechanical Was the Mechanical Philosophy? Non-Epicurean
Aspects of Gassendi’s Philosophy of Nature’, in C. Luthy, J. Murdoch and W. R.
Newman (eds), Late Medieval and Early Modern Corpuscular Matter Theories, 423–
39, Leiden: Brill.
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16: 151–68.
Pyle, A. (2002), ‘Boyle on Science and the Mechanical Philosophy: A Reply to
Chalmers’, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, 33: 171–86.
Sargent, R.-M. (1994), ‘Learning from Experience: Boyle’s Construction
of an Experimental Philosophy’, in Robert Boyle Reconsidered, 57–78,
Shanahan, T. (1988), ‘God and Nature in the Thought of Robert Boyle’, Journal of the
History of Philosophy, 26: 547–69.
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in M. Hunter (ed.), Robert Boyle Reconsidered, 177–92, Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Shapin, S., and S. Schaffer (1985), Leviathan and the Air Pump: Hobbes, Boyle and the
Experimental Life, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
6
Boyle on Qualities
Laura S. Keating
In this chapter, I focus on Boyle’s account of qualities in general, what he refers

to as his ‘Doctrine of Qualities’ (Works, 5: 322) or as the ‘Mechanical Doctrine
about Qualities’ or the ‘Corpuscularian Doctrine of Qualities’ (Works, 8: 325).
Boyle develops this doctrine to address a gap in the natural philosophy that he
extracts from both Atomists and Cartesians. In introducing this philosophy,
Boyle remarks that ‘both parties agree in deducing all the Phaenomena of Nature
from Matter and local Motion’ and ‘to give an account of the Phaenomenon of
Nature by the Motion and other Affections of the minute Particles of Matter.
Which because they are obvious and very powerful in Mechanical Engines,
I sometimes also term it the Mechanical Hypothesis in Philosophy’ (Works,
2: 87).1 What Boyle seeks to add is a general conception or explication of one part
of the phenomena of nature: qualities, that is, the observable, causal attributes
of bodies that we use to classify them into types and conceive to be involved in
their generation, alteration and corruption. The basis for the types of bodies
and their natural operations and changes was the traditional subject matter for
Aristotelian natural philosophy and Boyle hopes to show how ‘those matters’ may
be ‘reconcil’d and accommodated to the Notions of the Corpuscular Physicks’
(Works, 5: 290).2 Further, he hopes to show how the experimental methods
developed by the Chymists support the mechanical approach to qualities. For
Boyle, then, his doctrine of qualities is to serve as a unifying foundation for the
empirical study of corporeal nature.
Boyle’s presentation of his doctrine of qualities is best split into two parts: an
ontological emergence story of the mechanical affections of matter and of bodies
that are the bearers of qualities, and the subsequent account of the ontological
emergence of qualities and of what it is in corporeal nature when a body exhibits
them. I present the first part in Section 3 and the second in Section 4. While
the first part is straightforward, there is little consensus on the second. My goal
here is not so much to settle the debates but to provide an interpretation of
Boyle’s doctrine and goals that makes the questions involved in the debates less
pressing. In Section 1, we begin by considering the received notion of quality as
presented by Boyle himself in identifying his explanandum. I argue that we no
longer use the concept Boyle is using. In Section 2, we consider three positions
Boyle holds about qualities that are grounded independently of his doctrine,
although they are presented with it: his rejection of so-called ‘real qualities’,
his rejection of the assumption that any quality must have a first subject in
which it inheres and his acceptance of Descartes’s account of the sensible
qualities in the Principles of Philosophy. This will help set up Boyle’s goals in
giving a philosophical account of the origin of qualities. At the end of Section
4, I address the question of the ontological status of sensible qualities for Boyle,
and in Section 5, I conclude by discussing the consequences of Boyle’s doctrine
for the concept of quality.
1. Qualities as explananda
In Origin of Forms and Qualities (hereafter Forms and Qualities), Boyle appears
conflicted about the general notion of a quality. In the Preface, Boyle faults
Aristotle for not including qualities in his Physics, ‘since Qualities doe as well
seem to belong to Naturall Bodies Generally consider’d, as Place, Time, Motion,
and those other things, which upon that account are wont to be Treated of in the
Generall part of Natural Philosophy’ (Works, 5: 299). This suggests that Boyle
takes the general notion of a quality to be well-defined enough to pick out a kind
of entity for theoretical study in the philosophy of nature. But, after affirming the
logicians’ and Aristotle’s conception of quality as a kind of accident as opposed
to substance, he complains that no one has been able to define further what a
quality is in distinction from other accidents (Works, 5: 315). Boyle himself does
not propose to remedy that situation and states that he will ‘Declare what I mean
by Qualities, rather by Examples, then Definitions’ (Works, 5: 314).3
What are his examples? After making the point above, Boyle explains that
qualities ‘being immediately or reductively the Objects of sense, Men generally
understand pretty well what one another mean’ when specific examples are
given, ‘As to say, that the Tast of such a thing is Saline or Sowr’ (Works, 5: 314).
The tastes of things are examples of sensible qualities, that is, the qualities
that are the proper objects of our sense modalities. Other sensible qualities
Boyle on Qualities 171
include light, colour, odour, sound (Works, 5: 316), heat, cold, smoothness and
roughness (Works, 5: 321–2). Boyle discusses many other qualities that are not
sensible qualities in that strict sense, and which fall into a number of different
received types. For example, in Forms and Qualities, in listing the qualities
produced from the white of an egg in the production of a chick, Boyle mentions
other ‘Qualities, that are wont to be distinguish’d from Sensible ones’ such as
fluidity, consistency, hardness, flexibility, springiness, toughness, unfitness to be
dissolved in cold water and ‘some Occult Properties as Physicians observe’, that
is, various medicinal properties of young birds to treat various illnesses (Works,
5: 383). In the essay on Nitre, under ‘other Observables’ (Works, 2: 101), he lists
inflammability, evaporation, being sparkling, the shape of the body (e.g. the
shape of the crystals of saltpetre formed) and being corrosive or not (Works,
2: 101–11). In An Introduction to the History of Particular Qualities (Particular
Qualities), he describes the last as an instance of those qualities that ‘have bin
principally introduc’d and taken notice of by means of Chymicall Operations
and Experiments’ and so may be called ‘the Chymicall Qualities of things’
(Works, 6: 268).4 Here Boyle notes that by these operations
Corporeall things come to appear Volatile or Fixt, Soluble or Insoluble in

some Menstruum’s, Amalgamable or Unamalgamable, capable or uncapable to
precipitate such Bodies, or be precipitated by them, and (in a word) acquire or
loose severall powers to act on other Bodies or dispositions to be wrought on
by them; which (Attributes) do as well deserve the name of Qualities, as divers
other Attributes to which it is allow’d. (Works, 6: 268)
Other such examples that he includes under qualities are the Spirit of Nitre
filling a stopped vial with red fumes if put in the sun, and a needle attracting
other needles when it is close to a loadstone (Works, 6: 271–2).5
While not proposing a general definition of qualities, Boyle does indicate,
in the passages above and in other places, the content of the general concept of
quality he is using to identify his explananda. Qualities are accidents with three
characteristics: they are
1. observable accidents of bodies;

2. the means by which we differentiate bodies and make them of a certain
type; and
3. causal attributes of bodies.
With regard to the first feature, as noted above, Boyle describes qualities as ‘being
immediately or reductively the objects of sense’. Accordingly, he most commonly
refers to qualities as part of ‘the Phenomena of Nature’.6 Boyle says that he will
explain how mechanistic principles may produce ‘a much vaster multitude of
Phaenomena, and among them of Qualities, then one that does not consider
the matter attentively would imagine’ (Works, 6: 275). In Reflections upon the
Hypothesis of Alcali and Acidum, he talks of providing an account of ‘both the
Qualities of Bodies and the rest of the Phaenomena of Nature’ (Works, 8: 409).
Boyle’s gloss on ‘the Phenomena of Nature’ is that it is the name ‘the generality
of Philosophers, as well as other Men’ call ‘the Changes that are observ’d in …
all the Mundane Bodies’ (Works, 10: 467). Accordingly, qualities as phenomena
are essentially observable, even if only in some cases by their effects (as in the
case of occult qualities). In the Possibility of the Resurrection, Boyle describes the
laws of nature as that ‘according to which all the Phaenomena of Qualities are
regulated’ (Works, 8: 312).7
With regard to the second characteristic, in the Sceptical Chymist, Boyle
describes qualities as
that upon whose Account the Corporeal Substance they belong to receives its
Denomination, and is referr’d to this or that particular sort of Bodies; so that if it
come to lose, or be depriv’d of those Qualities, though it ceases not to be a Body;
yet it ceases from being that kind of Body as a Plant, or Animal, or Red, Green,
Sweet, Sowre, or the like. (Works, 2: 272)
In Forms and Qualities, Boyle writes that it is ‘Qualities, that difference particular
Bodies’ (Works, 5: 418). For ‘turning an acid salt into an Alkaly’ (Works, 5: 411),
Boyle talks of showing how something ‘exhibited all the Phaenomena of an Alkaly’
(Works, 5: 412). Of gold, Boyle wonders what ‘may qualifie that Matter to look
Yellow, to resist Aqua fortis, and to exhibit those other peculiar Phaenomena,
that discriminate Gold from Silver’ (Works, 5: 421). And in an essay on effluvia,
he refers to ‘the Phaenomena’ of Salts (Works, 7: 277).
But qualities are not only observable attributes, they are also causes. At the
beginning of the Preface to Forms and Qualities, Boyle cites the causal nature
of qualities in explaining why understanding their nature is ‘one of the most
Important and Usefull that the Naturalist can pitch upon for his Contemplation’.
We rely on the senses for our knowledge of bodies and ‘it is by their Qualities,
that Bodies act Immediately upon our Senses’. Further, it is ‘by vertue of those
Attributes likewise, that they act upon Other bodies, & by that action produce
in Them, & oftentimes in Themselves those Changes, that sometimes we call
Alterations, and sometimes Generation and Corruption’ (Works, 5: 298).
Referring to qualities generally, Boyle notes that ‘we see that the Actions of Bodies
upon one another are for the most part (if not all) immediately performed by
their Qualities or Accidents’ (Works, 5: 351).8 Qualities may be active or passive
causal attributes. This is the force of Boyle’s remark above that chymical qualities
include ‘powers to act on other bodies or dispositions to be wrought on by them’
(Works, 6: 268). Finally, Boyle adds that it is by our knowledge of qualities that
we have been able to control nature: it is from what experience ‘hath taught Us,
of these differing Qualities of bodies, that we are enabled, by a due application of
Agents to Patients, to exercise the little Empire, that we have either Acquir’d or
Regain’d over the Creatures’ (Works, 5: 298).
In sum, for Boyle, as an explanandum, a quality is an observable,
differentiating, causal attribute of a body. Boyle describes the ordinary person
of his time as holding that ‘Natural Things for the most part operate by their
Qualities, as Snow dazzles the Eyes by its Whiteness, and Water scatter’d into
drops of Rain falls from the Clouds upon the account of its Gravity’ (Works,
5: 324). Fire melts wax by its heat; the coldness of air may freeze water. Thus, in
his project to explicate qualities, Boyle conceives a quality to be both essentially
something we observe – they constitute the phenomena of nature – and a means
by which a body acts or operates.
For us, raised as we are on talk of electromagnetic radiation and molecular
reactions, while I may remark that the whiteness of the snow is blinding me, if
pressed to further articulate that causal process, I will make reference to a quite
different causal process at the micro level, not snow’s observable whiteness. To
a large extent this is exactly what Boyle wants natural philosophers to learn to
do. But, whereas for us causal powers are not part of our concept of observable
qualities, they still are for Boyle. To stay in Boyle’s frame of mind, it is important
here at the start to recognize that Boyle maintains that received conception of
qualities as observable causal attributes even once he has explained them in
terms of the mechanical affections of parts of matter.
To emphasize this point,9 it is helpful here to consider what it is for Boyle to
reduce a quality to mechanical principles and to recognize that for him this does
not involve reconceiving qualities as non-causal phenomena nor as causal non-
phenomena. At the end of the early tract on firmness and fluidity, Boyle explains
that for those two qualities that are such that ‘every sensibly big Body in the
Universe seems indow’d with one or other of them’, he had
attempted … the explicating of Qualities somewhat more intelligibly than is

wont to be done in the Peripatetick Schools, and to have open’d a way (which
I hope many will tread) of applying Chymical Observations and Experiments
to the deduction of those effects of Qualities from such general and obvious
affections of matter; as Bigness, Motion, and Figure, which even the Hermetical
Writers have hitherto contented themselves to refer to Salt, Sulphur, Mercury,
and the like. (Works, 2: 203)
For Boyle, to explicate a particular quality is to conceive of the quality’s effects

as effects produced below the level of the phenomena by the mechanical
affections of very small pieces of matter. It is in this sense that Boyle’s goal
for particular qualities is ‘to reduce Qualities (as well as divers other things
in nature) to Mechanical Principles’ (Works, 8: 322). More specifically, Boyle
explicates qualities in terms of ‘Corporeall Agents’ that do not ‘Work otherwise,
then by vertue of the Motion, Size, Figure, and Contrivance of their own Parts,
(which Attributes I call the Mechanicall Affections of Matter, because to Them
men willingly Referre the various Operations of Mechanical Engines)’ (Works,
5: 302). A body with a quality exhibits that causal attribute due to the mechanical
processes constituting corporeal nature.
Under such explications, Boyle still conceives of particular qualities as
observable causal attributes. This is evident in Certain Physiological Essays,
where Boyle states that although it is
the most satisfactory to the Understanding, wherein ’tis shewn how the effect is
produc’d by the more primitive and Catholik Affections of Matter, namely, bulk,
shape, and motion, yet are not these Explications to be despis’d, wherein particular
effects are deduc’d from the more obvious and familiar Qualities or states of Bodies,
such as Heat, Cold, Weight, Fluidity, Hardness, Fermentation, &tc. Though these
themselves do probably depend upon those three universal ones formerly nam’d.
For in the search after Natural Causes, every new measure of Discovery does both
instruct and gratifie the Understanding, though I readily confess, that the nearer
the discover’d Causes are to those that are highest in the scale or series of Causes,
the more is the Intellect both gratify’d and instructed. (Works, 2: 21)
Boyle stresses that he still allows explanations given by physicians and others
‘only either from secondary Qualities, or from the more particular Properties of
Mixt Bodies’ rather than from ‘Atoms or their Affections’ (Works, 2: 22). While
the latter will
afford the most satisfaction to those speculative Wits that aim but at the
knowledge of Causes; so I think that the other sort of men may very delightfully
& successfully prosecute their ends, by collecting and making Variety of
Experiments and Observations, since thereby learning the Qualities and
Properties of those particular Bodies they desire to make use of. (Works, 2: 23)
Chymical experiments enable people to discover previously unknown causal

phenomena or qualities. The postulation of corpuscular mechanisms does not
eliminate or replace qualities as observable, causal attributes of bodies. It is
Boyle’s maintenance of both qualities and corpuscular mechanisms as causes –
one secondary and one primary – that make him (and Locke) hard for us to
follow.10 I will return to this in Section 4.
2. Three preliminary positions about qualities
Boyle’s philosophical account of the origin of qualities is an account of how

qualities in general, understood as observable, causally efficacious, differentiating
accidents of bodies, arise from first causes. Before turning to that account in
Sections 3 and 4, it will be helpful to present three positions about qualities
that serve as a background for that account. These positions are his rejection of
so-called real qualities, his rejection of the Scholastic and Chymical doctrines
of qualities, and his acceptance of Descartes’s account of the sensible qualities.11
2.1. The rejection of real qualities

Boyle presents the doctrine of real qualities as holding
that there are in Natural Bodies store of real Qualities, and other real Accidents,
which not onely are no Moods of Matter, but are real Entities distinct from it,
and, according to the doctrine of many modern Schoolmen, may exist separate
from all Matter whatsoever. (Works, 5: 308)
Boyle presents three problems with conceiving of qualities in terms of such

entities. First, the notion of a real quality is ‘either unintelligible or manifestly
contradictious’ (Works, 5: 308).12 A ‘thing that subsists of it self, and is the
subject of Accidents, (or more plainly, a real Entity or thing, that needs not any
(created) Being, that it may exist)’ is a substance, whereas accidents need ‘the
existence of some substance or other, in which they may be, as in their subject of
Inhaesion’. In calling something in a material body a ‘quality’, one conceives it to
be an accident and so as something that ‘cannot exist separately from the thing
or subject wherein it is’ (Works, 5: 308). But to hold that the quality may exist
separate from matter is to conceive it also ‘under such a notion as belongs onely
to Substances’ (Works, 5: 309). The notion of a real quality is thus contradictory
for Boyle.
Second, Boyle argues that taking the qualities of a body to be such real
qualities would lead to the absurdity ‘that a Body may have almost an Infinite
Number of New Real Entities accruing to it, without the Intervention of any
Physical Change in the Body its self ’ (Works, 5: 311). Here the problem for the
proponent of real qualities is not the incoherence of separable accidents but the
implicit assumption that ‘every thing men are wont to call a Quality must needs
be a Real and Physical Entity’ (Works, 5: 314). Boyle notes how the observable
causal attributes of a body may be increased by the creation of a new solvent or
reagent. If such causal attributes of a body are each a distinct real quality, then
the body could gain an innumerable number of such entities without any change
in its matter. Boyle argues that this absurdity is avoided only if one holds that
causal attributes are relational, that is, that they belong to a body due to ‘Certain
Respects’ (Works 5: 310) the body stands in to others due to their respective
physical make-up.13 Thus, gold being distinguished from silver in being soluble
in aqua regia, a new-found solution, did not create a new entity in gold. Rather,
gold remains in its nature as it was before the creation of that solution (Works,
5: 310–11).
Finally, Boyle finds it inconceivable and unaccountable how such matter-
independent qualities could serve as causes of changes in material bodies. In
considering how a liquor can take on some of the qualities of an immersed body,
Boyle suggests that small parts of the body must break off into the liquor and
remarks that this will ‘be readily granted by those that conceive not, how one Body
should communicate to another a solitary and naked Quality, unaccompanied
by any thing Corporeal to support and convey it’ (Works, 7: 245). Similarly, Boyle
rejects approaching electrical phenomena as ‘the Effects of a meer Quality’, for
such qualities are ‘inexplicable’ (Works, 8: 513). The issue is the conceivability
or intelligibility of one material thing producing a change in another by means
of an attribute whose nature is not itself dependent on matter. Consistent with
this standard for intelligibility, in Forms and Qualities, Boyle concludes his own
account of qualities by emphasizing how ‘the Qualities, we here speak of, do so
depend upon Matter that they cannot so much as have a Being but in and by it’
(Works, 5: 322). In what sense Boyle takes qualities to be dependent on matter
and in bodies will be addressed in Section 4 below.
2.2. A wrong approach to qualities

Boyle ascribes to both the Aristotelians and Chymists an assumption or doctrine
about qualities that he takes to be ungrounded and empirically falsified, namely,
the doctrine that a quality must have a primary subject of inherence. In

Experiments Touching Cold, Boyle expresses that assumption as the claim that
any quality must have
a principal subject to reside in, upon whose account, and by participation of

which, that Quality belongs to the other Bodies, wherein it is to be met with; …
this fundamental Notion, upon which much of the Doctrine of Qualities, is both
by Aristotelians, and vulgar Chymists, superstructed, is but an unwarrantable
conceit. (Works, 4: 364–5)14
Boyle takes the Peripatetics to use this assumption to argue for substantial forms
over and above the four elements: they argue ‘that there is a determinate number
of Ingredients of compounded Bodies from whose mixture and proportion
many Qualities must be deriv’d, and those that cannot, must be resolved to flow
from a higher Principle’ (Works, 6: 269). In Chymist’s Doctrine of Qualities, he
takes the Chymists to use the assumption to argue that if a quality ‘is not to be
derived’ from salt or mercury, then ‘it must needs be derivable from the third, as
Sulphur’ (Works, 8: 393), or that some quality must be explained by their three
since it is not by the Peripatetics’ four.
The issue here is whether a body exhibiting a certain quality is directly
indicative of how the body is materially constituted. Boyle states, ‘To make
which argumentation valid, it must be proved (which I fear it will never be)
that there are no other wayes, by which those Qualities may be explicated, but
by a determinate number of Material Principles, whether four or three’ (Works,
8: 393). Boyle’s point here is logically independent of his Mechanical Hypothesis
for it makes no assumption about the actual constitution of bodies.15 For Boyle,
the only thing that follows from a body exhibiting some quality is that the body
has a constitution that enables it in a world such as ours to produce the effects
ascribed to the quality. Thus, Boyle pries apart the question (i), what must a
body be like to have a certain quality?, from the question (ii), how is a body
materially constituted? To answer (i), one has to study how the effects of a
quality are produced and Boyle thinks one needs to do that empirically.16 Boyle
takes the Aristotelians and Chymists to connect those two questions so that the
mere fact that a body exhibits a certain quality directly entails it having a certain
material or formal constitution. For Boyle, although one might be able to isolate
a substance-type as something with a certain set of causal attributes, one cannot
infer anything essential about the particular constitution of the substance on the
basis of that.17 Thus, persuaded of Boyle’s point, one could reject the approach
to qualities taken by Aristotelians and Chymists, but stay agnostic about the
Mechanical Philosophy as the full or correct story of the inner constitution

of bodies and of the source of the known qualities of a body.18 Boyle’s point
necessitates the empirical investigation into how qualities, or their effects, arise
before making any conclusion about a particular body’s make-up.
2.3. Descartes’s account of the sensible qualities

Near the end of the Principles, in part IV, article 188, Descartes brings up sensible
qualities after noting a lacuna in his mechanistic account of nature:
Up till now I have described this earth and indeed the whole visible universe as if
it were a machine: I have considered only the various shapes and movements of
its parts. But our senses show [exhibent] us much else besides – namely colours,
smells, sounds and such-like; and if I were to say nothing about these it might
be thought that I had left out the most important part of the explanation of the
things in nature. (1644: 279)
Descartes gives an account of colour and such by giving an account of the

sensory modalities,19 for sensible qualities, ‘things which we perceive by our
senses as being located outside us’ (1644: 285), are purportedly the features of
objects by means of which they act on our senses in our having such perceptions.
Descartes’s account involves the following points:
1. The mind is of such a nature ‘that the mere occurrence of certain motions
in the body can stimulate it to have all manner of thoughts which have no
likeness to the movements in question … A sword strikes our body and
cuts it; but the ensuing pain is completely different from the local motion
of the sword or the body that is cut – as different as colour or sound or
smell or taste. We clearly see, then, that the sensation of pain is excited in
us merely by the local motion of some parts of our body in contact with
another body; so we may conclude that the nature of our mind is such that
it can be subject to all the other sensations merely as a result of other local
motions’ (Principles IV, 197, 1644: 284).
2. The sense modalities result from the fact that through motion produced
in each sense organ ‘the soul or mind that is closely joined to the brain
is affected in various ways, corresponding to the various different sorts
of movements. And the various different states of mind, or thoughts,
which are the immediate result of these movements are called sensory
perceptions, or in ordinary speech, sensations’ (Principles IV, 189,
1644: 280).
3. We apply a sensible quality term to an object (or body) according to the

sensation produced in us, and from infancy,20 most of us imagine that the
cause in the object of the sensation resembles that sensation.
4. Given (1) and (2), it is most reasonable to hold that the sensible quality
term does not pick out some entity like the sensation existing in the body.
When we apply these terms, there exists in the body only its extended
parts of a particular size, shape and motion enabling it to produce that
sensation in us.
In the Principles, Descartes’s presentation of sensible qualities ends there. In

Forms and Qualities, Boyle faults Descartes for his failure to give a general
account of qualities in his Principles of Philosophy and to consider ‘what Changes
happen in the Objects themselves, to make them Cause in us a Perception
sometimes of one Quality, and sometimes of Another’ (Works, 5: 299).21 As
we will see in Section 4, in his account of sensible qualities, Boyle will utilize
this dualistic account of the sense modalities and the account of our common
mistaken assumption about the sensible qualities we perceive in objects. But
he will present this account as deriving from, or at least as part of, his general
account of qualities.
3. The ontological basis for qualities
Boyle presents an explicit philosophical doctrine of qualities in general in Forms

and Qualities, as well as in Particular Qualities,22 Chymist’s Doctrine of Qualities23
and Excellency of the Mechanical Hypothesis.24 This doctrine lays out the
ontological emergence of bodies and their qualities from fundamental causes.
The story here is really an account of five things that Boyle presents together but
will be helpful for us to distinguish at certain points:
1. the ontological emergence of the affections of matter,

2. the ontological emergence of bodies,
3. an account of the nature of any body considered in itself,
4. the ontological emergence of qualities and
5. an account of what exists in the corporeal world when a body bears a quality.
The first three will be presented in this section and the last two in Section 4. In
giving these accounts, Boyle also introduces several ontological categories. I will
present those as they are introduced by him.
In Particular Qualities, Boyle states that qualities derive from ‘11 very generall
Affections of Matter, which with itselfe make up 12 Principles of Variation in
Bodies’ (Works, 6: 275). I explicitly number these principles below. Boyle begins
with the category of substance: (1) the Universal Matter. This is that out of
which all bodies are made, ‘by which I mean a Substance extended, divisible,
and impenetrable’ (Works, 5: 305).25 The eleven other principles are all affections
of matter and so not able to exist apart from it. The first of these, the most
fundamental source of qualities, is (2) local motion. Boyle argues that
because this Matter being in its own Nature but one, the diversity we see in
Bodies must necessarily arise from somewhat else, then the Matter they consist
of. And since we see not, how there could be any change in Matter, if all its
(actual or designable) parts were perpetually at rest among themselves, it will
follow, that to discriminate the Catholick Matter into variety of Natural Bodies,
it must have Motion in some or all its designable Parts. (Works, 5: 305–6)26
In characterizing matter and motion in this context, Boyle uses two ontological
notions: primitiveness or simplicity and primacy. First, matter and motion are
each primitive; they cannot be resolved into each other or anything simpler.27
Further, while God is the primary cause, motion ‘seems to be indeed the Principl
amongst Second Causes, and the Grand Agent of all that happens in Nature’
(Works, 5: 306).28 Second, both matter and motion are most primary, that is,
while not arising from each other or other things (except perhaps God), all else
in nature is dependent on them. Thus, putting these two points together, even
though motion is an affection of matter and not able to exist without it, it is
itself a fundamental principle and the source of all the other accidents of matter
(including qualities), for it does not belong ‘to the Essence of Matter, (which
retains its whole Nature, when ’tis at Rest,) and not being Originally producible
by other Accidents as they are from It, may be look’d upon as the First and chief
Mood or Affection of Matter’ (Works, 5: 333).29
In the next step, Boyle explains how with motion in place, the bearers of the
affections of matter include not only matter itself but also the finite masses of
matter that come into being via motion. Here, Boyle begins to address together
the emergence of the affections of matter, the emergence of bodies, and the
nature of a body considered in itself. Once there is both matter and motion,
it will follow both, that Matter must be actually divided into Parts, that being
the genuine Effect of variously determin’d Motion, and that each of the primate
Fragments, or other distinct and entire Masses of Matter must have two
Attributes, its own Magnitude, or rather Size, and its own Figure or Shape. And
since Experience shews us (especially that which is afforded us by Chymical

Operations, in many of which Matter is divided into Parts, too small to be
singly sensible,) that this division of Matter is frequently Made into insensible
Corpuscles or Particles, we may conclude, that the minutest fragments, as well
as the biggest Masses of the Universal Matter are likewise endowed each with
its peculiar Bulk and Shape. For being a finite Body, its Dimensions must be
terminated and measurable: and though it may change its Figure, yet for the
same reason it must necessarily have some Figure or other. So that now we have
found out, and must admit three Essential Properties of each entire or undivided,
though insensible part of Matter, namely, Magnitude, (by which I mean not
quantity in general, but a determin’d quantity, which we English oftentimes call
the Size of a bodie,) Shape, and either Motion or Rest, for betwixt them two there
is no mean. (Works, 5: 307)
Let us break the three accounts apart. First, with regard to the account of the
emergence of the affections of matter in general, Boyle deduces that, in dividing
matter, motion must give rise to the existence of two new affections: (3) bulk or
size and (4) shape or figure. The ontological necessity by which these affections
come to exist is due to the essence of the universal matter together with its being
finite as the result of division by motion.30 Given this, considered generally,
motion as an affection of matter has primacy over size and figure. With the de
facto existence of motion, any individual finite mass of matter must not only
have some determinate shape or size, but also (5) motion or rest. Boyle states that
(3)–(5) ‘are the most primary and simple affections of matter’ (Works, 6: 274).31
Second, as a first step in his account of the emergence of observable bodies,
Boyle notes that we know from experience, including the experiments of the
Chymists, that finite matter not only involves large observable masses of matter,
but that such masses are divisible into much, much, smaller parts.32 It then
follows from the above, that even those insensible parts that are undivided must
also have a determinate size, shape and either motion or rest. Thus, Boyle says
(3)–(5) are the ‘three Essential Properties of each entire or undivided, though
insensible part of Matter’.
This leads to the account of the intrinsic nature of any piece or mass of matter.
Boyle’s main focus here is those insensible parts: (3)–(5) are the ‘three Primary
and most Catholick Moods or Affections of the insensible parts of Matter,
considered each of them apart’ (Works, 5: 333; italics added). Thus, Boyle says that
‘if we should conceive, that all the rest of the Universe were annihilated, except
any of these entire and undivided Corpuscles … it is hard to say what could
be attributed to it, besides Matter, Motion (or Rest,) Bulk, and Shape’ (Works,
5: 315). But Boyle also notes above that ‘the biggest Masses of the Universal
Matter are likewise endowed each with its peculiar Bulk and Shape’ and will
either be in motion or rest.
In the next step, Boyle introduces three new affections: ‘But now there
being actually in the Universe great Multitudes of Corpuscles mingled among
themselves, there arise in any distinct portion of Matter, which a number of them
make up, two new Accidents or Events’, namely, how a corpuscle is relative to the
‘stable Bodies about it’: (6) posture, ‘whether Erected, Inclin’d, or Horizontal’,
and (7) order, ‘the manner of their being so plac’d, as one besides another, or
one behind another’.33 Further, there also arises (8) texture: ‘And when many
Corpuscles do so convene together as to compose any distinct Body, as a Stone,
or a Mettal, then from their other Accidents (or Modes) and from these two
last mention’d, there doth emerge a certain Disposition or Contrivance of Parts
in the whole, which we may call the Texture of it’ (Works, 5: 316).34 The term
‘texture’ is to express that ‘many of these fragments, being associated into one
Mass or Body, have a certain manner of existing together’ (Works, 6: 274).
Here again Boyle presents together the three accounts above. First, with
regard to the emergence of the affections of matter, Boyle describes (6)–(8)
as affections that ‘will necessarily follow’ when different insensible parts of
matter ‘are consider’d together’ (Works, 5: 333). Given that posture and order are
affections of matter, not all affections of matter are intrinsic to or literally inhere
in a mass of matter. As we will see in the next section, a body’s qualities will be
dependent on (3)–(5) as well as (8), so texture, as an affection of matter, has
primacy with respect to qualities, but it is dependent on (3)–(7). None of (6)–(8)
are inseparable affections of matter since they only pertain to conventions of
pieces of matter. Further, not pertaining to undivided pieces of matter, textures
are less catholic affections of matter than (3)–(5). Second, with regard to the
emergence of bodies, with textures, we get the emergence of compounded
concretes of various sizes as well as observable bodies. Third, with regard to the
nature of any body considered in itself, Boyle says of (3)–(8) that they ‘are the
Affections that belong to a Body, as it is consider’d in itself, without relation to
sensitive Beings, or to other Natural Bodies’ (Works, 5: 334).
In Particular Qualities, Boyle goes on to give three other affections of matter
that pertain to bodies in this narrower sense of masses of the universal matter
constituted by textures: (9) pores, (10) effluviums and (11) mixture or composition.
Pores are empty pockets or spaces within the corpuscular arrangements of
particles of matter constituting a body, due primarily to the irregularity of the
shapes of the corpuscles or to their large size. (Boyle discusses pores in his
account of generation and corruption in Forms and Qualities (Works, 5: 327)).

Effluviums are small corpuscles or ‘subtle Emanations’ given off by a body due
to ‘heat and other Agents’. For the composition of a body, Boyle holds that when
the simple, undivided pieces of matter come together, they may form ‘durable
and uneasily dissoluble Clusters of Particles that may be call’d the Primary
Concretions or Elements of things’. Such differing concretions may then come
together to form further compound bodies. An observable body may thus be
constituted by a number of different primary concretions as ingredients ‘and so
afford a way whereby Nature varies Matter, which we may call … Mixture, or
Composition’ (Works, 6: 274–5).35 These three affections differ from (3)–(8) in
not following necessarily from the nature of bodies as corpuscular aggregates.
They are however possible features of such aggregates that Boyle takes to be
empirically confirmed by chymical experiments and to be involved in a body
bearing certain qualities.
As becomes clear in Forms and Qualities,36 and is emphasized in Particular
Qualities and in other works, there is one more material principle required to
account for the qualities of bodies. In Particular Qualities, Boyle presents this as
the eleventh affection of matter required for qualities: (12) ‘the Universal fabrick
of things, as by, the Laws of Motion established by the Author of Nature in the
World’ (Works, 6: 275).37 Boyle writes that it ‘hath been partly proved already in
the discourse of the Origin of Forms’ that
when we are considering how numerous and various Phaenomena may be

exhibited by mixt bodies, we are not to look upon them precisely in themselves,
that is, as they are portions of Matter, of such a determinate nature, or Texture;
but as they are parts of a World so constituted as ours is, and consequently as
portions of Matter which are plac’d among many other Bodies. (Works, 6: 272)
The main ontological point is that the textured body as it is isolated from other
bodies is insufficient to account for the existence of qualities and insufficient
to account for a body as a bearer of qualities.38 Thus, qualities for Boyle are not
ontologically identical or reducible to textures in and of themselves.39 Boyle does
say with regard to pieces of matter with (3)–(5), ‘the Coalition of any competent
number of these parts is sufficient to constitute a Natural Body endow’d with
divers sensible Qualities’ (Works, 5: 329). To avoid making him inconsistent,
we must hold that he meant this only assuming (12): an existing background of
various other modified matter, at rest or motion, and the laws of motion.
Boyle’s account above is one of the ontological emergence of three things
even before qualities have been introduced. First, for the affections of matter
in general: both matter and motion must exist for there to be finite pieces of
matter, and once those exist there will be determinate sizes, shapes, motion and
rest. If there is only one piece of matter there is no posture or order. If multiple
particles of matter exist but do not convene with a posture and order, there is no
texture. In a body constituted by a certain texture of corpuscles, there may also
exist pores, mixture or composition, and, in certain conditions, effluvia. Finally,
with the laws of motion, there are operations of matter in motion and an overall
composition of the universe. As we will see in the next section, qualities emerge
with the last in place and the de facto existence of sensitive beings to which
phenomena are exhibited or displayed. Second, for the ontological constitution
of the parts of matter, bodies emerge as textured congeries of particles of the
universal matter, where those undivided particles only bear size, shape, and
motion or rest. Third, for the intrinsic nature of a body, in addition to having a
constitutive texture (most likely with pores and a certain composition), since it
is a mass of matter, it will have its own shape and size and will be in motion or
rest.40
4. The emergence of qualities
After deducing the affections of matter and of finite masses of matter and
the nature of a body considered in itself, the task for Boyle, in essence, is to
explain how bodies come to exhibit accidents in addition to those affections.
For while we do see various machines operating only in terms of such affections
of matter, we observe bodies exhibiting many other means of operating such
as heat, cold, sound, fixedness, and magnetism.41 What is the origin of those
additional, observable, causally efficacious accidents we call ‘qualities’ and what
is in corporeal nature and bodies themselves when they exhibit them? Boyle
gives a succinct answer to these two questions at the end of his presentation of
his doctrine of qualities in Forms and Qualities,
if we fancy any two of the Bodies about us, as a Stone, a Mettal, &tc. to have
nothing at all to do with any other Body in the Universe, ’tis not easy to
conceive, either how one can act upon the other, but by Local Motion (of the
whole Body, or its Corporeal Effluvia;) or how by Motion it can do any more,
then put the Parts of another Body into Motion too, and thereby produce in
them a Change of Scituation and Texture, or of some other of its Mechanical
Affections: though this (Passive) Body being plac’d among other Bodies in a
World constituted as ours now is, and being brought to act upon the most
curiously contriv’d Sensories of Animals, may upon both these accounts

exhibit many differing sensible Phaenomena; which however we look upon
them as distinct Qualities, are consequently but the Effects of the often
mention’d Catholick affections of Matter, and deducible from the Size, Shape,
Motion (or Rest,) Posture, Order, and the resulting Texture of the Insensible
parts of Bodies. (Works, 5: 321)
As noted in Section 1, Boyle describes qualities generally as ‘being immediately

or reductively the objects of sense’ (Works, 5: 314). Thus, there are two basic types
of qualities to be accounted for: those causal attributes that are the immediate
objects of sense, i.e. the sensible qualities, and those that are exhibited by means
of the production of changes in the sensible qualities of bodies or in their
observable mechanical affections such as their size, shape, motion, and gross
arrangement of parts (Works, 5: 317–18). Some qualities, such as heat and cold,
are of both type, for example, heat is both an immediate object of our senses as
well as something by means of which a body can be observed to cause changes
in other bodies.
As is clear from the passage above, Boyle’s claim is that what there is in a
corporeal body itself when it exhibits a quality are just features (3)–(11) above.
This is not controversial. Controversy starts with the fact that Boyle is also clear
and explicit above that the intrinsic mechanical constitution of a body itself is
not sufficient for it exhibiting, or being endowed with, qualities. So, what else
must exist in addition to individual bodies themselves for qualities to ‘reside’
in them? Boyle says above that a passive body, that is, a body without intrinsic
agency, comes to be endowed with qualities when it exists in a world with other
bodies, structured and governed by laws of motion as ours is, and is ‘brought to
act upon the most curiously contriv’d Sensories of Animals’. The controversies
arise in trying to make clear what else Boyle has added here and what precisely
qualities are on that account. There are two main debates: one concerning what
Boyle introduces at the level of corporeal nature itself, and one concerning the
ontology of sensible qualities in particular. For the first, the main issue is how
to understand Boyle’s claims both that certain qualities are actually mechanical
structures in bodies and that qualities, in general, are relations or relative
attributes. For the second, there is also the further issue of how to understand
Boyle’s additional claims for sensible qualities that they are perceptions in the
mind. Below, I will argue that we can save Boyle from incoherence on both issues
if we keep in mind that qualities are assumed by Boyle to be both accidents of
bodies in virtue of which they operate, and so causal principles, and part of the
phenomena, and so observable.
In Forms and Qualities, Boyle presents his general account of qualities

in the excursion into the relative nature of qualities in the context of arguing
against real qualities and prior to his ontological deduction of texture. Here he
is explaining why ‘the Multiplicity of Qualities, that are sometimes to be met
with in the same Natural Bodies’ should not make one think that they ‘cannot
proceed from the bare Texture, and other Mechanical Affections of its Matter’
(Works, 5: 313). Boyle begins by emphasizing the consequences of (12) above
given the existence of bodies intrinsically constituted in terms of (3)–(8):
We must consider each Body, not barely as it is in itself an entire and distinct
portion of matter, but as it is a Part of the Universe, and consequently plac’d
among a great Number and Variety of other Bodies, upon which it may Act,
and by which it may be acted on, in many waies, (or upon many Accounts,)
each of which Men are wont to Fancy, as a distinct Power or Quality in the
Body, by which those Actions, or in which those Passions are produc’d. For
if we thus consider Things, we shall not much wonder, that a Portion of
Matter, that is indeed endow’d but with a very few Mechanical Affections, as
such a determinate Texture and Motion, but is plac’d among a multitude of
other Bodies, that differ in those Attributes from it, and one another, should
be capable of having a great Number and Variety of Relations to those other
Bodies, and consequently should be thought to have many Distinct Inhaerent
Qualities, by such as look upon those several Relations or Respects it may have
to Bodies without it, as Real and Distinct Entities implanted in the Body it self.
(Works, 5: 313)
Boyle’s account of qualities here is that with (12) in place, according to the laws of
motion, bodies will be able to produce changes in other bodies by their motion
or the motion of their parts, or to undergo certain changes themselves in their
mechanical affections. It is the ‘many waies, (or upon many Accounts,)’ that a
body acts that we take to be individual powers or qualities in the body. As we saw
in Section 1, a power or quality conceived as an accident of the body is that by
which a body acts or is acted on by another in a certain way. Boyle’s claim here
is that with (12) in addition to (1)–(11), a body will exhibit or be endowed with
causal attributes, but this causal agency of a body is wholly constituted by the
mechanical relations, or congruities and incongruities (Works, 5: 310), in which
the body stands, which, when motion occurs, result in the body producing a
change in another body.
The debate in the literature here concerns whether Boyle is claiming that in
bearing a quality a body not only has its intrinsic mechanical affections, but also
relational or dispositional properties, and that it is in bearing the latter rather
than merely the former that the body bears a quality. At the heart of the debate
is to what extent Boyle admits into his ontology or into his natural philosophy
relations or dispositional properties over and above either (3)–(5) and (8) or
(1)–(12). One side42 takes such an admission as violating Boyle’s mechanistic
reduction of qualities to corpuscular structures; the other side43 takes that
admission of relations to be clearly and explicitly supported by texts such as the
one above in which Boyle refers to powers and qualities as ‘several Relations or
Respects’ a body may have to another. Peter Anstey (2000: 106–7) has concluded
that the texts cited by each side show an unresolved and unresolvable tension in
Boyle.44
The import of this tension is lessened if we take Boyle’s main aim in natural
philosophy to be to show that he can account for qualities while admitting local
motion as the only active principle in nature. The contrast that concerns Boyle
is not the intrinsic versus the relational for, as we saw above, he admits into his
philosophical account of the affections of matter the relations of posture and
order. Nor is it merely the contrast between mechanical and the non-mechanical
features or accidents. Rather, what concerns Boyle is the contrast between causal
agency that is mechanically constituted and that which had long been taken
not to be, that is, the causal agency of qualities. On this interpretation, Boyle
may, without confusion or violation of his own principles, attribute mechanical
relations to objects to account for their observed causal agency, because what
grounds such relation-based agency is still only local motion.
The other, more difficult, issue is the ontology of Boyle’s account of sensible
qualities.45 In Forms and Qualities, Boyle gives this account after presenting (8),
textures. Boyle begins,
And if we should conceive all the rest of the Universe to be annihilated, save
one such Body, suppose a Mettal or a Stone, it were hard to shew, that there is
Physically anything more in it then Matter, and the Accidents we have already
named. But now we are to consider, that there are de facto in the world certain
sensible and rational Beings, that we call Men, and the body of Man having
several of its external parts, as the Eye, the Ear, &c. each of a distinct and peculiar
Texture, whereby it is capable to receive Impressions from the Bodies about it,
and upon that account it is call’d an Organ of Sense, we must consider, I say,
that these Sensories may be wrought upon by the Figure, Shape, Motion, and
Texture of Bodies without them, after several waies, some of those external
bodies being fitted to affect the eye, others the ear, others the nostrils, etc. And
to these Operations of the Objects on the Sensories, the Mind of Man, which
upon the account of its Union with the Body perceives them, giveth distinct
Names, call the one Light or Colour, the other Sound, the other Odour, &c.
And because also each Organ of Sense, as the Eye, or the Palat, may be it self
differingly affected by External Objects, the Mind likewise gives the Objects of
the same Sense distinct Appellations, calling one colour Green, the other Blew,
and one tast Sweet, and another Bitter, &c. Whence Men have been induc’d to
frame a long Catalogue of such Things as, for their relating to our Senses, we call
Sensible Qualities. (Works, 5: 316)
With this Boyle has given an account of how the explananda, the sensible
qualities, come into being. The difficult and controversial question is what
exactly has come into being here that are the sensible qualities?
According to the passage above, in the corporeal world, there are a variety of
bodies as well as the sensory organs of human beings, each with their specific
texture of parts with particular sizes, shapes and motions. Given their respective
mechanical affections, the laws of motion are such that external bodies with
certain mechanical structures may produce specific mechanical changes in those
sensory organs (see also Works, 5: 310). But that is not yet sufficient for a body
to be endowed with a sensible quality. For bodies to actually possess sensible
qualities there must exist ‘the Perceptive Faculty’ and, following Descartes’s
conception of the mind and body, that requires a mind being united to such a
corporeal body with parts that may be affected by other corporeal bodies acting
on its sense organs in a certain way (Works, 5: 319). In his subsequent accounts
of heat and cold, Boyle distinguishes sensible and non-sensible conceptions of
each. For example, he distinguishes the sensible quality of cold from ‘such a
Negation or immunition of motion, as though it operates not perceivably on
our senses, does yet upon other bodies’ (Works, 8: 342). For a body to actually
bear a sensible quality, that body must operate ‘perceivably on our senses’. Thus,
Boyle says that ‘usually by Cold is meant that which immediately affects the
sensory of him that pronounces a body Cold’ (Works, 8: 341–2; italics added).
A person pronounces a body cold when it is perceived as causing that sensation
in virtue of which a body is called ‘cold’. The causal event, then, that is the origin
of sensible qualities is not just a body by motion affecting the sense organs, but a
body so operating on the senses that there results a perception in and by a mind
of that body as having a certain sort of efficacy with regard to him or herself
as a sensitive being. What is being registered by the mind in such a perception
is that a body bears an accident with a certain causal efficacy for the mind via
the sense organs, for example, a cold-tactile-sensation producing accident or
a red-visual-appearance producing accident. Following Descartes, Boyle holds
that the variety of such perceived causal attributes of corporeal bodies directly
corresponds to the variety of sensations arising in the mind upon certain specific
motions being produced in the sense organs. Thus, Boyle explains above how
there are two axes of variation in sensible qualities corresponding to which
organ is affected and to how a specific organ is affected. From the former arises
the different types of sensible qualities, ‘Light or Colour’, ‘Sound’ and ‘Odour’;
from the latter arises ‘the Objects of the same Sense’, such as green or blue for
colour and sweet or bitter for taste. Also, following Descartes, Boyle goes on to
note that we usually misconceive that causal attribute of the body, taking it to be
something in addition to the body’s matter, such as a real quality, or something
resembling our sensation. But that misconception is not part of the origin story
itself.
Thus, for Boyle, sensible qualities emerge when there are minds united
to bodies such that external objects acting on certain parts of our bodies by
mechanical means result in our having perceptions of bodies as having a certain
causal efficacy with regard to ourselves as sensitive beings. As we saw in Section 1,
Boyle maintains the received conception of bodies acting by means of their
accidents. For him, our being aware of some object operating on us involves
being aware of an accident possessed by the object by means of which the object
acts.46 These perceived accidents that are the objects of our senses are sensible
qualities.
An advantage to this interpretation of Boyle’s account of sensible qualities
(as presupposing the received notion of sensible qualities as observable, causal,
accidents) is that it can account for Boyle saying in the origin account above that
what is named by such terms as ‘Colour’ and ‘Green’ and ‘Blue’ are ‘Things’ that
are so related to our senses; it is those ‘Things’ that he thinks we intend to refer
to using our name for sensible qualities and which are the objects of the senses.
A contrary view is that for Boyle what we are aware of and name above is a body
being such as to cause certain sensations in us, that is, not a feature of the body
that acts on us but the body standing in a certain causal relation to us. On that
dispositionalist interpretation, our concepts of sensible qualities are concepts
of a body being such as to cause certain observable effects. But that is not what
Boyle says above. Such a dispositionalist reading ignores the fact that Boyle still
holds a substance-accident ontology where qualities or powers are conceived to
be accidents by means of which a body acts, even at the level of the phenomena.
Understanding Boyle to be working with a conception of this perceived causal
efficacy of a body as a perceived causal accident of a body also makes some sense
of Boyle’s statements, in the context of giving his origin story, that what we name
by our sensible quality terms are perceptions. For example, at the end of the first
part of Forms and Qualities, Boyle notes how bodies may produce impressions
on our sense organs and states that ‘the Perceptions of these Impressions are by
men call’d by several Names, as Heat, Colour, Sound, and Odour’ (Works, 5: 334).
Also, at the end of his account in Particular Qualities, he points out that the
various affections of matter ‘may produce a distinct Impression on the Organ,
and a correspondent perception in the Discerning Faculty; many of which
Perceptions, especially if distinguished by proper names [such as sound], belong
to the List of particular Qualities’ (Works, 6: 278). For Boyle, when a sensible
quality is exhibited by a body, it is that conceived causally efficacious accident of
the body that is perceived by the mind in that specific kind of perception, and
so is the object that makes that perception the specific kind of perception that
it is. But, in addition, the exhibited sensible quality is also the attribute of the
body that is essentially causally operative in our having that kind of perception.
The body exhibiting a sensible quality and the mind having a certain perception
are essentially co-occuring. Thus, Boyle adds concerning cold, that ‘sometimes
also it is taken (which is perhaps the more Philosophical sense) for a perception,
made in and by the mind, of the alteration produced in the Corporeal Organs by
the operation of that, whatever it be, on whose account a body is found to be cold’
(Works, 8: 342; italics added). This is not to deny that for Boyle it is the nature
of the particular sensation produced that makes a perception, for example, a
perception of the sensible quality of cold. Boyle supposes that in having that
sensation, we perceive an accident (of a body) that is sufficient for producing
that sensation in us. A body’s having a sensible quality is a matter of it exhibiting
the possession of an accident in virtue of which it operates ‘perceivably on our
senses’.
A consequence of this is that a body’s bearing a sensible quality is not
ontologically reducible to what is going on in the corporeal world when a body
exhibits one, for a certain sensation must also be produced in a perceptive faculty.
This fact is not a problem for Boyle, since his goal as a natural philosopher does
not require him to give an ontological reduction of sensible qualities to matter
and motion, but just to show that what is in the corporeal world when bodies
exhibit sensible qualities is just matter and motion. The efficacious accidents
existing in corporeal nature when, for example, snow exhibits whiteness are just
the mechanical affections of pieces of matter existing in certain relations of order
and congruity or fit to another body (a sense organ) and put in a certain kind of
motion.47
Thus, I do not think that Boyle tries to specify the ontological status of
sensible qualities over and above the dualistic origin story above.48 That is, he
does not further clarify the status of qualities as the objects of our perceptions, as
the phenomena of nature, beyond the origin story itself. In an earlier attempt to
understand Boyle, I argued that sensible qualities are perceptual effects produced
in perceivers (Keating 1993). I do not think that is right if that is taken to mean
the mental acts of sensing by the mind. Sensible qualities are what are displayed
or exhibited to us by bodies only through those acts.49 In raising the issue of
the ontological status of sensible qualities, Anstey asks, ‘What is the relation
between the sensations or perceptions in the mind and the sensible qualities?
And where on this causal chain are the sensible qualities located?’ Anstey lists
the causal chain between body and sensation to consist of 5–6 items: the object,
the medium, the sense organ, the nerves, some part of the brain and then the
immaterial mind (2000: 74). From what I said above, the relation between certain
perceptions in the mind and sensible qualities is a phenomenal causal relation.50
Sensible qualities for Boyle, as exhibited causal attributes constituting part of the
phenomena of nature are the explananda and as such are not on Anstey’s list.
That list contains the ontological basis upon which sensible qualities emerge as
the phenomena of nature.
5. Conclusion: The conceptual fallout of Boyle’s doctrine
As argued in Section 1, Boyle himself maintains together both the Mechanical

Philosophy and the received notion of qualities as observable causally efficacious
accidents. But, in itself, this union is conceptually unstable. First, on the received
notion, a quality is conceived as an accident of a body and so as residing in it, but
as explicated on Boyle’s doctrine, that accident is not something that pertains
to the body considered in itself. Qualities reside in a body only at the level of
the phenomenon due to the role that body plays in the operation of the engine
that is the world we inhabit and by which we are materially, and so sensitively,
affected. Second, on the received view, a quality is conceived as an accident by
means of which bodies operate, but as explicated on Boyle’s doctrine, the effects
of that quality actually result from the operations of pieces of matter due to
their mechanical affections. The efficacy of qualities is only at the level of the
phenomena. A consequence of this is that as our empirical knowledge of the
phenomena progresses the notion of quality loses its usefulness as a theoretical
or explanatory concept with regard to the behaviour of bodies. This is how it is
for us, but not for Boyle (or Locke), and it is this that makes interpreting him
difficult, for we try to identify qualities with something in his explicitly presented
ontology rather than maintaining the conception of them as explananda

exhibited in the phenomena of nature.
Today we approach nature by attempting to directly manipulate the micro-
structures of things and to conceive of them independently of what bodies exhibit
to us. Boyle opened the door for that. To his credit as a natural philosopher,
Boyle set aside that question of the ontological status of the phenomena of nature
in order to free up thinking about the physical processes by which corporeal
nature truly operates. But there is still no clear answer to the ontological status
of the observable features of objects such as colour and sound. To that extent,
as Descartes’s dualism of mind and body allowed for progress in understanding
the operation of the human body, Boyle’s doctrine of qualities allowed for
progress in understanding the operations of material bodies generally. But like
Descartes’s work on the human body, Boyle’s work on bodies in general leaves an
ontological puzzle we are still grappling with.
Notes
1 Boyle also calls this philosophy the ‘Corpuscular Philosophy’ and ‘Particularian
Philosophy’ (Works, 5: 393). While this may suggest that it is the very small bodies
that are explanatory, as we will see below it is actually the mechanical affections of
the bodies that are causally efficacious.
2 In the Sceptical Chymist, through the voice of Carneades, Boyle hints at his
solution to understanding forms: ‘I Consider that if it be as true as ’tis probable,
that Compounded Bodies Differ from One Another but in the Various Textures
Resulting from the Bigness, Shape, Motion, and contrivance of their smal parts.
It will not be Irrationall to conceive that one and the same parcel of the Universal
Matter may by Various Alterations and Contextures be brought to Deserve the
Name, somtimes of a Sulphureous, and sometimes of a Terrene, or Aqueous Body.
And this I could more largely Explicate, but that our Friend Mr. Boyle has promis’d
us something about Qualities, wherein the Theme I now willingly Resign him’
(Works, 2: 255).
3 At the beginning of the Particular Qualities, Boyle also declines to give a general
definition, noting that ‘quality’ has been used in several different senses, but that
‘by the subsequent Discourse it will sufficiently appear in which of the more usuall
of those significations we employ that Terme’ (Works, 6: 267). Kaufman (2006: 154)
also notes this approach by Boyle.
4 See also Works, 8: 326; there he also lists electricity and magnetism as occult
qualities.
5 Boyle gives different lists of received types of qualities in Mechanical Origin of

Qualities (Works, 8: 325–6) and in Particular Qualities (Works, 6: 267–8; S 97–8).
In Particular Qualities, he notes that he is just reporting received taxonomies after
suggesting that some may find these lists arbitrary and intimating that he could
come up with something different.
6 Thus, I resist Anstey’s claims that Boyle ‘believed that we have no immediate
epistemic access to the qualities of bodies’ (2000: 78) and that our perceptual access
to manifest qualities is mediate.
7 In the Chymists Doctrine of Qualities, Boyle also makes reference to ‘the grand
Phaenomena of Qualities’ (Works, 8: 405).
8 Boyle notes this in arguing against the explanatory usefulness of substantial forms.
9 Several commentators stress that qualities are causes for Boyle but lose sight
of the fact that, for Boyle, as explananda they are essentially also part of the
phenomena.
10 Given that these attributes are not the fundamental causes of the effects of bodies,
they are not primary but secondary causal attributes of bodies. For the debates in
understanding Locke on sensible qualities see Stuart (2003). Discussion of Locke
on qualities goes beyond the scope of this paper.
11 In structuring this paper, I am indebted to Anstey (2000) and Pasnau (2011) who
helpfully separate the first and third positions, respectively, from Boyle’s general
account of qualities.
12 This is also true for Descartes (1641: 176) as he states in the Fourth Set of Replies
in the context of discussing the Eucharist and the senses. Des Chene (1996: 131–2)
notes that including inseparability in the definition of an accident was not standard
amongst Aristotelians.
13 We will consider Boyle’s claim that qualities are relations in Section 4.
14 See also Sceptical Chymist (Works, 2: 335–6) and Chymist’s Doctrine of Qualities
(Works, 8: 392).
15 Boyle gives empirical evidence against that assumption in a number of works, such
as Fluidity and Firmness (Works, 2: 171, 188–9); Sceptical Chymist (Works, 2: 231);
Chymist’s Doctrine of Qualities (Works, 8: 393, 398–9); Particular Qualities (Works,
6: 270–1); Excellency of the Mechanical Hypothesis (Works, 8: 111–12).
16 To a certain extent, of course, since Boyle takes as a principle that any change in
matter must come via local motion.
17 Except that it be such as to produce the effect of the quality attributed to the
substance.
18 This is one way to approach the problem of making consistent Locke’s explicit
qualms about the Mechanical Philosophy and his apparent whole-hearted
acceptance of Boyle’s approach to qualities, as for example in Essay, IV.vi.11–12.
19 Principles, Part IV, articles 189–99 (1644: 279–86).
20 Principles, Part I, 71 (1644: 218–19). Anstey (2000: 72–5) discusses Descartes’s

influence on Boyle’s view of the process of sensation.
21 In Experiments and Considerations touching Colours (Works, 4: 56–60), Boyle
discusses various theories of colour and indicates the details he would want
filled in.
22 Works, 6: 273–8.
23 Works, 8: 401–2.
24 Works, 8: 105–6, 115–16.
25 See also Sceptical Chymist (Works, 2: 258–64); Possibility of Resurrection (Works,
8: 308); Notion of Nature (Works, 10: 467, 469); and many other places.
26 See also Particular Qualities (Works, 6: 274)
27 Excellency of the Mechanical Hypothesis (Works, 8: 106); Great Efficacy of Effluviums
(Works, 7: 257).
28 In Sceptical Chymist, Boyle states that motion is ‘the Grand and Primary instrument
whereby Nature produces all the Changes and other Qualities that are to be met
with in the World’ (Works, 2: 355).
29 See also Works, 2: 23; 3: 252; 8: 105.
30 Thus, size and shape are inseparable from finite matter in a way that motion (or
rest) is not, since the former pair follow from the essential nature of matter itself.
This is one way of saving Boyle from blatant confusion when he immediately goes
on to apparently distinguish size and shape from motion or rest insofar as the
former are inseparable from finite matter and then, shortly after (Works, 5: 329),
refers to all three as inseparable affections of any piece of matter.
31 Boyle does not include extension, divisibility and impenetrability among the
primary affections of matter since they constitute its essence and so are not mere
modes of it. The affections are accidents that matter has due to the imposition of
motion resulting in finite parts.
32 On the foregoing reading, Boyle is not making a transdictive move here from
noting the accidents we perceive in bodies to attributing them to insensible
particles (for that alternative interpretation, see Anstey (2000)). Rather, Boyle uses
evidence of chymical experiments to deduce the existence of insensible particles
(see Newman (2006)) and then deduces their nature from the fact that they are
finite pieces of the universal extended matter.
33 See also Works, 6: 274.
34 Boyle notes that posture and order are both ‘reducible to Scituation’ (Works, 5: 316),
so it may be that the two new accidents are situation and texture. In any case, Boyle
lists posture and order as separate affections in Particular Qualities (Works, 6: 274).
35 Thus, in Excellency of the Mechanical Hypothesis (Works, 8: 114), Boyle explains
how the Corpuscular Philosophy can give an explanation of the Chymists’ elements
if they are used in an explanation.
36 Works, 5: 313, 318, and 321. I cite the first and third passages in Section 4.
37 Anstey (2000), Pasnau (2011), and Kaufman (2006) make this very clear, something
I did not do in a prior paper (Keating 1993: 308).
38 See also Particular Qualities: ‘in reference to the Production of Qualities, a Body
is not to be considered barely in it selfe, but as ’tis placed in, and is a portion
of the Universe’ (Works, 6: 281), and Excellency of the Mechanical Hypothesis: a
body ‘has also many capacities of acting and suffering upon the score of the place
it holds among other Bodies in a World constituted as ours is’ (Works, 8:106).
See also Works, 8: 401. Boyle talks of this in detail in Cosmical Qualities (Works,
6: 287–315) and Usefulness II, 2 (Works, 6: 512ff.). Boyle notes that even the shape
of crystals may be dependent on the nature of the environment (Works, 7: 30–2).
In the later work on effluvia, Boyle lists six ways in which effluvia can operate,
where the last is ‘By the Fitness and Power they have to make themselves be
assisted, in their Working, by the more Catholick Agents of the Universe’ (Works,
7: 258).
39 Alexander (1985) argues that Boyle does make that identification. Those who deny
that also include Anstey (2000), Kaufman (2006) and Pasnau (2011).
40 Commentators often remark that Boyle is sometimes intending to refer to
determinables in talking of the affections of matter, and other times to refer to the
determinate affections of corpuscles. An alternative way to phrase that point is, as
I have done here, as Boyle presenting together both a theory of the emergence of
the affections of matter considered generally and of the affections of finite masses of
matter of increasing complexity.
41 Works, 8: 106–7.
42 Alexander (1985) and Pasnau (2011).
43 Jackson (1929), Curley (1972), O’Toole (1974), Mackie (1976), Kaufman (2006).
44 Downing (2011: 129n48) agrees with Anstey ‘that in the end Boyle’s metaphysical
commitments here are not as precise as we might like’.
45 Given Boyle’s conception of qualities as ‘immediately or reductively the objects of
sense’, the broader issue is the ontological status of the phenomena of nature. Here
I will just address the issue of the status of sensible qualities.
46 This leads one to think of Locke’s explication of the concept of power in Essay,
II.xxi.1–3, and II.xxii.11: ‘Power being the Source from whence all Action proceeds,
the Substances wherein these Powers are, when they exert this Power into Act, are
called Causes’.
47 Locke comes to mind here too: ‘I confess Power includes in it some kind of relation,
(a relation to Action or Change) … And sensible Qualities, as Colours and Smells,
etc. what are they but the Powers of different Bodies, in relation to our Perception,
etc. And if considered in the things themselves, do they not depend on the Bulk,
Figure, Texture, and Motion of the Parts?’ (Essay, II.xxi.3).
48 Perhaps this is what Boyle is implying in his refusal to define quality in general or
to define specific qualities, versus giving an account of the causes of their effects in
terms of mechanisms.
49 Here one is led to think of Locke’s tortured use of ‘quality’ and ‘idea’ in talking of
the observed nature of bodies.
50 One is reminded of John Searle’s emphasis on the existence of what he calls
‘intentional causation’: ‘you take it for granted that what you are perceiving is what
causes your subjective perceptual experience … [W]‌hen you hear a strange and
unexpected sound, you take it for granted that the auditory event in the subjective
perceptual field was caused by a sound in the objective perceptual field…in every
case you simply take it for granted that the subjective experience is caused not
just by any objective state of affairs but by the very one that you are perceiving’
(2015: 126–7). While I am doubtful of this claim, it captures well the Aristotelian
phenomenology framing discussions of sensible qualities in Boyle’s time.
Works cited
Alexander, P. (1985), Ideas, Qualities and Corpuscles: Locke and Boyle on the External
World, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Anstey, P. (2000), The Philosophy of Robert Boyle, New York: Routledge.
Anstey, P. (2011), John Locke & Natural Philosophy, New York: Oxford University Press.
Anstey, P. (2013), ‘The Theory of Material Qualities’, in P. Anstey (ed.), The
Oxford Handbook of British Philosophy in the Seventeenth Century, 240–60,
New York: Oxford University Press.
14 vols, London: Pickering & Chatto.
Curley, E. M. (1972), ‘Locke, Boyle, and the Distinction between Primary and
Secondary Qualities’, Philosophical Review, 81: 438–64.
Descartes, R. (1641), Fourth Set of Replies, in trans. J. Cottingham, R. Stoothoff and
D. Murdoch, The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, vol. 2 (1984), pp. 154–78,
Descartes, R. (1644), Principles of Philosophy, in The Philosophical Writings of Descartes,
vol. 1 (1985): 177–291, trans. J. Cottingham, R. Stoothoff and D. Murdoch,
Des Chene, D. (1996), Physiologia: Natural Philosophy in Later Aristotelian and
Cartesian Thought, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Downing, L. (2011), ‘Sensible Qualities and Material Bodies in Descartes and Boyle’, in
L. Nolan (ed.), Primary & Secondary Qualities: The Historical and Ongoing Debate,
109–35, New York: Oxford University Press.
Jackson, R. (1929), ‘Locke’s Distinction between Primary and Secondary Qualities’,

Mind, 38 (149): 56–76.
Kaufman, D. (2006), ‘Locks, Schlocks, and Poisoned Peas: Boyle on Actual and
Dispositive Qualities’, Oxford Studies in Early Modern Philosophy, 3: 153–98.
Keating, L. S. (1993), ‘Un-Locke-ing Boyle: Boyle on Primary and Secondary Qualities’,
History of Philosophy Quarterly, 10 (4): 305–23.
Locke, J. (1975), An Essay concerning Human Understanding, P. Nidditch (ed.),
Mackie, J. L. (1976), Problems from Locke, Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Newman, W. R. (2006), Atoms and Alchemy: Chymistry & the Experimental Origins of
Nolan, L., ed. (2011), Primary & Secondary Qualities: The Historical and Ongoing
Debate, New York: Oxford University Press.
O’Toole, F. J. (1974), ‘Qualities and Powers in the Corpuscular Philosophy of Robert
Boyle’, Journal of the History of Philosophy, 12 (3): 295–315.
Pasnau, R. (2011), Metaphysical Themes: 1274–1671, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Searle, J. (2015), Seeing Things as They Are: A Theory of Perception, New York: Oxford
University Press.
Stuart, M. (2003), ‘Locke’s Colors’, The Philosophical Review, 112 (1): 57–96.
7
Boyle’s Natural Kind Realism

Jan-Erik Jones
The Aristotelian hylomorphic account of nature, adopted and expanded by the

Scholastics,1 claims that all natural material substances are a composite of matter
and form. The Scholastic concept of ‘form’ is of an imperceptible, immaterial
essence that imposes organizational unity and structure onto the matter with
which it is joined and makes it a member of a natural kind, imbuing it with all of
its relevant characteristics, that is, its essential properties and resulting qualities.
‘Essential properties’ are those features that tell us to what species or genus an
object belongs, for example, being warm blooded is an essential property of
mammals, being rational is an essential property of humans, being yellowish
and heavy are essential properties of gold. In this way, then, the substantial form
of any object in the Scholastic theory plays three roles: (a) it tells us to what
natural kind the substance belongs, (b) it accounts for the substantial unity of the
substance and (c) it causes the sensible qualities and properties of the substance.
For example, according to the Scholastic theory, a lump of gold is an instance of
gold because its matter possesses the substantial form of gold which causes all
of the properties of gold, for example, malleability, yellowish colour, heaviness
and so on. So, on this view, classifying natural substances and organisms based
on their observable properties will always result in a taxonomical scheme that
matches reality.
What this means is that the Scholastic ontology is committed to realism
about natural kinds. To say that a kind is natural is to say that a grouping of
similar individuals exists independently of human classification decisions. For
the Scholastics, this independent natural grouping is effected by the form. That
is to say, each individual member of the kind shares the same substantial form.
This is why the Aristotelian tradition thinks of the substantial form as a formal
cause, it is what makes an individual the kind of being that it is.
On this view, the task of each scientific discipline is to identify as many

natural kinds as possible within its domain and to determine their properties
accurately. The difference between a natural kind and a species or genus is that
nature creates kinds with substantial forms, humans create taxonomies which
include species and genera. According to the Scholastic theory, when human
classification practices are done correctly, our classifications of individual
substances that sort them into their species and genus will be coextensive
with – at least roughly – the kinds already existing in nature. An implication
of this hylomorphic natural philosophy is that there is a conceptual distinction
between the form and the prime matter, that is, the matter as it is independently
of the form.2 Prime matter – because it is devoid of any defining formal causes –
is inert, it has no causal powers and lacks colour, mass, structure, solidity, scent,
flavour and so on , and would be incapable of supplying a body with any qualities
until it is informed by a substantial form.
Both of these theoretical commitments of Scholasticism, that is, prime matter
and substantial form, are criticized and rejected by Robert Boyle. According to
Boyle, there are no non-material forms in nature (except the human soul; Works,
5: 300)3, and material particles are not inert but possess qualities and properties
all on their own (Works, 5: 306–7). Nevertheless, like the Scholastics, Boyle
does accept natural kind realism and he does believe that empirical methods
of classifying substances into genera and species can result in taxonomies that
match nature’s kinds.4 So the question we shall address in this chapter is: How
Boyle can retain natural kind realism and empirical classification methods
without accepting substantial forms?
In order to answer this question, I shall show that Boyle argues that because
matter naturally possesses size, shape and mobility, it can be organized into
structures that have qualities that exceed what the particles themselves have.
These structures can become an essence or ‘corpuscular form’ that accounts
both for the properties of the body and its membership in a natural kind.
Similarly, increasingly more complex structures can result in the production of
organisms that are also members of natural kinds. In this way, Robert Boyle is
arguing for a version of natural kind realism that is based on the structure of
the underlying matter and discovered empirically via the resulting properties.
This understanding of Boyle’s natural kind realism will help show why he is an
important figure, both in the Scientific Revolution and in the debate over natural
kinds. It will also help explain how Boyle’s view relates to the realism of Francis
Bacon and the antirealism of John Locke.5
Boyle’s Natural Kind Realism 201
1. Boyle’s rejection of Scholastic substantial forms
Before we dive into Boyle’s critique of substantial forms, it will be helpful to say
a bit more about prime matter. The Aristotelian natural philosophy argues that
without a substantial form, matter would not be a substance and it would not
have any properties because it would have no essence, that is, there would be
nothing to supply it with any of the powers of its kind because it has no kind.
Boyle, along with the other mechanists, rejects this view and argues that matter
is a substance all on its own with its own essential properties:
So that now we have found out, and must admit three Essential Properties of
each entire or undivided, though insensible part of Matter, namely, Magnitude,
(by which I mean not quantity in general, but a determin’d quantity, which we
in English oftentimes call the Size of a bodie,) Shape, and either Motion or Rest.
(Works, 5: 307)
Far from admitting prime matter, Boyle insists that matter is a substance
that is extended, that is, has size and shape and can be at rest or put into
motion.6 In fact, as we shall see in Section 3 below, it is because of the nature
of matter that Boyle brings us closer to bridging the gap between what we
now understand as physics and chemistry. However, before we can do justice
to this innovation, we must first see how Boyle argues for his natural kind
realism.
Boyle’s polemics against substantial forms in the Origne of Formes and
Qualities (hereafter Forms and Qualities) contains a series of layered critiques:
First, That I see no necessity of admitting in Natural things any such substantial
Forms, Matter and the Accidents of Matter being sufficient to explicate as much
of the Phænomena of Nature, as we either do or are like to understand. The
next, That I see not what use this puzling Doctrine of substantial Forms is of
in Natural Philosophy; the Acute Scaliger, and those that have most busied
themselves in the Indagation of them, having freely acknowledg’d … That the
true Knowledg of Forms is too difficult and abstruse to be attain’d by them …
third, which is, That I cannot conceive, neither how Forms can be generated, as
the Peripateticks would have it, nor how the things, they ascribe to them, are
consistent with the principles of true Philosophy, or even with what themselves
otherwise teach. (Works, 5: 340)
Here we see that Boyle is presenting an empirical challenge to the Scholastic

doctrine of forms. A slight reordering of the passage will help reveal each of
these elements as working together to undercut the justification substantial

forms seem to enjoy:
1. Because substantial forms are non-physical and unobservable, they are

unknowable (even their staunchest defenders admit that no knowledge of
them is to be had).
2. The doctrine of substantial forms is not only inconsistent with other
Scholastic theoretical commitments, it suffers from serious internal
consistency problems.
3. Substantial forms cannot play an explanatory role in natural philosophy.
4. Substantial forms are theoretically unnecessary (everything they were
postulated to explain can be explained by appealing exclusively to ‘matter
and the accidents7 of matter’).
Therefore, substantial forms should be rejected and replaced with a

material equivalent.
While all of these premises deserve careful evaluation, for the sake of brevity
we shall focus most of our attention on premise (4) and touch only lightly on
(1)–(3), and only insofar as they are relevant to our main concern, that is, Boyle’s
natural kind realism based on corpuscular forms.
Boyle’s rejection of (1) is rather brief and takes the form of a challenge to his
Scholastic opponents:
First then they thus argue. Omne Compositum substantiale (for it is hard to
English well such Uncouth Terms) requirit materiam & formam substantialem,
ex quibus componatur. Omne corpus naturale est compositum substantiale. Ergo
&c.8 In this Syllogisme some do plausibly enough deny the Consequence, but for
brevities sake, I shall rather choose to deny the Minor, and desire the Proposers
to prove it. For I know not any thing in Nature that is compos’d of Matter, and a
Substance distinct from Matter, except Man. (Works, 5: 343)
Boyle is presenting an empirical challenge to the Scholastics: he argues that he

has no evidence that anything in nature (except in the case of the human body
and soul) is a composite of matter and immaterial form, and until he is given
convincing evidence of the existence of immaterial forms in nature, he sees no
reason to accept it.
As we shall see below, his expression ‘distinct from matter’ will come
up regularly in his polemics against the doctrine of substantial forms. It is a
fundamental commitment of Boyle’s natural philosophy that matter and motion
are the primary explanatory concepts and so his aim is to reduce all natural
phenomena to matter and motion. Indeed, on his view, nothing but matter
and motion can explain purely natural phenomena: ‘to say, that … Effects are
perform’d by the substantial Forms of the respective Bodies, is at best but to tell
me, what is the Agent, not how the Effect is wrought’ (Works, 5: 352). In essence,
Boyle is arguing that appeals to substantial forms fail to provide an adequate
explanation of natural phenomena because how the form does its work remains
mysterious. For example, in Notion of Nature he put it thus, ‘For to explicate a
Phænomenon, it is not enough to ascribe it to one general Efficient, but we must
intelligibly shew the particular manner, how that general Cause produces the
propos’d Effect’ (Works, 10: 558). And again in the Excellency of the Mechanical
Hypothesis:
These, I say, when they tell us of such indeterminate Agents, as the Soul of the
World, the Universal Spirit, the Plastic Power, and the like; though they may in
certain cases tell us some things, yet they tell us nothing that will satisfie the
Curiosity of an Inquisitive Person, who seeks not so much to know, what is the
general Agent, that produces a Phænomenon, as by what Means, and after What
Manner, the Phænomenon is produc’d. (Works, 8: 108)
Here we see Boyle’s commitment to (3): he repeatedly insists that appeals to

non-physical entities fail to intelligibly explain the causes and effects in nature,
and since substantial forms are non-physical entities, they cannot play an
explanatory role in natural philosophy.
A brief word on ‘explaining how’ for Boyle.9 A well-known feature of his
negative polemics is that, by Boyle’s lights, if the explanans is more mysterious
than the intended explanandum, then the purpose of explanation has not been
achieved. An adequate scientific explanation will appeal only to entities or
processes that are non-mysterious, or in his word, intelligible. An explanation
of ‘how’ is intelligible, on Boyle’s view, if the entities and processes appealed
to are familiar from experience. In this sense, Boylean explanations are to be
understood in terms of his general corpuscularian programme10 where he tries
to reduce as many natural phenomena as possible to the primary qualities of
bodies. This is why, for Boyle, adequate explanations exclusively identify physical
causes. Take, for example, this passage from the Excellency of the Mechanical
Hypothesis:
if the proposed [explanatory] Agent be not intelligible and physical, it can never
physically explain the Phænomena, so if it be intelligible and physical, it will
be reducible to Matter and some or other of those only Catholick affections of

Matter already often mentioned. (Works, 8: 109)11
It seems that the two important features that make the explanatory agent
intelligible are that they are physical and their properties are among those
familiar properties of matter.12 These two components allow for an adequate
explanation of how an effect is wrought by an agent simply because we are
already familiar with material objects and how they operate on one another.
At no point does Boyle require that an intelligible explanation of ‘how’ include
a complete account of causation, only that the account appeal to physical
entities and familiar processes, for example, collisions, motion and so on. We
can now see why he concludes that the operations of immaterial forms on
physical corpuscles would not yield intelligible explanations but mechanical
explanations would.
Concerning premise (2), one of the internal consistency problems Boyle
singles out for critical treatment is the inability of the Scholastic theory to
consistently hold on to the doctrine of prime matter as inert and to insist that
the matter produces the form in cases of generation. According to Boyle, the
Scholastics claim that when a generated body comes into existence, in the case
of reproduction, for example, the newly created offspring must either acquire
its substantial form from the matter out of which it was produced, or it must
be created ex nihilo at the time of generation. Boyle finds the latter option
unacceptable because it requires God to perform innumerable miracles at
each moment. As for the former option, Boyle says that the common opinion
among Scholastics is that matter is partly eductive, in that the efficient cause
extracts the form from the matter itself, and partly receptive, in that it has
the power to receive the new form. But, says Boyle, since the Scholastics do
not accept the view that the form was preexistent within the matter, and that
there is no conceivable way for matter to produce (or educe) an immaterial
being, there is no adequate explanation of the origin of the new form (Works,
5: 340–2).
Before turning to premise (4), I should point out that Boyle’s critique of
the Scholastic natural philosophy also applies to their accounts of essential
definitions and taxonomical practices. I shall begin by looking at his criticism of
their taxonomical practices. By his lights, the concept of substantial form in the
Scholastic tradition yields an arbitrary theory of classification:
if You ask Men what they mean by a Ruby, or Niter, or a Pearl, they will still
make You such Answers, that You may clearly perceive, that whatever Men
talk in Theory of Substantial Forms, yet That, upon whose account they really
distinguish any one Body from others, and refer it to this or that Species of
Bodies, is nothing but an Aggregate or Convention of such Accidents, as most
men do by a kind of Agreement (for the Thing is more Arbitrary than we are
aware of) think necessary or sufficient to make a Portion of the Universal Matter
belong to this or that Determinate Genus or Species of Natural Bodies. (Works,
5: 323)
His point is that the Scholastics are theoretically committed to the view that
substantial forms distinguish bodies into their natural species and genera, but
the Scholastics do not (and cannot) appeal to the unobservable substantial
forms in their classification practices. The result is that the Scholastics classify
according to non-theoretical criteria established by convention. Boyle’s
argument in the Forms and Qualities is that this arbitrary practice ought to be
replaced by a philosophically and empirically sound one. He makes a similar
claim in the Sceptical Chymist, where he argues that the inadequate accounts of
the Aristotelians and chymists would be greatly improved if they took advantage
of the explanations available in the mechanical hypothesis. Their unwillingness
to appeal to mechanical principles, Boyle argues, results in their giving ‘us but a
very imperfect account of the Origine of very many mixt bodies’ (Works, 2: 232).
The arbitrariness of Scholastic classificatory practices is a theme that Boyle
repeats in several places in Forms and Qualities:
It was not at randome, that I spoke, when, in the foregoing Notes about the Origine
of Qualities, I intimated, That `twas very much by a kind of tacit agreement that
Men had distinguish’d the Species of Bodies, and that those Distinctions were
more Arbitrary than we are wont to be aware of. For I confesse, that I have not
yet, either in Aristotle, or any other Writer, met with any genuine and sufficient
Diagnostick and Boundary, for the Discriminating and limiting the Species of
Things. (Works, 5: 356)
His complaint is that the Scholastics have failed to provide a sufficient

philosophical account of species individuation – based on their philosophical
commitments – rendering their methods arbitrary.
Building on this practical failure of their theory, Boyle further argues that
the Scholastics have failed to produce the one bit of scientific knowledge of
nature that they are so fond of discussing: real definitions. According to the
Aristotelians, a scientific account of anything requires the philosopher to identify
the four causes that jointly reveal the true nature of the species. The method is to
use a syllogism that allows the philosopher to deduce a definition of the relevant
species that identifies both the genus and essence of that species. The result of
this process is a ‘real definition’. A real definition, according to the Aristotelian
tradition, is one that accords with the hierarchy of natural kinds and identifies
the essence of the species or genus, for example, ‘man is the rational animal’
(reason being the essence of the species, animal being the genus).
A nominal definition, by contrast, is a pseudo-definition that identifies the
members of the species or genus but fails to capture the essence, for example
‘man is a featherless biped.’ All humans might be featherless and bipedal, but that
is not what makes us humans; and there could be another species of featherless
bipeds that we have not yet discovered. To be a real definition, it must pick out
the essence of the species, and the essence is provided by the substantial form.
In the case of humans, the rational soul is our substantial form and it is both
what causes us to be humans and to exhibit rationality. For this reason, humans
are essentially rational but only accidentally featherless and bipedal. So, a true
science of nature for Aristotle and the Scholastics consists of real definitions and
not mere nominal ones.
By the time Boyle wrote Forms and Qualities, a standard criticism of the
Scholastic science was that four centuries of effort had only produced one real
definition (which Boyle refers to as a ‘substantial definition’): ‘Man is the rational
animal.’ But this failure – Boyle insists – is rooted in the Aristotelian ontology:
[S]‌ince the Peripateticks themselves confess the Forms of Bodies to be of

themselves unknown, all that this Argument seems to me to conclude, is but
this, That if we do not admit some things, that are not in rerum natura, we
cannot build our Definitions upon them: nor indeed could we, if we should
admit substantial Forms, give substantial Definitions of Natural things, unlesse
we could also define Natural Bodies by things that we know not; for such the
substantial Forms are (as we have already seen) confess’d to be, by the wisest
Peripateticks, who pretend not to give the substantial Definition of any Natural
Compositum, except Man. (Works, 5: 344)13
According to Boyle, the Scholastics are building their definitions on unknown

(and likely nonexistent) entities and thus lack a principled account of their
classifications of species. And any natural philosophy that appeals to unknown
entities is unlikely to yield knowledge. So, Boyle concludes, their inability to
progress in providing real definitions is a good reason to look for a different way
to construct definitions that are based on entities that are knowable. Happily,
Boyle has a suggestion: instead of appealing to immaterial forms, we should
instead appeal to material ones.
2. Boyle’s corpuscular kinds
We are now ready to take up premise (4), that is, the claim that substantial forms
are unnecessary in natural philosophy because anything they were posited to
explain can be done by appeal to matter and its qualities.14 An interesting feature
of Boyle’s positive account is that he claims that species deserve to be sorted in a
specific way: there are ‘a vast Multitude of Portions of Matter endow’d with store
enough of differing Qualities, to deserve distinct Appellations; though for want
of heedfulnesse and fit Words, Men have not yet taken so much notice of their
lesse obvious Varieties, as to sort them as they deserve, and give them distinct
and proper Names’ (Works, 5: 332). By employing terms like ‘heedfulness’, ‘fit’,
‘deserve’ and so on, he implies that if we were to pay careful attention to the
properties of bodies, we could accurately sort things into their natural classes. In
other words, nature’s hierarchy is empirically accessible to us so long as we are
careful and attending to the proper features of material substances.
In Forms and Qualities, Boyle argues that the difficulties which beset the
Scholastic doctrine of natural species can be avoided by redefining ‘forms’. This
is the point of the second-half of the first edition15 of Forms and Qualities; he is
explaining what, on the corpuscular hypothesis, forms are. This is also why he
states his target thusly: ‘the summe of the Controversy betwixt Us and the Schools
is this: whether or no the Forms of Natural things (the Souls of Men alwaies
excepted) be … true substantial Entities, distinct from the other substantial
Principle of Natural Bodies, namely Matter’ (Works, 5: 340). In his rejection of
substantial forms, Boyle sees the need to replace them with something that can
play all of the roles of a form, that is, account for the substantial unity of bodies,
account for natural kinds and cause the observable qualities of bodies. Indeed,
on his account, forms are material and that the Scholastic mistake was to not
allow for material forms in the first place:
Indeed, if [the Scholastics] would admit the Form of a Natural Body to be but
a more fine and subtle part of the Matter … then the Eductive Power of Matter
might signifie something; and so it might, if with us they would allow the Form
to be but a Modification of the Matter; for then it would import but that the
Matter may be so order’d or dispos’d by fit Agents, as to constitute a Body of such
a sort and Denomination. (Works, 5: 341)
Here Boyle brings his corpuscular solution to the problem of eduction and natural
kinds into contact with his critique of substantial forms. Forms, for Boyle, are
naturally repeated material structures of bodies that determine their kind. We
also see Boyle emphasizing that the form is nothing distinct from the matter (in
its particular arrangement) that makes up the body. Moreover, he insists that the
philosophical problems he has identified in the Scholastic claim that matter has
an ‘eductive capacity’ and can ‘educe’ the form is solved by postulating a material
form. Matter does not magically educe an immaterial form that somehow
bestows unity, properties and an essence on the object. Rather, matter has its
own properties, and a structure of material components can play all three of
the roles of a formal cause. In other words, matter constitutes a ‘form’ for Boyle,
in that when it is ordered in specific structures, it can do all of the work for the
corpuscular natural philosophy that substantial forms did for the Scholastics.
Concerning substantial unity, Boyle says relatively little apart from his claim
that material structure is sufficient to account for the unity of aggregate bodies
in the Notion, that divers Learned men have of an Ens per Accidens, namely, that
tis That which consists of those things, quae non ordinantur ad unum, it may
be said, That though we do not admit substantial Forms, yet we need not admit
Natural Bodies to be Entia per Accidens; because in them the several things
that concur to constitute the Body, as Matter, Shape, Scituation, and Motion,
ordinantur per se et intrinsece to constitute one Natural Body. (Works, 5: 344)16
Later on, he adds that substantial unity is also aided by the close proximity of
the constituent parts: ‘the contrivance of conveniently figur’d parts, and in some
cases their juxta-position … be sufficient’ (Works, 5: 350). In other words, the
mechanical affections of the matter suffice, on this view, to order a body into a
unified whole.17
One of the philosophical problems associated with this view is how particles
cohere to create a unified body. As Locke would later put it in his An Essay
concerning Human Understanding, if a body is ‘nothing, but the cohesion or
continuity of solid, separable, moveable Parts’ (2.4.5) and we have no explanation
of how these parts bond together, then we cannot account for the unity of bodies
mechanically. For example, if the claim is that bodies bond because there are little
hooks on the corpuscles that grip onto the hooks of other corpuscles, then the
question of how the hooks cohere (as opposed to break up) must be answered.18
For this reason, Locke argues that we are as much in the dark about cohesion of
corpuscles as we are about how a soul thinks:
Tis as easie for him to have a clear Idea, how the Soul thinks, as how Body is
extended. For since Body is no farther, nor otherwise extended, than by the
union and cohesion of its solid parts, we shall very ill comprehend the extension
of Body, without understanding wherein consists the union and cohesion of its
parts; which seems to me as incomprehensible, as the manner of Thinking, and

how it is performed. (2.23.24)
This problem threatens the very concept of a composite body. If we cannot

account for the cohesion of parts, there is no philosophically satisfactory way
to explain what a body is.19 Clearly aware of this problem, Boyle suggest in his
Chemist’s Doctrine of Qualities that cohesion could be the result of an attractive
force between the corpuscles, like an internal gravitational pull: ‘and the cohesion
of those parts, by virtue of their gravity and fitness to adhere to one another’
(Works, 8: 393). Though, even this suggestion is inadequate without an account
of the source of the attraction.
As for the denomination, properties, and sorting of species, corpuscular
structure explains these for Boyle:
for the Form of a Natural Body, being according to us, but an Essential
Modification, and, as it were, the Stamp of its Matter, or such a convention
of the Bigness, Shape, Motion (or Rest,) Scituation and Contexture, (together
with the thence resulting Qualities) of the small parts that compose the Body,
as is necessary to constitute and denominate such a particular Body. (Works,
5: 353)
Notice the two claims here. First, form consists in corpuscular form,20 which not
only includes the corpuscular structure but the resulting properties necessary
to classify it. Second, these material structures and resulting properties are
sufficient to constitute class membership. Elsewhere, he reiterates this view:
since those Qualities … do themselves proceed from those more Primary and
Catholick affections of Matter, Bulk, Shape, Motion or Rest and the Texture
thence resulting, why may we not say, that the Form of a Body … doth likewise
consist in such a Convention of those newly nam’d Mechanical Affections of
Matter, as is necessary to constitute a Body of that Determinate kind. And so,
though I shall for brevities sake retain the word Forme, yet I would be understood
to mean by it, not a Real Substance distinct from Matter, but onely the Matter
it self of a Natural Body, consider’d with its peculiar manner of Existence
[corpuscular structure], which I think may not inconveniently be call’d either its
Specifical or its Denominating State, or its Essential Modification, or, if you would
have me express it in one word, its Stamp: for such a Convention of Accidents is
sufficient to perform the Offices that are necessarily requir’d in what Men call a
Forme, since it makes the body such as it is, making it appertain to this or that
Determinate Species of Bodies, and discriminating it from all other Species of
Bodies whatsoever. (Works, 5: 324)
Here we see that Boyle is redefining the concept of ‘form’ in a mechanically

respectable way, that is, as a corpuscular structure that performs the same duties
as substantial forms. In fact, as we saw above, the reason we can successfully
classify objects ‘as they deserve’ is because the internal structure reveals itself via
the observable properties. What diversifies kinds is the corpuscular form, which
includes both structure and the resulting properties by reference to which we
classify. Moreover, Boyle argues that since corpuscular forms are like substantial
forms (in that they constitute an essence; they make the object what it is, imbue
it with its characteristic properties, and account for substantial unity), it follows
that lacking the form is sufficient to destroy the object qua member of its kind:
so when a Body comes to lose all or any of those Accidents that are Essential,
and necessary to the constituting of such a Body, it is then said to be corrupted
or destroy’d, and is no more a Body of that Kind, but looses its Title to its former
Denomination. Not that any thing Corporeal or Substantial perishes in this
Change, but onely that the Essential Modification of the Matter [its corpuscular
structure] is destroy’d. (Works, 5: 329)
Again later, he says that the properties of bodies result from the essential form. It
is an ‘essential form’ because without it, the body would not have the properties –
and species class – it in fact has. Thus, like his Scholastic counterparts, all these
forms and their properties are essential in analogous ways:
But neither in this, nor in any kind of Corruption is there any thing substantial
destroy’d … but onely that special connexion of the Parts, or manner of their
Coexistence [corporeal structure], upon whose account the Matter, whilst it was
in its former state, was, and was call’d, a Stone or a Mettal, or did belong to any
other Determinate Species of Bodies. (Works, 5: 335)
We see here again that in both generation and corruption, corpuscular structure
is all there is, and nothing more, that is, an immaterial form, is added or lost
in these processes. This frequent appeal to ontological parsimony is one of
the striking features of his polemic and it is all in service of premise (4), that
substantial forms are unnecessary in natural philosophy.
One might think, however, that this rejection of substantial forms in favour of
corpuscular forms might lead to some philosophical difficulties. For example, if
all there is to a natural kind is a material structure then how do we get repeated
material structures without the guidance of an immaterial form? A related
problem is ‘why is the world not populated by an infinite array of corpuscular
forms?’ The short answer to both questions is ‘God’. But to see the long answer,
we shall have to look more closely at how Boyle addresses the question of how
nature achieves hard-edged kinds. And as we shall see, Boyle does not think that
the infinite potential of matter to be rearranged to create an infinite amount of
possible structures implies that there are no natural species. As long as there are
repeated corpuscular structures in nature, and as long as similar structures result
in similar properties, there will be discoverable natural kinds. Moreover, Boyle
argues that artificially produced substances (such as vitriol, i.e. sulfuric acid) that
share their qualities with a naturally occurring substance are structurally similar
to their natural counterparts, and so they are members of the same natural kind.
This is his entire reason for discussing the results of his experiments with vitriol;
nature continues to regularly produce instances of natural kinds by means of
mechanical reconfigurations of corpuscular structures.
I will pitch, for the illustration of the Mechanical Production of Forms, upon
Vitriol. For since Nature her self, without the help of Art, does oftentimes
produce that Concrete, (as I have elsewhere shewn by Experience,) there is no
reason why Vitriol, produc’d by easie Chymical Operations, should not be look’d
upon as a Body of the same Nature and Kind. (Works, 5: 360)
He is arguing that nature produces forms via mechanical means: by the

mechanical alterations of corpuscular structures nature regularly produces
natural kinds. The instances produced in the lab are just as natural as those made
by nature because they too are produced by the rearrangement of corpuscular
structures.
It is difficult to overestimate the importance of passages like these for Boyle’s
project. The whole reason he focuses so intently on the results of mechanical
experiments in Forms and Qualities and elsewhere is that he is arguing that
form just is the corpuscular structure (along with the mechanical powers of the
matter) and that this explains how we can make real vitriol in the laboratory as
reliably as nature does. That is what The Origin of Forms and Qualities is: it is an
explanation of the mechanical origin of forms. The world is an ‘orderly and well-
contrived fabric’ of regularly and mechanically produced natural kinds whose
properties and classes are empirically knowable.
Moreover, like the Scholastics, he argues that nature does produce identifiable
and hard-edged natural kinds.
And indeed, since to every Determinate Species of Bodies, there doth belong
more than One Quality, and for the most part a concurrence of Many is so
Essential to That sort of Bodies, that the want of any of them is sufficient to
exclude it from belonging to that Species: there needs no more to discriminate
sufficiently any One kind of Bodies from all the Bodies in the World, that are not
of that kind…And I suppose it would be thought a Man’s own fault, if he could
not distinguish a Needle from a File, or a Key from a pair of Scissors, though
these being all made of Iron, and differing but in Bigness and Shape, are less
remarkably diverse then Natural Bodies, the most part of which differ from each
other in far more Accidents then Two. (Works, 5: 323–4)
His conclusions are threefold. First, members of a kind share many properties,
which are individually necessary and jointly sufficient to rank it within its
kind. These essential properties are grounded in the corpuscular structure
of the objects. Thus, distinctions between kinds are grounded in corpuscular
structure. Second, these kinds are discernible; just as it would be ‘a man’s own
fault’ if he could not distinguish between keys and scissors, he would be equally
blameworthy if he failed to distinguish between a bat and a bird, or gold and
iron pyrite. Finally, objects of differing natural classes typically differ in many
observable properties, that is, there are hard edges between at least some kinds.
Just as what distinguishes a file from a needle are such noticeable properties
as size, shape and configuration which are grounded in the differing physical
composition of the items, what differentiates gold from iron pyrite is also a
sizeable set of conspicuous properties grounded in their differing corpuscular
structures.
Boyle’s use of iron tools is important to his argument by analogy. Although
a key and scissors are both tools composed of iron, they differ in both physical
structure and, therefore, in their essential properties. By analogy, instances of
different natural kinds (though they are both composed of matter) with different
arrangements of their constituent matter produce different properties. What
makes a key not a pair of scissors just is the differing configurations of their
constituent iron. In like manner, what makes iron pyrite not gold just is their
different corpuscular configurations. What establishes the boundaries between
kinds are corpuscular forms.
This reading is further supported by Boyle’s mathematical example where he
discusses how his theory accounts for gaps in essential properties among kinds.
The example concerns comparing the ways the properties of two distinct kinds
of geometrical figures differ: ‘though Sphæres and Parallelopipedons differ but in
Shape, yet this difference alone is the ground of so many others, that Euclid and
other Geometricians have demonstrated, I know not how many Properties of
the one, which do no way belong to the other’ (Works, 5: 323). From the fact that
all the properties of a sphere and a parallelepipedon follow from their structure,
or essences, it further follows that these two figures of distinct essential natures
are going to exhibit a large number of diverging properties. How spheres and
parallelepipedons differ is in essential mathematical structure, these differences
in structure manifest themselves in their different essential properties. Again,
Boyle is illustrating that what accounts for the relevant essential properties
among substances is the configuration of their matter. Given that these objects
possess distinct essential properties resulting from their structures, it follows
that their essential properties map out natural gaps between kinds. The same
goes for material objects.
Finally, for Boyle, unlike the problematic substantial definitions for the
Scholastics, the mechanical account of forms allows for an empirically
respectable taxonomy of species:
But it may suffice Us to have, instead of substantial, essential Definitions of

things; I mean such as are taken from the Essential Differences of things, which
constitute them in such a sort of Natural Bodies, and discriminate them from all
those of any other sort. (Works, 5: 344)
That is to say, on Boyle’s view, definitions of species are possible, not by producing
what the Scholastics call ‘real definitions’ but by producing definitions of species
that appeal to the essential properties – grounded in corpuscular structure –
that discriminate that class of body from all others. Given the above analogies
between the differing structures and properties of different species of material
and mathematical objects, it is clear that Boyle is arguing that the observable
differences among properties provide insight into the deep-structural, or formal,
differences among kinds.
So, while Boyle does reject substantial forms, he does not reject formal
causes. Indeed, on his model, all of the functions of form are performed by
natural corpuscular structures. And by his lights, it is God’s creation that orders
the matter into kinds and regularly produces them:
I do not at all believe, that either these Cartesian Laws of Motion, or the Epicurean
causal Concourse of Atoms, could bring meer Matter into so orderly and well
contriv’d a Fabrick as This World; and therefore I think, that the wise Author of
Nature did not onley put Matter into Motion, but when he resolv’d to make the
World, did so regulate and guide the Motions of the small parts of the Universal
Matter, as to reduce the greater Systems of them into the Order they were to
continue in; and did more particularly contrive some portions of that Matter
into Seminal Rudiments or Principles, lodg’d in convenient Receptacles, (and
as it were Wombs,) and others into the Bodies of Plants and Animals. (Works,
5: 353–4)
God’s creation of the world not only included the creation of matter and its
affections, it also included initiating regular types of motions that help constitute
a mechanical natural order. In so doing, Boyle suggests, God also created the
conditions for the regular production of organisms. It is God’s creation of the
regularities in matter and motion that create the hierarchy of natural kinds and
produces the ‘well contrived fabric’ of nature.
In referring to the universe as a ‘well-contrived fabric’, Boyle is indicating that
he rejects the randomness of the Epicurean ‘swerve in the void’ as a kind of blind
causation, which he (and his contemporaries) took to imply atheism. Rather,
Boyle insists that God is the first cause of all reality and that his construction
of an orderly physical reality guarantees that there is regularity in nature and
a hierarchy of natural kinds. Thus, referring back to our earlier concern, even
though matter is infinitely changeable, there are natural regularities that were
put into place by divine action that structure nature in an orderly (non-random)
way. In this way, Boyle inserts God’s action into nature to play one of the roles
of substantial forms; God is the one who imposes order on the matter. However,
Boyle does not think that God imposes order on an individual basis; this
would involve God in constant miracles, and as we saw in his polemic against
substantial forms, that would be objectionable. Rather, Boyle sees the role of
God as initiating the conditions in nature that regularly result in an orderly
fabric. In this way, he avoids involving God directly in the mundane activity of
the physical world, while still employing God in supplying the natural order that
substantial forms were meant to provide.
3. Boyle’s chemical kinds
As we saw above, Boyle’s natural kinds are set up as a natural hierarchy and are
founded in physical structures. This opens up the question of how the corpuscles
contribute to the overall structure and resulting qualities of the bodies they
comprise. That is to say, he has spoken a great deal about natural kinds among
corpuscles, chemicals and even about plants and animals, but his view on the
relationship between the physics of the small material particles, endowed with
primary qualities like size, solidity, shape and mobility, and the causally rich
worlds of chemistry and biology remains to be seen. Of course, there is too
much to say about this issue for us to do it justice here, but we can say a few
things that relate to the varieties of natural kinds in Boyle.
In Book II §§i–vii of his Novum Organum, Francis Bacon gives a version of
corpuscular species realism by redefining the concept of ‘formal cause’ as both
the material structure of bodies and the laws that govern the natural effects
of these structures that accounts for their species and genus membership. For
example, in II.ii he says, ‘For though nothing exists in nature except individual
bodies which exhibit pure individual acts [powers] in accordance with law …
It is this law and its clauses which we understand by the term Forms’ (Bacon
2000: 103). And later in II.iii: ‘But he who knows forms comprehends the unity
of nature in very different materials’ (ibid.). These Baconian forms, as they
consist of both the structured particles of matter and the powers of material
bodies, divide nature into two classes of material structures: the elements (what
he calls ‘major associations’) and the genera and species of natural bodies (his
‘minor associations’):
We want elements to be understood in the sense not of the prime qualities of

things, but of the major constituents of natural bodies. For the nature of things
is so distributed that the quantity or mass of certain bodies is very great, because
their structure requires the texture of an easy and common material … But
the quantity of certain other bodies in the universe is small and occurs rarely,
because the texture of their matter is very different, very subtle and for the most
part delimited and organic; such are the species of natural things, metals, plants,
animals. (Ibid., 226)
Bacon takes it that smaller, more general material structures convene to create
larger – and more sparse – bodies, and given the ‘law and its clauses’ that
correlate powers to these structures, these bodies have their natures and belong
to a species or genus due to both their structure and the causal powers of their
constituent parts.
As we know, Boyle too accepts that corpuscular structure is an important
component of a material formal cause, however, there are other similarities
as well. For example, Boyle builds up a natural hierarchy from the most basic
particles. And, similarly to Bacon’s natural kinds, this hierarchy results in an
increasing degree of physical complexity at each level.21 On Boyle’s theory, the
basic components of matter are not materia prima, but what he calls minima
naturalia:22
That there are in the World great store of Particles of Matter, each of which is too
small to be, whilst single, Sensible; and being Entire, or Undivided, must needs
both have its Determinate Shape, and be very Solid. Insomuch, that though it
be mentally, and by Divine Omnipotence divisible, yet by reason of its Smalness
and Solidity, Nature doth scarce ever actually divide it; and these may in this
sense be call’d Minima or Prima Naturalia. (Works, 5: 325–6)
These minima naturalia (smallest natural particles) make up the ‘corpuscles’

in nature, which, when structured in certain ways, account for something like
an element23 or an atom and are the basic building blocks of more complex
substances:
That there are also Multitudes of Corpuscles, which are made up of the Coalition
of several of the former Minima Naturalia, and whose Bulk is so small, and their
Adhæsion so close and strict, that each of these little Primitive Concretions or
Clusters (if I may so call them) of Particles is singly below the discernment of
Sense, and though not absolutely indivisible by Nature into the Prima Naturalia
that compos’d it, or perhaps into other little Fragments, yet, for the reasons
freshly intimated, they very rarely happen to be actually dissolve’d or broken,
but remain entire in great variety of sensible Bodies, and under various forms or
disguises … we see that even Grosser and more compounded Corpuscles may
have such a permanent Texture. (Works, 5: 326)24
These more complex substances, or compounded corpuscles, are larger

primitive concretions built up out of minima, which are stable and resist
natural dissolution. These larger primitive concretions can take on permanent
textures so that they constantly behave in predictable ways. To illustrate this
point, Boyle gives the example of all the ways mercury can be changed into
different states, for example, powder, liquid, or vapour, ‘and yet remain true
and recoverable Mercury’ (Works, 5: 326). By ‘true and recoverable’, Boyle is
referring to some well-known chemical processes that can recover silver, gold,
mercury and so on, even after these metals have been dissolved or in some
other way mixed with other materials. One method Boyle employed was to
dissolve the metal in an acid solution and then recover it by precipitating it out
of the solution. This ability to recover all of the original metal suggested to him
that the insensibly small particles of the metal remained intact as mercury, gold
or silver throughout the process.25 Thus, these minima create corpuscles that
are, in all reality, stable chemical elements, or what William Newman refers to
as ‘chymical atoms’.26
According to Boyle, these chemicals gain or lose properties and qualities
depending on the ways their structures are altered or based on the textures of
other bodies with which they interact:
And whether any thing of Matter be added to a Corpuscle, or taken from it in

either case, … the Size of it must necessarily be alter’d, and for the most part the
Figure will be so too, whereby it will both acquire a Congruity to the Pores of
some Bodies, (and perhaps some of our Sensories,) and become Incongruous
to those of others, and consequently be qualifi’d, as I shall more fully shew you
hereafter, to operate on diverse occasions, much otherwise than it was fitted to
do before. (Works, 5: 326)
When a compound corpuscle is broken up or matter is added to it, that changes

the size or shape of the corpuscle and therefore changes the kinds of interactions
it can have with other bodies and the qualities it possesses. So, the chemical
properties of a compound corpuscle are determined by the structure of that
‘chymical atom’ and the structures of the surrounding bodies.
What we see then is that, for both Bacon and Boyle, physical structures are
built up from the most basic particles of matter (which possess a small set of
essential properties, e.g. size, solidity, shape, mobility and so on). However
(as we saw in Bacon), Boyle extends this increasing physical complexity to
constitute increasingly larger structures with a richer set of resulting qualities,
that is, chymicals (corpuscles endowed by their complex structure with chemical
properties).27 And so Boyle has attempted to give us a way to bridge (what we
might loosely call) the ‘physics’ of the minima to the ‘chemistry’ of the primitive
concretions of corpuscles. In turn, these chymical atoms are the building blocks
of the biological world. And this not only suggests that there are natural chymical
kinds as well as biological kinds, it also suggests that there is a connection
between the basic elements and the rest of the ontology of the natural sciences.
In sum, Boyle believes that the world contains a hierarchy of natural kinds that
begins at the ‘atomic’ level.
4. Conclusion
What we have seen is that Boyle’s rejection of the Scholastic substantial forms
paved the way for him to demonstrate that corpuscular formal causes – understood
as corpuscular structures – could play all the roles in the mechanical natural
philosophy that substantial forms in Scholastic philosophy had but without
saddling the new science of mechanism with immaterial forms. Corpuscular
forms account for natural kinds, the substantial unity of material substances,
and cause the observable qualities and properties of the substance. Moreover, it
allows for essential definitions in ways that the substantial forms could not. And
each of these benefits of his theory count as arguments for rejecting substantial
forms: immaterial forms can be replaced by material ones.
The corpuscular forms of Boyle also play an important role in the history of
the debate over natural kinds. Boyle’s question of how nature – without the aid
of substantial forms – can organize physical reality into a hierarchy of kinds is
still an important question, not just in philosophy but in biology, chemistry,
psychology and the social sciences.28 Boyle’s contribution not only provides
a fecund and provocative suggestion for how to account for kinds but also of
how to connect experimental and observational data to the theory. So, Boyle’s
account of natural kinds is worthy of careful examination in its own right.
Furthermore, there are also instrumental reasons for looking at Boyle’s position
carefully. An important philosophical legacy of Robert Boyle is how his account
of natural kinds laid the groundwork for one of the most enduring discussions
of the epistemology, semantics and metaphysics of scientific taxonomies in John
Locke’s An Essay concerning Human Understanding. John Locke was a close
friend and associate of Boyle who assisted him in his laboratory in Oxford.
And although this is controversial territory, I read Locke’s Essay as containing a
series of arguments criticizing Boyle’s version of natural kind realism.29 And so,
by my lights (and, perhaps regardless of one’s interpretation of Locke’s account
of kinds), getting Locke’s contribution to the discussion on classification and
natural kinds right also means that we must understand Boyle’s contribution to
realist theories of natural kinds. In sum, Boyle is a key figure in the seventeenth-
century debate over natural kinds who deserves scholarly attention.
Notes
1 By the time of Robert Boyle, the term ‘Scholastic’ came to refer to a method of
teaching and learning within the Christian universities in Europe that included
reconciling Christian theology with Aristotelian and Neoplatonic thought. The
method of learning in the Scholastic tradition focused on dialectical reasoning
and disputations to expand knowledge and to resolve contradictions. Boyle also
uses the term ‘Peripatetic’, which refers generally to all followers of Aristotelianism.
Because ‘Scholastic’ refers generally to individuals within a Christian Neo-
Aristotelian tradition, the term ‘Peripatetic’ is sometimes used to refer to non-
Christian Aristotelians. For the sake of simplicity, in this chapter we will use these
three terms interchangeably (which Boyle sometimes does) and we will primarily
use the term ‘Scholasticism’ and its various forms when referring to the main target
of Boyle’s arguments.
2 According to the Aristotelian tradition, prime matter, because it is without a

form of any kind, and thus undefined, cannot exist in reality as prime matter.
Nevertheless, it remains a fundamental component of their ontology.
3 The quotations from Boyle are identified by ‘Works, volume number: page number’.
The quotations often include italicized words or expressions, and those are all given
in the original; I have not added any emphasis to the quotations. There are a few
instances where I have made insertions into the quotations, and those are presented
in square brackets.
4 Both Norma Emerton (1984) and Peter Anstey (2000) attribute this type of natural
kind realism to Boyle. On Emerton’s view, Boyle’s account of form consists in the
regular structural and geometric properties of the matter. According to Anstey, ‘for
Boyle, form is merely the arrangement of parts of figure of an object. He calls it
an object’s stamp. It is merely a structural property of the concretion of corpuscles
that make up the body’ (p. 27). Emerton points out on pp. 73–4, corpuscularian
form is intended by Boyle to closely follow the features of forms in Aristotle; form
is immersed in matter in that it is the material structure. But Boyle’s forms are
more Aristotelian than this. Even on his early view, form consisted not only in the
‘perspicuous and describable corpuscular structures’, but in those structures as the
grounds of the properties, qualities, individuation of the object and the criterion by
which it belongs to a natural kind. In this way, form is not mere structure or matter
in a certain shape but the power of the matter so organized to ground its properties,
unity, qualities and classification.
5 For Locke’s anti-realism about kinds, see Jones (2016).
6 Boyle offers different lists of primary qualities in different places. No attempt will
be made here to reconcile them.
7 Throughout this chapter, the terms ‘quality’, ‘property’ and ‘accident’ will be used
regularly. For Boyle, every material object has three kinds of qualities: primary
qualities, e.g. size, shape, texture, mobility; secondary qualities, e.g. colours,
odours, flavours, sounds, etc.; and tertiary qualities, e.g. the ability of the primary
qualities of one body to effect a change in the primary qualities of another body.
Accidents are qualities that a body could gain or lose without being destroyed,
e.g. a banana could change from green to yellow without ceasing to be a banana.
A property is any quality that is grounded in the essence of the thing, e.g.
conducting electricity is a property of any metal because metals share electrons
freely, and a body could not lose a property without ceasing to be the kind of
thing that it was, e.g. a metal could not lose the property of electrical conductivity
without ceasing to be a metal.
8 Roughly, the argument runs as follows: ‘All substantial composites require matter
and substantial form from which they are combined. All natural bodies are
substantial composites. Therefore, [all natural bodies are composed of matter and
form].’
9 There are three highly general categories of explanation that are relevant to Boyle
in this context: (i) causal explanation, where to explain how an effect arises from a
cause is to give a description of the causal process such that all of the links are fully
understood; (ii) ontological explanation, where we explain how an effect arises from
its cause by identifying the relevant entities and mechanical processes (impact,
rubbing, etc.) connecting the cause to the effect and giving experimental evidence
that such entities and processes are involved in producing that type of effect and
(iii) analogical explanation, where one appeals to the kinds of explanans (what does
the explaining) invoked in either ontological or causal explanations and attributes
them by analogy to another set of explananda (what is explained). The important
difference between (i) and (ii) is that, whereas (i) includes a description of the
causal processes that produce the effect (so that knowing the nature of the bodies
involved, and the natures of the causal connections that obtain, one could deduce
the effect; that is, it is a kind of scientia), (ii) only concerns the relevant objects and
the description of their relative motions. In what follows, I shall be referring to
ontological explanations as Boyle’s preferred account of intelligible explanation.
10 See Anstey, 2000, pp. 54–8.
11 See also Christian Virtuoso (Works, 12: 422).
12 In the Excellency of the Mechanical Hypothesis, Boyle points out that questions of
mind-body interaction must also be answered by appeal to mechanical principles,
which indicates that what makes those actions of the soul on the body intelligible is
that they are physical effects (Works, 8: 116).
13 The expression ‘rerum natura’ refers to the nature of things as they are in reality
(independently of human ideas); a ‘compositum’ is just a composite being, i.e. made
out of two substances.
14 For another argument for this premise, see Newman (2006: 166–9).
15 This only applies to the first edition. The second-half of the second edition of Forms
and Qualities is a critique of Sennert’s doctrine of subordinate forms. I thank Peter
Anstey for this reminder.
16 An ‘ens per accidens’ (plural ‘entia per accidens’) is an accidental substance, that
is, a being that lacks true unity or is a mere aggregate, e.g. a flock of sheep. The
opposite of an accidental being is an ‘ens per se’ (a being in itself), e.g. a human
body is unified and functions as an internally organized substance and not as
a mere collection of parts. Thus, the quotation could be read as saying: ‘in the
Notion, that divers Learned men have of an accidental entity, namely, that tis That
which consists of those things, which are not organized together, it may be said, That
though we do not admit substantial Forms, yet we need not admit Natural Bodies
to be accidental entities; because in them the several things that concur to constitute
the Body, as Matter, Shape, Situation, and Motion, are intrinsically designed in
themselves to constitute one Natural Body.’
17 Despite Boyle’s confidence here, philosophically speaking, the question of the

causes by which a collection of particles ‘bond’ or cohere with each other is one
Locke will take up in 2.23.23-27 of his An Essay concerning Human Understanding
(all quotations of Locke’s Essay are from Nidditch). However, this lacuna does
not affect Boyle’s position uniquely; after all, the Scholastics too must answer that
question while leaving unexplained how an immaterial form can cause material
particles to cohere. Again, Boyle points to the fact that his mechanical account is
more parsimonious and is not saddled with accounting for immaterial entities. He
seems to reiterate this assertion in section IV of Notion of Nature (Works, 10: 465)
by saying that the mechanical explanation of the function of a clock will suffice as
an explanation and we can ignore the distinction between an ens per accidens or an
ens per se.
18 Newton seems to have preferred a version of gravitation to explain cohesion, see for
example, Opticks, Query 31, pp. 380–1.
19 For more on this, see James Hill (2004: 628).
20 In my (2005), I refer to these as ‘mechanical forms’ to emphasize the fact that the
corpuscular structure plus the causal powers of matter constitute the form and that
they are not mere material arrangements. However, here I call them ‘corpuscular
forms’ to bring them in line with my terminology in my (2007) and (2016).
21 It is important to note that Boyle’s biggest influence where atomism and
corpuscular kinds are concerned is Daniel Sennert, though he is also influenced
by Descartes, Pierre Gassendi and Bacon. For more on Boyle and Sennert, see
Newman (2006). I am not arguing that Bacon is the only influence on Boyle’s
corpuscular kinds, only that there are some interesting similarities. Moreover,
for Bacon, God imbues matter with fundamental desires and appetites that help
explain natural organizations. See Guido Giglioni (2013: 45–51, 65–8). I would like
to thank Peter Anstey for his help on this.
22 By ‘materia prima’ or ‘minima naturalia’ in this context, he means the most
basic material particles in nature. He is not referring back to the Scholastic
materia prima.
23 Although, as we shall see below, Bacon and Boyle use the term ‘element’ differently.
Moreover, Bacon and Boyle differ on the causal agents in nature. Boyle’s matter
in motion plus structural complexity leading to chemical powers is very different
from Bacon’s physical ‘animate spirits’ and ‘inanimate spirits’ that mix with matter
and interact with matter through chemical processes. Boyle is trying to explain the
origin of chemical powers; Bacon does not explain their origin as much as employ
non-mechanical chemical powers to account for the functions and powers of
bodies. Due to considerations of focus, these aspects of Bacon’s philosophy will not
be discussed here. For more on this, see Antonio Clericuzio (2000) and Matthews
(2008).
24 By the time he writes Of The Atomicall Philosophy (c.1652–4), and certainly when
he wrote The Sceptical Chymist (1661), Boyle had adopted a notion of atoms that
are divisible by God but still function atomically ‘those primitive and simple Bodies
of which the mixt ones are said to be composed, and into which they are ultimately
resolved’ (Works, 2: 220). On his view, an atom (or to use his most influential term,
‘element’) is an insensibly small particle of matter that cannot be decomposed by
any chemical means. For more on this definition of ‘atom’ or ‘element’, see Newman
(2009). In the Forms and Qualities Boyle says, ‘…the Shape of Vitriol [crystals]
depends upon the Textures of the Bodies, wherof it is compos’d’ (Works, 5: 368),
indicating that shaped corpuscular concretions could account for crystalline
structures.
25 See The Sceptical Chymist, Works, 2: 230.
26 See Newman, 2009. This concept of a corpuscular atom made up from minima
and exhibiting more complex qualities than the minima alone is also part of Pierre
Gassendi’s account of ‘molecules’. For more on this, see Clericuzio, 2000.
27 See Clericuzio, 2000, p. 117. A problem with Boyle’s view that we cannot take
up here is how he could possibly connect the physics of the minima to produce
a theory of chemistry wherein a ‘richer’ range of qualities results from a more
complex structure. If shapes, solidity, orientation and texture are all the resources to
draw on, then it becomes a little more difficult to say how the chemical properties
of acids, bases, salts, metals, etc., are the result of just the physical qualities of the
constituent parts.
28 For some excellent collections of articles on these issues, see Helen Beebee and
Nigel Sabbarton-Leary (2010) and Alexander Bird, Brian Ellis and Howard Sankey
(2012).
29 For my views on Locke and Boyle, see my (2005), (2007) and (2016). For an
excellent argument contrary to mine, see Peter Anstey’s (2011), chs 10 and 11.
Works cited
Anstey, P. (2000), The Philosophy of Robert Boyle, New York: Routledge.

Anstey, P. (2011), John Locke and Natural Philosophy, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Bacon, F. (2000), The New Organon, L. Jardine and M. Silverthorne (trans. and ed.),
Beebee, H., and N. Sabbarton-Leary, eds (2010), The Semantics and Metaphysics of
Natural Kinds, New York: Routledge.
Bird, A., B. Ellis and H. Sankey, eds (2012), Properties, Powers and Structures: Issues in
the Metaphysics of Realism, New York: Routledge.
Clericuzio, A. (2000), Elements, Principles, and Corpuscles, Dordrecht: Kluwer.

Emerton, N. (1984), The Scientific Reinterpretation of Form, Ithaca, NY: Cornell
University Press.
Giglioni, G. (2013), ‘Francis Bacon’, in Peter R. Anstey (ed.) The Oxford Handbook of
British Philosophy in the Seventeenth Century, 41–72, Oxford: Oxford University
Press,.
Hill, J. (2004), ‘Locke’s Account of Cohesion and Its Philosophical Significance’, British
Journal for the History of Philosophy, 12 (4): 628.
Jones, J.-E. (2005), ‘Boyle, Classification and the Workmanship of the Understanding
Thesis’, Journal of the History of Philosophy, 43 (2): 171–83.
Jones, J.-E. (2007), ‘Locke vs. Boyle: The Real Essence of Corpuscular Species’, British
Journal for the History of Philosophy, 15 (4): 659–84.
Jones, J.-E. (2016), ‘Lockean Real Essences and Ontology’, Southwest Philosophy Review,
32 (2): 137–62.
Matthews, S. (2008), Theology and Science in the Thought of Francis Bacon,
Aldershot: Ashgate.
Newman, W. R. (2009), ‘The Significance of “Chemical Atomism” ’, in Early Science and
Medicine, 14 (1/3): 248–64.
Newton, I. (1979), Opticks: Or a Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflections and
Colours of Light, I. B. Cohen (ed.), Mineola, NY: Dover.
8
Boyle’s Moral Philosophy

Sorana Corneanu
[T]‌he Knoledg of the Ethics, (I mean Ethicks Iudiciusly and Practically written,)
is, tho not absolutely Necessary, yet extreamely helpefull, to the Practice of Vertu.
… Tho the Intellect is not able to compel the Will, yet is it very powerful in
persuading it. And the greater liht the Vnderstanding giues the Will, the better
is the Will able to discern the Louelines of Vertu and Deformity of Vice: and by
consequent the More it is brouht to affect the one and detest the other. … Hence
Diuinity ↑by some,↓ has been not vnfitly termed, an Affectiue Science: because
tho it reach to Contemplation, <it> ends in Practice, the Consideration of the
Glory of God, kindling in vs a Zeale vnto it. (Boyle 1991: 54–5)
Robert Boyle’s overarching moral philosophical concern was with the practice
of virtue. From this perspective, ethics and divinity were facets of the same
enterprise, since they were practical guides to the cultivation of virtue, piety
and devotion. The passage above is from his youthful Aretology, written in the
latter half of the 1640s, at a time when he was also engaged in collecting his
volume of Occasional Reflections, where he started to explore the idea of the
pious use of natural observations. In that volume, he wrote that even though
books of dogmatic or controversial divinity may offer solid theory, they remain
barren and ineffectual, whereas books of practical divinity (like his own) are
‘florid and pathetical’ and can thus help form the ‘devout Christian’ (Works,
5: 48). Some twelve odd years later, when he composed the Style of Scriptures and
organized his reflections on ‘Scripture-Morals’, that is, on the role of Scripture
as the best practical guide to the good life (Works, 2: 432, 434), he dismissed
all ‘Systems of ethics’ on the same grounds that he had the books of dogmatic
theology: definitions, divisions, distinctions and syllogisms do not make a man
virtuous, and ‘the Actual Possession of one Virtue, is preferrable to the bare
speculative Knowledge of them all’ (Works, 2: 436).
A general framing of ethics as practical philosophy, taken to indicate its affinity

with theology, is present in Johannes Alsted’s Encyclopaedia (1630),1 which, as John
Harwood has pointed out, left the most visible and massive imprint, alongside the
Nicomachean Ethics, on Boyle’s Aretology. Alsted’s main reference for this idea
is Melanchthon, to which he adds the classical moral-philosophical lineage of
Plato, Aristotle, Seneca and Plutarch (Alsted 1630: 1235b). But apart from Alsted
and Aristotle, Boyle’s youthful ethical exercises also draw on the practical moral
and devotional literature of his time. The specific contrast that pits practical
morality against barren speculative knowledge is a feature of various moral-
religious types of early modern texts (Corneanu 2011: 58–60). One instance,
which shares the key phrase ‘affective science’ with Boyle’s Aretology, is Henry
Hammond’s Practicall Catechisme (1645). This work featured on its frontispiece
two quotations, one attributed to Jean Gerson, which reads ‘Theologia est Scientia
affectiva, non speculativa’;2 the other from Clement of Alexandria’s Pedagogus,
rendered in the body of the text as ‘the end of Christian philosophy is to make
men better, not more learned; to edify, not to instruct’ (Hammond 1645: 2).
Boyle’s sources include authors that can be grouped with both the ‘Puritan’
and the ‘Anglican’ camps of this literature: Boyle seems to have liberally picked
his reference texts under the guidance of his own particular concerns rather
than out of some confessional strictness. The suggestion that Boyle saw his
religious allegiances to lie closer to Protestant groups such as the Great Tew
Circle and, later, the Restoration Anglicans, rather than to the Puritan camps, is
well documented (Anstey 2000). And yet, the Puritan practical divinity was also,
very likely, a good source for Boyle’s early moral thinking, as we will see. In fact,
as far as practical divinity is concerned, it is often hard to distinguish camps as
neatly as points of theological doctrine might do.3
Boyle is not remembered today as a moral philosopher. Nor was he seen
as one during his lifetime. He did not write a body of moral philosophy and
was far from systematic in his moral reflections. However, his deeply moral
and pious persona was seized upon by his contemporaries and became a staple
of his increasingly iconic fi gure – witness Gilbert Burnet’s funeral sermon of
1692, where the experimentalist is only one instantiation among others of the
moral-religious character (Boyle 1994: Document 4). Boyle himself saw his early
vocation as that of a moralist, always careful to infuse morality with religion,
without however entrenching upon the professional territory of the divine.4
With the consolidation of his interest in natural philosophy starting in the early
1650s, the moral concerns did not disappear but shaped in various ways what he
saw as the task of the naturalist.
Boyle’s Moral Philosophy 227
The first part of this chapter will survey Boyle’s early views on moral-religious
self-government and their sources.5 We will also note that some of the key
themes of Boyle’s mature thought are present in these early views, especially
those pertaining to the pious task of the experimental student of the natural
world. That task remains linked to the early project of self-government. The
second part will describe another important link between the early and the
mature Boyle: the notions of duty and service, which organize Boyle’s views on
the relationship between man and his Creator.
1. The mind and heart
1.1. Felicity, passions and sin

The early Boyle shared with the Reformed thought of his time an understanding
of both felicity as the end of the moral life and of virtue as its substance in terms
of a work on the human will.6 He defines felicity in Platonic-Christian terms
as the ‘Vision and Fruition of God’ and ‘a most strict Union of our wills with
God’s, or (rather) a perfect submission of the one to the other’ and adopts the
Platonist notion of the moral virtues as ‘purgative’ virtues, preparing the mind
and will for that end (Boyle 1991: 9; Works, 1: 68, 74–5). The accent is on the
fruition – or the love – of God, to which Boyle dedicated his florid Seraphic
Love7 and which appears again in the somewhat later Excellency of Theology,
where Boyle writes of the ‘ardent love of that adorable Being, and those other
joyous Affections and virtuous Dispositions, that have made some men think
Happiness chiefly seated in the Will’ and which prefigures the beatific vision
of God (Works, 8: 45). It is in the context of this theme that Boyle introduces
a distinction which will play an important role in his later natural religious
reflections, between ‘a Lazy, Speculative, & Barren Faith’ and ‘that lively and
active one, which is called by the Apostle, πίστις δι’ἀγάπης ἐνεργουμένη, Faith
operating by Love’ (Gal. 5:6; Works, 1: 95).
The role of the will – and so of love and of ‘the heart’ – in Boyle’s conception
of virtue is present in his description of the properties of moral virtue in the
Aretology. These are integrity, sincerity and perseverance or constancy. Integrity
is what makes us embrace all the virtues and detest all the vices without any
exception or reserve (Boyle 1991: 101). Sincerity is that which makes all the
actions of virtue ‘be don willingly, and for a Riht End’ and is expressed in
the great commandment as the injunction to love God with all our heart
(Mt. 22: 37; Boyle 1991: 108). Integrity and sincerity together make ‘a Perfect
hart’ (Boyle 1991: 102). Perseverance or constancy encourages us to persist
in the way of virtue, despite discouragements (Boyle 1991: 114). Among
Boyle’s possible sources for this triad of the heart are texts from all Protestant
quarters: Alsted mentions sincerity and constancy as properties of the virtues
(Alsted 1630: 1251b); Robert Bolton lists integrity and sincerity, to which he
adds spiritual growth and self-denial, as features required for the conversion of
the whole man (Bolton 1638: 311–13); Lancelot Andrewes has the whole triad
of sincerity, integrity and perseverance, which he derives from a reading of the
first commandment (Andrewes 1630: 187, 190–6).8
The presence of the ‘heart’ in Boyle’s early conception of felicity and virtue
should be understood as a shortcut to an integrative view of the person
undergoing moral and spiritual work: that work involves not simply the heart,
but the ‘mind and heart’ – in other words, the whole array of man’s cognitive,
volitional and affective capacities, seen as intertwined inner powers that are
responsible for both the purged and the sinful state of the soul. In what follows
we will pursue this theme through Boyle’s views on the ingredients of sin and the
regimen of remedial practices.
In the Aretology, Boyle follows Alsted in designating the will as the subject
of moral virtue and the passions as its object (Boyle 1991: 12–13; Alsted
1630: 1241b–1243b), with the consequence that the moral life consists mainly
in the regulation of the passions in conformity with the Aristotelian laws of
moderation, towards the acquisition of virtuous habits (Boyle 1991: 93–8).9
Boyle culls from Alsted and the Protestant humanist literature on the passions
of his time a ‘Morall Pentagone’ to fortify our reason against the unruly passions,
which includes such often rehearsed techniques as the suppression of the ‘first
motions’ of a passion, the avoidance of occasions for passions, reflection on the
true value of things and on the dangers of falling prey to passions, the putting
off of the translation of a passion into action and the salutary work of contrary
passions (Boyle 1991: 23–5). A comparable list of ‘antidotes’ is in his essay ‘Of
Sin’, composed around the same period, but here there is an additional sense of
anxiety and urgency that comes with the framing of the moral work as a ‘spiritual
warfare’, in keeping with the Protestant devotional literature, often with Puritan
accents. The ‘first motions’ are now ‘first suggestions’ in a scale of sin seconded
by the devil.10 The avoidance of occasions is also present, but is accompanied by a
singling out of the vice one is especially prone to (one’s ‘darling sin’),11 a warning
against evil company12 and one against idleness as the key enabling condition
of sin.13 Reflection on the beauty of virtue and the deformity of sin parallels the
reflection on the true value of things, but again there are additional accents: such
reflection should ideally incite us to the love of virtue, but it often does not, since
we are depraved creatures, and therefore it will be rewards and punishments, as
well as a sense of shame, that will more likely help us. Added to these are such
recommendations as the meditation on ‘the four last things’ (death, judgement,
heaven and hell), especially on the certainty of death and punishment,14 and the
discovery and study of the seductive methods of the devil, followed by a long
reflection on the numerous types of excuses men use in order to persist in their
sins (Boyle 1991: 149–66). There is hardly any distinction in these early texts
between ‘passions’, ‘vices’ and ‘sins’, but the latter term is the most prominent. It
is to Boyle’s moral psychology of sin that we now turn.
1.2. The consent of the will

There are two main components of sin, which are also the two members of our
mental life where the work of reformation must begin: one is the consent of
the will, the other is the mental representations designated by the generic term
‘thoughts’. The ‘first suggestions’ mentioned above are an instance of ‘thoughts’.
In order for sin to be fully formed as either action of the mind or external
action, the consent of the will is needed besides the representations. However,
both thoughts and will can be perverted and therefore become sinful. Moreover,
thoughts are able to drag the will into sinfulness. Consider the example of
dangerous curiosity15 Boyle discusses just after the antidote against the ‘first
suggestions’: we are told to beware of seeking knowledge of sin out of mere
curiosity, since such knowledge seduces us and perverts our will. The scenario is
the following: we seek to satisfy our intellectual curiosity and start inquiring into
the nature of a particular sin, while deciding to withdraw our consent from it,
thus aiming not to actually embrace the sin. But, according to Boyle, this is one
of the strategies of the devil: intellectual familiarity prompts argument, and since
the devil is the better logician and has our flesh as an advocate, argument will
surreptitiously win our consent. The decision must be, therefore, not to argue
with the devil, but to reject all suggestions outright (Boyle 1991: 149–50).
The ‘reject-don’t-argue’ position on suggestions and consent is one of the
conclusions of the spiritual crisis young Philaretus goes through in Boyle’s
autobiography of the late 1640s (Boyle 1994: 17). It comes up again in the records
of the confessional interviews Boyle took with Gilbert Burnet and Edward
Stillingfleet in 1691, several months before his death. One of the core themes in
these interviews is the ‘great sin’ (defined as the rejection of the Christian religion
despite clear proofs of its truth) – one frequent ‘case of conscience’ among the
Protestants, with which the two divines would have been more than familiar.
The scruple and answer turn on a distinction between blasphemous ‘suggestions’
(which do not by themselves constitute the sin and are probably explainable in
medical terms as effects of bodily distempers) and the ‘full intention’ of the will,
which is the necessary element of the sin and which alone will attract divine
punishment. None of those who doubt whether they have committed the sin can
be guilty of such full intention. But the torment of conscience can be alleviated by
rejecting, rather than by disputing with, the suggestions (Hunter 2000: 88–91).
Another core theme of the interviews is that of vows, or oaths. Boyle
entertained a typically Protestant aversion to vows.16 According to his own
confession, in 1680 he had refused the presidency of the Royal Society because
of ‘great (and perhaps peculiar) tenderness in point of oaths’ (ibid., 76). In the
late 1640s he had already formulated the issue as an extension of his discussion
of the will as the main thing required by God in his service. Oaths or vows about
indifferent matters are to be avoided as infringements of our Christian liberty:17
by taking them, we will turn omissions into sins when they are not so in their
nature, thus adding to the sins resulting from our breaking of God’s explicit laws;
moreover, the devil is most active in diverting us from pious exercises when our
engagements to perform them are the greatest (Boyle 1991: 220). In the 1691
interviews, the topic is reformulated in terms of suggestions and consent. A vow,
the two divines reassure Boyle, requires a full and deliberate consent of the will
in addition to the ‘flashy Emanations’ of the mind. Again, just as in the case of
the great sin, if someone doubts whether they have committed themselves to a
vow thus understood, they cannot be bound to the performance of the putative
vow, since full intention does not make room for doubt (Hunter 2000: 88, 91).
The consent of the will features again in Boyle’s discussion of kinds of actions
in the Aretology (Boyle 1991: 36–44), which is also a noteworthy instance of the
use he made of his sources. Boyle’s theme here is willing and unwilling actions,
modelled on the Aristotelian discussion of voluntary and involuntary actions
(Nicomachean Ethics III.1–5) and drawing on Alsted’s section on moral actions
(Alsted 1630: 1336a–1339b). Boyle discusses only the unwilling actions, of
which he identifies two species: by constraint and by ignorance. The unwilling
actions by constraint are either merely so, when the cause is external and violent
(e.g. when a person grabs my hand and forces me to strike my father with it), or
mixed, in which an external cause concurs with my will (e.g. when I allow my
arm to be cut off in order to save my body) (Boyle 1991: 36–7). The particularity
of Boyle’s discussion is the way he derives questions from this material. For
example, he asks, whether evil may be done so that good may come out of it?
(the answer involves a distinction between grievous evils and sinful evils; the
latter should never be committed); or, whether actions done when seduced by
pleasure are to be considered constrained or not? (the answer is negative, since
the will is by nature the mistress of the affections, therefore if the will becomes
enslaved to the sensitive appetite, it is its fault, so the action in this case will be
voluntary; likewise in the case of actions forced by great promises and terrible
threatening) (Boyle 1991: 38–9). Boyle’s approach is spelled out towards the end
of the section, where he tells us that the ‘Doctrine of Willingness and Constraint’
is a very useful part of ethics, since it points to the various natures and conditions
of our actions and therefore teaches us to ‘judge cleerly of many Particular Cases’
(Boyle 1991: 44). In other words, it is a useful tool in casuistry.18
Indeed, the questions Boyle identifies are all such that would fit into a manual
of cases of conscience. Alsted had also included a section of quaestiones in his
chapter, but his list looks much more like a pedagogical exercise in digesting
theoretical points into classroom question-and-answer material (e.g. whether
the intellect is the principle of moral actions; or, whether a mixed action is to
a greater extent free or forced) (1630: 1337b–1338a). However, Alsted’s list
also includes two questions with casuistic potential, which Boyle rehearses
in his own text under the rubric of unwilling actions by ignorance: whether
ignorance can excuse a committed fault, which involves the question whether
ignorance renders an action involuntary (in both authors the answer comprises
a distinction between ignorance of right and ignorance of fact; only the latter is
involuntary, on condition the ignorance be unaffected and the act be followed
by repentance) (Alsted 1630: 1338a; Boyle 1991: 39); and, whether actions done
out of anger or drunkenness are to be considered involuntary (both authors
answer that they are voluntary, since passions are in our power to moderate, so
the principle of action is internal to us) (Alsted 1630: 1338a; Boyle 1991: 40–1).
The general import of these casuistic questions is to establish when and under
what circumstances the consent of the will is involved, which is also to establish
responsibility and thus praise or blame.
1.3. Thoughts
Besides consent, the other key component of sin is constituted by ‘thoughts’ –
which is the topic of Boyle’s essay on ‘The Doctrine of Thinking’. At the beginning
of the text, Boyle makes it clear that he is interested not in the ‘Nice and Perplext
speculations’ but rather in the ‘Practicall Part’ of this doctrine, which has to
do with the regulation and improvement of thoughts (Boyle 1991: 185). Boyle
is drawing here on a distinct theme of Protestant practical divinity, especially
of the Puritan variety, which at times generated a subgenre of writings on the
‘government of thoughts’. This influence is visible in the sections of the text that
deal with ‘sinful thoughts’, ‘vain thoughts’ and their remedies. Such thoughts are
generally the product of the imagination. Thomas Godwin explains: the term is
used to designate the ‘first, more simple conceits, apprehensions that arise; those
fancies, meditations, which the understanding by the helpe of the fancy frames
within it selfe of things’; they are ‘musings onely in the Speculative part’ of the soul,
prior to the reasoning and deliberations of our intellects (Godwin 1638: 12–13;
cf. Reynolds 1640: 224). Such are the sinful thoughts which William Perkins
pinpoints with the help of Gen. 6:5 (‘the imaginations of the thoughts of man’s
heart were only evil continually’) (Perkins 1607: 13) – a biblical reference Boyle
rehearses, among others, in order to prove that thoughts can be sinful (Boyle
1991: 188). Conversely, thoughts are also the starting point of repentance: in
support of this, Boyle invokes Isa. 55:7 (‘Let the wicked forsake his way, and the
unrighteous man his thoughts’) (Boyle 1991: 188–9), while Perkins comments on
Eph. 4:23 (‘Be ye renewed in the spirits of your minds’) and consequently locates
the ‘thoughts and imaginations’ of man in the innermost part of man’s soul, the
‘mind and heart’, which is also the locus of renewal (Perkins 1607: 177). For
Robert Bolton, too, working on your ‘thoughts and imaginations’ is working on
your ‘heart’, which is one of the main precepts of the holy way (Bolton 1638: 88).
As an example of sinful thoughts, Boyle describes ‘Speculatiue Wickedness’,
which is building sinful scenarios in one’s imagination, coupled with
‘Memoratiue Wickedness’, which is rehearsing a sinful act again in one’s
memory (since this is with the approbation of our will, it is as much of a sin as
the first act) (Boyle 1991: 189).19 The second species of thoughts he deals with
at large are ‘vain thoughts’, which are again imaginative scenarios built around
vain, idle or unprofitable themes (his examples are devised in terms of stock-
characters such as the lover, the ambitious favourite, the vain female, the self-
conceited poet, he whose fortune falls short of his desire). He calls the themes
‘impossible, vnlikely or vseless suppositions’, or ‘hypotheses’, and the building
on them, ‘raving’, or ‘a Play or a Romance personated <acted> in the Brain/
Imagination’ (Boyle 1991: 192). The young Boyle had experienced the full force
of this tendency of the imagination; his ‘Philaretus’ records the fits of raving
prompted by the reading of romances, a ‘restless Fancy’ and a melancholic
disposition, and the difficulty of tempering the ‘Habitude of Raving’ ever after
(Boyle 1994: 8, 12).20
One of the problems with raving is that it makes us waste time. Boyle comes
back on several occasions to the theme of the little ‘intervals’ or shreds of empty
time between various employments, which, if we were to add them up, would
amount to a considerable portion of our life that is simply misspent. To counter
this, Boyle recommends that we use these free moments to repeat things, to
reflect on an event, to dress up the plan for a treatise or letter, to make decisions,
to compose a short essay, or to engage in devout soliloquy or meditation (Boyle
1991: 194; cf. Boyle 1991: 240–1; Works, 13: 113, 126). This does not mean that
Boyle is against recreation (see Boyle 1991: 89–90, 192), but that he fears the
unengaged minutes or hours when our imaginations are prone to building their
own extravagant scenarios, with the help of the devil and of our own passions.
A second – and probably the core – trouble with raving is that its scenarios
are built on shaky grounds, that is the ‘impossible, unlikely or useless’ themes
Boyle identifies as the basis of vain thoughts. The scenarios themselves are not
incoherent, on the contrary, they are a prime example of ‘pursued Thoughts’
(Boyle 1991: 187), and in fact their coherence makes them all the more dangerous.
One key remedy against them will be therefore to change the theme, so that
the mind becomes anchored in a more solid foundation, such as is afforded
by a profitable (moral-religious) meditation. Boyle’s directions for engaging in
meditation or self-examination, to which we will return, are examples of this.
Third, raving thoughts are also expressions of the imagination’s tendency to
wander about; to regulate that, Boyle recommends ‘those studys that haue the
Power to fix the Thoughts’, such as geometry, arithmetic and algebra. Fourth,
raving is the first manifestation of one of the arch-sins of the Protestant mind,
idleness. The general remedy against idleness, especially when coupled with
solitude, is the choice and constant pursuit of a vocation or of a skill. Besides
these remedies, Boyle also recommends that we conceive all our thoughts lying
naked before the eye of God; that we reflect on the inconveniences of raving (not
only does it waste time, but it is a form of idolatry, it feeds vanity, it murmurs
against providence, it chains us to the world, and it misemploys our gifts); and,
if all else fails, that we resort to prayer (Boyle 1991: 193–6).21
Alongside the regulation of the passions and the spiritual warfare against
sin, the government of thoughts is for Boyle a moral practice subsumed under
the duty of purging the mind and heart of a Christian. He would have agreed
with Robert Bolton’s notion that such moral purging is a member of the ‘honour
and service’ owed to God. There is a service of works and a service of words,
but there is also a ‘Thought-service’, all the more valuable as it is more inward
(Bolton 1638: 90–1). According to Boyle, the purging is achieved though the
reflective practices of meditation, self-examination and consideration, alongside

repentance.
1.4. Practices of reflection

If one key problem with raving is its vain theme, what would constitute legitimate
themes for one’s meditation? The Occasional Reflections specifies ‘the works of
Nature, and the actions of Men’ (Works, 5: 22). Directions for meditation on
the ‘actions of men’ are found mainly in the ‘Dayly Reflection’, which develops
Boyle’s thoughts on examination of self and of others seen as an act of devotion
that prepares the soul for the ‘heavenly virtues’; it can do that because it promotes
a number of virtues, the enumeration of which develops Boyle’s list of properties
of the moral virtues mentioned above: integrity, sincerity, humility, charity,
heavenly mindedness, knowledge and wisdom (Boyle 1991: 203–8). This form of
meditation should be undertaken willingly, with attention (which presupposes
concern and concentration of mind) and by following a ‘method of reflection’.
The best time for its performance is during the evening, when the mind is
less distracted and can be prepared for its sleeping and dreaming state.22 The
‘method of reflection’ includes directions for reflective observation and reflective
judgement. Observation should be such that it registers extensive ‘particulars’
with their ‘circumstances’, of what we have done good or ill, of what others do, of
the reasons behind our actions and opinions, of the ways of providence and of
the stratagems of the devil in tempting us; it had best be ordered in writing, by
keeping a diary (Boyle 1991: 220–8, 232). Next follows the ‘great Art’ of extracting
the ‘secret axioms’, ‘maxims’ or ‘principles’ of wisdom from those observations;
they will emerge from a comprehensive lot of observations, and will thus differ
from ‘those Vulgar Axioms … in Ciuill Knoledge that are usually grounded
vpon too few Particulars’ (Boyle 1991: 229–30). The extraction of axioms from
comprehensive particulars well-circumstanced, ordered and digested will be,
of course, one of the key methodological concerns of the scientific Boyle. In
the early essays, it is introduced as a method to put a bridle on one’s thoughts
(Works, 13: 127).
The Occasional Reflections itself concentrates on the works of nature, and
likewise highlights observation of particulars and reflection. The purpose of
Boyle’s meditations in this volume is to extract moral and pious meaning from
natural objects and events and thus to establish ‘resemblances’ between the
natural world and the moral world that will help one’s devotion. The ‘way of
thinking’ of an occasional meditation is such, Boyle comments, that it counters
idleness, evil thoughts and time-wasting (Works, 5: 22–5). On the positive

side, it improves the faculties of the mind. Among them, first on his list is the
faculty of ‘attentive observation’: as it prompts us ‘to manage well the Themes
we undertake to handle’, it ‘unperceivably ingages us to pry into the several
attributes and relations of the things we consider, to obtain the greater plenty
of particulars’ which will improve our comparisons and, with them, our moral
reflection (Works, 5: 32). In both ‘Dayly Reflection’ and Occasional Reflections,
attentive observation is conducive to ‘experience’, which for Boyle is a virtue
equal to, or integrated with, the virtue of ‘prudence’ (Boyle 1991 208; Works,
5: 33). In addition, Boyle explains how occasional meditations are apt to improve
both the reasoning faculty and the will and affections of man by introducing the
natural religious theme of the ‘devout Veneration’ and ‘awful admiration’ of the
divine attributes that natural observation enhances (Works, 5: 34, 42). Both the
‘attentive observation’ and the affective-cognitive acts of natural religion will be
key topics in Boyle’s mature work.
The ‘Doctrine of Thinking’ also includes a general method for meditation,
which, besides the warning against sinful and vain thoughts and the advice
that governed thinking become a habitual practice, lists the following
recommendations which all turn around the theme of discovery: begin your
meditation with a petition to God, since any discovery is ultimately owing
to him; lay down a model of your meditation before you begin, which is a
prerequisite of directed, as opposed to chance discovery; exclude ‘heterogeneas’
(i.e. wandering thoughts) from your meditation, although take heed that some
of these thoughts may provide useful hints for discovery; let your meditation be
continued, unless useful wandering thoughts (of the kind mentioned before)
present themselves (Boyle 1991: 197–202; cf. Works, 13: 126–8). Needless to
say, guided discovery as well as discovery by hints will be important to the later
experimentalist. These early reflections on the paths of discovery, alongside
those on the extraction of axioms from well circumstanced particulars and on
the practice of attentive observation, with its cognitive and affective benefits,
suggest that it was in elaborating his doctrine of meditation and self-examination
that Boyle formulated his first inchoate philosophy of experience.
According to Boyle, self-examination is especially abhorrent to the devil as
it is a branch of consideration. In his understanding, ‘consideration’ designates
the practice of reflection that never loses sight of the grand aim of all human
activity, which is also the grand aim of our creation – the service of God. One of
the devil’s strategies is to keep our thoughts busy with idle trifles; consideration
counters that by employing rigorous thinking guided by the aims and ends
of a creature of God (Boyle 1991: 211–13). That this is rigorous thinking is

signalled by one of the directions of the ‘method of reflection’ that constitutes
self-examination, which is to always ask ourselves the reasons of our opinions
and actions. Boyle thinks it is the best practice of all, which not only keeps us on
the right track but also promotes epistemic tolerance, since it shows us the limits
of our understanding and persuades us to avoid fierceness in opinions, disputes
and controversies (Boyle 1991: 227–8) – a topic that will also occupy the mature
Boyle’s moral-epistemic reflections. On the other hand, ‘consideration’ also
signals the earnestness of one’s endeavour to think through the fundamental
tenets of one’s religion: the sequence of conversion and spiritual crisis that
‘Philaretus’ experienced in his youth determined him to seek ‘Groundedness in
his Religion’, since here there was nothing worse than taking things upon trust
(Boyle 1994: 17–18).
‘Consider’ and ‘consideration’ are words that pervade Boyle’s early writings.
Sometimes they point out the topics of the meditative examination (e.g. Boyle
1991: 222–5). Other times, they signal the presence of one or several reasons or
arguments for holding a particular belief or for undertaking a specific task. Here,
the structure of thinking proposed is not only, perhaps not even primarily logical.
The reasons are meant to be meditated upon and to obtain a type of persuasion
that will alter one’s deeper mind (the ‘mind and heart’) and consequently one’s
behaviour, as they are usually relevant to some momentous theme of one’s moral-
religious life. For example, in exhorting the ‘prince of the Round Table’ (probably
his brother Roger Boyle) to take up the practice of repentance, Boyle offers a
‘Consideration’ that should lie ‘ready at hand’: ‘That you shall (have leasure
to) Repent before you Dye, is not so certaine, as it is that You shall be damn’d
if you Dye before you Repent’ (Works, 13: 64). Various lists of considerations
are offered on a number of topics, for example the desirableness of virtue
(Boyle 1991: 58–63), the ugliness of sin (Boyle 1991: 103–8; 143–8), the vice of
hypocrisy (Boyle 1991: 111–14), the vice of inconstancy (Boyle 1991: 116–22),
the worth of valour (Works, 13: 134), the frivolousness of the objections men use
to persist in their sins (Boyle 1991: 164–6), the inconveniences of raving (Boyle
1991: 193), the benefits of self-examination (Boyle 1991: 203–8), the dangers
of idleness (Boyle 1991: 241–3). Add to this the long list of motives of amorous
devotion which takes up almost the entirety of Seraphic Love (Works, 1: 84–130),
as well as the motives for studying Scripture listed in the Excellency of Theology
(Works, 8: 45–54).
The rationale of ‘consideration’ in this sense is spelled out in the Aretology,
under the ‘doctrine of education’: the offering of arguments, reasons or motives
is a branch of persuasion that is meant to incite the reader to the practice of

virtue by making him aware not only of the manner but also of the reasons
why he should be virtuous. This is fleshed out in the long list of arguments for
the desirableness of virtue mentioned above, followed by an even longer list of
objections and answers (Boyle 1991: 58–76). This is no mere intellectual exercise,
however: Boyle takes the arguments ‘as so many Loue-shafts, to enflame our
Harts, and a vehement and Pure Affection to this Queen of Qualitys’ (Boyle
1991: 58). He thus rehearses the point about the power of doctrine ‘practically’
delivered to affect the understanding in such a way that it also makes an
impression on the will and affections, which was the substance of the passage
quoted at the beginning of this chapter.
‘Consideration’ thus understood is also the moral-rhetorical framework
for the inclusion of the study of nature in the practice of devotion: the
early ‘Of the Study of the Book of Nature’, composed c.1649, has a list
of advantages of this study for piety (Works, 13: 160–8); the first part of
the Usefulness of Experimental Natural Philosophy, composed around the
same time, c.1652, is planned in its entirety as a survey of ‘Considerations’
aiming to recommend the study of nature as an aid to piety and devotion
(Works, 3: 195). Later on, Boyle’s natural religious arguments will follow the
same framework: the first part of the Christian Virtuoso (1690) is a long
enumeration of ‘Advantages’ that the ‘Experimental way of Philosophising’
has for making a good Christian (Works, 11: 291). The arguments are meant
here, as in the earlier essays, to achieve a moral work that is both reflective
and affective.
For the early Boyle, the practice of consideration goes hand-in-hand with
that of repentance. Boyle calls self-examination and repentance the two great
‘purges’ against sin. Repentance is ‘Sorrow for a past fault’ together with a firm
resolution against committing it again (Boyle 1991: 167; cf. Works, 13: 64). It
should be performed with the right motivation: the motive of sorrow should
be the detestation of sin not the pain we will suffer from it (Boyle 1991: 168),23
it should immediately follow the reckoning of your sins in self-examination
(Boyle 1991: 223)24 and it should be part of one’s normal, everyday conduct
(Works, 13: 62; cf. Boyle 1991: 162, and n. 72). Repentance is the great reconciler
between God and man (Boyle 1991: 178) and it signals one key difference
between Christian and pagan piety: true repentance is not to be performed
as punishment inflicted by an angered conscience but as a sacrifice meant to
appease the injured deity (Boyle 1991: 183). Unlike the other early moral themes,
repentance disappears from view in the later Boyle, but the topic of the sacrifice
of our minds and hearts to our Creator does not. Let us now turn to this topic,
which Boyle places at the core of his conception of duty.
2. Duty and service
2.1. Duties, gifts and ends

The virtues and practices of Boyle’s moral regimen detailed above are also often
designated by the term ‘duties’ or are said to command subsets of acts called
‘duties’. Piety and charity are duties, self-examination is a duty, there are duties of
seraphic love and duties of heroic virtue (Boyle 1991: 169–70, 130, 203, Works,
1: 4, 72). From an ideal-type point of view, there is lack of congruity between
virtue ethics and the Christian ethics of duty, owing to the different types of
grounding of the moral qualities praised in either model (Schneewind 1990).
However, Boyle’s is one example of an early modern moral-religious reflection
where the two notions form a coherent whole. Part of our task in this section will
be to understand the mechanism of that coherence.
The question of the grounding of the virtues-duties receives two types of
answer in Boyle’s early texts: one features in rather sketchy notes and speaks
about the will of God as the ‘supreame Rule of Justice’ and about his command
as the basis of our obedience (Works, 13: 105, 106, 107). On this view, virtue
ethics and duty ethics are indeed hard to reconcile. Yet a bridge becomes
possible with the second type of answer, which is much more frequent and
turns around the notion of God as benefactor. ‘Of Piety’ comments on the
superiority of the Christians’ as opposed to the pagans’ framing of this virtue by
contrasting, among other things, their respective conceptions of worship: the
pagans saw God as omnipotent and wise but not as a benefactor, their virtues
were directed to their own rather than to his glory and their rule of worship
was their reason rather than his will (Boyle 1991: 183). God’s will is modulated
here by the attribute of beneficence, elsewhere called ‘bounty’ or ‘liberal
goodness’ (Works, 13: 104; 1: 96–7). The natural response of its beneficiary
will be gratitude, which Boyle sees as one of the forms that obedience can take
(Works, 13: 113–14).
In ‘Scriptural Reflections’, Boyle meditates on biblical examples that put
forward the idea of human gratitude for divine ‘gifts’ – Jacob’s gratitude for the
gift of his wealth (Gen. 33:11) and Joseph’s thankfulness for the gift of his sons
(Gen. 48:9) – and introduces the idea of our souls and bodies as such gifts (Works,
13: 104, 112). In other texts, the same idea is rendered by means of references
to the biblical parable of the talents (Mt. 25: 14–30): our virtues should answer
our given parts (Boyle 1991: 83); we should dedicate the gift of our knowledge to
public service (Works, 1: 5); if we simply abstain from evil without actively doing
good, we fail to improve our talent (Boyle 1991: 162); if we give in to raving,
we misemploy the gift of our active brains (Boyle 1991: 193); if we indulge in
idleness, we hide our talent (Boyle 1991: 237). Our duties, therefore, are to be
seen as ‘restitutions’ of gifts we have been liberally endowed with, rather than as
‘requitals’ of divine love (Works, 1: 102).
The reflection on gifts goes together with the topic of God’s ends in creation,
especially in the creation of man: the active doing of good is not only a way
of improving our talents but also the end of man’s creation (Boyle 1991: 162);
hiding your talent is falling short of the end of man, which is the glory of his
maker (Boyle 1991: 237). In other words, the end of our creation is God’s
service (Boyle 1991: 211–12), and the end of God in creating the world was
to communicate his goodness, therefore we must make ourselves worthy of it
and sacrifice our vices rather than our cattle for him; our virtuous behaviour is
thus an offering to God’s glory, whereby his will becomes the square of our lives
(Boyle 1991: 178–9). As we will see, the ‘gifts’ and the ‘ends’ of our creation taken
as grounds of our ‘worship, ‘service’ or ‘sacrifice’ will constitute the foundation
of Boyle’s natural religion. They will be able to do that because there is a sense in
which both gifts and ends can be understood as natural – where ‘nature’ needs to
be seen as provident nature, or nature as an emanation of divine bounty. This is
the rationale behind the double idea that there are natural endowments in man
that ground his morality and that those endowments are gifts the restitution
of which grounds his obligations towards his creator – in other words that the
Aristotelian virtues are also Christian duties.
Two other notions point to this understanding of ‘nature’: that of God’s image
in man and that of the seeds of virtues. Piety and reason constitute the divine
image in man, and the use of reason constitutes the excellence of man; as a
consequence, sin is not only offensive to God, as it denies him our service, but is
also acting against ‘the Dignity of a man’s Essence’ (Boyle 1991: 143). Conversely,
repentance is not only a Christian virtue but also a branch of moral justice, since
it acts as the only reparation not only of the injured deity but also of ‘a man’s
wrong’d Soule’ (Boyle 1991: 167). From this point of view, the mark of a true
religion is that it gives deity its glory and perfects the rational creature, that is
to say, tends to man’s dignity and happiness (Boyle 1991: 171). The notion of
‘God’s image’ allows for a conception of the ‘essence’ of man, understood as the
best activity of his endowments, and thus as ‘excellence’ or ‘dignity’, which acts
as a ground of morality alongside the will of God. Another way of putting this
is that there are in man relics of God’s image which take the form of native
principles of goodness, or ‘seeds of virtue’. This is the ‘law written in the heart’ of
Rom. 2: 14–15, which for Boyle includes the triad of the law of nature, synteresis
(the mind’s assent to the law of nature) and conscience, as well as such ‘natural’
or ‘half ’ virtues as pliability or willingness to learn and shamefacedness (Boyle
1991: 45, 124–5).
For the triad of law of nature, synteresis and conscience, Boyle follows Alsted
(1630: 1249).25 Another possible source are the Puritan tracts on conscience,
which may lie behind an idea not found in Alsted: that the law of nature engraved
in man’s heart was blotted by the wickedness of men, hence the need of its written
‘lineaments’ in the biblical Decalogue (Boyle 1991: 46; Perkins 1596: 14). Let us
note that Boyle will revise his position on the role of this particular Scriptural
text. While in the Aretology he mentions approvingly the rabbis deriving their
moral sentences from the Decalogue (Boyle 1991: 46), in the Style of Scriptures,
composed in 1661, he is no longer convinced about the foundational nature of
the Ten Commandments as suggested by the Jewish precepts issuing from it
or by the Christian ‘Conceit’ according to which ‘All the Precepts that relate to
any part of the whole Duty of Man, are by just Consequences deducible from
the Decalogue’. Instead, an ‘Inquisitive and concern’d Peruser’ of the Scriptures
will be able to extract the ‘Grand Principles and Maxims’ of ethics from the
whole text (Works, 2: 436, 440). Moreover, studying the Old Testament is not
really necessary, since ‘the Doctrine of the Gospel, together with the Light of
Nature, (which it Excludes not) but rather Supposes, contains all those Duties
which are absolutely Necessary to be perform’d by all Christians, in order to
Salvation’ (Works, 2: 441). The continuity of the light of nature with the Gospel
will be one central tenet of the natural religious Boyle. But before we open up
this theme, let us dwell some more on the topic of the Decalogue. Although
Boyle wavered about it, the way it was used to found ‘the whole duty of man’
in Protestant literature will prove influential for Boyle’s approach to the acts of
natural religion.
2.2. The Ten Commandments

The importance of the Ten Commandments, as laid out in Exod. 20: 1–17, for
the practical divinity of the early modern Puritans has been highlighted in recent
scholarship: the Puritans used the Decalogue as a ‘mirror for the examination
and identification of sin’ and as a ‘guide to godly living’ (Willis 2017: 235–6). The
latter defined the duties of a Christian; for example, Richard Greenham culled
the duties of faith, love, fear, obedience, prayer and thanksgiving from the First
Commandment and placed them at the foundation of all the other duties (ibid.,
193). The derivation of the Christian duties from the Decalogue was, however,
a catechistical practice among non-Puritan writers as well. In 1661, by using
the phrase ‘the whole duty of man’, Boyle was very likely referring to the Whole
Duty of Man (1658), written by Richard Allestree but published anonymously,
which became a primer of Anglican piety in Restoration England. In the Preface
the author explains how the particulars of our obedience to the will of God
may be achieved: some through the light of nature, to which the law written
in our hearts of Rom. 2:15 refers, and some through the light of the Scriptures,
as spelled out in the Ten Commandments, parts of Deuteronomy and Christ’s
Sermon on the Mount (Mt. 5–7; Allestree 1658: 2–3). In his Practical Catechisme,
Henry Hammond had also singled out the Decalogue and the Sermon on the
Mount among the sources of our duty (Hammond 1645: 52–3). His catechism
is in fact a long commentary on the latter, including the explanation of Mt.
5:17, which established the continuity between ‘the naturall or morall law’
and Christ’s teachings, where the latter perfected and ‘fulfilled’ the former
(Hammond 1645: 156–7). Allestree’s tract is an exposition of the duties rooted
in these sources. There are three main categories of duties, in conformity with
the Ten Commandments: duties to God (which include faith, hope, love, fear,
trust, humility, honour, worship and repentance), duties to ourselves (comprised
of humility, meekness, consideration, contentedness, diligence, chastity and
temperance) and duties to others (consisting of the various branches of justice).
But there are also earlier examples that fit even better Boyle’s thoughts on
the use of the Decalogue as the sole foundation of the Christian moral law.
Lancelot Andrewes’s Pattern of Catechistical Doctrine is entirely taken up with an
exposition of the Ten Commandments. Its 1650 (posthumous) edition features
on its frontispiece a new epigraph, which is the source of the phrase we are
tracing: ‘Fear God and keep his Commandments, for this is the whole duty of
Man’ (Eccl. 12.13). The unsigned preface to this edition tells us that the subject
of the book is ‘the Decalogue, or those Ten Words, in which God himself hath
epitomized the whole duty of Man’. It also comments on the law of nature as
substance of the Decalogue and its fulfilment in the law of Christ; and notes
that an insistence on the moral law, understood as ‘the very life and form of
[faith]’, is a necessary answer to the antinomianism and libertinism of those who
misunderstood the notion of Christian liberty (Andrewes 1650: Preface, n.p.).
The list of duties or ‘inward virtues’ derived from the First Commandment (the
duties to God) here include knowledge, faith, fear, humility, hope, prayer and
love (the latter branching into obedience and patience). A similar approach is
in Jeremy Taylor’s Rvle and Exercise of Holy Living (1650), the subtitle of which
refers to ‘the whole duty of a Christian’. The derivation from the biblical sources
is not spelled out, but the list of acts of devotions includes items similar to
Allestree’s. Boyle may have confronted these sources with the list of the ‘virtues
encompassed by [the virtue of] piety’ in Alsted’s Encyclopaedia, which are also
openly derived from the Ten Commandments (1630: 1265b–1266b).
I suggest that it is this literature that lies behind Boyle’s early lists of the duties
or acts of worship, which are the precursors of his lists of acts of natural religion
in the later texts. In ‘Of Piety’, the immediate worship of God includes love,
fear and trust as internal duties; prayer and thanksgiving as external acts (in
which we offer both body and soul as ‘a Liuing Sacrifice vnto God which is our
Reasonable seruice’, Rom. 12:1); and repentance. The indirect worship consists
of our virtuous behaviour towards men (Boyle 1991: 173–9). While worship is
the second member of piety, the first is constituted by the knowledge of God;
Boyle adds that this kind of knowledge should be such that it is not confined
to the brain, but displayed ‘out at the Hands’ and thus turned into the practice
of worship (Boyle 1991: 170). In summary, Boyle’s first list of acts of worship
includes knowledge of God, love, fear, trust, prayer, thanksgiving, repentance
and virtuous behaviour. It is entirely comparable to the lists based on the Ten
Commandments surveyed here, even if Boyle had reservations about the tracing
of all moral doctrine back to that biblical place. The highlighting of the law
of nature in our sources is also echoed in Boyle’s text: he tells us that here he
writes of piety not as a Christian virtue, but as a moral virtue that the heathens
themselves knew and practiced, simply on account of the light of nature (Boyle
1991: 169). In sum, my suggestion is that the theme of the divine gifts and ends
as grounds of human duties, together with that of the acts of devotion derived
from the First Commandment, provides the context in which Boyle’s views on
the grounds and acts of natural religion took shape.
2.3. The grounds and acts of natural religion

Boyle’s early essays include a couple of intimations of his burgeoning interest in
experimental natural philosophy and of the project of marshalling the study of
nature under the banner of the Christian good life. ‘Of Piety’ mentions the idea
of the world of creatures proclaiming the essence and glory of their maker as
one proof (alongside the consent of nations and the agreement of all religions)
that the belief in the existence of a deity is engraved in the hearts of men. This
is meant as a confutation of ‘atheists’ (Boyle 1991: 180–1). Seraphic Love speaks
of the divine attributes that can be gleaned from the inspection of the natural
world, uses the biblical quote that will be pervasive in the later natural religious
reflections (‘How manifold are thy works, O Lord!’, Ps. 104: 24) and refers the
reader to another ‘discourse’ (Works, 1: 85–6) – which is very likely ‘Of the Study
of the Book of Nature’, composed c.1649.
‘Study’ was meant, we are told, ‘for the first Section of my Treatise of Occasionall
Reflections’ (Works, 13: 147). It is thus an outcome of the meditational project
that was at the core of Boyle’s practical regimen and it fleshes out the sketchy
notes in Occasional Reflections on the improvement of reason and the affections
by means of the veneration, admiration, thankfulness and humiliation towards
God that the study of nature encourages (Works, 5: 34, 41–2) (a second early
list of acts of devotion). ‘Study’ is also a first variant of the first part of Boyle’s
Usefulness, published in 1663, but composed c.1652, several years after ‘Study’.
These texts are full articulations of the intimations in ‘Of Piety’ and Seraphic
Love. Their aim was to introduce the study of nature into the scheme of duties,
gifts and ends of creation that organized Boyle’s early reflections on the moral-
religious practice of a good Christian, which we have reviewed in Sections 2.1
and 2.2 above.26
‘Study’ and Usefulness are not only examples of extended devotional practice,
they also respond to the concern first expressed in ‘Of Piety’: the danger of
atheism. ‘Study’ has Boyle’s first mention of ‘natural divinity’ precisely in the
context of refuting ‘the atheists’ (Works, 13: 161; cf. Works, 3: 213, 235–6).
Anxiety about and confutations of atheism were widespread in early modern
England.27 One frequent strategy, which Boyle adopts, was to defend religion
on natural grounds. Two consequences ensue in Boyle’s case. One is that
natural philosophy oriented towards natural religious purposes replaces the
Decalogue as a source of anti-atheistic arguments: ‘But ‹in spite of› the Abolition
or expiring of the Judaicall Law; the Study of Nature gives the Advantage this
Institution levell’d at: for God has every where left such footsteps of himselfe;
that we can turn our Eyes ‹on› no Object; that dos not ‹movingly› (tho perhaps
silently) admonish us & mind us of our Duty’ (Works, 13: 165). The other is
the engagement in an exercise of amassing instances of the pious use of natural
studies across the pagan and the Christian histories of philosophy and religion.
Some of the authors are cited via Alsted in his chapter on piety and some via the
third chapter of Philippe Duplessis Mornay’s De veritate religionis christianae
liber (1583) in the English translation of 1617, which Boyle singles out among
his sources (further on Mornay’s influence on Boyle, see Davis’s chapter in this
volume).28
One function of these references is to provide a natural (i.e. non-revealed)
source for the core terms of the rationale of natural religion, which resumes
the scheme of duties, gifts and ends of the moral-religious writings. Here
is a sketch of this rationale: The ends of creation are the manifestation of
God’s glory and the good of men, a point on which the Psalms, the book
of Job, Isaiah, Seneca and Cicero concur (Works, 13: 149; 3: 213–17). That
means that men were created to be ‘Intelligent Spectators and Admirers’
(Works, 3: 214) of the world and as a consequence to offer the ‘sacrifice of
praise’ (Heb. 13: 15) to the creator on behalf of all the non-rational creatures
(Works, 13: 154, 203). From this point of view, nature is a temple, as Plutarch
and others have taught (Works, 13: 150–1; 3: 237–8). It follows that men are
possessed of such natural endowments as make worship possible. In other
words, there are gifts that constitute the ground of the obligation of worship,
alongside the attributes that God has expressed in creation. In the temple
of nature, men act as priests ‘ordain’d to celebrate Divine Service not only
in it, but for it’ (Works, 13: 151); significantly, Usefulness adds here ‘ordain’d
(by being / qualifi’d)’ (Works, 3: 238, my emphasis), thus strengthening the
component of gifts.
There are two such gifts: reason and desire. Reason is called ‘a Naturall
Dignity’ (Works, 13: 153; 3: 203), recalling the earlier ‘Dignity of a man’s
Essence’ (Boyle 1991: 143; v. Section 2.1 above). From the perspective of the
ends which they serve in this context, the acts of reason can be seen as acts of
piety (Works, 13: 155, cf. Works, 8: 50). Besides reason, man is ‘furnish’d’ with
desires and appetites; the end of these is probably ‘that for the Satisfaction of
all these various Desires, he might be oblig’d ‹with an inquisitive Industry› to
‹range›, anatomize & ransacke Nature, & ‹by that concern’d survey› come to a
more exquisite knowledge of the Workes of it; & consequently to a profounder
Admiration of the Omniscient Author’ (Works, 13: 156; 3: 237). The tandem
of reason and desire explains the difference between the ‘generall ‹lazy
Idea›’ of God’s attributes of power and wisdom and ‘the distinct, rationall
& affecting Notions of those Attributes, which are form’d by an attentive
inspection of the Creatures in which they are most legible; & which were
made cheefly for that very End’; here Galen and Aristotle are as helpful as
Scripture (Works, 13: 162–3; 3: 236). The distinction, we have seen, was first
introduced in Seraphic Love (v. Section 1.1 above); it will appear again in
the Christian Virtuoso books (Works, 11: 295–7; 12: 483). A variant of this
is the notion expressed in the Excellency of Theology, that the knowledge
of God is (or should be) such that it issues in admiration, love, trust and
resignation (a third list of acts of devotion). Moreover, these virtues, taken
together as an expression of the joint work of reason and desire, constitute a
type of improvement of the mind that is both moral and intellectual (Works,
8: 47–8).
The Excellency of Theology was published in 1674 but composed in 1665. In
the early 1660s, Boyle was also working on his Free Inquiry into the Vulgarly
Receiv’d Notion of Nature, which he published in 1686. In this work he attacked
idolatrous conceptions of nature and developed a view of causation in the
natural world that was consistent with his conception of divine dominion
and of the ‘righteous conduct of the priestly philosopher’ (Ben-Chaim
2002: 58). While the mechanical efficient causes constituted the core of natural
philosophical explanation, Boyle also retained an interest in the Aristotelian
final causes and in 1688 he published the Disquisition about Final Causes. In
that text he reflected on the notion of the ends of creation, which he put to both
natural philosophical and natural religious use; as far as the latter is concerned,
he wrote that it was ‘Very Likely, that God design’d, by the great Variety of His
Works, to Display to their Intelligent Considerers, the Faecundity (if I may so
speak) of His Wisdom’ (Works, 11: 144) (see further Carlin’s chapter in this
volume). We can now appreciate the extent to which this was continuous with
Boyle’s early concerns.
In the context of his mid-career, the Excellency gives a tighter form to the
argument about the grounds of duty as service, used here to recommend the study
of theology rather than of nature. The argument as pertinent to the experimental
study of nature is already loosely present in ‘Study’ and Usefulness, as reviewed
above; the tighter form will emerge again in the Christian Virtuoso books, as we
will see. The argument in Excellency goes like this: we have an obligation to study
theology, it is one of our duties. There are two noteworthy grounds for this: one
is obedience, which proceeds from the ‘Will and Command of God’; however,
the study of theology would be a duty even in the absence of command, on
account of its intrinsic goodness. The second ground is gratitude, and proceeds
from God’s beneficence (here Boyle refers his reader back to Seraphic Love); for
example, we have been endowed with reason, and the world has been created as a
fit objet for inspection. Thus, gratitude grounds our duty to offer the ‘sacrifice of
praise’ by identifying and glorifying the attributes of God expressed in creation
(Works, 8: 38–41). In turn, gratitude is grounded in our gifts, the make-up of the
world and the fit between world and gifts (where the fit is a specification of the
ends of creation).
The Christian Virtuoso books offer a final variant of this argument, re-applied
to the experimental study of nature. Its formulation is now squarely philosophical,
as it loses the support of historical reflections. It also introduces the notion of
‘principles of natural religion’ into the scheme of duties, gifts and ends of the
earlier writings. The notion had been put forward in a manner similar to Boyle’s
use of it in John Wilkins’s Principles and Duties of Natural Religion, published
posthumously in 1675, a work drawing for some of its key arguments on John
Tillotson’s sermon of 1664. This sermon employs the phrase ‘principles of
religion’, while in a later sermon, of 1679, Tillotson uses ‘principles of natural
religion’ with the same meaning. I would like to note two things about these
texts, which constitute a pertinent context for understanding Boyle’s use of the
notions of ‘principles’ and ‘duties’ of natural religion.
The first is that besides principles of natural religion, both authors also talk of
two other types of principles: of nature and of reason. The principles of reason
have to do with rules for establishing the credibility of beliefs on the basis of
sufficient proof (Tillotson 1664: 26; Wilkins 1675: bk. I, ch. 1). The principles
of nature are described in the vocabulary of ‘gifts’ and ‘ends’. The core principle
of nature is the inclination towards self-preservation that every creature is
endowed with by God (Tillotson 1664: 4–5, 11; Wilkins 1675: 12, 214). The
endowment is meant to serve specific divine ends: it makes creatures ‘fitted for
those services to which they are designed in their creation’ (Wilkins 1675: 213).
The particular form this general natural principle takes in humans is the moral
principle that the specifically human faculty of reason, the preservation and
perfection of which constitute human happiness, is such that by it ‘[man] is
made capable of Religion, of apprehending a Deity, and of expecting a future
state of rewards and punishments’ (ibid., 18) – in other words, that the natural
principle (or gift) of reason is capable of discovering the principles and duties
of natural religion. Wilkins explicitly identifies the principles of nature and of
reason as ‘preparatory’ to the principles of natural religion (ibid., 38).
The second thing to note is that there is some measure of overlap between the
principles of religion and the duties. Tillotson identifies as ‘principles of religion’
both the standard list of such principles (the existence of God, the immortality
of the soul, the existence of a future life and the work of providence) and what
would normally be identified as duties: the ‘Knowledg, Faith, Remembrance, Love
and Fear’, which specify ‘the Whole duty of man’, the obligation to honour and
worship God and to maintain the peace and happiness of mankind (Tillotson
1664: 3, 33; Tillotson 1679: 9–11). For Wilkins, the principles of religion are ‘a
belief and an acknowledgement of the Divine Nature and Existence’, the ‘due
apprehension of his Excellencies and Perfections’ and ‘Suitable Affections and
Demeanour towards him’ (Wilkins 1675: 40). The latter item is developed later
in the text into the set of duties that, we are told, ‘follow from’ the divine nature
and its perfections (ibid., 176): therefore it occupies the uncertain territory
between principles and duties. Wilkins enumerates and discusses adoration and
worship, faith and trust, hope and confidence, love, desire and zeal, reverence
and fear, and obedience.
Let me advance here that one possible reason for the overlap I have noted is
the inclusion of knowledge and belief among the acts of worship (instances of
which we have encountered in the literature on the Ten Commandments). On
the one hand, the existence of God, his providence and so on are the notions
or propositions that constitute the principles and can stand therefore as either
conclusions or premises of logical arguments. On the other, these notions or
propositions are beliefs not only in the sense of mental contents but also in the
sense of objects of acts of belief. If the focus is on the acts, the principles can be
ranged among the whole set of religious acts the practice of which constitutes the
duties.29 Moreover, it is the construal of the principles as acts of belief that allows
the derivation of the other duties from the principles: according to Wilkins, the
belief and ‘consideration’ of the divine attributes should be such that they do not
terminate in ‘meer speculation’ but influence the heart and affections, and thus
issue in the duties of adoration, faith and so on (ibid.).
Boyle’s approach to the principles and duties of natural religion is profitably
understood against this background. Its novelty is that it assigns to experimental
natural philosophy the major role in establishing the principles of natural religion,
which encouraged the emergence of a specific genre of natural theological
writing in the eighteenth century (Anstey 2017). But the framework, as I have
described it, remains the same. Like Wilkins and Tillotson, Boyle works with
the overlap between the principles as notions and the principles as acts of belief,
and the continuity between the cognitive and the affective dimensions of those
acts – a continuity he had already argued for in his earlier writings, as we have
seen. And, like them, he also works with the derivational line that goes from gifts
to principles to duties. The duties are the acts of natural religion, which in Boyle
are continuous with his earlier lists of acts of worship and devotion.
Boyle’s first principle of natural religion is the ‘firm Belief ’ in the existence
and attributes of God, which comes with the ‘consideration’ of the creatures,
or the ‘attentive and prying Inspection of inquisitive and well-instructed
Considerers’ (Works, 11: 295). The belief in question is not only firm but also
epistemic and affective at the same time, ‘a Rational and Affective Conviction’
(Works, 11: 297). The other two principles are (the belief in) the immortality
of the soul, with the ensuing expectation of a future everlasting state; and (the
belief in) divine providence. The duties stemming from these principles are
called ‘Acts of Natural Religion’ and they comprise a familiar list: veneration,
gratitude, humiliation, awe and reliance (Works, 11: 301). In part II of the
Christian Virtuoso, Boyle offers an alternative list which includes admiration,
celebration (an act of the ‘sacrifice of praise’ performed by the ‘priest of nature’),
humility, gratitude, love and trust; these acts or duties are also called ‘expressions
of piety’ and ‘religious virtues’ (Works, 12: 481, 483, 490). Parts I and II together
include three variants of an inferential chain meant to establish that the duties
are grounded in the principles, which are themselves premised on the gifts and
ends. Their substance is the following: man is endowed with reason, which, by
means of the contemplation of the make-up and ends of the creatures, can do
several things: it can form the belief of the existence and attributes of a maker
and benefactor (in other words, a belief of the principles of natural religion); it
can understand that it owes adoration to this maker and benefactor, which is
also to show obedience to the supreme law-giver; it can also understand that
this is to fulfil man’s true end; therefore, reason forms the conviction of the
obligation man is under to perform all the essential duties of natural religion
(Works, 11: 300–1, 303; 12: 496).
One of those duties was the formation of natural religious beliefs itself.
Another way of saying this is that the principles of natural religion are upheld by
epistemic virtues – a topic which deserves its own development.
2.4. Epistemic virtues

In the Christian Virtuoso Boyle repeats several times one condition underlying
the role of reason in forming the convictions that lay the ground of the acts of
natural religion: reason can perform that task only in ‘a man of a well-dispos’d
mind’ (Works, 11: 291, 297, 302, 306, 327), who is not ‘deprav’d by Vice, or Lusts’
(Works, 11: 303). This is at the heart of Boyle’s thoughts on the moral assessment
of the mind’s epistemic work in the context of natural religion; it is also one of
the anti-atheistic lines of argument he pursued, which consists in painting the
portrait of the morally and epistemically vicious atheist.
Boyle tells us that the epistemic-affective work of natural religious acts
requires a set of moral-epistemic qualifications in the minds of those who
engage in it. A ‘Resolved Atheist, or a Sensual Libertine’ (Works, 11: 293) is

not up to the task. What he lacks is delight in abstracted truths, docility and
a disposition to discover unobvious truths (such as those pertaining to the
principles of natural religion) (Works, 11: 304–5). This makes him unqualified
for the task of applying his mind to the kinds of proof that religion, and the
Christian religion in particular, requires. As Boyle puts it repeatedly in other
texts as well, religion is a domain where no more than moral demonstration (as
opposed to metaphysical demonstration) can be obtained (Works, 8: 64, 282;
14: 282). Here, however, in the Christian Virtuoso, the same idea is enriched
with an extra moral dimension: ‘for this reason, it is not always sufficient, that
the Arguments be good in their kind, but there are some Qualifications requir’d
in the Minds of them that are to be Convinc’d by them’ (Works, 11: 322). This
extra moral dimension is unpacked in the ‘Observations about Some Causes &
Remedies of Atheism’, where Boyle develops a distinctly moral conception of
moral demonstration: this kind of proof has to do with a sort of truths that ‘have
a direct aspect upon Mens Consciences or Passions or Interests’ and therefore
‘require some moral Dispositions in the Person they are to convince; for which
cause alone I here call them moral’. That is why, although the proofs are sufficient,
they will not prevail upon a ‘resolv’d Atheist, whose very Faculties are vitiated by
habitual Sins, & radicated aversions to any Truths, that divorce him from them’
(BOA: 53).
Drawing the character of the atheist was one common strategy in early
modern confutations (Sheppard 2015: 57–64). Boyle insists on the atheist’s
epistemic viciousness (cf. BOA: 50) and sets it in contrast with the portrait of the
person so ‘qualified’ in his mind as to be able to engage in the course of reflection
required by both natural and revealed religion – in other words, the portrait of
the Christian Virtuoso. In addition, he includes in his text considerations on
the way experimental philosophy – unlike, say, scholastic natural philosophy –
contributes not only to the discovery of the principles and the performance
of the duties of natural religion but also to the formation of the disposition
of mind necessary for the task. The docility (which here means teachability),
the cautiousness with respect to error and the openness to unobvious truths –
in other words, the ‘modesty of mind’ – necessary to engage in the work of
discovery, judgement, assent, reasoning and proof required by both natural and
revealed religion are, according to Boyle, the prerogatives of the experimentalist
(Works, 11: 304–5, 322–3). Since these are, as he put it in the paper on atheism,
‘moral Dispositions’ with epistemic effect, Boyle calls this ‘modesty of mind’ an
‘Intellectual, as well as Moral, Virtue’ (Works, 11: 322).
One precedent to Boyle’s ‘docility’ and ‘modesty’ may be his own identification
of ‘pliability’ or the ‘willingness to learn’ as one of the ‘natural virtues’ in the
Aretology (Boyle 1991: 124). Another is Wilkins’s discussion of the ‘vertue of
Believing’ in the Principles and Duties (Wilkins 1675: 30). The principles of
religion, Wilkins writes, are morally, not absolutely, certain, with a reason: so that
we may be free – and therefore so that we can be tested and rewarded or punished –
in our believing (ibid., 29–30). What is tested is our freedom from prejudice,
our capacity for ‘impartial Consideration’ and therefore our teachability: ‘God is
pleased to propose these matters of belief to us in such a way, as that we might give
some Testimony of our teachable dispositions, and of our obedience by our assent
to them’ (ibid., 31–2). Wilkins supports this view with several biblical quotations,
in particular Acts 17:11 (‘they received the word with all readiness of mind’)
talking of the Bereans, who were ‘styled εὐγενέστεροι, more ingenuous, teachable
and candid, more noble than others’; as well as with a quote from Hugo Grotius’s
De Veritate Religionis Christianae (1627), talking of the Gospel as ‘a Touch-stone
to prove and try what kind of tempers men are of ’, in the precise sense of their
epistemic dispositions (ibid., 32–3; Grotius 2015: II. xix, 136).
For Boyle, as for Wilkins and Grotius, the work of knowledge – a work of
belief, acknowledgement, consideration – comes under moral assessment as
much as the work of the will and the affections does. From this point of view,
the principles of natural religion – if construed as acts of believing, not simply as
objects of belief – are at the same time duties of natural religion, as well as virtues
that will be both intellectual and moral. Boyle’s reflections on the epistemic
virtues in his late writings are continuous with the construal of the acts of
reason as acts of piety in his middle texts and, ultimately, with the government of
thoughts of his early essays. The practice of reflection on which they rest is also
an outgrowth of Boyle’s lifelong concern with self-examination, meditation and
consideration, as members of the practical morality of the pious Christian. That
morality was located both in the mind and the heart and blended rationality and
affectivity as the twin facets of the service to God. At the core of the service was
the Christian duty, which Boyle saw as rooted in the way man was bound to his
Creator through the gifts and ends of his creation.30
Notes
1 On the conflation of moral philosophy and moral theology in a Protestant context,

especially in Protestant casuistry, see Kraye (1998: 1299).
2 On this Scotist and Augustinian view of theology, and its adoption by Protestant
scholastics, see Burton (2012: 39–41). An ‘affective science’ commands interest
in rhetorical style: on this topic relative to Boyle’s early writings, see Harwood
(1991: liii–lxvii), Principe (1995).
3 See Morgan (1986: chs 4, 7), Todd (1987: chs 2, 6); Hambrick-Stowe (2008) on the
Puritans and Spurr (1991: ch. 6) on the Restoration churchmen. For the practical
devotional similarities between Puritan and conformist Protestants, see Ryrie
(2013: 6–8); the reservations in Willis (2017: 222–3) point rather to a difference in
degree of intensity.
4 On Boyle’s search for a moral and vocational identity in his early career, see
Maddison (1963), Oster (1993), Shapin (1994: ch. 4), Hunter (2000: ch. 2), Hunter
(2009: chs 4–6), Hunter (2015: ch. 2).
5 On the general framing of early modern moral philosophy around projects of self-
government, see Garrett (2012). For the relevance of this to early modern natural
philosophy, see Corneanu (2011).
6 For the moral voluntarism of the reformers as a Calvinistic legacy, against an
Augustinian and Scotist background, see Muller (2000: ch. 9).
7 On the two versions of this text (1648 and 1659) and the changes in style between
the early and the later version, see Principe (1994).
8 A possible antecedent is Bullinger’s 1533 commentary on Romans, where the
reading of Rom. 10: 10 highlights constancy, integrity and sincerity as features of
true faith: see Muller (2000: 163–4).
9 The only exception to the Aristotelian mean is the love of God, where excess is
part of the essence of the virtue: Works, 1: 71–3. For the same theme in Ames and
Grotius, see Kraye (1998: 1299).
10 On the transformation of Stoic ‘first motions’ into early Christian ‘first suggestions’,
see Sorabji (2000: chs 22–4); on the medieval ladder of sin that starts with
‘suggestions’, see Knuuttila (2004: 78–195).
11 The ‘darling sin’ also features in Aretology, Boyle (1991: 106–8). On this notion in
Puritan works of devotion, see Ryrie (2013: 57).
12 Further on evil company, see Boyle (1994: 6); Works, 13: 141–2; Works, 11: 360–1;
Bolton (1638: 73–80), cited in Boyle (1991: 152, n. 42).
13 Further on idleness, see Boyle (1991: 85–9, 238, 244–5); Bolton 48–50, 70–71.
14 For the meditation on the four last things, see e.g. Sibbes (1837 (1635): 108), Angel
(1659: 77).
15 Curiosity is not always dangerous, however: ‘Philaretus’ is a good example of the
positive use of ‘curiosity’ as driving motor of learning: Boyle (1994: passim); cf.
Works, 13: 200; 12: 433.
16 For examples of Protestant attitudes to oath-taking, see Ryrie (2013): 130; Boyle
(1991: 220, n. 37).
17 However, when at stake is the salvation of his soul, the vow and ‘Resolution of
Amendment’ Philaretus makes after his spiritual crisis is the only course of action
(Boyle 1994: 16).
18 For Boyle’s interest in casuistry, see Hunter (2000: ch. 4).
19 For ‘speculative wickedness’, see also Aretology, Boyle (1991: 103). Boyle did not
invent the term: it features in Godwin’s treatise with a general reference to how
the ‘divines’ use the term: Godwin (1638: 74). Bolton uses cognate terms, such as
‘speculative wantonness, ambition, revenge’: Bolton (1638: 72).
20 Cf. the very similar descriptions of wicked, vain and rambling thoughts in Bolton
(1638: 71), Godwin (1638: 50–1); Angel (1659: 27–50).
21 Cf. the only partly similar remedies in Bolton (1638: 88–94), which generally
follows Perkins (1607: ch. VIII, sect. 1–3), Cooper (1619: 54–9), Angel
(1659: 51–95).
22 Boyle finds a congenial antecedent in the Pythagoreans’ choice of the evening
for their mental exercises (Boyle 1991: 217). He also mentions approvingly the
Pythagoreans’ discipline of thoughts (Boyle 1991: 186). Cf. Alsted’s notes on the
‘examen Pythagoricum’ (1630: 1250a–b).
23 The right kind of motivation is yet another topic Boyle shares with the Reformed
thought of his time, especially with Protestant casuistry (Boyle 1991: 136, n. 4). For
further examples, see Boyle (1994: 16–17), Works, 1: 114.
24 Cf. Perkins (1618: 411ff.), Taylor (1650: 332–46). On the Protestant cluster of
repentance/self-examination/meditation, replacing the Catholic practice of
confession, see Ryrie (2013: 130, 396).
25 For Alsted’s theory of the remnants of prelapsarian perfection in man, see Hotson
(2000: 79–81). On the medieval tradition of thought about synderesis and the law of
nature lying behind the early modern developments, see Greene (1997).
26 Further on Boyle’s approach to the study of nature as a form of divine worship and
its various sources, see Fischer (1945), Fisch (1953), Sargent (1995: ch. 4), Ben-
Chaim (2002).
27 See Hunter (1995: ch. 12), Sheppard (2015: chs 1 and 2). For the presence of the
theme in scholastic natural theology, see Levitin (2014a).
28 Mornay’s work was among the most frequently cited titles in early modern anti-
atheistic tracts, alongside the similar works by Juan Luis Vives and Hugo Grotius
(Sheppard 2015: 52–3). In the 1680s, Boyle identified the works of Vives, Mornay
and Grotius as the models behind his own anti-atheistic natural theological project
(Works, 14: 280, 281). For Boyle’s use of the history of philosophy and religion, see
Levitin (2014b), Wojcik (2000).
29 The practical approach to natural religion in Boyle and Wilkins is as important as
their theoretical approach described in Mandelbrote (2007).
30 I would like to thank Peter Anstey, Jan-Erik Jones, Edward Davis and Andreas
Blank for their thoughts on an earlier draft of this chapter. The resources
provided by the Honorary Fellowship of the Institute for Advanced Studies in
the Humanities at the University of Queensland have been quite helpful in its
composition.
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9
Boyle’s Philosophy of Religion

Edward B. Davis
Robert Boyle occupies a pivotal place in early modern philosophy of religion.

As an adolescent and young adult, he cultivated an intense piety despite nagging
religious doubts. Informed by wide reading of biblical, religious and humanistic
texts, his earliest writings (some of them published only decades later) were
mainly moral or devotional in character and did not touch substantively on
natural philosophy. Soon after discovering the joys of chymistry in his early
twenties, however, Boyle told readers of his first full-length essay about natural
philosophy, ‘Of the Study of the Booke of Nature’, that he had added ‘the Booke
of Nature’ to his reading list, supplementing ‘the Book <call’d> Scripture, & the
Booke of Conscience’ to ‘compose Man’s Library of three chiefe Bookes’. Having
already ‘express’t my Thoughts’ on ‘the 2 latter’ books, he now hoped ‘to engage
all capable & Intelligent Persons to the <neglected> study of the First’ (BP 8,
fol. 123; Works, 13: 147). For the rest of his life, Boyle actively pursued a grand
intellectual programme on two main fronts. While helping to create the modern
laboratory, he simultaneously sought to bring the practice and the conclusions
of natural philosophy fully in line with his Christian mind and character.
Along the way, he published more than three hundred thousand words on
that general topic, including major treatises on natural theology, theology
of creation, epistemology and other aspects of the philosophy of religion.
A comparable amount of manuscript material on those topics, morality and
comparative religion has been published since his death, starting with two long
sequels to The Christian Virtuoso in Thomas Birch’s 1744 edition of his works
but especially in our own day (Works, 12: 367–530, and 14: 145–283; see also
Boyle and Harwood 1991, and BOA). Overall, Boyle’s significance lies in how
he transformed his original, Christian humanistic concern to persuade others
to live more piously into a full-blown natural theology based partly on scientific
facts and a sophisticated theology of creation based partly on a humble view

of the scope and status of scientific knowledge. Thus, to some extent Boyle can
be seen as a microcosm of macroscopic historical currents in the early modern
period, in which older humanistic attitudes towards piety as the chief goal of
religio were partially eclipsed by newer ‘scientific’ attitudes toward ‘religion’ and
diverse ‘religions’ (Harrison 2015). In the end, the enormously prolific and wide-
ranging Boyle probably influenced subsequent thinking about God and nature
more than any other early modern thinker, including Galileo Galilei, René
Descartes, and Isaac Newton.
1. Shaping Boyle’s rhetoric: The post-Reformation

natural theology of Philippe de Mornay
The humanistic origins of Boyle’s apologetic are prominently on display in

the wording of the famous provision in his will to establish ‘Eight Sermons’
annually ‘for proveing the Christian Religion agt notorious Infidels (vizt)
Atheists, Theists [i.e., Deists], Pagans, Jews, and Mahometans, not descending
lower to any Controversies that are among Christians themselves’ (Maddison
1969: 274). Because the earliest manuscript version of this idea was written
by Boyle’s confessor, Bishop Gilbert Burnet, Michael Hunter has suggested
the possibility that Burnet, not Boyle, first envisioned such a project, though
perhaps Burnet was simply helping Boyle define it (Hunter 1994: xxiv–xxv).
Either way, the targets were only ‘Atheists and Theists’, followed by the directive
to avoid controversies among Christians – a crucial part of Boyle’s public
persona to which I will return (BP 4, fol. 166; cf. later versions BP 4, fols 179–
80). The additional references to ‘Infidels’, specifically including ‘Pagans, Jews
and Mahometans’, have long been assumed to originate with Boyle (or Burnet).
However, I recently discovered that they actually reprise the title of a sixteenth-
century book by the Huguenot jurist, apologist and statesman, Philippe de
Mornay, A Woorke Concerning the Trewnesse of the Christian Religion, Written
in French: Against Atheists, Epicures, Paynims, Iewes, Mahumetists, and Other
Infidels (French 1581, English 1587). Probably it was Boyle’s idea, not Burnet’s,
to include this specific language, for he had read Mornay long before he knew
Burnet. In his ‘Essay of the Holy Scriptures’, composed during the late 1640s
and early 1650s, Boyle recommended ‘the Noble Mornay’ along with Dutch
jurist and apologist Hugo Grotius, medieval Dominican theologian Raymundus
Martini, Spanish philosopher Raymond Lull, and Spanish humanist Juan Luis
Boyle’s Philosophy of Religion 259
Vives, for ‘Manifesting of the Credi<bi>lity of the Tenents of Christian Religion

in Generall’. In the same work, he noted that the Socinians had actually defended
some of the ‘Grand Fundamentalls of Christianity’ even more effectively than
those orthodox authors ‘against Atheists, Jews and other Infidells’, borrowing
Mornay’s words (BP 7, fols 24, 46; Works, 13: 187, 198). ‘Of the Study of the
Book of Nature’ was written around the same time. There he used Mornay’s
book only as a source of quotations from ancient authors, but he referred to
it in glowing terms, as ‘that excellent Treatise, … Penn’d & translated by the
2 <greatest Favourites the two> Last Ages <have afforded me>’, Mornay and his
translator Sir Philip Sidney (BP 8, fol. 129; Works, 13: 163).
The Frenchman’s influence on the English apologist was both formative and
formidable, even if Boyle’s published works contain just a single explicit reference
to Mornay, in the preface to Reason and Religion, quoted below. We cannot fully
understand Boyle’s philosophy of religion apart from this central fact. When
Boyle wrote his (unpublished) treatise ‘On the Diversity of Religions’, his list of
‘the four great religions under which all the others can be classified’ included only
those mentioned by Mornay: Christianity, Judaism, Islam and paganism (BP
14, 237–8). Like Boyle, Mornay was motivated to refute impious undercurrents
in post-Reformation Europe, while leaving aside doctrinal disputes among
Christians – an approach that reflected Mornay’s situation as a Protestant author
in Catholic France, as well as his sincere hope that eventually a new, mutually
acceptable religious union might be achieved (Harrie 1978). Dedicating his
book to Henry of Navarre (prior to his becoming Catholic), he spoke of ‘this
wretched time Sir, wherein ungodlinesse (which was woont but to whisper men
in the eare, and to mumble betweene the teeth) hath bin so bold as to step into
the pulpit, and to belke out blasphemies against God and his Gospell’. Mornay
sought to convince ungodliness of her errors, or failing that to ‘make hir hold hir
peace for shame, and keepe close hir venim in hir hart’, such that ‘the despisers
of God, if they will not beleeue, shall at leastwise find themselves graveled to
gainsay it’ (Mornay 1587: sigs ** and **iii). Yet, Mornay was most disturbed to
find ‘great either coldnesse in the things which they ought to follow most wholie,
or doubting in the things which they ought to beleeue most stedfastlie’, even
among ‘those which professe the Christian godlinesse’, making his task ‘more
needfull now adaies (yea even (which I am ashamed to saie) among those which
beare the name of Christians) than ever it was among the verie Heathen and
Infidels’, especially ‘to waken such as are asleepe, to bring backe such as are gone
astraie, to lift vp such as are sunke downe, and to chafe them a heat which are
waxed cold’ (ibid., sig. **iiii and verso). Ultimately, Mornay confessed, ‘the onely
fruit which I seeke of my labour’ is to ‘confirme them that wauer, & to confute
them which go about to shake downe his doctrine’. He prayed God ‘to touch
our stonie harts with the force of his spirit, and with his owne finger to plant his
doctrine so deeply in them, as it may take roote and bring foorth fruit’ (ibid.,
sig. ***ii).
Mornay identified two main types of blasphemers. Some pursue pleasure so
utterly that it consumes them, leaving no time ‘to mount vp vnto God, but onelie
so much as to enter into themselues’, making them ‘strangers to their owne nature,
[and] to their owne Soules’. Crucially, Mornay saw this as ‘the verie welspring of
the Atheists, who (to speake rightlie of them) offend not through reasoning but
for want of reasoning; nor by abusing of reason, but by drowning of reason,
or rather by bemiring it in the filthie and beastlie pleasures of the world’. In
other words, they ignore God because the pursuit of vain pleasures has made
them blind to the truths of reason, whose faculty is impaired by their sin. Here
Mornay’s Calvinism shone forth brightly. Others ‘match their pleasures with
malice’, leading them to ‘ouerreach and betraie othermen, selling their freends,
their kinsfolke, yea and their owne soules, & not sticking to do anie euill, that
may serue their turne, neuer alledging or pretending honestie or conscience,
but to their owne profit’. What follows could have come straight from Boyle: ‘Of
such kind of stuffe are the Epicures made, who bicause they feele their minds
guiltie of so many crimes, do thinke themselues to haue escaped the Iustice and
prouidence of GOD by denying it.’ Once again, ‘of these we may say, that their
reason is caried away and ouermaistered’ by their worldliness. To these Mornay
added a third category – those who believe in a God who governs the world, an
immortal soul, ‘and that man ought to serue him’ – yet hold that each person
‘shall find saluation in his owne Religion’. Mornay concluded that such people
would determine religions other than Christianity to be false if they only used
their reason properly (ibid., sig. **iiii and verso). Boyle’s unpublished treatise
‘On the Diversity of Religions’ would display the same attitude (full Latin text
at BP 6, fols 279–91, partial English text at BP 5, fols 49–59; Works, 14: 235–64).
Frequently relying explicitly on Aristotle or implicitly on Thomas Aquinas
(never actually mentioned), Mornay made extensive use of pagan and Christian
humanistic sources, including Hermetic authors, in an effort to show doubters
that ‘the voice of nature is the voice of truth’ (Mornay 1587: sig. ***). When
advancing his version of Thomas’s cosmological argument, Mornay employed
language and concepts that can only have resonated with the young Boyle and
perhaps even showed him some years later how to bring the new science more
fully into the old conversation about God and nature, after he enthusiastically
embraced what he called ‘mechanical philosophy’ (Works, 2: 87–8; cf. 5: 288;

7: 158; 8: 32, 35, and 99). Presumably inspired by descriptions of the ‘machina
mundi’ (machine or fabric of the world) in standard astronomical textbooks
by John of Sacrobosco and other late medieval authors, Mornay wrote about
the same ‘clockmaker’ God that Boyle later popularized so widely. Does the
continuous, uniform motion of the heavens ‘happen by adventure’? If not, do
the heavens move themselves?
Nay; for nothing moueth it selfe, and where things moue one another, there is
no possibilitie of infinite holding on; but in the end men must be faine to mount
vpto a first beginning, and that is a rest. As for example, from the hammer of
a Clocke wée come too a whéele, and from that whéele too another, and finally
too the wit of the Clockmaker, who by his cunning hath so ordered them, that
notwithstanding that he maketh them all too moue, yet he himselfe remoueth
not. (Mornay 1587: 5)
Elsewhere, Mornay spoke of the sky ‘as the great whéele of a Clocke’, amounting
to ‘the very instrument of tyme’, needing ‘a Worker that putteth him to vse, a
Clockkéeper that ruleth him, a Mynd that was the first procurer of his mouing’.
In the most striking passage, Mornay asserted the Clockmaker’s sovereignty
over the laws of nature, while pouring scepticism on the ability of the human
mind fully to fathom the depths of nature and the clockmaker’s mind. If ‘God
created Nature’, he asked,
is it not a straunge ouersight in you, that you will needes tye him to the lawes of
Nature, which is the maker of Nature? and measure the power and libertie of the
Clockmaker, by the subiection of the Clocke vnto him? Art thou not ashamed
to yéeld lesse preheminence to GOD, than thy King whom thou exemptest from
subiection to his lawes, because he is the maker of the lawes? I pray thée what a
thing were it, if thou shouldest vndertake but only to measure Nature by thyne
owne wit? What a number of tymes hast thou found thy wit to stumble at the
least things? How often hast thou found it against thy selfe? Now, if Nature goe
beyond the reach of thy wit, how farre shall the very maker of nature outgoe it?
(Ibid., 99 and 137)
As we shall see, identical thoughts expressed in similar language lay at the heart
of Boyle’s theology of creation.
We find another influence in Mornay’s sentiment, ‘euen in the Flye and the
Ant, the greatnesse of the Creator shineth forth more than in the very Heauen’,
considering ‘the very littlenesse of them, which in so small roome conteyneth
so many great things together’. Again employing mechanistic language, Mornay
concluded, ‘For wee wonder more at the Clockmakers cunning in making

a Clock which a Flye may couer with her wings, than in making a Clocke of
great compasse, where the very greatnesse it selfe diminisheth the estimation
thereof ’ (ibid., 183). Boyle said identical things in ‘Of the Study of the Booke of
Nature’, confessing that ‘my Wonder dwells not so much on Nature’s Clockes as
hir Watches’, admiring ‘the Structure of a dissected Mole’ more than Elephants,
and musing how ‘God in these Minute Creatures, oftentimes drawes Traces
of Omniscience too delicate to be lyable to be assign’d <to> any other Cause’
(BP 8, fol. 130; Works, 13: 159–60). The published version in The Usefulness of
Experimental Natural Philosophy (1663) retains all of this (Works, 3: 223–4).
Overall, Mornay argued that belief in God has always been virtually universal,
and that by denying God’s existence one deceives oneself about self-evident
truths. He admitted that we might find ‘in all ages some wretched kaptifes,
which haue not acknowledged God, as there be some euen at this day’. Closer
examination, however, showed them to be either ‘yong fooles giuen ouer to their
pleasures’, who as they matured would return to
the knowing of themselues, and consequently of God: or els they were some
persons growen quite out of kind, saped in wickednesse, and such as had defaced
their own nature in themselues; who to the intent they might practise all maner
of wickednes with the lesse remorse, haue striued to perswade themselues by
soothing their owne sinnes, that they haue no Soule at all, and that there is no
Iudge to make inquirie of their sinnes.
According to Mornay, even ‘the chiefe that men counted for Atheists’ in antiquity
‘rather skorned the Idolles and false Goddes of their tymes, then denyed the true
God’, leaving unresolved the obvious paradox in his title (Mornay 1587: 10–11).
If atheists were such an important target for his book, where were they?
Richard S. Westfall famously asked that very question about the proliferation of
natural theology in seventeenth-century England, not sixteenth-century France.
‘More than answering hypothetical atheists’, Westfall suggested, Boyle and some
of his fellow virtuosi ‘were trying to satisfy their own doubts’ about the religious
implications of the new science. They simply ‘nourished the atheists within
their own minds. Atheism was the vague feeling of uncertainty’ arising from
their own work. They clearly identified the ‘source of their anxiety’ as Epicurean
atomism. ‘Atheists were materialists’, and the rebirth of Epicurus’ ideas ‘after a
long sleep’ posed a formidable challenge to the virtuosi, who were committed
atomists themselves. They saw ‘the practical Epicureanism of Restoration
England’ manifest itself in the ‘moral laxity [that] was nearly always coupled
with it’, and they railed against it by arguing so vigorously and repetitiously for
evidence of design, rather than chance, in the material world (Westfall 1958: 145,
219, 108, 110).
Westfall’s analysis was substantially correct, and it applies no less to Mornay
than to Boyle and the virtuosi. The word ‘Epicures’ immediately follows
‘atheists’ in Mornay’s title, implying a meaningful distinction, apparently that
the Epicureans denied divine providence and judgement, but not necessarily the
existence of God or gods. Boyle and other English authors in the century after
Mornay saw things in precisely the same way. William Chillingworth’s sermon
on atheism from the 1630s is a case in point. Taking as his text Ps. 14:1 (‘The fool
hath said in his heart, There is no God’), he noted that the psalmist (traditionally
David) decries ‘they that have done abominable works’, asking, ‘Have all the
workers of iniquity no knowledge?’ According to Chillingworth, the fool ‘not so
much persuadeth himself in secret, that “there is no God:” but rather expresseth
so in his life, or in his affections’, behaviour he described as ‘practical atheism’,
terminology that was also familiar to Boyle (Chillingworth 1840: 550–1). In the
very first Boyle lecture from 1692, devoted to ‘The Folly of Atheism’, Richard
Bentley cited the same biblical text in reference to ‘those profane Persons, who,
though they do not, nor can really doubt in their Hearts the Being of God, yet
openly deny his Providence in the course of their lives’. Bentley was deeply
sceptical of genuine, ‘speculative Atheism’. The ‘innate Idea of God, imprinted
upon every Soul of Man at their Creation, in Characters that can never be
defaced’, meant that ‘really human Nature cannot be guilty of the Crime’ of
actually denying God’s existence (Bentley 1739: 2). A dozen years later, Samuel
Clarke’s Boyle lecture began by separating ‘All those who either are, or pretend
to be, Atheists’, into three groups. Some are just ‘extremely ignorant or stupid’,
not making ‘any just use of their natural Reason’, living lives ‘very little superior
to that of Beasts’. Others, being ‘totally debauched and corrupted’, have ‘defaced
the Reason of their own Minds’, habitually ‘mock and scoff at Religion’, and close
their ears ‘to any Reasoning which would oblige them to forsake their beloved
Vices’. The rest employ ‘Speculative Reasoning’ to ‘pretend’ that the arguments
against God’s existence are ‘more strong and conducive’ (Clarke 1739: 3).
Likewise, Oliver Cromwell’s brother-in-law, Bishop John Wilkins, associated
‘the Epicureans’ with a ‘gross error’ of the worst imaginable kind, ‘so very gross
and ignoble, as cannot be sufficiently despised, … extinguishing the very seeds
of honour and piety and virtue’, and reducing humans ‘to the condition of beasts’
(Wilkins 1675: 403–4). Consistent with the language in these examples, David
Berman showed that early modern Christians typically responded to sceptics
either by denying the actual existence of thoughtful ‘speculative’ atheists (though

some like Clarke clearly admitted this possibility), or else by dismissing them as
‘practical’ atheists, grossly immoral people whose fear of godliness made them
hardly more than animals (Berman 1988). Likewise, Michael Hunter found
that ‘atheism’ in seventeenth-century England was identified with a range of
attitudes, beliefs and activities, but it is ‘perhaps best represented by some of the
more extreme emanations of the literary culture of the day’ and best understood
as ‘this intelligent but unintellectual rejection of much of traditional thought and
mores’ (Hunter 1995: 234).
2. Piety, charity and doubt: Motives for Boyle’s apologetics
Significantly, his own lifelong struggle with religious doubts drove Boyle to
devote so much energy to answering putative atheists. Converted to Christianity
like Martin Luther in a violent thunderstorm, he resolved henceforth to pursue
piety, not from fear of divine judgement (his first impulse) but for ‘it’s owne
Excellence’. Within a few months, however, his faith was sorely tested. According
to his youthful autobiography, Boyle suffered serious depression while visiting
La Grande Chartreuse (the oldest Carthusian abbey) in ‘those Wild Mountaines’
near Grenoble. In a melancholy mood, temptation overcame him. The sadness
of the place, coupled with ‘st[r]‌ange storys & Pictures’ of St Bruno (founder of
the Carthusian order), gave rise to ‘such strange & hideous thoughts, & such
distracting Doubts of some of the Fundamentals of Christianity’, that the
adolescent Boyle actually contemplated suicide. He got past that episode without
further harm, ‘yet never after did these fleeting Clouds, cease now & then to
darken the clearest serenity of his quiet’. Those clouds, however, proved blessings
in disguise. Boyle ‘deriv’d from this Anxiety the Advantage of Groundednesse
in his Religion: for the Perplexity his doubts created oblig’d him <(to remove
them)> to be seriously inquisitive of the Truth of the very fundamentals
of Christianyty: & to heare what both Turkes, & Jewes, & the cheefe Sects of
Christians cud alledge for their severall opinions’ (Hunter 1994: 16–17).
Boyle certainly had frequent occasion to overcome such perplexities,
admitting in his early twenties, ‘of my own Private, & generally unheeded doubts
I could exhibit no short Catalogue’. Westfall correctly diagnosed that Boyle
was haunted by the spectre of atheism, but he failed to see the highly positive
role that doubt played in Boyle’s religious life. As Boyle put it with unusual
profundity, ‘He whose Fayth hath never had any Doubts, hath some cause to
Doubt whether he hath ever had any Fayth’ (Works, 13: 180–1; cf. the earlier
version of this aphorism in BP 44, fol. 95). That is why he wrote so much about
philosophy of religion. He sought to answer his own doubts by proving the truth
of Christianity, not least in order to advance godly piety over hedonism, for he
regarded impiety as ‘that greatest of all’ sins. Furthermore, by ‘committing to
Paper those thoughts that should occur to me’, he confessed, ‘I might thereby
as well contribute to my own satisfaction as to that of my Friends’. Since ‘there
is nothing that belongs to this life, that so much deserves our serious care as
what will become of us when we are past it’, the person who accepts or rejects
‘so important a thing as Religion, without seriously examining why he does it,
may happen to make a good Choice, but can be but a bad Chooser’ (Works,
8: 236, 238).
Born into an enormously influential family whose members often embodied
corrupt courtly mores, the young Boyle found plenty of vice and debauchery
indicative of impiety close at hand. His favourite sister and lifelong confidant,
the deeply pious Katherine, Viscountess Ranelagh, was married off at 15 to a
drunkard who studiously neglected his family. Their brother Francis was married
at 16 to Elizabeth Killigrew, who later bore an illegitimate child of Charles II, their
brother Roger eagerly accompanied Charles to various London dives and was
rumoured to have gonorrhea, while their brother Lewis also had venereal disease
(Shapin 1994: 138–9). To top it off, Robert himself sometimes accompanied his
Genevan tutor Isaac Marcombes to ‘the famousest Bordellos’ on the Continent,
‘out of bare Curiosity’, though he claimed to have ‘retain’d there an unblemish’t
Chastity, & still return’d thence as honest as he went thither. Professing that he
never found any such sermons against them, as they were against themselves’, he
found such experiences too disgusting for words. ‘The Impudent Nakednesse of
Vice’, he sniggered, ‘Description cannot reach, & the worst of Epithetes cannot
but flatter’ (Hunter 1994: 20). Little wonder that he carefully avoided marriage
himself and advised any woman contemplating it, ‘to deliberate much upon a
Choice she can probably make but once; and not needlesly venture to embarque
herself on a Sea so infamous for frequent Shipwracks, only because she is offer’d
a fine Ship to make the long Voyage with’ (Works, 10: 32).
Against some of his brothers and many others who lived for worldly pleasure,
Boyle self-consciously reflected on the need for a young person to find ‘a fit
Vocation’, because ‘A Convenient civil Calling’ that benefits others would be ‘a
sovveraigne Preservative agenst Idleness, (that mother of Vices) and an excellent
prevention of a world of Idle, Melancholick and exorbitant thouhts, and
un-warrantable Actions’. Not to cultivate ‘som honest particular Calling’ made
one ‘but an useless wastful Droane, and unworthy of the Benefits of Humane
Society’. If a gentleman ‘shal spend his whole stock of precius time in Carding,
Dicing, Hunting, revelling, Seeing of Plays, Reading of Romances, Powdring
his haire, Staring upon looking-glasses, courting of Ladys that he means not
to marry (not to mention what is worse) and in Sum make Vacation his only
Vocation’, God is not pleased (Boyle and Harwood 1991: 85, 88). Boyle’s own
exemplary life stood in the breach. Speaking from first-hand knowledge of his
generosity to the poor and the persecuted, Gilbert Burnet reminded those who
attended Boyle’s funeral that ‘His Charity to those that were in Want’ was ‘so very
extraordinary’, because ‘he considered himself as part of the Humane Nature,
and as a Debtor to the whole Race of Men’ (Hunter 1994: 20).
We find even higher praise in a long, exquisitely revealing letter from an
Italian Jesuit, Lorenzo Magalotti, who visited Boyle twice in the late 1660s. On
the second occasion, he remembered being ‘ill of a continuous fever for forty
days’. Boyle visited him unceasingly, ‘spending two or three hours’ with him
every day, and with ‘sweet words’ giving comfort, despite being ‘very busy’ with
other matters and under the weather himself. Magalotti was deeply moved by
this charitable gesture but even more by what he had witnessed on the streets of
‘the true measure’ of Boyle’s ‘desire to love God’. He assured Boyle that
your servants know it – your servants towards whom the zeal of your charity is
so tender that after your feeding of them no less with material bread than with
the milk of philosophy, they change the simplicity of their livery for doctoral
clothes, by employing (especially for the benefit of the poor) that treasury which
they have gathered up from the phials of your most noble foundry.
Magalotti ‘saw them running through London in the public squares with
extraordinary piety helping poor epileptics with the comfort of very powerful
remedies which they were accustomed continually to take with them for this
very purpose alone’. According to Magalotti, Boyle’s friends, the King, and
the Anglican Church also knew the magnitude of his virtue and love for God.
Indeed, ‘your zeal towards God (not the God of the philosophers, who would
search for Him with the light of natural reason alone, but the God worshipped
by Christians) is known not only in England where your many moral and
theological tracts have inflamed a similar ardour in others, but is known from
one end of the earth to the other’ (Correspondence, 4: 268; 266–72).
After this remarkable testimony, Magalotti tried to provoke a debate on various
points of Catholic theology. Before responding to points Boyle had apparently
made concerning church history, ecclesiology, vernacular translations of the
Bible, the priesthood of believers, Purgatory and the veneration of images, he

gently chastised Boyle for not trying to convert him. Speaking about ‘Mr Robert’
in the third person, he asked, if he is really ‘a follower of the Gospel’ who loves
me ‘as a friend’, then why has he never tried ‘with either spoken or written words,
to make sure that I could have the benefit of that good he hopes for by the merit
of his religion?’. Answering his own rhetorical question, Magalotti wrote, ‘either
he does not believe that he needs to try to come to where you are, or at least
does not believe that you need to move from where you are’ (Correspondence,
4: 271–2). Although we have no evidence that Boyle ever replied, he knew
why he was not a Catholic, and he regarded some Catholic beliefs as no more
than vulgar superstitions. He probably viewed Catholics (in general) as fellow
Christians who did not need to convert in order to attain salvation, even though
he certainly felt that Protestants had a better grounding for their faith. Though
willing to argue against Catholicism privately, he did not often do so publicly in
print. Exceptions are rare and brief, especially in his mature works. He did not
write the pseudonymous tract wrongly attributed to him for centuries, Reasons
Why a Protestant Should Not Turn Papist (1687), even though he probably agreed
with most or all of its content (Davis 1994a).
Overall, Boyle steered deliberately clear of controversies among Christians, a
rule that he took to heart in his defenses of Christianity. No one understood why
better than Burnet. As a ‘Devout Christian’, Boyle ‘had possessed himself with
such an amiable view of that Holy Religion, separated from either superstitious
Practices or the sourness of Parties, that as he was fully perswaded of the Truth
of it, and indeed wholly possessed with it, so he rejoyced in every discovery that
Nature furnisht him with, to illustrate it, or to take off the Objections against any
part of it’. He always saw Christianity
as a System of Truths, which ought to purifie the Hearts, and govern the Lives
of those who profess it; he loved no Practice that seemed to lessen that, nor
any Nicety that occasioned Divisions amongst Christians. He thought pure
and disinteressed Christianity was so Bright and Glorious a thing, that he was
much troubled at the Disputes and Divisions which had arisen about some lesser
Matters, while the Great and the most Important, as well as the most universally
acknowledged Truths were by all sides almost as generally neglected as they
were confessed.
According to Burnet, the ecumenically conceived Boyle lectures came directly

from this very conviction. Furthermore, ‘his Zeal’ was ‘lively and effectual in
the greatest and truest concerns of Religion; but he avoided to enter far into the
unhappy Breaches that have so long weakened, as well as distracted Christianity’,

while avoiding ‘all those Opinions and Practices, that seemed to him to destroy
Morality and Charity’, having ‘a most particular zeal against all Severities and
Persecutions upon the account of Religion’ (Hunter 1994: 48–9).
3. The main elements of Boyle’s philosophy of religion
It should now be clear that Boyle sought above all else to stimulate piety and
charity in others, enhancing their experience of the living God and encouraging
humble service to their fellow human beings. On all sides, however, he saw
scoffers living in open rebellion against God. Ultimately, unbelief lay behind
their sinful behaviour. Quoting Heb. 11.6, Boyle proclaimed, ‘He that will come
to God, that is, that would be religious, must believe that he is, and that he is
a rewarder of them that diligently seek him. And this is a truth that surpasses
all others, in regard of the influences it has upon mens lives’. Why ‘labour to
confirm the existence of a Deity, as if in a Christian country there could be any
such monsters as atheists or infidels’, Boyle rhetorically asked. Admittedly, in
long years of conversing ‘with no small variety of persons, who were suspected
to be unfavourable enough to religion’ he was still ‘not satisfied, that I have
met [even] two or three speculative and resolved atheists’, the same group
Samuel Clarke would identify as his third type of atheist in the early eighteenth
century (above). However, ‘the territory of infidelity is not by much so narrowly
circumscribed, as most men take it to be’. Although ‘there is little professed and
speculative atheism to be found amongst us, … there are too many that are but
baptised infidels, especially among the pretenders to the knowledge of nature,
that are little better than practical Atheists’ (Works, 12: 482, including the final
phrase that was deleted on MS 189, fol. 110v). Such had not ‘come to a settled
belief, that there is no Deity, and therefore may perchance abstain from some
gross, heinous, or unprofitable sins, for fear there should be one’. At the same
time, ‘they are not so fully persuaded’ of God’s existence, ‘to deny themselves
a much beloved, or very profitable sin, or undergo any considerable hardship,
or run any great danger’. They ‘rather take it for granted, that there is a Deity,
than truly believe it’. Boyle frankly had no interest in ‘a mere nominal deity’. If
‘even a very weak assent may keep a man from being a downright atheist, yet it
will not ordinarily suffice to make him a pious man’. Rather, one’s ‘piety, as well
as his other virtues, will usually be proportionate to the firmness of the assent
he gives to that fundamental article of religion, that there is a Divine Maker
and Ruler of the world’ (Works, 12: 482–3). ‘Natural religion’ is therefore ‘the
foundation, upon which revealed religion ought to be superstructed, and is as it
were the stock, upon which Christianity must be ingrafted. For though I readily
acknowledge natural religion to be insufficient, yet I think it very necessary’.
It is pointless ‘to press an infidel with arguments drawn from the worthiness’
of Christian doctrine and biblical miracles ‘if the unbeliever be not already
persuaded, upon the account of natural religion, that there is a God’ (Works,
12: 432–3).
That is why Boyle wrote A Disquisition about the Final Causes of Natural
Things (1688), in which he carefully identified and explained the types of design
inferences that natural philosophers might legitimately make, especially from
‘the Structure and Nature of Animals’, which evince ‘a far Higher and Nobler
Principle, than is Blind Chance’. He especially desired ‘that my Reader should
not barely observe the Wisdom of God, but be in some measure Affectively
Convinc’d of it’. Affectively: we must not miss the significance of that particular
adverb. Bare logical arguments for God’s existence were never enough for Boyle,
who wanted to inculcate in others the same deep emotive response to God
that he had cultivated and enjoyed for most of his life. To that end, it was ‘very
Conducive’ to pay careful attention to ‘some Particular Instances of the Divine
Skill, wherein it is Conspicuously Display’d’. It was particularly ‘the excellent
Contrivance of the great System of the World, and especially the curious
Fabrick of the Bodies of Animals, and the Uses of their Sensories, and other
parts’, that motivated people ‘to acknowledge a Deity, as the Author of these
admirable Structures’, resulting from ‘the Transcending Admiration, which
the attentive Contemplation of the Fabrick of the Universe and of the curious
Structures of Living Creatures, justly produc’d in them’. Boyle understood that
the ontological argument for the necessary existence of a most perfect Being
included ‘Boundless Wisdom’, but he thought the ‘General and Indefinite Idea
of the Divine Wisdom’ had limited spiritual traction. It did not ‘give us so great
a Wonder and Veneration’ for God’s wisdom than the activity of ‘Knowing and
Considering the Admirable Contrivance of the Particular Productions of that
Immense Wisdom’. Especially in that manner, Boyle believed, ‘Men may be
brought, upon the same account, both to acknowledge God, to admire Him, and
to thank Him’ (Works, 11: 130, 94, 145, 95).
As J. J. MacIntosh pointed out, Ralph Cudworth and ‘many other seventeenth-
century writers’ lacked enthusiasm for the ontological argument, which
Cudworth judged too subtle and easily doubted (BOA: 87–8). Boyle’s strong
preference for the teleological argument also reflected his voluntarist theological
orientation: God is best seen a posteriori in his freely created works, not a priori
in necessary truths embedded in the human mind (Davis 1994b). Furthermore,
pure reason could easily lead us astray, giving us for example ‘a clear notion of
a Myriagon, tho ’tis very like there is no such Figure really existent in the world’
(Works, 9: 413).
The extensive use of scientific information and reflections on the practice
of science in Final Causes and other apologetic works, such as The Christian
Virtuoso (1690), The Excellency of Theology (1674), Reason and Religion (1675)
and High Veneration to God (1685), betokens a sea change in Boyle’s approach
to his lifelong vocation of preaching piety and morality. Where his earliest
religious writings were exclusively humanistic in orientation and content, these
mature works drew heavily on what he had learned about the natural world and
the actual practice of science. He spelled this out in the preface to Reason and
Religion. After lamenting ‘a spreading and bold Profaneness’ against ‘the Concerns
of Religion’ in ‘the present Time’ (he apparently meant the Restoration), Boyle
said that he was most troubled to see that ‘this Impiety … was propagated in a
new way’, leading him to fear that even the most ‘learned Divines themselves,
would be much less fit than formerly to give a check to its progress’. Hitherto,
‘the generality of our Infidels’ would either ‘question the Historical part of the
Scriptures, and perhaps cavil at some of the Doctrine’, or else raise philosophical
objections based on Aristotle. In both cases, ‘Vives, Mornay, and Grotius, had
furnish’d Divines with good and proper Weapons’. Now things have changed,
because ‘our new Libertines take another and shorter way, (though I hope it will
not be a more prosperous one,) to undermine Religion’. Instead of attacking
‘the Historical or Doctrinal parts of Christian Theology, in such a way as
Jews, Pagans, Mahometans, would’, they ‘deny those very Principles of Natural
Theology’ on which Christianity and those other religions agree, ‘namely, the
Existence and Providence of a Deity, and a Future State’, on the basis of ‘the
Epicurean, or other Mechanical, Principles of Philosophy’. Thus, the old-style
apologetics of ‘good Humanists and Antiquaries’ would no longer work. Enter
Robert Boyle. As someone who was fully acquainted ‘with the Epicurean and
Cartesian Principles’, ‘very conversant with things Corporeal’, and ‘shakes off all
Authority (at least that is not infallible)’, he found himself unusually qualified to
answer the new generation of sceptics. Furthermore, ‘being but a Layman, I did
not think my self obliged to talk to them as out of a Pulpit, and threaten them
with Damnation unless they believ’d me, but chose to discourse to them rather
as to erring Virtuosi, than Wicked wretches’ (Works, 8: 236–40). In short, as he
said in ‘The Introduction to My Loose Notes Theological’, his design was ‘chiefly
to propose the truth of our Religion in a way suited to the Genius of this Age’
(Works, 14: 279).
At least one of these ‘new Libertines’ can be confidently identified as
philosopher Thomas Hobbes, a truculent materialist ‘whose hand was against
every body, & admir’d nothing but his owne’, in the words of John Evelyn
(Hunter 1994: 89). He and Boyle came to verbal blows in the early 1660s, when
Hobbes insulted the intellectual integrity of the virtuosi at the Royal Society
and hotly disputed Boyle’s interpretation of experiments with the air pump,
but religious disagreements were far more serious. In an illuminating passage
from his Examen of Mr. Hobbes’ Dialogus Physicus (1662), Boyle mentioned
‘the dangerous Opinions about some important, if not fundamental, Articles
of Religion I had met with in his Leviathan, and some other of his Writings’.
Boyle had reason to believe that Hobbes’s views ‘made but too great Impressions
upon divers persons’ who had high opinions ‘of Mr. Hobbs’s demonstrative way
of Philosophy’. Boyle believed, ‘it might possibly prove some service to higher
Truths then those in Controversie between him and me, to shew that in the
Physicks themselves his Opinions, and even his Ratiocinations, have no such
great advantage over those of some Orthodox Christian Naturalists’ (Works,
3: 111–12). Another specific target of Boyle’s apologetics was the radical Jewish
philosopher Baruch Spinoza, who was (like Hobbes) generally seen as an atheist
at the time. Although Spinoza’s name is absent from Boyle’s published works,
notes for an essay on miracles explicitly aimed at Spinoza survive among his
papers (BP 3, fols 102–3; BOA: 295–7; cf. BP 7, fols 105–17; BOA: 261–2, 263–7,
273–7; cf. Colie 1963: 193–202).
In Boyle’s hands, the centerpiece of the new science – the mechanical
philosophy – became a powerful ally for religion and a tool for silencing
sceptics such as Hobbes and Spinoza rather than a formidable challenge to
Christian beliefs. Quite possibly, Mornay’s theologically favourable reference
to the heavens as a ‘Clocke’ and God as the ‘Clockkéeper’ appealed to Boyle
even before he became a mechanical philosopher. Regardless, he customarily
spoke of the whole universe and its animate and inanimate parts in mechanical
terms, probably making more use of such metaphors than any other early
modern author. This came to a head in his sublime treatise on God, nature and
the mechanical philosophy, A Free Enquiry Into the Vulgarly Receiv’d Notion of
Nature (1686), where he famously compared the world to ‘a rare Clock, such
as may be that at Strasbourg, where all things are so skilfully contriv’d, that the
Engine being once set a Moving, all things proceed according to the Artificers
first design’. Not needing ‘the peculiar interposing of the Artificer, or any
Intelligent Agent imployed by him’, the various parts ‘perform their functions
upon particular occasions, by vertue of the General and Primitive Contrivance
of the whole Engine’ (Works, 10: 448).
It is easy to see how later thinkers could use such a conception of nature
to argue for a deistic, rather than Christian, God, but that would be far too
narrow a view of Boyle’s own theology of creation. Elsewhere, for example, he
used a different mechanical analogy to stress God’s constant activity within the
creation. ‘In reference to the whole Universe, and the Creatures it comprises, God
may be in some measure resembled by the Magnet, that sustains and pervades,
and governs or gives their due dispositions to the pieces of Steel it’s Influence
reaches to’ (BP 4, fol. 79d; erroneously identified as BP 4, fol. 78 on BOA: 158).
In Occasional Reflections on Several Subjects (1665), an early contemplative
work, he said, ‘if God should at any time withdraw his preserving Influence, the
World would presently Relapse, or Vanish into its first Nothing’, an adroit turn
of phrase echoing Augustine’s notion that ‘the universe will pass away in the
twinkling of an eye if God withdraws His ruling hand’ (Works, 5: 109; Augustine,
1: 117; cf. Works, 8: 23–4, 28). Consistent with this, ‘that irresistible Agent finds
as little more difficulty to produce the greatest changes among the Creatures,
than to produce the least; as I find it [no] harder to move the whole Arm of my
Shadow, than to move its little Finger’ (Works, 5: 109–10, my editorial insertion).
A further metaphor comes from his brilliant ‘Essay Containing a requisite
Digression concerning those, that would exclude the Deity from intermeddling
with Matter’ (1663), where Boyle compared the inner workings of nature with
the activity of writing, which requires ‘an Intelligent Agent. As the Quill that
a Philosopher writes with, being dipt in Ink, and then mov’d after such and
such a manner upon White Paper, all which are Corporeal things’, so ‘the Quill
would never have been mov’d after the requisite manner upon the Paper, had
not its motion been guided and regulated by the Understandings of the Writer’
(Works, 3: 259). In other words, a personal God actively directs the operations
of an impersonal machine of matter and motion. I endorse Timothy Shanahan’s
conclusion that Boyle was a ‘concurrentist’, a position intermediate between
deism and occasionalism developed by a number of Catholic theologians,
including Thomas Aquinas, Luis de Molina and Francisco Suarez. According
to Shanahan, Boyle ‘understood events in nature to involve immediate causal
activity on the part of both God and natural entities’, consistent with that
sophisticated theological view (Shanahan 1988: 564).
Divine guidance of brute matter was absolutely essential for Boyle.
Knowledge of ‘Intermediate Causes’ did not make ‘a First and Supreme Cause’
redundant, since ‘That Order of Things, by vertue of which these Means become
sufficient to such Ends, must have been at first Instituted by an Intelligent Cause’,
not ‘so Blind a Cause as Chance’. It was plainly irrational to think that ‘Stupid
Materials … without any Particular Guidance of a most Wise Superintendent’,
could ‘Frame Bodies so Excellently Contriv’d and Fitted to their respective
Ends’ (Works, 11: 150–1). In The Usefulness of Experimental Natural Philosophy
(1663), he offered this version of the popular modern fable about monkeys with
typewriters eventually producing a Shakespearean play:
And really it is much more unlikely, that so many admirable Creatures that
constitute this one exquisite and stupendous Fabrick of the World should be made
by the casual confluence of falling Atoms, justling or knocking one another in
the immense vacuity, then that in a Printers Working house a multitude of small
Letters, being thrown upon the Ground, should fall dispos’d into such an order, as
clearly to exhibit the History of the Creation of the World, describ’d in the 3 or 4
first Chapters of Genesis, of which History, it may be doubted whether chance may
ever be able to dispose the fallen Letters into the Words of one Line. (Works, 3: 253)
Boyle believed that the mechanical philosophy, thus conceived, was

vastly superior to prevailing Aristotelian and Galenic conceptions – not just
scientifically, as he argued in The Origine of Formes and Qualities (1666) and
other works, but also theologically. In his opinion, ‘Nature’ was often understood
idolatrously, as a semi-divine being that wisely governed the world – an attitude
apparently influenced by René Descartes’s discussion of the word ‘Nature’ in Le
Monde (1664), where he spelled out that ‘I do not here mean some deity or other
sort of imaginary power’ (Déesse ou quelque autre sorte de puissance imaginaire,
Descartes 1979: 59). Indeed, the Bible had no ‘Hebrew word that properly
signifies Nature, in the sense we take it in’. Furthermore, that faulty concept was
also ‘prejudicial … to the Discovery of [God’s] Works’, because ‘the veneration,
wherewith Men are imbued for what they call Nature, has been a discouraging
impediment to the Empire of Man over the inferior Creatures of God’, contrary
to God’s command to exercise dominion over the creation. They have seen it ‘as
something of impious to attempt, the removing of those Boundaries which Nature
seems to have put and setled among her Productions. And whilst they look upon
her as such a venerable thing, some make a kind of scruple of Conscience, to
endeavour so to emulate any of her Works, as to excel them’ (Works, 10: 459, 450).
Boyle’s version of the history of illicit conceptions of nature, stressing the
idolatrous ideas of the ‘Zabians’ (Chaldeans) and other pagans, was probably
influenced by the Bishop of Oxford, Samuel Parker, whose Tentamina
physico-theologica de Deo was published in 1665, shortly before Boyle

started writing Notion of Nature. Although Boyle never cited anything by
Parker, Tentamina ‘received a glowing review’ from Henry Oldenburg in the
Philosophical Transactions, who placed it on the same level as Boyle’s Usefulness
of Experimental Natural Philosophy – praise that Boyle could not have missed
seeing. According to Dmitri Levitin, ‘Parker saw Epicurean non-providential
atomism as the major threat to be confuted through the argument from design’
(Levitin 2015: 349–50). That captures Boyle’s agenda very well.
The Christian ought rather to conceive of nature as ‘the Order [God] was
pleas’d to settle in the World; by whose Laws the Grand Agents in the Universe
were impower’d and determin’d to act according to the respective Natures he
had given them’. Boyle regarded that as ‘a Notion more respectful to Divine
Providence, than to imagine, as we commonly do, that God has appointed an
Intelligent and Powerful Being, called Nature, to be as his Vice-gerent, continually
watchful for the good of the Universe in general, and of the particular Bodies
that compose it’. Crucially, in Boyle’s counter-intuitive opinion, the clockwork
notion actually ‘does much better than its Rival comply with what Religion
teaches us, about the extraordinary and supernatural Interpositions of Divine
Providence’. Why? When ‘it pleases God to over-rule, or controul, the establish’d
course of things in the World, by his own Omnipotent Hand’, mechanical
philosophers will find that ‘what is thus perform’d may be much easier discern’d
and acknowledg’d to be miraculous’, because they ‘may well judg of ’ the limits
of matter and motion. On the other hand, ‘those who think there is besides, a
certain Semi-Deity, which they call Nature’, are unable to estimate ‘how great [its
powers] are, and how far they may extend’. For that reason, ‘the Miracles of our
Saviour and his Apostles, pleaded by Christians on the behalf of their Religion’,
were ‘very differingly look’d on by Epicurean and other Corpuscularian Infidels,
and by those other Unbelievers who admit of a Soul of the World, or Spirits in
the Stars, or, in a word, think the Universe to be Governed by Intellectual Beings,
distinct from the Supream Being we call God’ (Works, 10: 448–9).
For Boyle, then, the mechanical philosophy helped us perceive the genuinely
miraculous nature of biblical miracles – and this had enormous apologetic
importance, since ‘the two cheef Arguments to evince the truth of the Christian
Religion be drawne from the nature of the Doctrine deliver’d in it, & the
miracles that bore wittness to that Doctrine’. In turn, the authenticity of miracles
‘proves the Truth of the Fundamentalls of Religion in generall’, namely, ‘that
there is a God, th[at h]is Providence reaches to mankind, and that he has by
Revelation appointed the Way wherein he will be worship’d’ (BP 1, 73; BP 7, 124;
BOA: 272–3). Indeed, ‘among the several Proofes, that may be rationally offer’d
for the Christian religion, I thought none fitter than that drawne from Miracles’,
so their consideration ‘is an Employment that well deserves a great measure
of Attention’. Since ‘true Miracles are Operations Supernatural’, they are ‘more
sublime than the Objects of Naturall Philosophy’ and ‘of greater Importance to
us’, for ‘to have a right Judgement of Miracles & their consequences is of very
great moment, if not necessity, to direct us securely in makeing our Choyce of
Religion which is the importantist action of our Understanding’, involving not
only ‘the solid Happiness of the Soul in this Life’ but also ‘the endless felicity of
the whole man in the Life to come’ (BP 7, fols 105–6; BOA: 274). Thus, Boyle
considered it telling that the miracles associated with Christianity were ‘much
more Numerous’ than those associated with Judaism, ‘insomuch that our
Christ, (and perhaps the like may be said of some of his Disciples) did singly
in a very few years performe more Miracles, then all that are ascribd to Moses,
and perhaps more then the Jews attribute to all the Prophets to boot’ (Works,
14: 253–4). That argued volumes for the truth of Christianity.
Although Boyle liberally appealed to ‘reason’ in his religious arguments,
he did not regard it uncritically as an indubitable touchstone for truth. In an
unpublished snippet, he implicitly denied Descartes’s axiom about the reliability
of clearly and distinctly perceived propositions, stating that ‘Intelligibility by
us men, is no necessary condition of the absolute truth of a Thing’ (BP 1, fol.
34b; BOA: 121). Although he affirmed that ‘the primary and most catholick
laws or rules of reason are never to be forsaken, upon any occasion’, at the same
time he also affirmed that some truths are known only to God, our omnipotent
and omniscient Creator, and that the human mind has only a limited ability
to discern truth (Works, 12: 423). Thus, he wrote a treatise on A Discourse of
Things above Reason (1681), stimulated by theological controversies in the 1670s
about Socinianism, predestination, free will, the nature of the Eucharist – and
the limits of fallible, finite and fallen human reason. Jan W. Wojcik showed that
Boyle especially responded to John Howe’s Reconcileableness of God’s Prescience
of the Sins of Men with [his] Wisdom and Sincerity (1677), written at Boyle’s
request in the form of a letter to him. Howe attempted to reconcile conditional
predestination, based on God’s knowledge of future contingents, with free will.
Boyle did not think that we mortals could penetrate that mystery and fully
harmonize divine foreknowledge with free will, but God could. He probably
also drew on Robert Ferguson’s The Interest of Reason in Religion (1675), which
argued that human reason (unlike divine reason) is not always able fully to
comprehend revealed doctrines (Wojcik 1994, 1997).
Reflecting on such questions, Boyle said, ‘we men mistake and flatter
Humane Nature too much, when we think our faculties of Understanding so
unlimited, both in point of capacity and of extent, and so free and unprepossest,
as many Philosophers seem to suppose.’ In fact, ‘we are really but created and
finite Beings … and we come into the world, but such, as it pleased the Almighty
and most free Author of our Nature to make us’. Our cognitive abilities ‘are but
such as are proportionable to Gods designs in creating us, and therefore may
probably be supposed not to be capable of reaching to all kinds … of Truths,
many of which may be unnecessary for us to know here’ while other truths may
be held back, ‘partly to make us sensible of the imperfections of our Natures,
and partly to make us aspire to that [future] condition, wherein our faculties
shall be much enlarged and heightned’. It might be ‘both that God has made
our faculties so limited, that in our present mortal condition there should be
some Object beyond the comprehension of our Intellects’, and ‘that he has given
us light enough to perceive that we cannot attain to a clear and full knowledge
of them’ (Works, 9: 370–1). Boyle brought a similar intellectual modesty and
scepticism, grounded in divine inscrutability, to bear on a standard objection
to miracles. For reasons known only to himself, God might ‘alter the orderly
course that himself has establish’d among Natural Things. The unsearchable
Wisdom of God, being always accompanyed with his Almighty Power, may
have Reaches, if I may so speak, far beyond what we purblind mortals are able
to discover’. We must not say ‘that God cannot work any Miracles because we
see not for what Rational End it could be that he should recede from those Laws
[of nature], by Repealing, Suspending, or otherwise Altering them’ (BP 7, fol.
116; BOA: 267).
Boyle elaborated on the link between creation, divine freedom, and our
limited knowledge in his Appendix to the First Part of the Christian Virtuoso
(1744). He cautioned, ‘we purblind mortals, that are not of the highest order of
God’s creatures, may justly think ourselves but incompetent judges of the extent
of the power and knowledge of God, … whose power may justly be supposed
to reach farther, than our limited intellects can apprehend, or for that reason,
without a saucy rashness, can presume to bound.’ A few pages later, he added,
‘if we believe God to be the author of things, it is rational to conceive, that he
may have made them commensurate, rather to his own designs in them, than to
the notions we men may best be able to frame of them.’ In Genesis, ‘the world
itself was first made before the contemplator of it, man: whence we may learn,
that the author of nature consulted not, in the production of things, with human
capacities; but first made things in such manner, as he was pleased to think fit,
and afterwards left human understandings to speculate as well as they could

upon those corporeal, as well as other things’ (Works, 12: 374, 397–8). He went
even further in a manuscript from the 1680s, suggesting in a thought experiment
that even the laws of reason could have been otherwise:
it may be a useful supposition to Imagine such a State of things as was that which
preceeded the beginning of the Creation for since then there was noe being
besides God himselfe who is Eternall all Beings of what kind soever that had
a beginning must derive there natures & all their faculties from his Arbitrary
will; & consequently man himselfe & all intellectuall as well as all Corporeall
Creatures, were but just shuch as he thought fitt to make them. And as he freely
establisht the affections of Schemetisms & the Laws of Motion by which the
Universe was framed, & doth act; so he freely constituted the Reason of Man
& other created intellects, & gave them those Ideas and Measures of truth, by
which they are guided in all their Ratiotinations. And the very Axtioms or
most acknowledg’d truths being but Relations resulting from the Nature of the
mind & the things ’tis conversant about, God might have so ordered things that
propositions very differing from these might have been true. As he might have
so contriv’d the palate, that honey had tasted bitter to men, & gall sweet. (BP 36,
fol. 46v; BOA: 142–3)
According to Boyle’s voluntarist conception of God and nature, scientific laws

were imposed by God on matter freely, not out of rational necessity (Davis 1999).
They ‘did not necessarily spring from the Nature of Matter, but depended on the
Will of the Divine Author of things’ (Works, 11: 302). He put this forcefully in an
unpublished Appendix to Final Causes:
The Primordial System of the Universe, or the great and Original Fabrick of the
World; was, as to us, arbitrarily Establish’d by God. Not that he created things
without accompanying, and as it were regulating, his Omnipotence, by his
boundless Wisdom; and consequently did nothing without weighty reasons: but
because those reasons are à Priori undiscoverable by us: such as are the number
of the fixt Stars; the collocation as well as number of the Planetary Globes; the
Lines and Periods of their Motions; the Gyration of Jupiter and Mars about
their Centers, compard with the Libration of the Moon; the paucity of Stars
near the Antartick Pole; the bignesse shapes and differing Longævities of living
Creatures, and many other Particulars: of which the only reason we can assigne,
is, that it pleas’d God at the begining of things, to give the World and its parts
that disposition. (MS 185, fol. 29; Works, 14: 168; BOA: 143)
Boyle’s ideas about other worlds – a possibility he took seriously that arose
from theological, not natural philosophical, speculation – further illuminate his
theology of nature. For all we know, he said, ‘they may be fram’d and manag’d
in a manner quite differing, from what is observ’d in that part of the Universe
that is known to us’, such that the ‘Laws of Local Motion may be differing in
those unknown Worlds, from the Laws that obtain in ours’. Similarly, in the new
heaven and earth promised in Scripture, ‘the primordial frames of things, and
the laws of motion, and consequently, the nature of things corporeal, may be
very differing from those that obtain in the present worlds’. As for the one world
we do know, only ‘God knows particularly both why and how the Universal
matter was first contriv’d into this admirable Universe, rather than a World
of any other of the numberless Constructions He could have given it’ (Works,
10: 173; 12: 521; 10: 188). These fascinating musings reveal the degree to which
(for Boyle) the order of nature was contingent and therefore could not be known
a priori. Physical laws were ‘collected or emergent’ truths ‘gathered from the
settled Phaenomena of Nature’, not ‘Axioms Metaphysical, or Universal, that
hold in all Cases without reservation’ (Works, 9: 414).
4. Conclusion
If Boyle’s conceptions of nature and natural law are no longer much in vogue,
it is not because they were shallow, incoherent, or irrelevant to modern science.
The greatest scientist of the twentieth century, Albert Einstein, ‘really’ wanted
to know ‘whether God could have made the world in a different way; that is,
whether the necessity of logical simplicity leaves any freedom at all’ (quoted
by Holton 1978: xii). When cosmologist Max Tegmark proclaims that every
mathematically consistent universe must necessarily exist, he forgets that physical
laws are contingent truths, not axioms of metaphysics (Tegmark 2014: 321).
Those feminists and environmentalists who seek to replace an impersonal
‘nature’ with ‘Mother Nature’ or a goddess called ‘Gaia’ self-consciously echo
Boyle’s adversaries (Podnieks and O’Reilly 2010). When certain theologians
exchange a transcendent, omnipotent Creator for a version of the Stoic soul of
the world, they knowingly endorse ideas that Boyle so strongly opposed (Griffin
1988: 37 note 44). Science indeed remains a form of natural philosophy, and
Boyle’s ideas are not far beneath the surface.
Boyle’s evidentialist approach to apologetics, rooted in science, has been no less
influential. Arguably, he was the fountainhead from which flowed the great Anglo-
American tradition of natural theology, right down to our own time. Obvious
parallels exist between Boyle and William Paley. Both frequently used the term
‘contrivance(s)’ in identical contexts, using the apparent design of highly complex

structures in the organic creation to argue for God’s existence. As I have said
elsewhere, the borrowing is especially evident in their ‘emphasis on the design of the
eye and [their] widespread use of the clock metaphor to promote design – indeed,
it’s not too much to say that Paley’s watch was lifted from Boyle’s pocket’ (Davis
2014: 97). Although Darwin’s theory of evolution demolished Paley’s vision of a
harmonious economy of nature replete with perfectly adapted creatures designed
by the Creator, Harvard chemist Josiah Parsons Cooke soon showed that ‘there
is abundant evidence of design in the properties of the chemical elements alone,
and hence that the great argument of Natural theology rests upon a basis which
no theories of organic development can shake’ (Cooke 1880: vii–viii). Boyle would
surely have appreciated that conclusion and type of argument. When contemporary
authors use cosmological fine tuning rather than chemistry to sidestep Darwin,
they are effectively treating the whole universe and its laws as contingently created
contrivances, unconsciously echoing Boyle (Polkinghorne 1998). Proponents of
‘Intelligent Design’, though fully aware of their debt to Paley, do not seem to realize
that Boyle was the original architect of their own house (Behe 1996: 211–16).
Ultimately, Boyle despaired of persuading every baptised infidel to become
more godly. Although he considered his arguments decisive, ‘a vitious life, & an
obstinat Resolution to continue in it; a Regardlessnesse of Truth & future things;
a Disingenuous & Cavilling Disposition; & divers other vices and ill Qualities’
would be ‘moral impediments’ to belief. He did his best to ‘convince & silence
Atheists’ of a ‘more intellectual’ type (BP 2, fols 78–9; BOA: 131; cf. BP 6, fol. 301).
In the end he had to admit, ‘I never pretended to convert resolv’d Atheists’. Just
as ‘it must be a very dazzleing Light, that makes an impression upon those that
obstinately shut their Eyes against it’, only by God’s ‘Extraordinary Power’ rather
than by ‘Gods ordinary works’ could some be ‘reclaimd to an acknowledgement
of his Existence’ (BP 2, fol. 64; BOA: 384). Regardless of whether anyone still
finds Boyle’s efforts to prove the existence of God persuasive, his enormous heart
was surely in the right place. Even if we find only that to emulate, the world
would be a better place.1
Note
1 My student Noah Perrin assisted with the research on Phllippe de Mornay.

Comments and suggestions from Michael Hunter, Jan-Erik Jones and J. J. MacIntosh
were very helpful.
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10
Boyle on the Application of Science

Michael Hunter
Robert Boyle’s longest and most successful scientific book was entitled Some
Considerations Touching the Usefulness of Experimental Natural Philosophy
(Works, 3: 189–561; 6: 389–540). The most substantial component of this,
published in 1663, had to be set in type three times to satisfy the demand for
it (Fulton 1961: 37–41). It opened with a text which protested the value of
scientific knowledge in its own right and as the servant of religion, and these
were, of course, themes that Boyle pursued much more fully elsewhere. But
the remainder of the work – by far the bulk of it – dealt with the utility of
science to various aspects of human life, especially medical, but also ranging
more widely. It is a testament to Boyle’s conviction that what was crucial about
science was not least its capacity to improve the human condition, and this
central component of his scientific vision will form the subject of this essay.
To trace its roots, we need to go back to the time when Boyle ‘discovered’
science in 1649, after an adolescence devoted to penning tracts of moral
improvement. In the virtual conversion experience that occurred at this point,
the religious motivation was predominant, and the first extant work that we
have from it is a piece entitled ‘Of the Study of the Booke of Nature’, which is
so ecstatic in its stress on the religious benefit of such study that the relevant
passages of it had to be toned down when they were recycled into Book I of
Usefulness (Hunter 2000: 40). But equally significant is another document
that Boyle prepared at this formative time, a synopsis for a work entitled ‘Of
Naturall Philosophie’, which seems to comprise his scientific agenda at this
point in his career (BP 36, fols 65–6, printed in Hunter 2000: 30–1). After an
‘Introduction’, a section itemizing ‘The usefulnes of naturall Philosophie’ starts
with two headings which exactly foreshadow the thrust of the published Book
I of Usefulness:
1. To satisfie mens Curiositie of understandinge

2. To excite & entertaine Devotion
However, we immediately go on to a second section devoted to ‘The Practicall

use of it’, which has three subsections:
1. As to Physick
2. As to those Mechanicall Trades which serve for necessitie of life, as
Husbandrie Navigation &c.
3. As to those trades which serve for Accomodation of life.
The book outlined in the synopsis would then have gone to discuss ‘The
Principles of naturall Philosophie’, stressing the need to balance ‘Reason’ by
‘Sense’ and emphasizing the role of experiment in the latter. Indeed, here we
have the germ of perhaps Boyle’s most crucial methodological work, Certain
Physiological Essays, published in 1661, and it is significant that at this point
this was to have formed a single work with what was to become The Usefulness
of Natural Philosophy. In fact, however, the two developed separately, and here
I want to focus on the section of the putative book devoted to ‘the Practicall
use’ of science, with its tripartite division into medicine; ‘Mechanicall Trades’
like agriculture which served the necessities of life; and trades serving what
Boyle described as ‘Accomodation of life’, which he elucidated in the published
Usefulness as ‘the Trades of Shoo-makers, Diers, Tanners, &c.’, and to which
he there added luxury trades that served man’s ‘delight’, such ‘as the Trades of
Painters, Confectioners, Perfumers, &c.’ (Works, 3: 298).1 All these, he argued,
would benefit from the application of science.
Boyle was convinced that a proper natural philosophy should not only be true
but also useful, and he championed the new, experimental philosophy against
the Aristotelian one that had formerly dominated intellectual life because the
latter was defective from both points of view. Not only did Boyle believe that
the experimental knowledge that he and others were assembling would result
in a correct understanding of the workings of the natural world. He also saw
its application as central to its remit, in contrast to the sterility of scholasticism.
As he wrote, ‘true Natural Philosophy is so far from being a barren speculative
Knowledge, that Physick, Husbandry, and very many Trades (as those of Tanners,
Dyers, Brewers, Founders, &c.) are but Corollaries or Applications of some few
Robert Boyle on Application of Science 285
Theorems of it.’ Indeed, in a lyrical passage he went so far as to assert, ‘I shall not
dare to think my self a true Naturalist, till my skill can make my Garden yield
better Herbs and Flowers, or my Orchard better Fruit, or my Fields better Corn,
or my Dairy better Cheese then theirs that are strangers to Physiology’ (Works,
3: 295, 296). The central claim was that the scientist’s analytical knowledge was
crucial, giving him insights that those hitherto involved in technical processes
had lacked. To quote Boyle yet again, his readers should not find it
unlikely, that by a farther discovery of the Nature of those particular Bodies

wherewith the Trade is conversant, and a solid knowledge of those Laws of
Nature, and those Operations of Bodies upon one another, which it imployes;
some, if not most, of those parts, whereof the Trade may be conceiv’d to be
made up, may be reform’d or better’d, which is enough to make a Philosopher an
Improver of the Trade. (Works, 6: 409)
As will be seen, Boyle is there quite explicit about the way in which the scientist’s
analytic understanding would assist in technological improvement, and he was
arguably more explicit than many of his contemporaries in his assertion of the
primacy of scientific knowledge in this way. Of course, there was a degree of
arrogance about this, the classic claim on behalf of scientists that their insights
would instantly make possible improvements that had long eluded benighted
technicians. Indeed, Boyle’s sense of the potential for the application of science
did go with a rather patronizing view of ‘the lame and unlearned Observations
and Practice of such illiterate Persons as Gardeners, Plow-men, and Milk-maids’,
whose ignorance was contrasted with ‘the Naturalist’s higher and more reaching
Knowledg and Experience’ (Works, 3: 296; 6, 414). This has to be taken into
account in trying to understand the corollaries of this ethos, to which I will be
coming later in this chapter, since the state of affairs was arguably more complex
than such optimistic evaluations implied, and traditional practices often proved
more viable and less in need of improvement than such intellectualist critiques
implied, as I have elsewhere argued in relation to the early Royal Society (see
Hunter 1981: ch. 4, esp. 104ff.). Nevertheless, this breathtaking vision of the
potential for the application of science was a central part of Boyle’s outlook.
1. The evolution of The Usefulness of Natural Philosophy
Turning now to the book published as The Usefulness of Natural Philosophy, in

which this message was presented at length, this has a complex history, as is
revealed by scrutiny of extant manuscript and printed versions of it. It seems

to have started in the 1650s as a set of essays rather close to those visualized
in the early synopsis to which I have already referred, with an essay each on
medicine and on the application of natural philosophy to various trades. An
early version survives of the medical essay, which bears a discernible similarity
to the one that was ultimately published in its overall argument that medicine
would benefit from the insights of naturalists. On the other hand, the work was
originally fairly brief, due to the fact that it was illustrated by a far more limited
range of examples than appeared in the published book (BP 8, fols 3–28). What
happened thereafter is symptomatic of the history of the work as a whole in
that, first in marginalia and then in interpolated passages, the examples that
Boyle gave became more and more profuse until, by the time of its publication
in 1663 as Book II, section 1, of Usefulness, the single essay on the medical use of
science had had to be split into five, the last divided into twenty chapters, while
an appendix added more detail still (see Works, 3: xixff., 291–561).
In this instance, Boyle found a structure in the form of the five parts of the
‘institutes’ into which medicine was traditionally subdivided in textbooks of the
day, ‘physiological’, ‘pathological’, ‘semiotical’, ‘hygenial’ and ‘therapeutic’, and
the essays gave profuse examples of the usefulness of scientific findings to each
of these facets of medicine – the dissection of non-human carcases, for instance,
or the use of fermentation to produce improved medications. Boyle also argued
for the value of chemical distillations and amalgams, while he strongly promoted
the theory of corpuscularianism as an explanation of both the expected and the
unexpected in nature. Not least, however, he included a huge number of recipes,
many in the appendix, and early readers seem to have relished the mass of
detailed information that the work contained (see Hunter 2015: 16–18). Hence
in this case there was a precarious balance between detail and argument.
When it came to the remainder of the work, however, dealing with the
usefulness of science to trades, such a balance initially eluded Boyle, which
explains why he held it back from publication when the medical section came
out in 1663, and why such sections of it as were published did not appear till
1671. As is clear from manuscript fragments of this part of the work that survive,
Boyle accumulated a great many examples of the usefulness of science to all
aspects of technology, from agriculture to transport and industry. Extant sections
show that it comprised a rapturous celebration of the technological innovations
associated with early seventeenth-century entrepreneurs like Cornelius Drebbel
or members of the Hartlib Circle like William Petty (see Works, 13: 296–317).
The problem was that there was no real progression to the argument: again and
again, science proved itself useful, in an almost endless variety of ways. The
message could be stated succinctly or interminably, and Boyle went for the latter.
Indeed, it seems to have turned into a massive book: the pagination even of
the original version – before Boyle started making extensive additions in the
margins and on the facing versos which had originally been blank – ran to more
than 168 pages.
But Boyle realized that the shapelessness of the resulting product was
problematic, and in the 1660s he made various attempts to produce a thematic
structure into which it could be reorganized, then setting to work to cut and
paste the material that he had accumulated in the 1650s into shape (often
literally, in that pages of text have been cut up with scissors) (Works, esp. lxiii–
lxx; 6, liff., 389–540). The essays that he produced and that made up the 1671
volume had titles like: ‘That the Goods of Mankind May Be Much Encreased by
the Naturalist’s Insight into Trades’, or ‘Of Doing by Physical Knowledge What Is
Wont to Require Manual Skill’. Between them, they covered a number of relevant
themes and deployed many of the examples that Boyle had accumulated, though
others were omitted and he did in fact write even more essays on other aspects
of the topic, including one on how ‘the Empire of man may be promoted by the
Naturalists skill in Chymistry’ which remained unpublished till modern times
(Works, lxix–lxx, 319–61; see also below, p. 290–1). Yet the published book was
quite effective in making its general point concerning science’s potential, and it
is revealing that Boyle specifically saw its publication as promoting the agenda
of the Royal Society at a time when that institution was going through a difficult
period (Works, 6: 394).
2. Baconianism and ‘desiderata’
It is perhaps worth adding that Boyle’s exposition of his utilitarian creed in the
general sections of the 1671 volume more explicitly followed the mandate of
Francis Bacon than had been the case in that of 1663 (or the early manuscripts).
This is significant, because it reflects the extent to which Boyle’s scientific agenda
became more overtly Baconian under the Royal Society’s influence in the 1660s,
as I have argued elsewhere and as Harriet Knight illustrates in her essay in this
volume. In particular, Boyle started to follow Bacon in using ‘heads’ or ‘titles’
to organize the profuse experimental data that he included in such books as
his New Experiments and Observations Touching Cold of 1665 and also as a
means of soliciting data from others: this effectively represents the origins of the
questionnaire as we know it (see Hunter 2007, reprinted in Hunter 2015: 53–80).

Even more relevant here is a further explicitly Baconian initiative that Boyle
took at about this time, namely of drawing up a list of ‘desiderata’ for science –
from rejuvenation to making ships unsinkable – which has attracted widespread
attention since it was included in the Royal Society’s summer science exhibition
in 2010 (Hunter 2015: 26–31). Its date is evident from the fact that, although
the fullest copy of it is in the hand of Boyle’s later amanuensis, Robin Bacon, an
earlier recension survives in the hand of an amanuensis who worked for him in
the 1660s, ‘hand H’ (see Hunter et al. 2007: 55; for Bacon, see ibid., 47–8).
In drawing up such a list of desiderata, Boyle was following the example
of Bacon, and the context of this has recently been well set out by Vera Keller
(2012a, 2015). In his Advancement of Learning, Bacon entitled the list that he
compiled: ‘The New World of Sciences, or Desiderata’, and this well captures
the heady optimism of such compendia, exemplifying his aim to enlarge ‘the
bounds of Humane Empire, to the Effecting of all Things possible’ (Keller
2012a: 727, 730). In Boyle’s case, the fullest version of his list comprises not
only desiderata but also a second part listing stratagems by which enterprise
in such matters might be encouraged. Interestingly, an analogue for this is
provided by a further, explicitly Baconian work that Boyle wrote in the 1660s,
his ‘Designe about Natural History’, which laid down strictures for the pursuit of
knowledge, among the miscellaneous papers relating to which is one setting out
a similar programme for promoting scientific innovation (Hunter and Anstey
2008: 11–12; Anstey and Hunter 2008).
A further parallel is provided by a list that Boyle included in the 1671 volume
of his Usefulness of Natural Philosophy of what he called ‘Optatives’. The use of the
word ‘optative’ is specifically Baconian (see Keller 2012b: 237–8; 2015: esp. 21–2,
149ff.), and those enumerated by Boyle range from making iron fusible to the use
of moulded wood. His commentary on them could be seen to apply equally to
the newly discovered desiderata list, and it reads as follows (like many passages
in Usefulness, it is addressed to ‘Pyrophilus’, in other words, Boyle’s nephew,
Richard Jones, later Earl of Ranelagh):
It now remaines, that I mention in a few words the Optatives, that may be
propos’d by the Naturalist about the particular Trades he would improve. By
which name of Optatives, I mean all those Perfections, that being desirable, are
rather very difficult, than absolutely impossible, to be obtain’d …
I know, Pyrophilus, that such Optatives may be thought but a civill name for
Chymerical Projects; but I shall hereafter more fully declare to you, why I think
it not altogether unuseful, that such Optatives should be propos’d, provided,
as I hinted above, that they be very difficult, & not impossible: That is, that
they be such, as are not repugnant to the nature of the things, nor the general
Principles of Reason and Philosophie, and seem no otherwise to be Chymically
or Mechanically impossible, than because we want Tooles or other Instruments
and wayes to perform some things necessary to the compassing of the propos’d
End, or to remove some difficulties, or remedy some Inconveniences, that are
incident to us in the Prosecution of such difficult designs.
And let me here tell you, Pyrophilus, that this Advantage may be deriv’d
from the deviseing of such Optatives to bold and sagacious Men, that if they
despair of attaining to the Perfection they are invited to aime at, they may at least
endeavour to reach some Approximation to it. (Works, 6: 480–1)
As far as the manuscript desiderata list is concerned, its very first ambition,
to prolong human life, echoes Bacon’s own list of Magnalia naturæ in New
Atlantis, but it is perhaps surprising how little overlap there otherwise is
between the two lists. The hope to rejuvenate teeth and hair echoes the
sixteenth-century iatrochemist, Paracelsus, while the ambitions concerning the
weapon salve and the alkahest remind us of the ideas of Sir Kenelm Digby,
J. B. van Helmont and other chymists of the day. Many of the other headings,
however, seem to allude to projects associated with Boyle’s colleagues in the
early Royal Society, especially Robert Hooke and Christopher Wren, including
ways of solving the problem of longitude, the use of pendulum watches at sea,
the improvement of lenses and even the possibility of human flight; they thus
represent a tribute to Boyle’s lively scientific curiosity and his commitment
to scientific developments in which he was not directly involved himself.2
Indeed, in Wren’s case an interesting parallel list survives which was published
in the posthumously-edited Parentalia of 1750 and which similarly itemizes
inventions and improved techniques, ranging from ‘Perpetual Motion’ and
‘New Ways of Sailing’ to double writing and ‘new Musical Instruments’ (see
Wren 1750: 198–9). It thus illustrates how the ethos to which Boyle gave classic
expression was more widely shared in the early Royal Society.
It is also appropriate to note here another document which must originally
date from this period, although the only extant copies of it are later. This is a
work called ‘The Aspireing Naturalist (a Philosophical Romance)’, described
in a list of Boyle’s ‘Tracts’ dated 19 November 1667 as ‘containing an accompt
of some inventions & practises said to bee in use among the Inhabitants of an
Island in amity with the new Atlantis’ (Works, 14: 333; here, ‘Naturalists’ is in
the plural). Boyle similarly explained in his Occasional Reflections of 1665 how
he ‘had thoughts of making a short Romantick story, where the Scene should
be laid in some Island of the Southern Ocean, govern’d by some such rational
Laws and Customs as those of Utopia or the New Atlantis’ (Works, 5: 171–2).
Boyle had been an addict of romances before he turned to science in 1649, but
this is the only instance later in his life when he reverted to the romance form,
and even in this case all we have is a fragment. The allusion to Bacon’s New
Atlantis in the description of the piece is itself revealing of Bacon’s influence on
Boyle, and the objective of ‘The Aspireing Naturalist’ was similar to that of New
Atlantis – namely to show how normal expectations of what ‘is possible to be
performed by Medicine, or by Art’ could be transformed by ‘the power of Art
& Nature conspireing’, particularly in the context of human health. This was to
be exemplified by the inhabitants of a far-off island, whose products infinitely
exceeded estimates based on readers’ ‘scant measures of what is wont to happen,
or to be done in their own Country; or by the more familiar Phænomena &
common operations of Nature’, yet which would not be surprising to those of
‘a free and emancipated Genius’ whose conceptions had been liberated by such
knowledge (see the full text in Hunter 2015: 218–20).
In its ambition to use evidence from far-away regions to illustrate the
shortcomings of commonplace presumptions about what was possible in nature,
this work bears some similarity to another compilation which Boyle began at
this point and on which he worked in his later years, his ‘Physica Peregrinans,
or the travelling Naturalist[,]‌containing Answers given to Severall Questions
propounded by the Author to Navigators & other Travellers into remote
Countreys’. In a list of his intended writings of c.1670 Boyle included a text that
‘shew’s the use of travells great’, and it was at this time that he started to collect
narratives about natural phenomena in exotic regions from ‘Pilates, Sea-captains,
and other Persons that have travail’d unto the Indies, or other remote Country’.
The object of the compilation seems to have been ‘to free the understanding from
being too much straitend by a confinement to common things & the phenomena
of nature & art familiar to us’ and thus ‘to suggest new & more reaching notions
about severall things’ (Hunter 2015: ch. 9; for the passages quoted see pp. 185
and 210). It is as if Boyle hoped that such information would challenge people’s
complacent sense of the parameters of natural philosophy – that, as with his
Baconian romance, a worldwide perspective would give a view of the sheer
fecundity of the natural world that would be challenging and exhilarating in
itself. But his aims in collecting such data were also utilitarian, thus bringing
us back to The Usefulness of Natural Philosophy, since one of the putative essays
that Boyle listed in the 1660s plan for the book to which I have already referred,
which in this case no longer survives, took as its theme: ‘That the Naturalist
may much advantage Men by exciteing & assisting their Curiosity to discover,
take notice, & make use of their homebred Riches & advantages of particular
Countrys, & to increase their Number, (by transferring thither those of others)’
(Works, 13: lxx; for a commentary, see Hunter 2015: 74, 192).
Returning to the volume of Usefulness published in 1671, Rupert Hall put
it rather well some years ago in saying that, in that work, Boyle ‘developed
as large claims for the practical utility of science as you will easily find in the
seventeenth century’ (Hall 1972: 48). In fact, there are not many parallels at all
for as programmatic a view as Boyle there put forward, except in his own initial
‘Tome’ of 1663. The main exceptions comprise generalized statements made in
manifestos for the new science like Thomas Sprat’s History of the Royal Society
(1667) or Joseph Glanvill’s Plus Ultra: Or the Progress and Advancement of
Knowledge since the Days of Aristotle (1668) (Sprat 1959; Glanvill 1668). Though
Robert Hooke, in particular, exemplified the potential for the application of
science about which Boyle felt so strongly – as seen not least in the prominent
role that he plays as a source of projects included in Boyle’s list of ‘desiderata’ –
Hooke himself published nothing comparable. Even his ‘General Scheme, or
Idea of the Present State of Natural Philosophy, and How its Defects May Be
Remedied’ is arguably more similar to Boyle’s ‘Designe about Natural History’
than to The Usefulness of Natural Philosophy (see Hooke 1705: 1ff., including, e.g.
24ff. on the history of trades).3
3. Application in practice: Medicine
As far as Boyle is concerned, however, here an important point must be made.

Significant as the writings so far considered may have been, these were essentially
manifestos, assertions of how science could and should be applied, accompanied
by profuse examples. The actual exemplification of this was something rather
different, and we now need to turn to Boyle’s actual attempts to put this ethos
into practice. Let us start with medicine, the field in which such efforts on his
part were most extensive. As already noted, the first part of Book II of Usefulness,
published in 1663, was devoted to medicine, and in it, in addition to providing
a vast number of recipes and other relevant information, Boyle commented at
length on contemporary medical practice and particularly on the debate then
raging between physicians who followed the traditional therapy of Galen, with
its regime of purging and bleeding, and the rival school of ‘chemical physicians’
who followed Paracelsus in advocating the use of specific medicines, often
chemically based. In doing so, Boyle attempted to steer a middle course between
the two, balancing criticism of a narrowly Galenic approach towards healing
with an equal antipathy to uninformed empiricism, and arguing for a kind of
medical pluralism, with traditional therapy being complemented by the use of a
wide range of medications such as those that he himself purveyed.
If this was a deliberate position of studied neutrality in relation to the
disputes of the day, however, at some point in the 1660s, Boyle decided to move
away from this to a more openly reformist stance, writing a treatise entitled
‘Considerations & Doubts Touching the Vulgar Method of Physick’ – ‘vulgar’
here meaning orthodox or Galenic. In it, Boyle argued that such medicine was
‘built upon Theoryes which Anatomicall, or other Discoveries show to be false,
or insufficient’; that physicians often misunderstood the true causes of ailments,
meaning that their treatment was not as safe as they claimed; that the specific
remedies advocated by chemical physicians were often effective where the
complicated regime of orthodox Galenism with its bloodletting and purging
was not; indeed, that all sorts of other methods seemed to be as effective as the
Galenic one, including those found in remote countries. These assertions were
accompanied by the argument that the medical profession had never obtained
such ‘Philosophical History’s of Diseases’ as they could have done – an echo
of the Baconian ethos of systematic data collecting that so much influenced
Boyle in the 1660s under the Royal Society’s influence. He also argued that
the medications that were prescribed deserved more systematic study (Hunter
2000: ch. 8, esp. 167, 187–9).
Hence it was a full-scale call for a more scientific medicine, deploying the
findings and methods of natural philosophy to bring about radical improvement
to the current state of the art. Moreover, Boyle continued to work on the book
for over a decade, and a surviving section of the actual text that he drafted for it
around 1680 is direct to the point of being scathing about the shortcomings of
Galenic therapy. The theme that he there addressed was the supposed safeness
of such treatment, and he argued that it was not at all as safe as its protagonists
claimed. To the argument that such practice was sanctioned by long usage, Boyle
responded that this might be valid if it were successful, but not if this were not
the case. He argued that many treatments were harmful rather than beneficial,
while in the case of acute diseases doctors were often inappropriately timid: in
such cases, the physician might benefit from caution but not the patient, ‘the
former loosing little or no reputation, while the latter looses his life’. Boyle was
also critical of the standard therapies of bleeding and purging, which ‘are sure
to weaken or discompose when they are imploy’d but do not certainly cure
afterwards’, pointing out that bloodletting was not deployed in other cultures or
among the opponents of Galenism in his own (Hunter 2000: 193–201, esp. 195,
196). It was an extraordinary call for reform, the implications of which, if
implemented, would have been revolutionary. Indeed, had it been published, it
might have had a powerful influence in bringing about medical change.
Ultimately, however, Boyle abandoned the work, citing as the reason for
this his ‘fear it should be misimploy’d to the prejudice of worthy Physicians’;
elsewhere, he explained how some doctors were ‘not well pleas’d that a Person not
of their Profession should offer to meddle with it, tho with a design of advancing
it’, and he almost certainly encountered hostility from members of this embattled
profession (Hunter 2000: 159, 179). A further consideration was probably that,
unlike the chemical physicians who had challenged the Galenists in the mid-
century and who had a clear therapeutic alternative, Boyle’s awareness of the
defects of orthodox medicine was not accompanied by any clear and systematic
alternative. He knew that the current therapy could be improved and he was in
favour of a more pluralist approach, but he considered that even Galenism was
not entirely without merit. This, too, must have been a disincentive to a frontal
assault, encouraging Boyle to suppress his outright polemic.
Instead, he took to publishing treatises which offered detailed illustration of
the capacity of science to assist medicine. In a sense, this exemplified what could
be seen as a key goal of his natural philosophical studies from a much earlier
date, since it could be argued that Boyle had always had an eye on the potential
of an improved understanding of nature to ameliorate human life. One example
of this is the intense concern with respiration in his first scientific book, New
Experiments Physico-Mechanical, Touching the Spring of the Air and Its Effects
(1660) and its sequels, including the almost book-length series of experiments
on the subject that he published in the Royal Society’s Philosophical Transactions
in 1670 (Works, 1: esp. 276–95; 6: 213–57).4 Equally important was the way
in which his corpuscularianism led him to a concern about ‘effluvia’ and the
effects that he suspected that they had on human health, not least in terms of
explaining the relative ‘Insalubrity and Salubrity of the Air’ in different places.5
Such examples indicate the extent to which a medical rationale informed Boyle’s
scientific programme as a whole. However, in writings of the 1680s, this became
much more overt.
Thus his Memoirs for the Natural History of Human Blood, published in
1684, divulged the findings of key laboratory tests on human blood, including
its spirit and serum. Some of its findings were slightly out of date by the time
the book was published, having been carried out in the 1660s when interest
in the nature of blood was at its peak in connection with the experiments
on blood transfusion that occurred at that point under the Royal Society’s
auspices. But it is revealing that, almost immediately after publishing the
book, Boyle set to work on a second, improved edition, which would have
taken account of more recent developments, though this was never published
(for a comprehensive account, see Knight and Hunter 2007). Another work
on a topic of medical relevance that Boyle published at this stage in his career
was his Short Memoirs for the Natural Experimental History of Mineral Waters
(1685). Mineral waters and their medicinal potential had long interested
him as a spin-off of his interest in mineralogy and petrifaction, and in this
book he set out a programme for the analytical testing of such waters and
published some of his results (Works, 10: xxixff., 205–50; Hunter 2009: 214–
5). Moreover in the aftermath of the book’s publication, in a slightly odd
applied spin-off from it, Boyle is actually recorded as publicly affirming the
curative virtues of water from a spring in Islington called ‘The London Spaw’
(Hunter 2009: 215).
A further book that stemmed from Boyle’s earlier scientific studies, in this
case of hydrostatics, was his Medicina Hydrostatica: or, Hydrostaticks Applyed to
the Materia Medica (1690), which showed how, by measuring the specific gravity
of drugs, it was possible to discover whether or not they were genuine. Indeed,
in this instance, the theme that the work took up had been divulged in his anti-
Galenist manifesto, which listed this as one of the matters that deserved attention,
and Medicina Hydrostatica was evidently a direct spin-off from that: Boyle even
seems to have toyed with the idea of including a synopsis of the suppressed work
as an appendix to it, though this did not in fact materialize (Works, 11: xxxvff.,
199–280; Hunter 2000: 175–6). A further echo of Boyle’s suppressed attack
on orthodox medicine is to be found in the extensive writings on the theory
and practice of medication that he published at this time. In one of these, ‘The
Advantages of the Use of Simple Medicines Proposed by Way of Invitation to It’,
he argued, in contrast to the tendency of fashionable practitioners to prescribe
elaborate compound remedies, that wherever possible simple medicines should
be used in preference to compound ones, partly because this made it easier to
test their efficacy and partly because it brought down their price. This work
was appended to Boyle’s Of the Reconcileableness of Specifick Medicines to the
Corpuscular Philosophy (1685), which once again links these medical concerns to
his broader scientific programme in that it attempted to explain how medicines
affected the body in terms of the corpuscularian philosophy that he had long
advocated (Works, 10: 351–435).
Boyle also devoted much time and effort to the testing and dissemination
of medicines in his later years. In 1688 he had a collection of medical recipes
privately printed, and an extended version of this that he had prepared for
the press was published just after his death; this went into multiple editions in
conjunction with two further volumes that were prepared posthumously by
his literary executors (Works, 11: xxviiff., 173–86; 12: xxixff., 177–298; Hunter
2000: ch. 9). As Michelle DiMeo has recently indicated (2017), in collecting
effective recipes that deserved to be more widely known, Boyle was participating
in a well-established tradition, not least among members of the landed classes
like himself. On the other hand, as she points out, it was very unusual for men of
such status to publish such material in print, something that Boyle had to justify
at length, citing his philanthropic motivation for doing so. It was partly for this
reason that he initially published the collection in a limited edition over the
distribution of which he had complete control. Equally significant is the fact that
the more public, posthumous edition was entitled Medicinal Experiments, since
Boyle’s enterprise is notable for the extent to which he attempted to be ‘scientific’
in testing his recipes: he suggested in his preface that each should be given a
mark of ‘A’, ‘B’ or ‘C’ to denote how effective it was, with an ancillary marking
to indicate how many times he had tried it. In practice, however, this innovative
scheme was largely abandoned and, although it seems to have induced extensive
obfuscation on Boyle’s part which may have delayed publication, the lack of a
record of such testing does not seem to have bothered the book’s readers at all
(Hunter 2000: 215ff.).
4. Application in practice: Other initiatives
Moving now to topics other than medicine, Boyle played a direct role in further
initiatives aimed to put scientific knowledge to public use. In 1675, for instance,
he published in Philosophical Transactions an account of an instrument ‘for
distinguishing true money from false by a pretty simple and easily prepared
method’, in the words of the journal’s publisher, Henry Oldenburg in a letter to
Christiaan Huygens of 15 July 1675 (Hall and Hall 1965–86: 11, 405–6). This was
based on the use of specific gravity, as with the apparatus that Boyle divulged
in connection with medications in his Medicina Hydrostatica, and its great
advantage was that the genuineness of coins could be tested without having to
damage them (Works, 8: 532–44). Boyle also seems to have been behind various
technological innovations presented to the Royal Society at this time by Robert
Hooke and others, for instance for a waterproof leather, or even for an opaque
glass which it was thought might be useful for the reflecting telescope that
Newton had recently presented to the society.6
Perhaps more significant was the project for desalinizing sea-water with which
Boyle was associated in the early 1680s, which was presided over by his nephew,
Robert Fitzgerald. In principle, this was a classic instance of the application of
science. Boyle had published ‘Observations and Experiments about the Saltness
of the Sea’ in a volume of his Tracts that appeared in 1673; in it, he observed
the imperative requirement for fresh water on long voyages and the desirability
of finding some means of producing this from sea water, thus avoiding the
need for lengthy detours to obtain a fresh water supply (Works, 7: 400–1). The
implication was that this was a matter which was particularly likely to benefit
from scientific expertise: after all, with years of the chemical analysis of salts
and other substances behind him, who could be better placed than Boyle to find
a solution to this pressing practical problem? Clearly this was the rationale of
the Fitzgerald scheme, of which Boyle may himself have been the real initiator
despite the fact that Fitzgerald officially headed it; indeed, Boyle’s role in
vouching for the effectiveness of the process was clearly crucial to persuading
King Charles II to issue a license for the project (Hunter 2009: 215–18). It should
be added that, in promotional terms, it was a great success. A pamphlet setting
out the benefits of the desalinization process, entitled Salt-Water Sweetned, went
into numerous editions in English and was also translated into Latin, French,
German and Spanish; it was also backed up by an ancillary pamphlet by a young
protégé of Boyle’s, Dr Nehemiah Grew, who professed to have vindicated the
technique by analysing the water produced by it (Works, 9: xxxv-xxxvii, 425–37;
Lefanu 1990: 44–8, 122ff.).
In fact, however, the scheme was a failure, and for this there were two
principal reasons. One was that the process does not seem to have worked, in
that it left a residue of salt in the water which proved harmful to those who drank
it. Slightly ironically, Boyle had the means of dealing with this, since he followed
up his experiments on desalinization by producing a method for testing the
saltness of water by using a solution of silver nitrate: rather than publishing this,
however, he deposited the paper divulging it with the Royal Society, so it was
not available to those actually promoting the desalinization project, and the
scheme suffered accordingly (Hunter 2009: 218). Equally significant were the
legal wrangles that accompanied the project, since Fitzgerald’s scheme had in
fact been preceded by another one emanating from a projector, William Walcot,
with no scientific credentials. It was a corollary of the rather disdainful attitude
towards humble operatives which we have seen was part of the ethos of Boyle’s
Usefulness of Natural Philosophy that Boyle seems to have presumed that, almost
by definition, the scheme of a scientist like himself would be superior to any rival
one that was not based on comparable expertise. Hence he simply dismissed
his competitor, yet Walcot fought back through the courts, and the resulting
litigation continued for years, enhancing the problems caused by the real defects
in the Fitzgerald/Boyle process (for the fullest account, see Maddison 1952). It
was not an ideal exemplification of the ethos of science’s utility that Boyle had so
long and vigorously promoted.
Another example from Boyle’s later years of his involvement in projects where
scientific expertise might have had practical spin-offs concerned shipbuilding,
and again the picture we obtain is a rather mixed one. Our most significant
informant here is Boyle’s friend, Sir Peter Pett, a lawyer and government official
who came from a famous family of shipbuilders, and who wrote a series of
notes on Boyle which are among the most revealing biographical records of
him (Hunter 1994: 58ff., esp. 58–60, 81–2). In them, Pett records how Boyle
urged him – ‘as I was a lover of my Country’ – to preserve the design of the
Constant Warwick, a frigate built by his father, Peter Pett, in 1645–6, which
was said to be the best English frigate ever constructed. He also reported on
Boyle’s close involvement in trials of the use of lead for sheathing the hulls of
ships, in which Boyle was glad to deploy his ‘Experimental knowledge’ (in his
own words) and which both he and Pett saw as an innovation of great public
benefit. In addition, Pett reported in a letter to Samuel Pepys of 3 May 1696 how
Boyle had made telling suggestions concerning the principles of ship design to a
young naval architect, John Daniel. Yet, in doing so, Pett went on to express his
disappointment at the overall record of scientists of his generation in coming up
with useful suggestions concerning ship design, instancing Sir Christopher Wren
as a case in point, who he claimed had tried but failed to produce improvements
in the field (Pepys 1926: 1, 115–16).
On the whole, Pett’s verdict has been borne out by historians, who have
stressed the sheer difficulty that presented scientists in making mathematical
calculations concerning the displacement of irregular cylinders through fluids
that were involved in ship design, particularly when allowance needed to be made
for the additional complications presented by the ship’s rigging, the pressure of
wind on its sails, and the like (see Hunter 1981: 106–7 and the references there
cited). In the case of lead sheathing, there was also the problem of vested interests
of the kind that dogged the desalinization affair, and in this connection Boyle
actually expounded to Pett his view that ‘every great New Invention, necessarily
crossing the private Interest of many particular persons, was thereby hindred in
its birth and growth, by such interested persons’ (Hunter 1994: 58). Hence, in
this as in other areas of the potential application of science, Boyle seems to have
become increasingly disillusioned about how easily this might be achieved in
the messy circumstances of everyday life. Yet the enthusiasm for improved ship
design on his part that Pett recounted to Pepys shows that, at least in principle,
Boyle seems to have remained as optimistic as ever that the ethos of Usefulness
could be effected.
5. Boyle’s associates in the application of science
It would be improper to end this essay without also noting the evidence that
survives of Boyle’s more or less close association with other projects where
analytical knowledge was put to practical ends, ranging from early attempts at
porcelain manufacture to improved agricultural techniques and even the origins
of the steam engine. This is not something that has ever received much attention
in relation to Boyle himself, and in some cases the evidence linking the projects
in question to him is disappointingly sketchy: but cumulatively it significantly
complements the schemes to which I have already referred, so it is appropriate
to say a little here about the enterprises involved.
We start with the period of Samuel Hartlib, when Boyle was associated with
various such schemes. For instance, he was among those who jointly signed a
document encouraging Cressy Dymock to pursue schemes of public utility in
March 1650 (Correspondence, 1: 88; for background, see Webster 2002: 363–6),
while nearly a decade later, in 1659, Boyle was instrumental in the publication
of an English translation by the mathematician, John Pell, of the method for
preserving human bodies and body parts devised by the Dutch entrepreneur,
Louis de Bils; Boyle was encouraged in this by Hartlib (Works, 1: cxix–cxxii,
41–50; Correspondence, 1: 376–7, 379–80).7 Boyle was also the recipient at this
time of the dedication to the Oxford horticulturalist, Ralph Austen’s, volume
on the cultivation of fruit trees (Austen 1658), as also that to the virtuoso, John
Beale’s, innovative though sadly unpublished treatise on the revival of ancient
dying techniques (Turnbull 1947: 106–7).8 Yet another work dedicated to
Boyle in these years, which he seems to have specifically encouraged, was his
Oxford colleague Robert Sharrock’s History of the Propagation & Improvement
of Vegetables by the Concurrence of Art and Nature (1660). This could be seen
as a working out of the programme for the application of science for which so
powerful a manifesto was to be provided by Boyle’s Usefulness – by this time

substantially written, although not yet published – and Sharrock’s book might
almost be seen as a kind of surrogate publication on Boyle’s behalf (Sharrock 1660;
for commentary, see Hunter 2009: 123). It was also with Boyle’s encouragement
that in 1662 Dr Christopher Merrett translated into English a work by the Italian
author Antonio Neri, entitled The Art of Glass, Wherein Are Shown the Wayes
to Make and Colour Glass, Pastes, Enamels, Lakes, and Other Curiosities. Again
the work was dedicated to Boyle, and it represented a significant milestone
towards the development of an English lead crystal glass associated with George
Ravenscroft in the 1670s (see Koinm 2000: 27–8; see also MacLeod 1987).
Another link that is interesting but deeply frustrating is that between
Boyle and the potter John Dwight, who experimented with the production of
porcelain at his pottery works at Fulham in the 1670s, when his work attracted
the attention of Robert Hooke and others.9 Dwight was clearly closely linked
with Boyle at some point, since in his will in 1691 Boyle described him as ‘once
my Servant’ and bequeathed him a ring worth the considerable sum of £5
(Maddison 1969: 261).10 It has been speculated that Dwight might have worked
in Boyle’s laboratory, but unfortunately no evidence for this survives; another
possibility is that Dwight acted as one of Boyle’s amanuenses, since, although
only one specimen of Dwight’s handwriting seems to survive, a letter to William
Sancroft of 13 February 1668/9, now Bodleian Library MS Tanner 44, fol. 89,
this bears some similarity to the hands of one of the scribes who worked most
intensively for Boyle when he was writing Usefulness and other works in the
late 1650s: this is the ‘rounded’ 1650s hand that is so much in evidence in
Boyle’s manuscripts of that period (see Hunter et al. 2007: 45–6, 664 and plate
2). However, it is hard to be sure of this on the basis of a single specimen. Of
course, Dwight’s attempts to manufacture porcelain on a commercial scale came
to nothing, this only being achieved at Meissen a generation later (see Gleeson
1998). But the links with Boyle are nevertheless interesting, and it is conceivable
that at some point fresh evidence will come to light which will make it possible
to pursue the matter further.
Equally interesting is Boyle’s connection with a still more significant
technological development, the invention of the steam engine. Here, there is a
direct link through another of his one-time employees, in this case the French
natural philosopher, Denis Papin, who worked for Boyle in the late 1670s,
collaborating with him in publishing the Second Continuation to Boyle’s New
Experiments… Touching the Spring of the Air.11 The experiments reported in the
Second Continuation deployed a novel, double-barrelled air pump, which was
more efficient than the single cylinder one made by Robert Hooke that Boyle had
used for his earlier experiments.12 This new piece of equipment was designed by
Papin, who continued to devise related gadgets in the following years, including
a pressure cooker, which he called a ‘New Digester’, and in 1687 he published
a book in which a number of these were divulged, entitled A Continuation of
the New Digestor of Bones: It’s Improvements and New Uses It Hath Been Applyed
to, Both for Sea and Land: Together with Some Improvements and New Uses of
the Air-Pump, Tryed Both in England and Italy. Among the engraved plates
included in this book was one depicting an air pump, in this case with only one
cylinder but which crucially made use of automatic valve action, and it has been
argued that this was the direct precursor of the pioneering steam engine built by
Thomas Newcomen in 1712; the presumption is that the relevant volume came
into Newcomen’s hands, as could easily have been the case.13 What is significant
here is not only Boyle’s direct link with Papin, whose design may have influenced
Newcomen, but also the fact that, as was long ago noted, Boyle’s original air pump
‘was the antecedent of all later machines depending on a piston accurately fitting
in a true cylinder’: there is a sense, therefore, in which he can rightfully be seen as
the ancestor of the entire enterprise (A. R. Hall, quoted in Wootton 2015: 505n.).
In addition, it now seems as if Boyle may have had links with Thomas
Newcomen, the very figure who built the steam engine just referred to.
Newcomen’s early life is obscure, but he seems to have been involved in mining
operations in Cornwall in the late seventeenth century, and particularly in the
development of pumps for draining tin mines (see Greener 2015). Boyle had
long had an interest in mining technology, and one of his contacts in connection
with this was a shadowy figure, Christopher Kirkby, a merchant and alchemist
whose links with Charles II allowed him to alert the King to the Popish Plot
in 1678. A letter from Boyle to Kirkby of 29 April 1689 survives in which he
advocated the repeal of the medieval act forbidding the transmutation of metals
on the grounds that this would be particularly ‘advantageous to the counties
of Cornwall and Devonshire, where tin so much abounds, that it is (as you well
know) a drug’ (Correspondence, 6: 288–9).14 In addition, a document survives
in the Boyle Papers describing a draining device at a tin mine in Cornwall, in
which Kirkby is mentioned, and this seems to be written in a hand remarkably
similar to that of Thomas Newcomen (BP 26, fol. 8).15 Hence Boyle seems to have
had links in that connection, too, and, although all this is rather shadowy and
fragmentary, it is again significant in linking Boyle to developments in which
scientific knowledge was put to practical use – just as he had advocated in The
Usefulness of Natural Philosophy – in this case with epoch-making implications.
6. Conclusion
As so often, therefore, Boyle presents us with something of a paradox. On the one

hand, he was unflinching in his conviction that science was useful – that it was
of the essence of the improved knowledge about the natural world that was being
accumulated by his contemporaries that it should be able to be applied to improve
human life. Arguably, he voiced this conviction more fully than anyone else from
his period, and his tone is often prophetic of more modern assertions of science’s
value. Indeed, this was a corollary of his conviction that knowledge itself would
inexorably expand and improve, and here it is interesting to cite Boyle’s sentiments
in his Natural History of Human Blood concerning intellectual progress. He there
visualized an ‘enlightned Posterity’ which was likely to display ‘some kind of
disdainful Pity’ for his generation, because ‘the Discoveries and Performances, upon
which the present Age most values it self, will appear so easy, or so inconsiderable to
them’ – though he responded by commenting how they should have the ‘generous
gratitude to remember the Difficulties this Age surmounted, in breaking the Ice,
and smoothing the way for them, and thereby contributing to those Advantages,
that have enabled them so far to surpass us’ (Works, 10: 96–7). There is undoubtedly
a visionary element in Boyle’s scientific outlook.
Yet, as we have seen, in terms of actually exemplifying the potential for
science to be put to practical use, Boyle’s vision often proved problematic. Time
and again the application of science proved disappointing, due to technical
difficulties, the role of vested interests, and even the sheer naivety of well-
meaning intellectuals like him. In fact, none of the projects in which Boyle was
directly engaged was very successful. Yet it is striking how this seems not to have
reduced his conviction that, sooner or later, by some means or other, science
would prove as valuable as he had asserted in The Usefulness of Experimental
Natural Philosophy. This is an integral part of Boyle’s legacy.
Notes
1 For a further exposition of trades that served ‘Man’s accommodation or delight’,

including musical instruments, see Works, 6: 417–18.
2 For details, see the annotated version of the text in Hunter (2015: 28–31).
3 One should in any case remember that this was only published after Hooke’s death,
as an act of homage by Richard Waller. Some of Hooke’s later lectures to the Royal
Society as published by Waller also pick up similar themes, e.g. 467ff., 532.
4 For an account of Boyle’s medical concerns in the context of his scientific work, see
Kaplan (1993).
5 See e.g. Works, 7: 227–336; 10: 303–49; for a summary, including a brief indication
of the influence that such ideas had in the period following Boyle’s, see Hunter
(2009: 174).
6 See Birch (1756–7), 3: 4 (presented by Sir Robert Moray), 348 (presented by
Hooke)); for Boyle as the evident originator of the latter, see Hooke (1935: 321,
333), entries for 17 and 24 October 1677.
7 See also Cook (2002, 2007: 271–6); and Malcolm and Stedall (2005: 180–1).
8 Boyle’s fellow dedicatee was John Worthington; for elucidation, see Keller (2018).
9 See Haselgrove and Murray (1979: 6–7 and passim); Iliffe (1995: 308–10). Dwight
is currently the subject of investigation by Ross and Gael Ramsay: see their website,
www.Bowporcelain.net.
10 In fact the reference is in the plural since it also applied to ‘John Whittacre’.
11 The Second Continuation came out in Latin in 1680, with an English translation
in 1682.
12 See Works, 9: 121–263; for commentary, see Hunter (2009: 189–90, 282–3).
13 See Wootton (2015: 490–508); for an earlier account of related developments see
Wallace (1982: ch. 1).
14 On Kirkby and Boyle’s links with him, see Hunter (2000: 111); for further evidence
of Boyle’s involvement in mining ventures, see Hunter (2009: p. 343 n. 54); for his
‘Memoirs for the Natural History of Tin’, see Works, 14: 133–43.
15 I am grateful to James Greener for his advice on this document.
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Index
air 23, 32–3, 41–3, 45–7, 53, 67, 74–8, 111, causes
114–15, 119, 122–4, 143, 151, 153–4, efficient 141, 142, 144, 204, 245
173, 271, 293, 299, 300 final 141–2, 148, 150–2, 154–6,
air pump see air 158–62
Allestree, Richard 241 formal 141, 144, 147, 162, 199–200, 208,
Alsted, Johann Heinrich 226, 228, 230–1, 213, 215, 217
240, 242–3 material 56, 141–2, 144
Andrewes, Lancelot 228, 241 mechanical 39, 48–9, 52–3, 56, 66,
Anstey, Peter R. 11, 18, 187, 191 75, 82–3, 87, 112–14, 142–8, 150–5,
Aristotle 19, 46, 110. 19, 141–2, 162, 170, 169, 172, 174–5, 177–8, 184–91,
205–6, 226, 244, 260, 270, 291 208–11
Aristotelianism 11, 17, 48–9, 69, 78–9, certainty 17–18, 108–10, 118
112–13, 142–6, 148, 151, 154, 162, Charles II 265, 296, 300
169, 175–7, 199–202, 204–8, 210–11, Charleton, William 45
213, 217–18, 218 n.1, 228, 230, 239, chemistry 40–2, 44, 46, 48–50, 53–5,
245, 249, 273, 284 57, 65–8, 73–5, 78–80, 82–3, 85–7,
Aquinas, Thomas 142, 260, 272 89–90, 93 n.34, 113, 117, 119, 133
atheism 13, 104, 147, 214, 243, 248–9, n.41, 163 n.8, 171, 173, 175–7, 181,
258–60, 262–4, 268, 279 183, 201, 205, 211, 214, 216–18,
atomism 48, 68, 82, 84, 105–6, 111, 169, 222 n.27, 279, 289
174, 213, 216–17, 262, 273–4 Chillingworth, William 109, 26
Aubrey, John 100 Christianity 47, 107, 110, 142, 148,
Augustine 272 155, 161, 225–7, 229, 230, 233,
237–43, 249–50, 257–60, 267–72,
Bacon, Francis 9–23, 25–32, 34–6, 215–17 274–6
Bathurst, Ralph 73–4 chymical principles see chymistry
Beale, John 9 chymistry see chemistry
Becher, Johann Joachim 74 Cicero 244
Beck, Daniel 125 Clarke, Samuel 263–4, 268
Bentley, Richard 263 Clericuzio, Antonio 153
Berman, David 263 Comenius 10
Bible (biblical) 232, 238–40, 242–3, 250, Cooke, Josiah Parsons 279
257, 263, 267, 269, 273–4 Cooper, Anthony Ashley 41
Birch, Thomas 29, 97, 257 corpuscles see corpuscularianism
blood 31, 51, 66, 74, 76–8, 293–4 corpuscularianism 18, 39, 48–53, 56–8,
Boas Hall, Marie 65, 78, 118 66–7, 73, 75–7, 82–5, 87–8, 90,
Bolton, Robert 228, 232–3 111–15, 117–18, 134 n.43, 135 n.44,
Boulton, Richard 42 135 n.5, 135 n.48, 142–6, 151, 169,
Boyle’s Law 122, 124, 136 n.53 181–4, 207–18, 293–4
Brahe, Tycho 110 Coxe, Daniel 44, 90
Burnet, Gilbert 100, 226, 229, 258, Creator (creation) 100, 102, 110, 124–5,
266–7 147, 150–2, 158, 213–14, 227, 235,
308 Index
238–9, 243–6, 250, 257–8, 261, 263, fermentation 68, 73–4, 77, 84, 174, 286
272–3, 275–9 forms
Cudworth, Ralph 125, 269 corpuscularian 200, 202, 209, 210–12,
217–18
Daniel, John 297 substantial 82, 112–13, 133 n.40, 144–6,
Darwin, Charles 279 177, 200–3, 205–8, 210, 213–14, 217–18
Daston, Lorraine 10 Fulton, John 27
De Molina, Luis 272
demonstration 17, 109–10, Galen see Galenism
249 Galenism 244, 291–3
de Mornay, Phillippe 243–4, 258–63, Galileo 43, 258
270–1 Gassendi, Pierre 73, 83–4, 154
Descartes, Rene 66, 73, 83–4, 110, 124, generation 53, 56, 153, 169, 172, 183, 204,
142, 154–5, 170, 175, 178–9, 188–9, 210
192, 258, 273, 275 Gerson, Jean 226
Dickinson, Edmund 44, 73 Glanvill, Joseph 109, 291
Digby, Kenelm 289 Goddard, Jonathan 73
DiMeo, Michelle 295 Godwin, Thomas 232
Dury, John 10 Great Tew Circle 226
duty 159, 227, 233, 238, 240–3, 245–6, Greenham, Richard 241
250 Grew, Nehemiah 296
Dwight, John 299 Grotius, Hugo 108–9, 250, 258, 270
Einstein, Albert 278 Hacking, Ian 120

element(s) 54, 78–9, 80, 91 n.13, 133 n.41, Hall, Marie Boas see Boas Hall, Marie
143, 177, 183, 194 n.35, 215–17, 221 Hall, Rupert 291
n.23, 222 n.24, 279 Hammond, Henry 226, 241
emergence 169, 179–84 Hartlib Circle see Samuel Hartlib
Epicurean 15, 106, 111, 116, 147, 213–14, Hartlib, Samuel 10, 65–70, 73–4, 286, 298
258, 260, 262–3, 270, 274 Harwood, John 226, 257
Epicurus see Epicurean Helmontianism see Jean-Baptiste van
essences 141, 143, 180–1, 199–201, 206, Helmont
208, 210, 239 Hobbes, Thomas 115, 154, 271
ethics 225–6, 231, 238, 240 Hooke, Robert 11, 45, 77, 120, 122, 289,
Euclid 212 291, 296, 299, 300
experiment 9–18, 21, 26, 29–31, 33–4, Horton, Mary 10
40–3, 45–8, 50–1, 54, 57, 65–7, Howe, John 275
69–71, 75–80, 82–7, 89–90, 99, 102, Hughes, John 9
111, 113–25, 127 n.3, 156, 169, 175, Hunter, Michael 11, 12, 15, 18, 20, 22–6,
211, 226–7, 235, 237, 242, 245–7, 30–1, 97, 258, 264
249, 277, 284, 299–300 Huygens, Christiaan 112, 295
experimentalism see experiment hydrostatics 294–5
explanation (explication) 51, 83, hylomorphism 141–2, 199–200
105–7, 112, 133 n.39, 134 n.43, hypotheses 14–18, 31, 46–7, 52, 83, 111,
144, 151, 162, 174, 203–4, 113–19, 121, 126
220 n.9, 245
corpuscular/mechanical 48–53, 75, iatrochemistry 71, 73
82–3, 85, 87, 90, 112–13, 117, 142, intelligent design 104, 124–5, 147, 152,
145, 169, 175, 182–3, 187, 200, 202, 156–62, 163 n.10, 269, 279
207–13, 215, 217 Ivye, Ayliffe 41
Index 309
Johns, Adrian 33 minima (prima) naturalia 85, 111, 117,

Jones, Richard 288 143, 215–16
miracles 107–8, 114, 204, 214, 269, 271,
Keller, Vera 19–20, 288 274–6
Kirkby, Christopher 300 mysteries 106, 161, 275
Knight, Harriet 31, 287
knowledge natural history 9–12, 14–16, 18, 20–3,
innate 263 26–7, 29, 32–3, 35, 40, 44–7, 57
moral import of 229, 239, 242, natural philosophy 15, 18, 26, 35, 39–43,
244–7 45–8, 52, 79, 102, 145, 147–9, 155,
religious 102–8, 157, 161, 263, 269, 158–61, 169, 187, 201–8, 243, 247,
278–9 249, 257, 278, 284–6, 290–2, 301
scientific 14–15, 17–20, 46–7, 50, 52, experimental 40, 45, 47, 242,
57–8, 68, 86–8, 100–4, 108–26, 131 247, 249
n.31, 141, 155, 158–9, 172–4, 191, speculative 15, 43, 46, 52–3, 57, 77,
201–2, 205–6, 226, 258, 267–7, 118–19, 121
284–5 Neri, Antonio 299
usefulness of 283–301 Newcomen, Thomas 300
Kronick, David 33 Newman, William R. 65, 71, 216
Krook, Dorthea 10 Newton, Isaac 43, 55–6, 71, 86, 109, 125,
Kuhn, Thomas 9, 66 146, 258, 296
law(s) 102, 107, 114, 124, 158, 215, 240–2, oaths 230
248, 278 occasionalism 272
Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm 111–12, 124, Oldenberg, Henry 12, 15, 43, 74, 84,
155 115–16, 274, 295
Leslie, John A. 105 Osler, Margaret 150–3
Levitin, Dmitri 274
Linus, Franciscus 13, 99, 115, 120, 122, Paley, William 278–9
124 Paracelsianism see Paracelsus
Locke, John 32–3, 39–58, 74–5, 105, Paracelsus 49, 55, 67, 69, 72–3, 76, 78, 113,
107–8, 111, 175, 191, 200, 208, 289, 291
218 Park, Katherine 10
Lower, Richard 74, 76 Parker, Samuel 273–4
luciferous 13–14, 117, 119 Pascal (Paschall), Blaise 121–2
lucriferous 13, 117 Pell, John 298
Lull, Raymond 86, 258 Pepys, Samuel 297–8
Lynch, William T. 12, 16, 19 Perkins, William 232
Pett, Peter 297–8
MacIntosh, Jack 269 Petty, William 10, 73, 286
Madan, Falconer 27–8 Plato 105, 226–7
Marcombes, Isaac 265 Platonism (or neo-Platonism) see
Martini, Raymundus 258 Plato
mechanism see corpuscularianism and Plutarch 226, 244
natural philosophy pneumatics 34
medicine 39–42, 50, 53–4, 66–8, 70–3, 82, Popper, Karl 9–10, 18
89, 284, 286, 290–5 Power, Henry 46
Merrett, Christopher 299 prime matter 200–1, 204
Mersenne, Marin 67 Principe, Lawrence M. 49, 65, 71, 88
Millington, Thomas 74 Pyrard, François 44
310 Index
qualities Stahl, Peter 41, 53, 55, 74

primary or secondary or sensible 40, 51, Starkey, George 44, 65, 69–73, 75, 86
83–4, 143–4, 146–7, 170–1, 174–5, Stillingfleet, Edward 229
178–81, 183, 185, 187–91, 199, 203, Suárez, Francisco 272
209, 214 substantial forms see forms, substantial
real 145–6, 170, 175–6, 186, 189
reduction of 83–4, 187, 190 Taylor, Jeremy 242
Tegmark, Max 278
Ranelagh, Katherine 67, 265 texture 48, 50, 83–4, 87–8, 142–6, 153,
Ravenscroft, George 299 182–8, 209, 215–16
raving 232–4, 236, 239 Tillotson, John 109, 246–7
Rawley, William 27 Trevor-Roper, Hugh 10
Reed, Richard 29 tria prima 49, 69, 90
Rees, Graham 9, 11, 14, 27
respiration 16, 66, 74, 76, 293 Urbach, Peter 10
Royal Society 9–10, 12, 14, 16, 20–1, 26,
29, 42, 77, 90, 97–8, 121, 230, 271, vacuum 48, 111, 115–16, 126
285, 287–9, 291–6 Valentine, Basil 49, 67
van Helmont, Jean-Baptiste 43, 49, 53–5,
Sala, Angelo 67 65–74, 76–81, 113, 289
Sancroft, William 299 van Leeuwen, Henry 109, 111
Sargent, Rosemary 21–2 van Limborch, Philippus 57
scepticism 13, 108, 110–11, 118, 261, van Suchten, Alexander 67
263–4, 270–1, 276 virtue (vertue) 68, 225, 227–9, 235–42,
Schaffer, Simon 18, 22, 123–4 249, 263
Scholasticism see Aristotelianism Vives, Juan Luis 258–9, 270
seeds see seminal principles
seminal principles 30, 53, 55, 69, 79–80, Walcot, William 296–7
151–4, 213 Wallis, John 74
Sendivogius, Michael 74 Ward, John 99
Seneca 226, 244 Ward, Seth 73
Sennert, Daniel 49, 82 Webster, Charles 12, 65
Shanahan, Timothy 272 Westfall, Richard 10, 262–4
Shapin, Steven 18, 22, 123–4 Wilkins, John 10, 109, 246–7, 250, 263
Shapiro, Barbara 17–18 Willis, Thomas 73, 76–7
Shaw, Peter 9, 11, 34 Wojcik, Jan 275
Spinoza, Baruch 84, 115–16, 155, 271 Wood, Paul 12, 26
Sprat, Thomas 12, 125, 291 Worsley, Benjamin 67–70, 75
spring of the air see air Wren, Christopher 10, 74, 289, 297

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Aesthetics, edited by Anna Christina Ribeiro

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List of Contributors viii

Introduction Jan-Erik Jones 1

Peter R. Anstey, Professor of Philosophy, Department of Philosophy,

I would like to thank the Faculty Development Fund at Southern Virginia

Conventions for spelling, capitalization and punctuation in the seventeenth

BOA Boyle, R. (2005), Boyle on Atheism, J. J. MacIntosh (ed.),

BP Royal Society, Boyle Papers.

Correspondence Boyle, R. (2001), The Correspondence of Robert Boyle,

MS Boyle notebooks and manuscripts at the Royal Society.

Works Boyle, R. (1999–2000), The Works of Robert Boyle,

‘Robert Boyle’s Epistemology: The Interaction between Scientific and Religious

of self-government, to the late tracts on the contribution of experimental natural

science remained undiminished. In this chapter, Hunter shines a spotlight onto

most claimed to be in favour of some or all of the following: negotium rather

1. Boyle’s explicit engagements with Bacon

a ‘real conversion experience’ to investigating nature by experimental means in

did so barely enrich our Understandings, as to be no other waies useful. (Works,

2. Boyle’s works in the context of Bacon’s

Having surveyed Boyle’s explicit invocations of Bacon, I will now move on to

of Learning, although some of its concerns, such as the paucity of current

Boyle’s subdivisions refer to Bacon’s and expand on them:

Boyle’s alternative is more comprehensive than Bacon’s … Thus Boyle is self-

Boyle directly presents his seven-part division of natural history as an

apparent oscillation between a ‘legitimate, chaste and severe’ limitation on

Boyle similarly presents an interrelation between fact and philosophy, with

experience is a basic notion in Bacon’s philosophy: experience, according to him,

Bacon exemplified interim discoveries using an economic metaphor as ‘interest

One of these ‘bureaucratic innovations’ was desiderata; advertisements of

Among the aspects of Baconianism which Boyle inherited, and which is

3. The use of lists, heads and ‘bureaucratic innovations’

4. The Boyle Papers

Similarly, the various extant copies of a document called ‘The Order of My

While the schemes discussed above testify to Boyle’s desire to systematize

5. Boyle’s printed works

Part three of Bacon’s Great Instauration comprises collections of facts. The

closer than Bacon’s other publications to factual collection. However, William

Madan’s comments epitomize the dissatisfaction with Boyle’s piecemeal

He uses an agricultural metaphor popular with Royal Society authors of natural

By contrast to the chronological order and radical incompletion of Colours,

I thought it an expedient, that might in great part decline both these

and Observations’. These will represent ‘a foundation’ on which Boyle or others

followed my Lord Bacon’s Advice, not to be over-curious or nice in making the

6. Peter Shaw’s editions of Boyle and Bacon

As a coda, a brief consideration of Peter Shaw’s eighteenth-century editions

as Mr. Boyle never design’d to write a body of philosophy, …’tis not to be

Shaw’s edition of Bacon is driven by similar impulses to his version of Boyle.

Boyle’s natural philosophy cannot properly be understood without the context

Boyle, R. (2001), The Correspondence of Robert Boyle, M. Hunter, A. Clericuzio and

Boyle’s Influence on Locke

distinguishes between primary and secondary qualities in his Essay concerning

appearance in Locke’s correspondence. On 20 May 1660 when they were both