- 1710 . Acta Eruditorum , September : 412 – 416 . I am grateful to Dr Sonia Carboncini (Leibniz-Archiv, Hannover), who called my attention to this book review and informed me of the authorship of the passages dealing with Boyle. It is apparent that Freind was aware of the role played by Leibniz in the attack launched on his theories. In the ‘Appendix Containing the Account given of these Lectures in the Lipsick Acts, together with some Remarks thereon’, published in the English translation of his Praelectiones, Freind's reply was mainly directed against Mr L[eibniz], who—he claimed—was the inspirator of the views contained in the Acta Eruditorum. See J. Freind, Chymical Lectures (London, 1712), pp 189–200. On Freind and the Newtonian chemists see A. Thackray, Atoms and Powers (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1970); A. Guerrini, ‘Newtonian Matter Theory, Chemistry, and Medicine 1690–1713’ (Ph.D. dissertations, Indiana University, 1983).
- The work in question is Keill J. Epistola ad Cl[arissimum] virum … Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society 1708 315 97 110 It was reviewed in the Acta Eruditorum 1709. For J. Keill, see A. Guerrini, ‘The Tory Newtonians: Gregory, Pitcairne and their Circle’, Journal of British Studies, xxv (1986), 288–311.
- ‘Verum enim vero Dn. Keilius cum sequacibus redit reaspse ad qualitates occultas, quales apud Scholae Philosophos sympathia & antipathia fuere, dum vim quandam attractricem statuit, quae si (ut ipse vult) primitiva est, omnique materiae erga omnem materiam essentialiter competit, utique per rationes mechanicas explicare nequit, atque adeo vel erit aliquid absurdum, vel in miraculum seu voluntatem Dei extraordinariam resolvetur, ad quam tamen in Physicis sine necessitate confugiendum non esse, convenit inter intelligentes. Quodsi aliter procedimus & fictionibus indulgemus, reditur ad Philosophiam quandam phantasticam Scholae vel etiam Enthusiasticam, qualis Fluddi fuit. Ita uno ictu subvertentur, quae in Anglia ipsa Robertus Boylius & alii Viri docti de rebus naturalibus mechanice, id est, rationabiliter explicandis magno studio stabiliverunt, quae Boylius etiam diserte ad Chymica applicuit’. Acta Eruditorum September 1710 412 413 This passage is Leibniz's. It is noticeable that in 1692 Leibniz had shared Huygens's evaluation of Boyle's scientific work as mainly experimental, but with no significant theoretical achievement: ‘Mr. Boyle est mort, comme vous scaurez desia sans doute. Il paroit assez etrange qu'il n'ait rien basti sur tant d'experiences dont ses livres sont pleins …’ (Christian Huygens to G. W. Leibniz, 4 February 1692, Oeuvres Complètes de Christian Huygens, edited by the Societé Hollandaise des Sciences, 22 vols (The Hague, 1888–1950), x, 239). Leibniz replied on 19 February of the same year: ‘… mais ce que vous dites de feu Mr. Boyle, est ancor veritable à son egard, qu'il n'estoit pas capable d'une assez grande application pour pousser les consequences autant qu'il faut' (ibid., x, 263). It is apparent that Leibniz's subsequent emphasis upon Boyle's mechanical philosophy was mainly aimed at reinforcing his anti-Newtonian arguments.
- Alexander , H.G. , ed. 1956 . The Leibniz-Clarke Correspondence 92 – 92 . Manchester
- Shaw , P. , ed. 1725 . The Philosophical Works of the Honourable Robert Boyle Vol. 3 , London I, sig. A2v (‘General Preface’).
- Encyclopédie, ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, par une société des gens de lettres Paris1751–1765 17 435 435 III On Venel see E. M. Melhado, ‘Chemistry, Physics, and the Chemical Revolution’, Isis, 76 (1985), 195–211 (pp. 196–9). The description of Boyle's chemistry as a branch of physics does not occur in J. J. Becher and in Hermann Boerhaave and was not taken over in the Histories of Chemistry of Kopp and Hoefer who recognized Boyle's specific contribution to chemistry. See Johannis Joachimi Becheri Physica Subterranea, edited by G. E. Stahl (Frankfurt, 1703), p. 404; Specimen Beccherianum, Sistens Fundamenta …, edited by G.E. Stahl (Leipzig, 1705), pp. 133–4; H. Boerhaave, Elementa Chemiae, 2 vols (Leiden, 1732), i, 81–2; J.C.F. Hoefer, Histoire de la Chimie depuis les temps les plus reculés jusqu'à notre époque, 2 vols (Paris, 1842–43), ii, 146–76; H. Kopp, Geschichte der Chemie, 4 vols (Brunswick, 1843–1847), i, 168–9.
- Bloch , E. 1913 . Die antike Atomistik in der neuren Geschichte der Chemie . Isis , 1 : 377 – 415 . (pp. 389–404). See also K. Lasswitz, Geschichte der Atomistik: vom Mittelalter bis Newton, 2 vols (Hamburg, 1890), ii, 261–300; F. A. Lange, Geschichte des Materialismus und Kritik seiner Bedeutung in der Gegenwart, 2 vols (Leipzig, 1908), ii, 255–9.
- Hall , M. Boas . 1952 . The Establishment of the Mechanical Philosophy . Osiris , 10 : 421 – 541 . (pp. 460–505); T. Kuhn, ‘Robert Boyle and Structural Chemistry’, Isis, 43 (1952), 12–36; M. Boas Hall, Robert Boyle and Seventeenth-Century Chemistry (Cambridge, 1958) (hereafter M. Boas Hall, Robert Boyle).
- In Kuhn's view, early seventeenth-century atomism was a qualitative theory of matter, which was ultimately rooted in Galenic medicine, Boyle's theory of matter being purely mechanical Kuhn T. The Establishment of the Mechanical Philosophy Osiris 1952 10 17 17 Boas Hall, whose aim was to legitimate seventeenth-century chemistry as a component of the Scientific Revolution, has looked at Boyle's chemistry as a dramatic rupture with the one cultivated at the beginning of the century. The latter was, according to her views, mainly a practical discipline, while Helmontian theories were mystical views of nature. See M. Boas Hall, Robert Boyle, p. 71. The interpretation of the early seventeenth-century Chemistry as an atheoretical discipline is still contained in C. Meinel, ‘Early Seventeenth Century Atomism. Theory, Epistemology and the Insufficiency of Experiments’, Isis, 79 (1988), 68–103 (p. 72).
- ‘Boyle's corpuscular philosophy was a simple, mechanical method for the explanation of forms, more mechanical than that of Gassendi, less complex and systematic than that of Descartes, better integrated with experimental philosophy than either’ Hall M. Boas Robert Boyle 92 93 For different evaluations of Boyle's corpuscular philosophy see C. Webster, From Paracelsus to Newton: Magic and the Making of Modern Science (Cambridge, 1982), p 69; J. Henry, ‘Occult Qualities and the Experimental Philosophy: Active Principles in Pre-Newtonian Matter Theory’, History of Science, 24 (1986), 335–81; S. Schaffer, ‘Godly Men and Mechanical Philosophers: Souls and Spirits in Restoration Mechanical Philosophy’, Science in Context, 1 (1987), 55–85; and S. Shapin, ‘Robert Boyle and Mathematics: Reality, Representation, and Experimental Practice’, Science in Context, 2 (1988), 23–58.
- Historians of science have largely undervalued the importance of the early seventeenth-century atomical theories of matter. For Boas Hall ‘they served to create a climate of opinion in which the mechanical philosophy could develop along purely physical lines …’ (footnote 8, p. 433). For a different view of early seventeenth-century atomism, see Gregory T. Studi sull' Atomismo del Scicento Giornale Critico della Filosofia Italiana 1964 43 38 65 45 (1966), 44–63. It is significant that early seventeenth-century chemists like Etienne De Clave did not refrain from adopting a particulate theory of matter, see E. De Clave, Paradoxes ou Traittez Philosophiques des Pierres et Pierreries (Paris, 1635), pp. 208, 217; Nouvelle Loumière Philosophique (Paris, 1641), pp. 46, 104. On Etienne De Clave, see H. Metzger, Les Doctrines Chimiques en France du Début du XVIIe à la fin du XVIIIe Siécle, Tome I (Paris, 1923) (second edition 1969), pp. 51–9. It is worth noting that the Theses condemned by the Sorbonne in 1624 contained atomical as well as chemical theories of matter. See J. B. Morin, Réfutation des thèses erronées d'Antoine Villon dit le Soldate Philosophe, & Etienne de Clave, Medicin Chymistre … (Paris, 1624).
- For the chemical interests of the Hartlib Circle, see Webster C. The Great Instauration. Science, Medicine and Reform 1626–1660 London 1975 passim
- Boyle , R. 1659 . Some Motives and Incentives to the Love of God 56 – 56 . London Boyle cited Van Helmont as one of the best expositors of the ‘Book of Nature’ (The Works of the Honourable Robert Boyle, edited by T, Birch, 6 vols (London, 1772), i, 262 (hereafter Works)).
- Some Considerations touching the Usefulnesse Of Experimental Naturall Philosophy Oxford1663 195 195 (hereafter as The Usefulnesse) Works, ii, 149.
- ‘And I have heard from very credible Eye-witnesses some things, and seen some others myself, which argue so strongly, that a circulated Salt, or a Menstruum (such as it may be) may by being abstracted from compound Bodies, whether Mineral, Animal, or Vegetable, leave them more unlock'd than a wary naturalist would easily beleeve; that I dare not confidently measure the Power of Nature and Art by that of the Menstruums, and other Instruments that eminent Chymists themselves are as yet wont to Employ about the Analyzing of Bodies; nor Deny, that a Menstruum may at least from this or that particular Concrete obtain some apparently Similar Substance, differing from any obtainable from the same Body by any degree or manner of Application of the Fire. And I am the more backward to deny peremptorily, that there may be such Openers of compound Bodies, because among the experiments, that make me speak thus warily, there wanted not some, in which it appear'd not, that one of the Substances, not separable by common Fires and Menstruums, could retain any thing of the Salt, by which the separation was made’ The Sceptical Chymist London 1661 78 79 Works, i, p. 486)
- The Usefulnesse , 186 – 186 . Works, ii, 143–4. In The Sceptical Chymist Carneades states: ‘I know a certain Menstruum (which our Friend [Boyle] has made, and intends shortly to communicate to the ingenious) of so piercing and powerful a Quality; that if notwithstanding much care, and much skill, I did not much deceive myself, I have with it really destroy'd even refined Gold, and brought it a Metalline Body of another colour and Nature …’ (The Sceptical Chymist, p. 407; Works, i, p. 578). The solvent mentioned by Carneades is the famous menstruum peracutum, which Boyle had employed for the transmutation of gold into silver, cf. The Origine of Forms and Qualities (Oxford, 1666) (hereafter The Origine of Forms), pp. 349–378; Works, iii, 93–100.
- The Usefulnesse 35 35 Part II Works, ii, 79.
- The Usefulnesse , 41 – 41 . Works, ii, 82.
- The Usefulnesse , 70 – 71 . 206; Works, ii, 91–2, 154. For the mid-seventeenth century attacks on Galenical medicine see P. M. Rattansi, ‘The Helmontian-Galenist controversy in Restoration England’, Ambix, 13 (1966), 122–38.
- Hall , M. Boas . Robert Boyle , 38 – 38 .
- Warton , T. , ed. 1761 . “ Praelectiones Tres De Respiratione Habitae in Schola Medicinae ” . In The Life and Literary Remains of Ralph Bathurst Oxford T. Willis, Diatribae duae medico-philosophicae (London, 1659), Cf. R. G. Frank Jr., Harvey and the Oxford Physiologist: A Study of Scientific Ideas (Berkeley, 1980), p. 165 (hereafter Frank, Harvey).
- 1669 . Certain Physiological Essays , second edition 120 – 120 . London Works, i, 354; Experiments and Notes the Producibleness of Chymical Principles (hereafter Producibleness of Chymical Principles), published as appendix of The Sceptical Chymist, second edition (Oxford, 1680), sig. *7v, p. 47; Works, i, 591, 606; The Usefulnesse, Tome ii (Oxford, 1671), sig. ¶3v; Works, iii, 393; Experiments, Notes, & c about the Mechanical Origine or Production of divers particular Qualities: Among which is inserted a Discourse of the Imperfection of the Chemist's Doctrine of Qualities; together with some Reflections upon the Hypothesis of Alkali and Acidum (hereafter Mechanical Origine), (London, 1676), sig. A3v; Works, iv, 231; Experiments and Notes About the Mechanical Origine or Production of Corrosiveness and Corrosibility (hereafter Mechanical Origine of Corrosiveness), (London, 1675), p. 2; Works, iv, 314. Unfortunately, we have only a few hints to establish a date for its composition. One of them is the Publisher's note to the Tome II of The Usefulnesse, which seems to suggest that the second section of the first part was written at the same time as the Essays contained in second Tome, namely in 1658, as Boyle states in the ‘Preamble’ (Works, iii, 395).
- Royal Society Boyle Papers (hereafter RSBP) xxiv – xxiv .
- RSBP xxiv – xxiv . fols 137, 145
- Hall , M. Boas . 1954 . An Early Version of Boyle's Sceptical Chymist . Isis , 45 : 153 – 168 . (hereafter ‘Reflexions’). M. Boas Hall, Robert Boyle, p. 39, maintained that this manuscript was written not later than 1655. According to Charles Webster, the manuscript was written in summer 1658, see C. Webster, ‘Water as the Ultimate Principle of Nature: The Background to Boyle's Sceptical Chymist’, Ambix, 13 (1966), 96–107 (pp. 105–6).
- Reflexions 162 – 162 . see J. B. van Helmont, Ortus Medicinae … (Amsterdam, 1648), p. 405. Cf. A. G. Debus, ‘Fire Analysis and the Elements in the Sixteenth and the Seventeenth Centuries’, Annals of Science, 23 (1967), 128–47 (pp. 139–47).
- Reflexions 168 – 168 . In The Sceptical Chymist (pp. 380–1; Works, i, p. 571) Boyle was more cautious about the possibility of explaining all generation by means of seminal principles.
- Internal evidence suggests that the second part of Tome I of The Usefulnesse was written after 1659, since in the Essay V Boyle refers to Pyrophylus' [Richard Jones'] knowledge of Monsieur L[e] F[ebvre] in Paris, whom Pyrophylus (and Oldenburg) met in April 1659 (see Works II 147 147 Cf. Henry Oldenburg to Saporta 26 April 1659, in The Correspondence of Henry Oldenburg, edited and translated by A. Rupert Hall and Marie Boas Hall, 13 vols (Madison and Milwaukee, 1965–1973), I-IX; (London, 1975–1977), X, XI; (London and Philadelphia, 1986), XII, XIII (hereafter as Oldenburg).
- The Usefulnesse 154 – 154 . 331–2; Works, II, 131, 213–4. Boyle's interest in the properties of the spirit of human blood, in connection with both pharmacy and physiology can be traced throughout his career.
- The Usefulnesse 44 – 44 . Works, II, 83. Boyle also mentions his enquiries into fermentation in Certain Physiological Essays (London, 1661), p. 152; Works, I, 373. It is apparent that Boyle's emphasis upon the importance of the knowledge of fermentations was connected with Willis' researches on this subject, cf. Frank, Harvey, pp. 164–9.
- RSBP Vol. XXVIII , 403 – 403 .
- RSBP Vol. XXXVI , fol. 86r – fol. 86r .
- RSBP Vol. XXVI , fols 162–75. The first two pages of it have been published in R. S. Westfall, ‘Unpublished Boyle Papers relating to Scientific Method’, Annals of Science, 12 (1956) (hereafter R.S. Westfall, ‘Unpublished Boyle Papers’), 63–73, 103–17 (pp. 111–13). The rest of the manuscript, being bound without any order, escaped Westfall's attention. The exact sequence has been established by R. J. Frank jr., see Frank, Harvey, p. 316, n. 28).
- On the 10th page (fol. 175v) of the manuscript we find a reference to a ‘skillfull Chymist’ who made a ring of glass of Antimony. It is apparent that the ‘skillfull Chymist’ is in fact George Starkey. In his letter to Boyle written in April/May 1651 and containing Philalethes' Key, Starkey told Boyle that in his preparation of the regulus Antimonii he had found a red ring about the glass. It is very likely that this ring is the one mentioned in Boyle's manuscript. Cf. Newman W. Newton's Clavis as Starkey's Key Isis 1987 78 564 574 (p. 570). R.S. Westfall ‘Unpublished Boyle Papers’, pp. 65–6) has suggested that the manuscript notes, which on the top of the first page bear the warning ‘these papers must be burnt’, were not written after 1653, because according to him, after that time, Boyle was no longer reluctant to be known as an atomist, since, Westfall stated, Part I of The Usefulnesse ‘publicly championed atomism’. As a matter of fact, whereas the first Essays of The Usefulnesse contain favourable views of atomism, the fourth and the fifth Essays, which Westfall persuasively suggested were written in 1653, clearly show, as we shall see afterwards, Boyle's preoccupation with distinguishing his particulate theory of matter from Epicurean atomism. Such a preoccupation is not evident in the manuscript in question and may be the reason why he wrote the above mentioned warning, which seemingly was a later addition. Therefore, we can conclude that the manuscript was composed before the fourth and fifth Essay of The Usefulnesse (1653) not because, as Westfall suggested, at the time of the composition of these Essays Boyle had taken the courage to show himself in public as an atomist, but, on the contrary, because at that time he had envisaged Epicurean atomism, as well as that of his modern admirers, as a serious challenge to Christian faith.
- ‘The Atomicall Philosophy invented or brought into request by Democritus, Leucippus Epicurus & their Contemporaries … in our lesse partial & more inquisitive times it is so luckyly reviv'd & so skillfully celebrated in divers parts of Europe by the learned pens of Gassendus, Magnenus, Des Cartes & his disciples our deservedly famous Countryman Sr Kenelme Digby & many other writers …’ Westfall R.E. Unpublished Boyle Papers II 111 112 It is noticeable that Boyle's positive evaluation of the classical and the new atomism closely resembles that of J. Webster's polemical Academiarum Examen (London, 1653), p. 78: (Fourthly, what shall I say of the Atomical learning revived by that noble, and indefatigable person Renatus des Cartes, and since illustrated and improved by Magnenus Regius, White, Digby, Phocillides, Holwarda, and divers others? […] What shall I say of the Epicurean Philosophy, brought to light, illustrated and compleated by the labour of that general Scholar Petrus Gassendus? Surely, if it be rightly examined, it will prove a more perfect, and sound piece, than any the schools have ever had, or followed’.
- RSBP Vol. XXVI , fols 162–3
- RSBP Vol. XXVI , fol. 163r – fol. 163r .
- For the notion of minima naturalia, see Maier A. Die Vorläufer Galileis im 14. Jahrhunder Rome 1949 179 196 A. G. van Melsen, From Atomos to Atom (New York, 1960), pp. 41–76; V. P. Zubov, ‘Zur Geschichte des Kampfes zwischen …’, Sowjetische Beiträge zur Geschichte der Naturwissenschaft, edited by G. Harig (Berlin, 1960), pp. 161–91.
- ‘The same do Hyppocrates and Galen: the same their Master Democritus and with them the best sort of Physitians: the same do Alchymistes, with their master Geber; whose maxime to this purpose we cited above; the same do all naturall philosophers, eyther auncient commentatours of Aristotle, or else moderne inquirers into naturall effects …’ Digby K. Two Treatises London 1644 343 344 On Digby, see R. H. Kargon, Atomism in England from Hariot to Newton (Oxford, 1966), pp. 71–2. Kargon maintains that Digby's notion of minima was radically different from that of atoms. See also B. J. T. Dobbs, ‘Studies in the Natural Philosophy of Sir Kenelm Digby’, Ambix, 18 (1971), 1–25; 20 (1973), 143–63; 21 (1974), 1–28; J. Henry, ‘Atomism and Eschatology: Catholicism and Natural Philosophy in the Interregnum’, British Journal for the History of Science, 15 (1982), 211–49.
- RSBP Vol. XXVI , fol. 168r – fol. 168r . In this passage Boyle largely draws from Daniel Sennert, Hypomnemata Physica (Frankfurt, 1636), 3.1.1., p. 119, quoted in C. Meinel (footnote 9), pp. 94–5. See also R. Hooykaas, ‘The discrimination between “natural” and “artificial” substances and the development of corpuscular theory’, Archives Internationales d'Histoire des Sciences, 4 (1948), 640–51, reprinted in R. Hooykaas, Selected Studies in History of Science (Coimbra, 1983), pp. 259–73 (pp. 262–6).
- On Philalethes see Wilkinson R.S. The Problem of the Identity of Eirenaeus Philalethes Ambix 1964 12 24 43 W. Newman, ‘The Authorship of the Introitus apertus ad occlusum regis palatium’, forthcoming in ‘Alchemy Revisited’, Proceedings of the International Congress at the University of Groningen, 17–19 April 1989.
- ‘Disproportio siquidem miscendorum mixturam generationi idoneam tollit, ejusve possibilitatem. Nam Physica generatio fit per generationem ingredientium unionem. Unio porro est per minima rerum uniendarum ingressio, sin autem minimun unius sit minimo alterius decuplo vel centuplo subtilius, non possunt haec minima adaequata coire, siquidem per minima convenire oportet, quae per minima unire quaerimus’. Philalethes Eiraeneus Tractatus de Metallorum Metamorphosi Musaeum Hermeticum Reformatum et Amplificatum Frankfurt 1678 756 756 For Philalethes. notion of minima see W. Newman, ‘The Transmutational Theory of Eiraeneus Philalethes’, forthcoming in the Proceedings of the Colloquium ‘Alchemy and Chemistry in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries’, London, 26–27 July 1989.
- Westfall , R.S. Unpublished Boyle Papers Vol. I , 65 – 65 . n. 6
- The Usefulnesse 8 – 8 . Works, II, 8–9.
- Boyle was informed by Hartlib of the coming publication of Gassendi's Epicuri Philosophiae Syntagma, see Hartlib's letter of 9 May 1648, Works, VI, 77. Highmore N. The History of Generation London 1651 (hereafter History of Generation) is dedicated to Boyle. During the Stalbridge period Boyle was in frequent communication with Nathaniel Highmore, who had settled at Sherborne, near Stalbridge. Cf. R.E.W. Maddison, The Life of the Honourable Robert Boyle F.R.S. (London, 1969), p. 78.
- The Usefulnesse 63 – 64 . Works, ii, 35.
- The Usefulnesse 77 – 77 . Works, ii, 42.
- In the England of the early 1650s, intense discussions on the Epicurean philosophy occurred: in 1652 Charleton published his Darknes of Atheism, in 1653 (the year in which Boyle's Essay in question seem to have been written) Margaret Cavendish published Philosophicall Fancies and Poems and Fancies, two works which advocated the Epicurean views of the origin of the Universe. In this year Henry More's Antidote Against Atheism came out. Kargon R.H. Atomism in England. From Hariot to Newton Oxford 1966 83 84
- Charleton , W. 1652 . The Darknes of Atheism Dispelled by the Light of Nature: A Physico-Theological Treatise 40 – 44 . London On Charleton's Physico-Theologia see S. Fleitmann, Walter Charleton (1620–1707), ‘Virtuoso”: Leben und Werk (Frankfurt am Main, Berne, New York, 1986), pp. 221–39.
- Charleton , W. 1654 . Physiologia Epicuro-Gassendo-Charltoniana: Or a Fabrick of Science Natural, Upon the Hypothesis of Atoms, Founded by Epicurus, Repaired by Petrus Gassendus, Augmented by Walter Charleton … 126 – 126 . London
- RSBP Vol. II , 7 – 7 . 10, 25, 36–7
- The Usefulnesse 78 – 78 . Works, II, 43. See P. Gassendi, Syntagma Philosophicum, Opera Omnia, 6 vols, facsimile of the 1658 edition with an Introduction by T. Gregory (Stuttgart-Bad Connstatt, 1964) (hereafter P. Gassendi, Opera Omnia), p. 280b: ‘Ex his proinde supponi potest creasse Deum initio tantam atomorum multitudinem, quanta fuit necessaria, ut totus hic Mundus ex ea formaretur’.
- Henry , J. 1986 . Occult Qualities and the Experimental Philosophy: Active Principles in Pre-Newtonian Matter Theory . History of Science , 24 : 353 – 353 . See The Usefulnesse, p. 77; Works, ii, 42–3.
- Henry , J. 1986 . Occult Qualities and the Experimental Philosophy: Active Principles in Pre-Newtonian Matter Theory . History of Science , 24 : 368 – 368 .
- The Origine of Formes 194 – 194 . The Works, iii, 48–9.
- RSBP Vol. II , fol. 61r – fol. 61r .
- The Usefulnesse 82 – 83 . Works, ii, 45. Boyle's views have much in common with Gassendi's probabilism. In the same page we find Boyle's statement that ‘some modern philosophers, that much favour his (Epicurus') doctrine, do likewise imitate his example, in pretending to assign not precisely the true, but possible causes of the phænomenon they endeavour to explain’.
- Certain Physiological Essays 21 – 21 . Works, i, p. 309.
- RSBP Vol. VIII , fols 165–6, 169–70, 184–7; Royal Society MS 185, fols 31r–35v.
- RSBP Vol. VIII , fol. 166r – fol. 166r . In The Excellency and Grounds of the Mechanical Hypothesis, published as an Appendix to The Excellency of Theology, Compar'd with the Natural Philosophy (London 1674), pp. 18–9, Boyle revealed himself more confident about the possibility of explaining natural phenomena on the basis of the mechanical principles, which he regarded as the fundamental and universal ones. Yet, he did not deny that hypotheses other than the mechanical one could give satisfactory accounts of some phenomena. Boyle had of course in mind medical and chemical theories, which were not immediately reducible to the catholic principles of the mechanical philosophy. He warned that these kinds of hypothesis should not be excluded by ‘a skilful and moderate person, who is rather disposed to unite sects, than multiply them’ (Works, iv, 72).
- RSBP Vol. VIII , fol. 184r – 184v .
- Royal Society fol. 31 – fol. 31 . MS. 185
- “ A Physico-Chymical Essay, Containing an Experiment, with some Considerations touching the different Parts and Redintegration of Salt-Petre ” . In Certain Physiological Essays 107 – 135 . Works, i, 35–76.
- On the Spinoza-Oldenburg/Boyle controversy see McKeon R. The Philosophy of Spinoza: The Unity of his Tought London 1928 137 152 H. Daudin, ‘Spinoza et la science expériméntale: sa discussion de l'expérience de Boyle’, Revue d'Histoire des Sciences et de leurs Applications, 2 (1949), 179–90; A Rupert Hall and Marie Boas Hall, ‘Philosophy and Natural Philosophy: Boyle and Spinoza’, Mélanges Alexandre Koyré, edited by R. Taton and F. Braudel, 2 vols (Paris, 1864), ii, 241–56. Very little is added by E. Yakira, ‘Boyle et Spinoza’, Archives de Philosophie, 51 (1988), 107–24.
- Certain Physiological Essays 115 – 115 . Works, i, 364.
- Certain Physiological Essays 123 – 123 . Works, i, 369.
- Certain Physiological Essays 124 – 125 . Works, i, 370.
- Boyle refers to the geometrical form of the parts of the redintegrated niter in order to show that the new substance is indeed niter, yet, these parts are not the particles of universal matter, but simply the crystals of niter Certain Physiological Essays 127 127 Works, i, 360–1).
- Certain Physiological Essays 113 – 114 . Works, i, 363.
- Certain Physiological Essays 123 – 123 . Works, i, 369.
- Hall , A.R. and Hall , M. Boas . Certain Physiological Essays 242 – 242 .
- The letter from Spinoza to Oldenburg was first published in B[enedictus] d[e] S[pinoza] Opera Posthuma 1677 1677 The original, which is in the Archives of the Royal Society, was first published in Facsimile by W. Meyer, Nachbildung … (The Hague, 1903), then reprinted in Spinoza, Opera, edited by C. Gebhardt (Heidelberg, 1924), iv, 15–36 (herafter C. Gebhardt). It was included in H. Oldenburg, i, 448–70. The Gebhardt edition of this letter is the more complete one, because it gives both the text published in 1677, a version, which, as Gebhardt stated (p. 382), Spinoza had prepared for the press, and the original (autograph) one. In addition, Gebhardt provided a transcription of all the marginalia which can be found in the copy in the Royal Society (pp. 382–3). In The Correspondence of Henry Oldenburg (i, 468) we read that the pencil notes (not in the hand of Oldenburg) on the margin of the second page of this letter ‘cannot be read clearly enough to be worth reproducing’. Accordingly, the editors give only a transcription of the subsequent series of marginal notes, which are in the hand of Oldenburg. The first set of marginalia, which the Halls suggest are in the hand of Boyle or in that of one of his amanuenses, testify to the direct role played by Boyle in the epistolary controversy. These notes in fact, as Gebhardt pointed out (p. 382), were used by Oldenburg in his reply to Spinoza of 3 April 1663.
- Oldenburg , H. I 449 – 449 . C. Gebhardt, iv, 17.
- ‘… bodies in motion never come into contact with other bodies along their largest surfaces, while bodies at rest touch other bodies upon their largest surfaces. Thus, if particles of niter are placed on the tongue when they are at rest, they will lie upon it on their largest surfaces and in this way they block the pores of the tongue, which causes cold. Add to this the fact that the saliva cannot dissolve niter niter such small particles as fire does. But if these particles be placed upon the tongue when they are in excited motion they will touch it with their sharply pointed surfaces and will penetrate into its pores; and the more vigorous their motion, the more sharply will they pick the tongue. In the same way a needle will cause different sensations when it touches the toungue with its point and when it lies flat upon it Oldenburg H. I 450 450 C. Gebhardt, iv, 19–20).
- Oldenburg , H. I 450 – 450 .
- As the Halls have noticed, Spinoza does not seem to admit the fact of chemical, combination, but thinks of corpuscles as being simple grains of sand or dust, mere heaps …’ Oldenburg H. I 468 468
- Oldenburg , H. II 37 – 38 . 91
- Oldenburg , H. II 102 – 102 .
- According to J. F. Fulton, a preliminary tract by Boyle entitled The History of Colours Begun appeared in 1663. No copy of this tract has so far been found. As it was mentioned in several seventeenth-century booksellers catalogues, Fulton did not question its existence, and gave it n. 56 in the bibliography of Boyle's works Fulton J.F. A Bibliography of the Honourable Robert Boyle , second edition Oxford 1961 43 43
- 1664 . Experiments and Considerations touching Colours 4 – 4 . London (hereafter History of Colours); Works, i, 669.
- Hall M. Boas Introduction Experiments and Considerations touching Colours New York and London1964 xvi xvii to the facsimile edition of Boyle's Boyle's views of the nature of colours is clearly expressed in the end of the third chapter: ‘By what has hitherto been discours'd, Pyrophylus, we may be assisted to judge of that famous Controversie which was of Old disputed betwixt the Epicureans and other Atomists on the one side, and most other Philosophers on the other side. The former Denying Bodies to be Colour'd in the Dark, and the latter making Colour to be an Inherent quality, as well as Figure, Hardness; Weight, or the like. For though this Controversie be Reviv'd, and hotly Agitated among the Moderns, yet I doubt whether it be not in great part a Nominal dispute, and therefore let us, according to the Doctrine formerly deliver'd, distinguish the Acceptions of the word Colour, and say, that if it be taken in the Stricter Sense, the Epicureans seem to be in the Right, for if Colour be indeed, though not according to them, but Light Modify'd, how can we conceive that it can Subsist in the Dark, that is, where it must be suppos'd there is no Light; but on the other side, if Colour be consider'd as a certain Constant Disposition of the Superficial parts of the Object to truble the Light they Reflect after such and such a Determinate manner, this Constant, and, if I may so speak, Modifying disposition persevering in the Object, whether it be Shin'd upon or no, there seems no just Reason to deny, but that in this Sense, Bodies retain their Colour as well in the Night as Day; or, to Speak a little otherwise, it may be said, that Bodies are Potentially Colour'd in the Dark, and Actually in the Light’ (History of Colours, pp. 74–5; Works, i, 690). An analogous definition of colours occurs in Charleton (footnote 51), p. 186. See H. Guerlac, ‘Can there be Colors in the Dark? Physical Color Theory before Newton’, Journal of History of Ideas, 47 (1986), 3–20.
- Hall , M. Boas . 1964 . ‘Introduction’ to the facsimile edition of Boyle's Experiments and Considerations touching Colours 302 – 302 . New York and London Works, i, 761.
- Hall , M. Boas . 1964 . ‘Introduction’ to the facsimile edition of Boyle's Experiments and Considerations touching Colours 306 – 306 . New York and London Works, i, 762.
- Hall , M. Boas . 1964 . ‘Introduction’ to the facsimile edition of Boyle's Experiments and Considerations touching Colours 307 – 308 . New York and London Works, i, 763.
- It is worth noting that when Boyle discussed the transmutation of gold, he suggested that the colour, as well as other distinctive properties of gold, might be produced by some noble corpuscles which act as though they were its tincture: ‘…however the Chymists are wont to talke irrationally enough of what they call Tincutra Auri and Anima Auri; yet, in a sober sense, some such thing may be admitted: I say, some such thing, because as on the one hand, I would not countenance their wild Fancies about these matters, some of them being as unintelligible as the Peripateticks Substantial Forms; so, on the other hand, I would not readily deny, but that there may be some more noble and subtle Corpuscles, that being duely conjoin'd with the rest of the Matter whereof Gold consists, may qualify that Matter to look Yellow, to resist Aqua Fortis, and to exhibit those other peculiar phaenomena that discriminate Gold from Silver; and yet these Noble parts may either have their texture destroy'd by a very piercing Menstruum or by a greater congruity with its Corpuscles than 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’ The Origine of Formes and Qualities 358 359 Works, iii, 95–6.
- The Origine of Formes and Qualities , 322 – 322 . Works, iii, 87.
- Experiments and Notes about the Mechanical Origine and Production of Volatility . Mechanical Origine , 4 – 5 . Works, iv, 293–4. Cf. M. Boas Hall, Robert Boyle, p. 101.
- The Usefulnesse , 67 – 67 . Works, ii, p. 37.
- The Origine of Formes and Qualities , 72 – 72 . Works, iii, p. 30. The emphasis is ours. Boyle's passage is almost a translation of Gassendi's Syntagma Philosophicum: ‘… corpuscula quaedam composita subtilissima, moleculasve tenuissimas, ac infra sensus consistenteis, quae sint quasi semina rerum…’ (P. Gassendi, Opera Omnia, i, pp. 472a). See also Philosophiae Epicuri Syntagma, appendix to Animadversiones in Decinum Librum Diogenis Laertii … (Lugduni, 1649), ibid., iii, 18b. Gassendi called the first concretions of atoms both semina rerum and moleculae and conceived them as the proximate principles of the simple sensible substances, like fire, water, salt, sulphur and mercury. (P. Gassendi, Opera Omnia, i, 472a.) Gassendi's notion of molecula has been discussed in O. R. Bloch, La Philosophie de Gassendi. Nominalisme, Matérialisme et Métaphysique (The Hague, 1971), pp. 252–9. On the concept of molecules in the early seventeenth century, see H. H. Kubbinga, ‘Le premières théories “moléculaires”: Isaac Beekman (1620) et Sébastien Basson (1621)’, Revue d'Histoire des Sciences, 39 (1984), 215–33.
- Charleton , W. Physiologia , 109 – 109 .
- Marie Boas Hall has undervalued Boyle's classification of corpuscles: ‘As all this indicates, Boyle had a fairly clear concept of something approaching a chemical molecule; what he conspicuously lacked was any understanding of a modern atom. That is, he went from this prima naturalia, which had physical characteristics, but no apparent chemical ones, to the chemical corpuscles …. Throughout his works Boyle scatters tantalizing hints of this theory of corpuscles, but seldom is he explicit, and never did he develop a coherent theory’ Hall M. Boas Robert Boyle 100 101 The lack of a comprehensive theory of matter based on the classification of corpuscles can not be interpreted as a sign of scant interest on Boyle's part in such a classification. Boyle's philosophy of nature was unsystematic. Hence it is not surprising that his main concern was to use this classification to interpret chemical experiments.
- RSBP, xxii, fol. 120r, published in Hall M. Boas ‘Boyle's Method of Work: Promoting his Corpuscular Philosophy Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London 1987 41 111 143 (p. 139). According to Marie Boas Hall, these notes have been written before the composition of The Origine of Formes and Qualities.
- RSBP Vol. IV , 41r – 41r . Quoted in Moas Hall, Robert Boyle, p. 100.
- RSBP Vol. XVII , 154v – 154v .
- Kuhn , T. 1952 . Robert Boyle and Structural Chemistry . Isis , 43 : 26 – 26 .
- The Sceptical Chymist , 348 – 348 . Works, i, 562.
- A Chymical Paradox New Experiments and Observations, Made upon the Icy Nocticula London1682 129 129 in Works, iv, 500.
- A Chymical Paradox New Experiments and Observations, Made upon the Icy Nocticula London1682 150 150 in Works, iv, 505.
- A Chymical Paradox , 118 – 118 . Works, iv, 498.
- In the second edition (1669) of the Certain Physiology Essays (section xxvi of the ‘History of Fluidity’), p. 203; Works, i, 399), Boyle stated: ‘And though this be far from being the true Mercury of Lead, as I may elsewhere shew you; yet some Inducements, not here to be named, inclined me to look upon it, as somewhat differing from common Mercury, and fitter than it for certain Chymical uses’. (This passage does not occur in the first edition.) As Betty Dobbs has shown, this experiment of Boyle's seems to have inspired Newton's investigations on the ‘mercuries’ of metals Dobbs B.J.T. The Foundations of Newton's Alchemy, or ‘The Hunting of the Green Lyon’ Cambridge 1975 139 139 n. 23
- Producibleness of Chemical Principles , 144 – 144 . Works, i, p. 640.
- ‘… and though Magistery be a terme variously enough employ'd by Chymists, and particularly used by Paracelsus to signify very different things; yet the best notion I know of it, and that, which I find authoriz'd even by Paracelsus in some Passages, where he expresses himselfe more distinctly, is, that it is a Preparation, whereby there is no an Analysis made of the Body assign'd, nor an extraction of this or that Principle, but the whole, or very near the whole Body, by the help of some additament greater or less, is turn'd into a Body of another kind’ Producibleness of Chemical Principles 172 172 Works, i, 637.
- Producibleness of Chemical Principles , 192 – 193 . Works, i, p. 642.
- RSBP Vol. XVII , 154v – 154v .
- ‘We must now re-examine the ontology and metaphysics of figures like Boyle to decide the degree to which their Gassendian atomism also carried over the Paracelsian notion of semina rerum’ Webster C. From Paracelsus to Newton: Magic and the Making of Modern Science Cambridge 1982 69 69
- Severinus , Petrus . 1571 . Idea medicinae philosophicae. Fundamenta continens totius doctrinae Paracelsicae Hippocraticae & Galenicae Basle E. de Clave, Paradoxes ou Traittez philosophiques des pierres et pierreries contre l'opinion vulgaire … (Paris, 1635); J. B. van Helmont, Ortus Medicinae (Amsterdam, 1648).
- The Usefulnesse , 67 – 67 . 87; Works, ii, 37, 48. boyle is unlikely to have believed that particles of the first order were endowed with an internal motive faculty. Yet, he evidently admitted that some corpuscles held a special faculty or power to fashion other parts of matter, these being corpuscles of the second order, and, in a more general sense, compound corpuscles. Accordingly, it would seem that when Boyle referred to active principles, he actually meant active corpuscles, not active matter, as John Henry has claimed.
- See Reflections 167 167
- The Usefulnesse , 79 – 79 . Works, ii, 44.
- Duchesne J. Ad Jacobi Auberti Vindonis de ortu et causis metallorum contra chymicos explicationem … Lyon1575 (Quercetanus) M. Sendivogius, Novum Lumen Chymicum (Paris, 1608). (Although P. Borellus, Bilbiotheca Chimica (Heidelberg, 1656) gives ‘Prague, 1604 and Frankfurt 1604’ as the first editions, the earliest known edition is the 1608 one); A. B. de Boodt, Gemmarum et Lapidum Historia (Hanau, 1609); E. Jorden, A Discourse of naturall Bathes and minerall Waters (London, 1631). J. Gerhardus, Decas Quaestionum physico-chemicarum … De Metallis … (Tübingen, 1641). One of the most important sources of the seventeenth century theories of the generation of minerals and stones was De Clave's Paradoxes ou Traittez philosophiques. This work was quoted by Boyle in New Experiments and Observations touching Cold, or an Experimental History of Cold (London, 1665), p. 421; Works, ii, 587. Hartlib referred to Boyle's possession of a copy of De Clave's work in 1649 ‘Ephemerides’ (Sheffield University Library, The Hartlib Papers 28/1/32a). De Clave's theories were also adopted by P. Gassendi (see O. R. Bloch (footnote 89), pp. 260–1).
- The Sceptical Chymist A7r A7r sig. Works, i, 463.
- RSBP Vol. XXVII , fol. 301 – fol. 301 . Evidently, as this passage shows, Boyle believed in a kind of alchemy, which, although a natural one, i.e. not based on the action of spirits, was nevertheless not a mechanical process. Further investigations on Boyle's alchemical views can possibly throw some light on his various approaches to alchemy.
- RSBP Vol. XXVII , fol. 309 – fol. 309 .
- Certain Physiological Essays , 275 – 275 . Works, i, 434.
- RSBP Vol. XXIV , fols. 1 – 17 . These manuscript notes may have been written before 1661, as they are mentioned in ‘The History of Firmnesse’ (Certain Physiological Essays, p. 282; Works, i, 437).
- ‘To prove, that Metalline Bodies were not all made at the beginning of the World, but have some of them a Power, though slowly, to propagate their Nature, when they meet with a disposed Matter; you may finde many notable Testimonies and Relations in a little Book of Physico-chymical Questions, Written by Jo. Conradus Gerhardus, a German Doctor…’ The Usefulnesse 79 80 Works, ii, 44.
- RSBP Vol. XXIV , 1 – 2 . 6
- Certain Physiological Essays , 173 – 173 . Works, i, 373.
- Oldenburg , H. I 293 – 293 .
- The Usefulnesse , 78 – 78 . Works, ii, 43.
- Epicurus employed the term σπϵρμα as equivalent to atom in Epistula ad Herodotum, ¶38, 74. For Epicurus's notion of'áτoμoσ-σπϵρμα, see Alberti A. Sensazione e Realtà: Epicuro e Gassendi Florence 1988 61 73 The same identification of atoms with semina rerum or primordia rerum occurs in several parts of Lucretius's De Rerum Natura, see especially i, vv. 58–61; 159–214, 501–2; 894–96. A different view was held by Gassendi, who maintained that semina are not the same as atoms, but the outcome of aggregation of atoms, see P. Gassendi, Opera Omnia, i, 280b. On Gassendi's notion of semina, see O. R. Bloch (footnote 89), pp. 252–3; 258–9; 264–9; 445–6.
- RSBP Vol. II , fol. 141v – fol. 141v .
- Lucretius had in fact made spontaneous generation the paradigm of any kind of generation: ‘Nunc ea quae sentire videmus cumque necesset/ex insensilibus tamen omnia confiteare/principiis constare. neque id manifesta refutant/nec contra pugnant, in promptu cognita quae sunt,/sed magis ipsa manu ducunt et credere cogunt/ex insensilibus, quod dico, animalia gigni./quippe videre licet vivos exsistere vermis/stercore de taetro, putorem cum sibi nacta est/intempestivis ex imbribus umida tellus;/praeterea cunctas itidem res vertere sese’ De Rerum Natura II 865 874
- For seventeenth-century theories of spontaneous generation, see Roger J. Les Sciences de la vie dans le pensée française du XVIIIe siècle , second edition Paris 1971 108 109 135; 138–140; 145–6. See also W. Pagel, William Harvey's Biological Ideas (Basle and New York, 1967), pp. 233; 273–4; 329.
- ‘But thˆo there were cases in wch the living Creatures that seem to spring of themselves could not be well deriv'd either from the proper thˆo latent seeds of Genitors of the same kind or from those analogicall seeds that in this Discourse we have called Seminall Principles; yet there will be noe necessity of ascribeing these Productions with Epicurus to blind chance. Since besides the proper and analogicall seeds of Plants and Animals there may be certain things wch for want of a fitter name we may call Vicarious seeds, because they may supply the want and may performe the part of seminall Principles more properly soe call'd. (RSBP, II, fol. 141r. By analogous arguments Boyle accounted for the phenomenon—related by Kircher Athanasius Magnes, sive De Arte Magnetica Opus Tripartitum Rome 1641 III 5 5 p. 723–of the apparent rebirth of shell fishes by watering on their broken bodies salt-water: ‘it seems much more improbable, that such changes and vicissitudes should be bare Redintegrations of the dissociated parts of such restored bodies; than that … they should be New Productions made by some seminal particles undiscernedly lurking in some part of the destroyed body, and afterwards excited and assisted by a Genial and cherishing heat so to act upon the fit and obsequious matter, wherein it was harbour'd, as to organize and fashion that disposed matter according to the exigencies of its own Nature’ (Certain Physiological Essays, p. 153; Works, I, 373).
- Sennert , D. 1636 . Hypomnemata Physica 359 – 359 . Frankfurt
- Sennert , D. 1636 . Hypomnemata Physica 382 – 382 . Frankfurt
- Sennert , D. 1636 . Hypomnemata Physica 420 – 420 . Frankfurt
- Gassendi , P. Opera Omnia , II 260b – 260b .
- Gassendi , P. Opera Omnia , II 262 – 263 .
- Highmore , N. The History of Generation 86 – 89 .
- Highmore , N. The History of Generation 58 – 58 .
- RSBP Vol. II , 142r – 142v .
- Kuhn , T. 1952 . Robert Boyle and Structural Chemistry . Isis , 43 : 19 – 19 .
- 1681 . The Producibleness of Chymical Principles, published as appendix of The Sceptical Chymist , second edition 9 – 10 . London Works, I, 596.
- History of Colours , 313 – 315 . Works, I, 765.
Annals of Science
Volume 47, 1990 - Issue 6
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