Robert Boyle Essay -- essays research papers

Robert Boyle (1627-1691) Robert Boyle was born at Lismore Castle, Munster on 25 January 1627, the fourteenth child and seventh son of Richard Boyle, 1st Earl of Cork. Robert Boyle was educated mainly by tutors and himself. He had no formal university education but read widely and made contact with many of the most important natural philosophers of his day, both at home and abroad. He had independent means which enabled him to have his own laboratory and to support religious charities. He was active in the ‘Invisible College’, an informal body devoted to the ‘new philosophy’ which in 1663 became the Royal Society, of which he was a Council member. He moved to Oxford in 1654, where he set up a laboratory with Robert Hooke as his assistant There he did most of his experimental work until 1668 when he went to live in London with his sister Lady Ranelagh. He was made an honorary Doctor of Medicine of Oxford in 1688. In his autobiographical account (Works, vol. 1, pp. xxi–xxvi) he reflects on his noble birth that ‘being born heir to a great family is but a glittering kind of slavery’ and ‘is ever an impediment to the knowledge of many retired truths, that cannot be attained without familiarity with meaner persons’. He indeed developed a keen interest in the work of artisans because they tend to know more than anyone else about the materials of their trades. He makes a general remark about religious beliefs that ‘though we cannot always give a reason for what we believe, we should ever be able to give a reason why we believe it’, which is surely a precept that guided his attitude to natural philosophy as well. Boyle was a prolific writer and experimenter on most scientific subjects that were attracting interest at the time. He investigated some alchemical claims about which he was largely skeptical in his published works. He was a devoutly religious man but wrote mainly about practical and ethical religious matters rather than engaging in theological controversy. He argued for the tolerance of different religious beliefs, and spent a good deal of money on propagating the gospel in New England and the Orient, sponsoring translations of the Bible into foreign languages. He published many experimental reports and did original work on chemical indicators, human blood, color, fire, medicine, and hydrostatics. With Hooke he developed Guericke’s air pump, which he need... ...paratus. He never claimed to have got very far in providing firm empirical evidence for complex corpuscular explanations but he remained optimistic. It has recently been argued, partly on the basis of Boyle’s unpublished notes, that his interest in alchemy has been greatly underestimated by earlier scholars. It is well known that he attempted to confirm many of the alchemists’ experimental claims but he is also said to have believed in the existence of the Philosopher’s Stone and to have accepted some alchemical explanations. It has even been suggested, rather obscurely, that he saw alchemy as connecting the material world with the spiritual world. (Principe, 1994). In his published work he clearly accepts the possibility of the transmutation of metals but that is because a corpuscular explanation would be readily available. He respects the alchemists’ experimental work because he strongly approves of the experimental investigation of the natural world and he thinks that the ‘nobler’ of the alchemists have made important empirical discoveries. His published comments on their theories, their search for the Philosopher’s Stone, and their penchant for secrecy are usually critical.