תמונות בעמוד
PDF
ePub

in all parts of it, as Boyle ;" and Dr. Craik informs us that "Science indeed was as much his occupation as if it had been literally his business or profession. No temptations could seduce him from his philosophical pursuits. Belonging as he did to one of the most powerful families of the kingdom, having four brothers in the Irish peerage and one in the English-the highest honours of the state were open to his ambition if he would have accepted them. But so pure was his love of science and learning, and, with all his acquirements, so great his modesty, that he steadily declined even those worldly distinctions which might be said to be strictly within the sphere of his pursuits," and he was the only one of the fifteen children of the "great earl of Cork "who did not bear a title as he steadily refused to accept a peerage, though it was urged on his acceptance. His special interest in the advancement of experimental science and in the promotion of those researches into the constitution of nature whose results had awakened the ardour of reflective men, though it was doubtlessly initiated in Italy under the influence which the paradoxes of Galileo and the investigations of Torricelli exerted on a mind imbued with the spirit of the Baconian restauration, dates most definitely from 1646, in which he was brought into contact with many of those vigorous intelligences who commenced about that time, what Boyle calls "our new philosophical or invisible college," and which afterwards became a visible and effective corporation of the new cultivators of special branches of science or learning, as The Royal Society (of London) for the promotion of mathematical and physical science-a society not of teachers but of investigators, not a school where some might teach and others be taught, but rather a sort of laboratory where all persons might operate independently of one another," free from the prejudices of sects, and the bias of partiality.

66

The weekly meetings for the consideration of questions in natural philosophy, in which the Royal Society originated, were begun, at the suggestion of Mr. Theodor Haak, a German, as a club expressly instituted for the purpose of communicating to each other the results of their researches in chemistry, medicine, geometry, astronomy, mechanics, magnetism, navigation, and such other departments of investigation as lay open to analysis and experiment, so that thoughts might be exchanged, facts registered, experiments recorded and criticised, the bearings of these on practical life considered, and encouragement given to the survey of the laws and facts of nature, free from the embarrassments of the old logic, and the subtleties which hindered the progress of sciences, in such a way as to make them helpful in the improvement of the material existence of man and the whole state of modern civilization. Mr. Boyle became connected with the society early, and though he found it requisite to reside at Stalbridge, he did not slacken his interest in analysis, experiment and registration of facts and results, but devoted much of his time in his retirement to the observation of nature, and the invention of means for testing the qualities of things; all of

these observations he made accurate notes, and of the results of his experiments he kept a careful account.

Varying his seclusion with a run to London to unfold the budget of his investigations to the members of the invisible college; or to Oxford, for a similar purpose, after the chief and leading spirits of that club had removed to that centre of studious_learning;-to Paris, where the discoveries of Gassendi, Robeval, Descartes, &c., were published and discussed;-or to Holland, where Van Huyghens, Snellius, and Grotius, were making researches into natural philosophy, mathematics, jurisprudence, and cognate branches of study; he kept himself in constant communication with the most active and original intelligences of the age, and held his place among them as an equal. In 1652 he visited his Irish estates, and remained there nearly a year, during which time, as "chemical spirits were so ill understood there and chemical instruments so unprocurable" in that rebellion-disturbed land, he was induced to occupy his mind with anatomy, in which, under Dr. [Sir] William Petty, he made competent progress in a knowledge of the human frame, and satisfied himself as to the correctness of those new and striking views concerning the circulation of the blood, with which the name of William Harvey is indissolubly associated, and of the variety and contrivance of nature and the majesty and wisdom of her Author," which the human body displays better than all the books that could be written upon it.

[ocr errors]

Shortly after his return from Ireland, Mr. Boyle took up his residence at Oxford as the headquarters of his philosophical friends, and while there his lodgings formed the scene of the meetings of those earnest men who took an interest in the promotion of inductive science, and who formed then the embodied Baconians, to whose efforts we owe the origination of the experimental sciences, the vitalization of what the "great chancellor" had left comparatively a speculative science. Early impressed as Mr. Boyle had been by the discoveries of the Florentine thinkers, he was anxious not only to follow out but to confirm their views, and for this purpose he exhibited a variety of experiments in public, indicating great fertility of inventiveness, which not only excited much attention, but which kindled in the hearts of others a zeal which tended considerably to the progress of many sciences. Here he particularly devoted his investigations to the elucidation of the mysteries of pneumatic chemistry, which first brought him into general notice, and are reckoned among his chief contributions to natural science; and here, in 1660, he published bis "New Experiments, Physio-Mechanical touching the Spring of the Air and its Effects." In a second edition of this work, in 1662, Boyle answered the objections raised to his theory by Linus and Hobbes. A third edition of the same book was issued in 1682. It is written in the form of letters to his nephew, Viscount Dungarvon, and details the course of his reading, reflections, experiments, discoveries, and inventions, regarding the mechanical, chemical, and other properties of the atmosphere. It supplies special

[merged small][ocr errors]

record of his re-invention of the air-pump, suggested to him by an account of the instrument contrived by Otto Guericke, which he found in the "Physica Curiosa" of Gaspar Schottus. This instru ment he subsequently greatly improved, and by the help of Robert Hooke, whose worth Boyle had the sagacity to see, and whom he em ployed as his assistant, he performed with it a variety of new experi ments illustrative of the properties of air. It may be here recorded too that, greatly through the influence of Boyle, Hooke was ap pointed Curator of Experiments to the Royal Society, Professor of Geometry in Gresham College, Surveyor for the City of London, &c., and that he fully proved Boyle's prescience by turning out one of the most inventive of English experimentalists.

It would be quite impossible in our narrow space to epitomize and criticize all the works of the Honourable Robert Boyleamounting in all to upwards of eighty distinct publications-which, in his own day, not only imparted knowledge and excited admiration, but which impressed upon the face of science that solemnity which in dicates "the veneration man's intellect owes to God," the mighty "Opificer," who is "wonderful in counsel and excellent in working." It may be enough to mention some of the chief of those additions which he made to the literature of science and theology during his residence at Oxford, 1654-1668, and to note a few of the main treatises issued thereafter by him in the furtherance of the philosophy which seeks the glory of God and the relief of man's estate."

66

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

Prior to 1660 he had issued remarks on 'Mistaken Modesty," and a "Free Discourse against customary Swearing;" and in that year he published an essay he had completed twelve years before On Seraphic Love." In 1661 "Certain Physiological and other Essays" were printed and republished with additions in 1669. In 1662 his "Sceptical Chemist appeared, and headed a movement against Van Helmont's school of Paracelsian philosophy. To 1663 belong his "Considerations" on (1) "the Style of the Holy Scrip tures," (2) "the Usefulness of Experimental Natural Philosophy," and (3) On Colours," the latter a work which led Newton to make those experiments which resulted in his decisive discoveries regarding the composition of light, to the pleasure resulting from which Mark Akenside thus alludes-

"Nor ever yet

The melting rainbow's vermeil-tinctured hues
To me have shone so pleasing, as when first
The hand of Science pointed out the path,
In which the sunbeams gleaming from the West,
Fall on the watery cloud, whose darksome veil
Involves the orient."

In the "Transactions of the Royal Society," which had been incorporated by charter granted by Charles II., in 1662, Mr. Boyle entered notices of many important experiments in the phenomena

of heat and cold, and in 1665 he published "New Experiments and Observations on Cold,” and “Occasional Reflections upon several Subjects,"-works which show him to us in the modest guise of a collector of continuously sifted materials for the interpretation of subsequent thinkers, and as carefully abstinent from the advocacy of premature theories upon the facts presented to him in his investigations; forbearing, scrupulous, and moderate, hating deception, disliking error; firm in resisting hasty conclusions, and of great moral integrity, alike in his self-restraint and in his conscientious accuracy. In 1666 he published his "Hydrostatical Paradoxes," &c.-which was reissued in Latin in 1669. This is a work in which the author illustrates and confirms the true principles of inductive science, by many curious experiments of great originality in their own day, though quite commonplace in ours; and what was of far more importance then, he proved the error and absurdity of the opinions of the schoolmen on substance. Error prevented in the early days of science is nearly as valuable as truth discovered. It at least diminishes human uncertainty, by showing where proof of a theory, though sought for, was not to be found. In this year, too, there appeared "A Brief Account of Mr. Valentine Greatrakes and divers of the strange cures by him performed; written by himself, in a Letter addressed to the Hon. Robert Boyle, Esq.; whereunto are annexed the testimonials of several eminent and worthy persons of the chief matters of fact there related, London, 1660." The author of this letter, an Irish gentleman, belonging to the County of Waterford, had begun, about four years previously, to fancy that God had endowed him with the power of curing the king's evil, agues, and other diseases, by touch, and attracted much attention by the seemingly marvellous recoveries he had effected. In January, 1666, at the request of the Earl of Orrery (Lord Broghill), author of "Parthenissa," &c., Greatrakes had come over to England to attempt the cure of Lady Conway at Rugby, Warwickshire. In this he failed, although he performed many other remarkable cures upon those who, hearing of his mission, came to him for help. Greatrakes seems to have been fully persuaded in his own mind as to the reality of his power, and to have been of unimpeachable integrity. His singular pretentions became the theme of daily discussion among philosophers and physicians, and even attracted the attention of the Royal Society. Mr. Boyle was elected referee by both parties, and hence the publication of the letter above-mentioned. His judgment is given in a letter replying to one written by Dr. Henry Stubbe, a clever, rash, and voluble practitioner of medicine at Stratford-on-Avon, who was incessant in his attacks on the Royal Society. "In this letter he takes the philosophic ground of neither admitting nor denying without adequate proof. He neither rejects the facts as miraculous or as irreconcilable with natural facts, but taking the precise and mode. rate ground of admitting the possibility of the gift or the physical quality, he objects to the insufficiency of the proof in favour of

either. Upon the power of the patient's imagination, or of the mechanical effect of the operation, he dwells sufficiently, yet, from his unwillingness to involve theories, less than might now be expected. This letter, written in a morning, obtained general notice and approbation. It is remarkable for the wide compass of its learning, as well as for the cautious and sagacious spirit which it breathes, and it may be regarded as an excellent comment, on the golden maxim, against rejecting as untrue what we cannot understand." After this investigation the practice of Greatrakes fell off, and he passed out of the sight of the philosophical world. He died in 1699.

In 1667, the Royal Society was made the object of a smart attack by the partizans of the Aristotelian physics. This was "in reality the era of a great revolution in the intellectual world; the conflict between the darkness of the scholastic age and the light of the Newtonian day then dawning upon the world;" and the new school and its supporters were assailed with the charge of impiety. The impulse given to progress by the free inquiries of the experimentalists alarmed pedants, and a controversy, almost as bitter as those of the dark ages, was raised against the investigation of Nature in the mere light of human reason. Henry Stubbe and the Rev. Robert Crosse were the most violent of these assailants; but the satirical shafts of Samuel Butler, author of " Hudibras," who thought the researches of the Society whimsical and absurd, were also discharged at them in his poem, "The Elephant in the Moon;" and, with special aim at Boyle, in the paper in his "Remains," entitled "Occasional Reflection on Dr. Charlton's feeling a dog's pulse at Gresham College;" a piece of ironical writing which Dean Swift imitated in his "Meditations on a Broomstick," many years afterwards; and even Hobbes sneered at "the gentlemen at Gresham College." In this controversy Boyle took an active share in defend ing the lawfulness of philosophical investigations into the truth of God's works as well as God's word; and one of the leading controversialists acknowledges "that in his writings are to be found the greatest strength and the sweetest modesty, the noblest discoveries and the most generous self-denial, the profoundest insight into philosophy and nature, and the most devout and affectionate sense of God and religion."

In 1668 Boyle left Oxford and settled in London, taking up his residence with his sister, Lady Ranelagh, in Pall Mall, and pursuing his studies with unflagging energy, though his health, which had always been delicate, was rapidly failing. In 1671 a severe shock of paralysis caused him much suffering, though by great caution and temperance, with sisterly nursing, he recovered and renewed his labours in science and letters, publishing from time to time the results of his inquiries. In addition to the numerous productions mentioned already, we may note, as showing the fertility and facility of his pen, "The Christian Virtuoso "-showing that "by being addicted to experimental philosophy, a man is rather

« הקודםהמשך »