How Boyle Became a Scientist

The words ‘scientist’ and ‘science’ are used in my title and throughout this paper as a shorthand to avoid repeated recourse to cumbersome phrases such as ‘experimental natural philosopher’ and ‘experimental natural philosophy’: In my view, almost any word used by a twentieth-century commentator to describe a seventeenth-century state of affairs requires a mental act of translation, but if readers are particularly worried by potentially anachronistic overtones in these words, they should mentally substitute ‘experimental natural philosopher’ and ‘experimental natural philosophy’ thoughout.

Birch Thomas (ed.), The works of the honourable Robert Boyle … to which is prefixed the life of the author (2nd edn, 6 vols, London, 1772), i, pp. v–cl. Hall Marie Boas , Robert Boyle and seventeenth-century chemistry (Cambridge, 1958), ch. 1. Maddison's researches are usefully (though not comprehensively) collected in his The life of the honourable Robert Boyle (London, 1969). For a complete list of his earlier writings, and of other publications on Boyle since 1940, see the bibliography in Hunter Michael (ed.), Robert Boyle reconsidered (Cambridge, 1994), 215–26.

See esp. Webster Charles , The great instauration: Science, medicine and reform 1626–60 (London, 1975) and Jacob J. R. , Robert Boyle and the English revolution (New York, 1977). See also O'Brien J. J. , “Samuel Hartlib's influence on Robert Boyle's scientific development”, Annals of science, xxi (1965), 1–14, 257–76; Wilkinson R. S. , “The Hartlib papers and seventeenth-century chemistry”, Ambix, xv (1968), 54–69; and Barnard T. C. , Cromwellian Ireland, 1649–60 (Oxford, 1975), ch. 8. For a critique of the claims for the primacy of Hartlib's influence on Boyle made by such writers, see Canny Nicholas , The upstart earl: A study of the social and mental world of Richard Boyle, first Earl of Cork, 1566–1643 (Cambridge, 1982), esp. ch. 7, though, on Canny's claims about the impact on Boyle of his Irish background, see Hunter Michael , Robert Boyle by himself and his friends (London, 1994), p. lxxvi. A further study of this period is Teague B. C. , “The origins of Robert Boyle's philosophy”, unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Cambridge, 1971.

Jacob , Boyle (ref. 3), ch. 2. See also Jacob J. R. , “The ideological origins of Robert Boyle's natural philosophy”, Journal of European studies, ii (1972), 1–21.

Harwood John (ed.), The early essays and ethics of Robert Boyle (Carbondale and Edwardsville, 1991).

See Harwood , Essays (ref. 5), esp. pp. xxiii f. For further criticism of Jacob's views, see Oster Malcolm , “Virtue, providence and political neutralism: Boyle and Interregnum politics”, in Hunter (ed.), op. cit. (ref. 2), 19–36.

Oster Malcolm , ‘“The Beame of Divinity’: Animal suffering in the early thought of Robert Boyle”, The British journal for the history of science , xxii (1989), 151–79; idem, “Biography, culture and science: The formative years of Robert Boyle”, History of science, xxxi (1993), 177–226.

Principe Lawrence M. , “Style and thought of the early Boyle: Discovery of the 1648 manuscript of Seraphic love”, Isis , lxxxv (1994), 247–60, esp. pp. 250–2.

Principe , op. cit. (ref. 8), 255–8; see below, ref. 26.

Works (ref. 2), v, 255–311; Hunter Michael , “A new Boyle find”, BSHS newsletter, xlv (Oct. 1994), 20–21.

Works (ref. 2), ii, 323–461; vi, 1–32: For a manuscript of this work dated 1647 seen by Birch, see ibid., i, p. xliv. On Book 1 of Boyle's Usefulness of natural philosophy, ibid., ii, 1–63, see below.

See Hunter Michael , Letters and papers of Robert Boyle: A guide to the manuscripts and microfilm (Bethesda, Md., 1992). The Boyle Letters and Papers will hereafter be referred to as “BL” and “BP”.

Dated items are as follows:.

i. The manuscript of Aretology states on its title-page that it was begun in 1645 ( Harwood , Essays (ref. 5), 1); references in Boyle's correspondence show that he was still working on it in 1646 (Works (ref. 2), i, pp. xxx, xxxiv).

ii. Certain of the “Scripture Observations” and “Occasionall Meditations” in BP 14, fols 7–13, are dated 7–28 March and 3–26 May 1647.

iii. The following items in BP 37 are dated:.

“To my Mistris”, 2 May 1645 (fols 164–5).

“The Duty of a Mother's being a Nurse, asserted”, 15 Aug. 1647 (fols 196–202).

“For Fidelia”, 2 Dec. 1647 (fols 144–9).

“Against Painting”, 12 Feb. 1647/8 (fols 204–8).

iv. In addition, two related items in the Boyle Letters are dated:.

BL 1, 109–10, probably to Mrs Dury, 15 April 1647.

BL 1, 137–8, to “Prince of the Round Table”, 18 April 1647.

For the dating of Seraphic love, see Principe , “Early Boyle” (ref. 8), 252. On Boyle's “Invitation to free Communication”, see below, ref. 19. On his “Account of Philaretus”, see Maddison , Life (ref. 2), 1, and Hunter , op. cit. (ref. 3), pp. lxxx–lxxxi. See also ref. 11.

No other items are dated. On grounds of similarities of handwriting, literary technique and subject-matter, it seems likely that all the texts published by Harwood and Oster date from c. 1645 to c. 1649; the same is true of other items, of which a number are discussed in Hunter , op. cit. (ref. 3), pp. xv–xxi. A process of evolution is there postulated on the basis of developments that can be observed within extant MSS; in addition, the handwriting of a few items seems particularly crude, which may suggest that they are early: E.g., “Of Desseins & Undertakings”, BP 37, fol. 168, and “A Mere fine Gentleman”, ibid., fol. 169 (and the fragment in ibid., fol. 185). However, I am hesitant to go further than this in adjudging relative dates within this material, and am unhappy about piecemeal claims that the handwriting of some is “maturer” than others ( Oster , “Biography” (ref. 7), 197).

Shapin Steven , “Personal development and intellectual biography: The case of Robert Boyle”, The British journal for the history of science, xxvi (1993), 335–45.

Harwood , Essays (ref. 5), passim. See also BP 7, fols 128–33; 14, fols 1–14.

BP 3, fols 91–92.

Maddison , Life (ref. 2), 2–45; Hunter , op. cit. (ref. 3), 1–22.

See Hunter , op. cit. (ref. 3), pp. xv–xxi, on which the claims made in this paragraph are based. See also Principe Lawrence , “Virtuous romance and romantic virtuoso: The shaping of Robert Boyle's literary style”, forthcoming.

See Rowbottom M. E. , “The earliest published writing of Robert Boyle”, Annals of science, vi (1950), 376–89, and Maddison R. E. W. , “The earliest published writing of Robert Boyle”, ibid., xvii (1961), 165–73, which includes both the text of a letter dated 23 July 1649, almost certainly to Hartlib, intended to accompany the “Invitation” and a synopsis (BP 36, fol. 62) of the longer work. Boyle refers to his progress on this work in a letter to Lady Ranelagh of 2 August 1649 (Works (ref. 2), i, p. xlv); he had earlier referred to “an epistle I have drawn up” urging the communication of recipes in a letter to Hartlib of 8 May 1647 (ibid., i, p. xli; see also his comments about a “little dialogue” which he was planning in a letter to Hartlib of 8 April 1647, ibid., i, p. xxxviii, also referred to in the letter from Hall to Hartlib referred to in ref. 31). There is also a reference to the fact that Boyle was “writing a Treatise of Publick Spiritednes” in Hartlib's Ephemerides s.v. 1648 (31/22/8B). I am grateful to the Hartlib Papers Project and the University Library, University of Sheffield, for their help in providing me with copies of extracts from the Ephemerides and other relevant items.

See Hunter , op. cit. (ref. 3), pp. xxviii, lxvi and passim.

A possible exception to this is “A Fragment of the Aspireing Naturalist (a Philosophical Romance)”, BP 9, fols 43–44 (see also BP 8, fols 206–7). See Principe , op. cit. (ref. 18).

Principe , “Early Boyle” (ref. 8), 255–8.

See Harwood's notes on such instances in Essays (ref. 5): E.g. 29 concerning natural philosophy and religion, 180 concerning atheism, or 183 concerning reason.

Harwood , Essays (ref. 5), 118; Works (ref. 2), ii, 638-[41] (pp. 641–8 are mispaginated). For further examples, see Harwood , Essays, 121, 167–8, 233, 243.

“Introductory Preface”, BP 38, fol. 80, printed in Hall M. B. , Robert Boyle on natural philosophy: An essay with selections from his writings (Bloomington, Ind., 1965), 177–9. In this passage, clearly influenced by his interests in the early 1650s, when he wrote it (see below), Boyle implied that his propensity to study natural philosophy preceded his continental travels. On the other hand, it is unclear just how literally this should taken: A slightly clichéd element is suggested by the fact that he states that “the commands of my Parents” sent him abroad, whereas his mother had died in 1630. The same is true of the passage from Boyle's Essay on the Scripture, published by Birch (Works (ref. 2), i, p. xlix), which is of similar date and comparably claims an early commitment to natural philosophy. On the other hand, this forms part of a passage justifying the linguistic interests that Boyle had developed c. 1650, and the rhetorical polarization of “things” versus “words” is so strong that one can legitimately doubt the literal truth of Boyle's claim. See also Hunter , op. cit. (ref. 3), 26. This is not, of course, to deny that Boyle was taught mathematics and took an interest in the new science during his continental travels, both of which are well documented: See Maddison , Life (ref. 2), 30–31, 39, or Hunter , op. cit. (ref. 3), 14–15, 19. See also Works, i, p. xxxix.

See Principe , “Early Boyle” (ref. 8), 256. Authors who have mistakenly used these references as evidence of Boyle's interests in 1648 include Boas [Hall], op. cit. (ref. 2), 20; O'Brien , op. cit. (ref. 3), 4; Oster , “‘Beame of Divinity’” (ref. 7), 154.

Works (ref. 2), i, pp. xxxvi–xxxvii; vi, 39–41.

Works (ref. 2), i, pp. xxxvii–xxxix, xl–xli. See also ibid., vi, 77–78, Ephemerides 1648–49. Unfortunately, the Ephemerides are lost from 1643 to 1648. On Boyle's earlier mathematical studies, see above, ref. 25.

Works (ref. 2), i, p. xli; vi, 40.

Hartlib Papers (hereinafter “HP”) 60/14/36A.

Webster , The great instauration (ref. 3), 57. Cf. ibid., 57f., passim, and idem, “New light on the invisible college: The social relations of English science in the mid seventeenth century”, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society , 5th ser., xxiv (1974), 19–42. The key references are to be found in Works (ref. 2), i, pp. xxxiv–xxxv, xl; see also ibid., vi, 522.

Works (ref. 2), vi, 40; Ephemerides, 1648 (31/22/2B). On intellectual arrogance, see Hunter Michael , Science and society in Restoration England (Cambridge, 1981), ch. 4.

Works (ref. 2), i, p. xxxiv (my italics); vi, 40.

Webster , “New light” (ref. 32), 21 (based on information supplied by Jacob J. R. ); Harwood , Essays (ref. 5), 186–7.

Webster , “New light” (ref. 32), 19, 33, 34, 37, 42; Great instauration (ref. 3), 61, 66. The only use of the word ‘Experiment’ by Boyle in connection with the college occurs in the passage from “The Doctrine of Thinking” just quoted.

Works (ref. 2), vi, 48.

Harwood , Essays (ref. 5), p. xxiii.

Oster , “Biography” (ref. 7), 198f. See also ibid., 180, 205, 208, 213. Oster's exposition of these texts is unfortunately marred by the consistent mistranscription of the name of Boyle's principal female bête noire, Corisca, as “Corsica”.

BP 37, fols 166–7.

Ibid., fol. 167. (The principles of transcription used here and throughout this paper are expounded in Hunter , op. cit. (ref. 3), p. cvii, except that insertions and deletions have generally been silently ignored.) Cf. Oster , “Biography” (ref. 7), 212.

Works (ref. 2), vi, 49–50; Maddison , op. cit. (ref. 19), 165. Cf. Lawrence Principe M. , “Boyle's alchemical pursuits”, in Hunter (ed.), op. cit. (ref. 2), 91–105, p. 99.

Highmore Nathaniel , History of generation (London, 1651), sig. ¶4.

Harwood , Essays (ref. 5), 222; Maddison , op. cit. (ref. 19), 167. In a footnote, Harwood states that Boyle's “diary has not survived”, but he may have been wrong to presume that Boyle was referring to a diary of the standard type rather than notes like these.

BP 44, fols 94–112; BP 8, fols 118–22. BP 3, fol. 146 is a replacement first page belonging with the latter (of which the title and first two entries are deleted, the first being identical with the first in BP 3, fol. 146, which is retitled “A Miscellaneous Collection”). The verses include some marked “Lrd. Br.”, presumably Broghill.

BP 28, pp. 309–11. This item has been previously noted by Maddison , Life (ref. 2), 63.

BP 8, fols 140–8 (1654/55)); BP 25, pp. 153–6 (1655), 157–72 (1655/56, 1656/57), 173–83 (1656, though with some entries dated 1655), 343–6 (dated both 1651/52 and 1653/54), 347–62 (n.d.); BP 26, fols 1–2 (Sept., no year), 96–99 (continuing the sequence in BP 25, pp. 161–72).

See above, ref. 25. This incomplete text is partly in Boyle's hand and partly in that of an amanuensis. It is possibly the introduction to the work referred to in the “Essay Of the holy Scriptures”, BP 7, fol. 31, where Boyle states that his view of Aristotle was “largely enough express'd” in “some Philosophicall Papers”. For further links between this document and other texts of this period, see refs 48, 123.

BP 8, fols 123–39 (hereinafter “Study”). The MS is bound out of order; the correct order (cf. the original pagination) is: 123–8, 131–2, 130, 129, 133–9 (fol. 139 is bound in back to front). See Jacob , Boyle (ref. 3), 98f., who correctly deduces that the work dates from c. 1650, though he fails to appreciate its distinctiveness from the moralistic works of the 1640s. The clearest clue to the date of this work is Boyle's citation in it of Everard's translation of Hermes Trismegistus, which cannot date from prior to 25 September 1649, when that work became available (see Thomason's note on the title-page of the British Library copy, E1344(2); see also below, ref. 59). It is possible that it was to this treatise that Boyle was referring when he told Lady Ranelagh in a letter of 31 August 1649 about his newly-composed discourse “of the theological use of natural philosophy, endeavouring to make the contemplation of the creatures contributory to the instruction of the prince, and to the glory of the author of them”, a reference that in the past has been thought to be to Part 1 of Usefulness (Works (ref. 2), i, p. xlv; see esp. Boas [Hall], op. cit. (ref. 2), 20–21; Westfall R. S. , “Unpublished Boyle papers relating to scientific method”, Annals of science, xii (1956), 63–73, 103–17, p. 65 n. 6). Unlike almost all the other texts of this period, it is in Boyle's early hand, but it is in a format distinct from that of the moral treatises of the 1640s, all of which are written as continuous texts on both sides of the page. Here, each page is divided into two columns, only the right hand of which was initially used, leaving the lefthand one for additions: In this, the text may represent a transitional stage to the practice of writing on rectos only, leaving the facing versos for additions, which is the format that Boyle regularly used for his treatises from the later 1650s onwards. The section of BP 38, fol. 80, that is in Boyle's hand (see ref. 47), shares this format. The text of “Study” also appears transitional through its use in a single instance of the practice of including duplicate words between slashes which appears in works of Boyle's moralistic phase such as “Philaretus” ( Hunter , op. cit. (ref. 3), 1); here, he has erased the word and included it as a synonym (fol. 134).

BP 26, fols 162–75 (hereinafter “Atomicall Philosophy”); the correct sequence is 162–3, 168–75, 166–7, 164–5. Cf. Westfall , op. cit. (ref. 48), 111–13. Westfall's error was first pointed out in Frank R. G. , Harvey and the Oxford physiologists: A study of scientific ideas and social interaction (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1980), 316 n. 28. The text is in a scribal hand. Its clearest dating clue is a reference to an impending visit to Ireland, which must be Boyle's visit there in 1652 or his return in 1653 (fol. 173; see Maddison , Life (ref. 2), 80–81). Note also the reference to Boyle's interest in effluvia (microscopically observed) in Hartlib's Ephemerides s.v. 1650 (28/1/83A). The work's heading “Essay the —”, as well as its title, links it with the 1649/50 list discussed below (ref. 53). It is linked to The usefulness of natural philosophy by its account of Sir Walter Ralegh's stone, of which the account given here is fuller (fol. 167; Works (ref. 2), ii, 27).

BP 36, fols 65–66. See below. Dating indications are as follows. A similar title is to be found not only in the 1649/50 list (see ref. 53), but also in the list in BP 36, fol. 70, of Boyle's “Philosophicall Essays”, etc., evidently dating from c. 1654, which includes the item “Of Naturall Philosophy & Philosophers”. The document clearly precedes the separate essays on the utility of science and the theory of experimentation that Boyle began later in the 1650s. A dating clue may be provided by Hartlib's Ephemerides s.v. 1651 (28/2/3B), where there is a passage which echoes one of the themes of the latter part of this intended treatise, and which perhaps represents Hartlib's garbled recollection of a conversation with Boyle: Hartlib noted how “Hee care's not for Optical Niceties but as they are subordinate to Natural Phil[osophy]. For by the Microscopes and Tubes that may bee learn't and discerned w[hi]ch canot bee done neither by Reason or Experiments but only sense”.

BP 7, 1–94 (of which fols 93–94 are in the wrong order); hereinafter “Scriptures”. The text is in a scribal hand. The fullest account hitherto is to be found in Wojcik Jan W. , “Robert Boyle and the limits of reason: A study in the relationship between science and religion in seventeenth-century England”, Ph.D. thesis, University of Kentucky, 1992, 41–47. It is also mentioned in Jacob , Boyle (ref. 3), 26, 124, 189 n. 80, where it is described as “expressly irenical” (p. 26), though, as will be seen from what is said below about its content, this is not a particularly satisfactory description of it. Dating clues for this work are as follows. The most decisive is that references to J. C. Hottinger's Historia orientalis (1651) are integral to the text (e.g. fols 47, 65). On its possible appearance in the 1649/50 list, see ref. 53. The scientific essays referred to in it (fols 51, 59) — On the weapon-salve, chemistry and cold — are referred to in that list, which links it to that phase of Boyle's career rather than to the mid- to late 1650s. In Style of the Scriptures Boyle states that the longer work from which that was abstracted was written nine or ten years previously, “partly in England, partly in another kingdom, and partly too on shipboard”, which links it to his Irish visit (Works (ref. 2), ii, 251). In addition, Boyle displays his scriptural interests and refers to his incomplete treatise on that topic in his letters to John Mallet of Nov. 1651, March 1652 and Jan. 1653, British Library Harleian MSS 7003, fols 179–80, Add. MS 32093, fol. 293, and Works, i, pp. l–lii (see also appendix, below). There is also reference to information collected in Ireland (fol. 61). A further possible clue is that the Sieur de Ryer's French translation of the Koran (1647) is described as “Recent” (fol. 77). See also ref. 108.

Maddison , Life (ref. 2), 64; Harwood , Essays (ref. 5), p. xix.

Loc. cit. I am taking it that “Of Naturall Philosophie” is likely to be identifiable with “3. Of Naturall Philosophy and Filosofers”; “Of the Atomicall Philosophy” with “9. Of Atoms”; and “Essay Of the holy Scriptures” with “12. Of the Holy Scriptures” (though this title could equally easily relate to the earlier essay on the Scripture referred to in ref. 16). However, in all three cases the evidence discussed in previous notes points to a slightly later date for the extant draft, even if the work in question had been commenced by 1650.

“Study” (ref. 48), fol. 123.

“Study” (ref. 48), fols 124v-126, 137–8 and passim; Fisch Harold , “The scientist as priest: A note on Robert Boyle's natural theology”, Isis, xliv (1953), 252–65.

“Study” (ref. 48), fol. 123 (Prerogatives replaces Excellencys, deleted); Works (ref. 2), ii, 4 and 1–63 passim. Some of the chief overlaps between this work and Usefulness are noted in Jacob , Robert Boyle (ref. 3), 197 n. 66: The list given there could be extended, and the interrelationship between the two texts will be dealt with in full in the forthcoming Pickering Masters edition of The works of Robert Boyle, ed. by Hunter Michael Davis Edward B. , In addition, the concept of the world as a “Conclave Mnemonicum” is echoed in the preface to Occasional reflections (Works (ref. 2), ii, 334). Since, even if it was partially based on texts dating from this period, Part 1 of Usefulness was clearly extended later, I have refrained from using evidence from it to reconstruct Boyle's interests at this point in his career.

“Study” (ref. 48), fols 128v, 130, 132v, 133, 135, 137.

Ibid., fol. 127v.

Ibid. , fols 130, 131, 128v and passim. It should be pointed out that these references all appear in the marginal additions to the work: But the overall ethos is already present in the text they supplement, and it seems likely that the additions were made fairly soon after the work was originally composed.

Ibid., fol. 130.

Frank , op. cit. (ref. 49), 94–95; Clericuzio Antonio , “A redefinition of Boyle's chemistry and corpuscular philosophy”, Annals of science, xlvii (1990), 561–89, pp. 568–70.

“Atomicall Philosophy” (ref. 49), fols 174, 167.

Ibid. , fols 171, 169. Cf. ibid., fol. 172.

Ibid., fols 167, 168.

Boyle had, however, earlier used an amanuensis especially for letters: See Hunter , op. cit. (ref. 12), p. xxxi. See also Principe , “Early Boyle” (ref. 8), 255–8. On Boyle's illnesses, see Hunter , op. cit. (ref. 3), pp. lxxviii–lxxix.

BP 36, fols 65–66. Scribal hand. The text is written across a double-page spread, with the title in the centre of the two. See also above, ref. 50.

Followed by an illegible deleted word, apparently written as “sæmts”, the ‘m’ of which was then altered to ‘s’. The entire passage “Of the destitutions…. Experiments” appears to have been added after the document was originally compiled.

Followed by can deleted.

We are thus just reaching the issue of the style at the point at which the extant MS ends. On the other hand, its loss could be accidental, as is clearly the case with much else in the archive: See Hunter , op. cit. (ref. 12), pp. xxvii–xxviii. A further section which no longer survives in manuscript was published by Birch in Works (ref. 2), i, pp. xlviii–l. On the relationship between Style of the Scriptures and the “Essay Of the holy Scriptures” see Works, i, p. xlvii; ii, pp. 251–2, and Wojcik , op. cit. (ref. 51), 41–42 and n. 37. The principal overlaps are between “Scriptures” (ref. 51), fols 6–10 and Works, ii, 267–70; fols 13f. and ii, 265, 281–3; fols 81f. and ii, 261–2, 277–8; fols 86f. and ii, 279f. On Style see also Markley Robert , “Robert Boyle on language: Some Considerations touching the Style of the Holy Scriptures”, Studies in eighteenth-century culture, xiv (1985), 159–71.

Compare “Scriptures” (ref. 51), fol. 46, with Works (ref. 2), iv, 172, and fols 55, 58–61 with iv, 194, 196–8.

“Scriptures” (ref. 51), fol. 4.

Ibid., e.g. fols 6, 9, 37, 42, 47, 49, 63, 65, 71f. and passim. See also below, ref. 74.

Hunter , op. cit. (ref. 3), 27; Works (ref. 2), i, pp. xlviii–xlix. On Boyle's links with Ussher see also ibid., i, p. xxxiii.

“Scriptures” (ref. 51), fols 12–13.

Ibid., fol. 12.

“Scriptures” (ref. 51), e.g. fols 19, 66, 71, 79, 84. Apart from his earlier encounter with a Jew in Florence (on which see Hunter , op. cit. (ref. 3), 20, 28), and his meeting with Menasseh ben Israel in Amsterdam in 1648 (see below), note his letter to Mallet of November 1651 cited in the appendix below and Works (ref. 2), i, pp. xlix, 279; ii, 34.

Cf. Levine J. M. , The battle of the books: History and literature in the Augustan age (Ithaca, 1991).

“Scriptures” (ref. 51), fol. 41. See also fol. 71, and his comments in his letter to John Mallet of March 1652, cited in the appendix, below.

Joy Lynn , Gassendi the atomist: Advocate of history in an age of science (Cambridge, 1987).

Works (ref. 2), v, 180–8. It is interesting that on p. 181 he cites one of the authors who appears in “Scriptures”, Hottinger.

“Scriptures” (ref. 51), fol. 70. Cf. ibid., fol. 57.

Principe , “Early Boyle” (ref. 8), 255–8, esp. p. 257. It is revealing that the passages added to Seraphic love included quotations from the Greek text of the New Testament and references to Socinian writings (Works (ref. 2), i, 269, 278, 279, 281, 282, 284).

“Scriptures” (ref. 51), fols 60–61. Cf. “Atomicall Philosophy” (ref. 49), fols 171–3.

“Scriptures” (ref. 51), fol. 60.

Ibid. , fols 56, 58 and passim.

Ibid. , fol. 54.

Ibid., fol. 45.

Ibid. , fols 1, 20–21, 82–83.

Ibid. , fols 22–24, 29. On such pantheons in anti-atheist polemics of the period, see my “The problem of ‘atheism’ in early modern England”, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society , 5th ser., xxxv (1985), 135–57, p. 144.

“Scriptures” (ref. 51), fols 22–23, 24. On early modern atheism, see Allen D. C. , Doubt's boundless sea (Baltimore, 1964); Hunter Michael Wootton David (eds), Atheism from the Reformation to the Enlightenment (Oxford, 1992); and, with reference to Boyle's later preoccupations, Hunter Michael , “Science and heterodoxy: An early modern problem reconsidered”, in Lindberg D. C. Westman R. S. (eds), Reappraisals of the scientific revolution (Cambridge, 1990), 437–60.

“Scriptures” (ref. 51), fols 23, 44–46, 49, 64 and passim. On Socinianism, see esp. McLnchlan H. J. , Socinianism in seventeenth-century England (London, 1951), 11f. and passim. For a sensitive account of the ambivalence of the label Socinianism between religious rationalism in general, and anti-Trinitarianism in particular, see Trevor-Roper H. R. , Catholics, Anglicans and Puritans (London, 1987), 186f. On Socinianism see also Walker D. P. , The decline of hell (London, 1964), ch. 5, Champion J. A. I. , The pillars of priestcraft shaken (Cambridge, 1992), 106f., Reedy Gerard , “Socinians, John Toland, and the Anglican rationalists”, Harvard theological review, lxx (1977), 285–304, and idem, The Bible and reason (Philadelphia, 1985), ch. 6, though the focus of all but the first of these is on the later seventeenth century.

“Scriptures” (ref. 51), fol. 29. Cf. fol. 23.

Ibid., fols 45–46.

Ibid., fols 22–23, 56. The Socinians are linked with this on fol. 32. On Aristotelianism as a breeding ground for ‘atheism’, see Henri Busson, Le rationalisme dans la littérature Française de la Renaissance (revised edn, Paris, 1957), esp. chs 2 and 9, and Davidson Nicholas , “Unbelief and atheism in Italy, 1500–1700”, in Hunter Wootton (eds), Atheism (ref. 90), 55–85, esp. 59f.

“Scriptures” (ref. 51), fols 4, 29–30.

Ibid., fols 31, 51.

Ibid , fol. 29. Cf. fol. 32.

Ibid. , fols 24, 45, 48–50. On Boyle's later concern with right reason, see Mulligan Lotte , “Robert Boyle, ‘right reason’ and the meaning of metaphor”, Journal of the history of ideas, lv (1994), 235–57.

“Scriptures” (ref. 51), fols 27, 53.

Ibid. , fols 25–26, 28, 35, 38–39, 82–84.

Ibid., fol. 26.

Ibid., fol. 54.

Ibid., fols 51f., 66f.

Ibid. , fol. 68. See also fols 45–46 for the use of arguments from the study of nature against the Socinians.

Ibid., fols 30, 44, 55.

Ibid., fols 56–57.

Ibid., fols 59, 60 and see next ref. See also “Atomicall Philosophy” (ref. 49), fol. 166.

“Scriptures” (ref. 51), fols 24–25. Van Helmont's treatise on this subject had been Translated by Charleton Walter as part of his Ternary of paradoxes (London, 1650), and Boyle's reference could be to this.

“Scriptures” (ref. 51), fols 44, 54.

Ibid. , fol. 44. Cf. ibid., fols 35–36.

Ibid. , fol. 41 and fols 41–44, passim. Cf. “Study” (ref. 48), fol. 127v.

See Probst Siegmund , “Infinity and creation: The origin of the controversy between Thomas Hobbes and the Savilian professors Seth Ward and John Wallis”, The British journal for the history of science, xxvi (1993), 271–9. See also Tuck Richard , “The ‘Christian atheism’ of Thomas Hobbes”, in Hunter Wootton (eds), Atheism (ref. 90), 111–30.

Royal Society MS 1, fols 121–8; Works (ref. 2), ii, 36–49. The relationship between the material in Oldenburg's commonplace book and Usefulness will be tabulated in the forthcoming Masters Pickering Works of Robert Boyle (ref. 56); a further item from Oldenburg's MS is published in Boas Marie , “An early version of Boyle's Sceptical Chymist”, Isis, xlv (1954), 153–68.

Compare “Study” (ref. 48), passim, with Works (ref. 2), ii, 1–63, passim. By conflating his account of the two works, Jacob , Boyle (ref. 3), 104f., misses this contrast. On Usefulness, see also Clericuzio , “Redefinition” (ref. 61), 571.

Works (ref. 2), iv, 152.

“Study” (ref. 48), fol. 136; BP 36, fol. 70.

Clericuzio , “Redefinition” (ref. 61), 568–70 and passim.

“Study” (ref. 48), fols 131, 133, 137; “Scriptures” (ref. 51), fols 24, 46; Works (ref. 2), iv, 152. On Mornay, see Trevor-Roper , op. cit. (ref. 91), 190f.; see also Jacob , Boyle (ref. 3), 26–27. On Mornay Hermeticism , see ibid., 105, 199 n. 91, and Walker D. P. , The ancient theology (London, 1972), chs 3–4.

“Study” (ref. 48), fols 133, 137v; “Scriptures” (ref. 51), fols 12, 24, 46. Vives also appears in Works (ref. 2), iv, 152, and Diodati in ibid., ii, 29, but none of the others reappears at all. I am grateful to Davis Edward B. for his help in this connection.

“Study” (ref. 48), fol. 135; Works, ii, 21.

“Scriptures” (ref. 51), fol. 30; “Atomicall Philosophy” (ref. 49), fol. 172. Cf. “Study” (ref. 48), fol. 135v (“the subtill Campanella”); Hall , op. cit. (ref. 25), 178; Works (ref. 2), i, 302, 311; iv, 63 (see also ibid., i, p. xxxviii). Basson Sebastien , who is also included in one of Boyle's lists of new philosophers in “Scriptures”, fol. 30, as also in BP 38, fol. 80v (the passage is damaged, but the name is definitely “Bass…” not “Bacon”, as read by Hall , op. cit., 178), reappears only once, in a comparable list in The origin of forms and qualities (itself conceivably a remnant of a text of a comparable period?), Works, iii, 9. Telesio, who appears in such lists both in “Scriptures”, fol. 30, and in Hall , op. cit., 178, subsequently reappears only twice (Works, i, 311; iv, 63). Gaffarel, who is cited in “Scriptures”, fol. 59, later recurs only once, in Cold (Works, ii, 651).

“Scriptures” (ref. 51), fol. 30. Cf. “Atomicall Philosophy” (ref. 49), fol. 162 (printed in Westfall , op. cit. (ref. 48), 111–12); Hall , op. cit. (ref. 25), 178. See also Works (ref. 2), i, p. xli, where Gassendi is described as “a great favourite of mine” but is seen as a mathematician and astronomer. For the claim that Gassendi had a major formative influence on Boyle, see Osier M. J. , “The intellectual sources of Robert Boyle's philosophy of nature: Gassendi's voluntarism and Boyle's physico-theological project”, in Kroll Richard Ashcraft Richard Zagorin Perez (eds), Philosophy, science and religion in England 1640–1700 (Cambridge, 1992), 178–98. But see also Sargent Rose-Mary , “Learning from experience: Boyle's construction of an experimental philosophy”, in Hunter (ed.), op. cit. (ref. 2), 57–78, p. 74 n. 4.

“Scriptures” (ref. 51), fols 30–31; see also “Atomicall Philosophy” (ref. 49), fol. 162 (“Des Cartes & his disciples”), and Hall , op. cit. (ref. 25), 178, which refers in almost identical terms to “Descartes & his sect” (incidentally confirming the parallelism in date of the two texts). On Boyle's later discovery of Descartes, see Davis Edward B. , ‘“Parcere nominibus’: Boyle, Hooke and the rhetorical interpretation of Descartes”, in Hunter (ed.), op. cit. (ref. 2), 157–75, esp. pp. 159–60. It is interesting that Davis there cites an MS fragment by Boyle which confirms that the one book by Descartes that he had previously read was Les passions de l'âme: The Letter to Dinet may have seemed too trivial to refer to. Note, however, that in “Scriptures”, fol. 30, Boyle not only states of Descartes “whome sure None that know him take for a Bigot”, but also describes him as having “Question'd All which men have thought unquestionable”: Could this allude to the Discourse of method?.

Works (ref. 2), i, pp. xxvii f., vi, 45f. See also appendix, below.

Cf. Popkin R. H. , The history of scepticism from Erasmus to Spinoza (revised edn, Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1979; first publ. 1964). For an ingenious attempt to place Boyle in this context, citing his conversion experience in “Philaretus”, see Trevor-Roper , op. cit. (ref. 91), 201–2.

“Scriptures” (ref. 51), fols 11–12.

Maddison , Life (ref. 2), 32–35; Hunter , op. cit. (ref. 3), 15–18. It is perhaps also worth noting Boyle's interest in comparative religion, both in “Scriptures” (ref. 51), fols 20, 35, 37, 38–39, 40–41, 64, and in “Philaretus” ( Maddison , Life, 35; Hunter , op. cit. (ref. 3), 17; cf. ibid., 66).

Trevor-Roper , op. cit. (ref. 91), 186f; Jacob , Boyle (ref. 3), 25f. On Boyle Falkland , see Hunter , op. cit. (ref. 3), 67, 69; Boyle presumably knew him prior to his travels abroad, contrary to the presumption that the two men could not have been acquainted in Jacob , Boyle, 25.

See The whole works of the most Rev. James Ussher, D.D., with a life of the author, ed. by Elrington C. R. (17 vols, Dublin, 1847–64), i, 267f., 298f. For Boate's letters to Ussher, see ibid., xvi, passim. See also Trevor-Roper , op. cit. (ref. 91), ch. 3.

McLachlan , Socinianism (ref. 91), 171–2.

Harwood , Essays (ref. 5), 162n (where the words “to bee printed” are unfortunately omitted after “5 Copies” in the quotation from Hartlib's Ephemerides); cf. Aubrey John , Brief lives , ed. by Clark Andrew (2 vols, Oxford, 1898), i, 307.

Works (ref. 2), ii, 108; BP 12–13, 15. See also Popkin R. H. , “Could Spinoza have known Bodin's Coloquium heptaplomares?”, Philosophia, xvi (1986), 307–14; Iliffe Rob , “Jesus Nazarenus Legislator: Adam Boreel's defence of Christianity”, in Popkin R. H. Daubert F-C. Berti Silvia (eds), Heterodoxy and free-thought: Clandestine manuscripts and the birth of the Enlightenment (forthcoming).

“Scriptures” (ref. 51), fol. 88. For Boyle's later references to his meeting with ben Israel, see Works (ref. 2), ii, 18, 280, 301; v, 172, 183; vi, 7.

See Works (ref. 2), i, pp. xliv–xlv; Maddison , Life (ref. 2), 72–73. Boyle may also have visited France in 1645: Works, i, p. xxvii; Maddison , Life, 65.

McLachlan , Socinianism (ref. 91), ch. 3; Colie R. L. , Light and enlightenment (Cambridge, 1957), 20. See also appendix, below.

See Dury John , A seasonable discourse (London, 1649), 13f. See also Popkin R. H. , “The first college for Jewish studies”, Revue des études juives, cxliii (1984), 351–64; van der Wall Ernestine , “The Dutch hebraist Adam Boreel and the Misnah project: Six unpublished letters”, Lias, xvi (1989), 239–63; Katz D. S. , “The Abendana brothers and the Christian hebraists of seventeenth-century England”, Journal of ecclesiastical history, xl (1989), 28–52.

On Dury's concerns, see esp. Batten J. M. , John Dury: Advocate of Christian reunion (Chicago, 1944). Cf. the case of Arnold Boate, who appears in Webster's book as if his interests were exclusively medical and technological, whereas in fact his priorities seem to have been primarly concerned with scriptural learning: See above, ref. 129.

Hall to Hartlib, ND (“Munday”), HP 60/14/39A; HP 36/6/1A-6A; HP 36/7/2B-6B.

HP 8/27/2B-7B, 9A-13B; HP 42/1/1A-2A.

Webster , op. cit. (ref. 3), esp. 377–81, 457–65, 539–46.

See Frank , op. cit. (ref. 49), 121f.

At his death, Worsley's library contained a large number of Socinian books (McLachlan, Socinianism (ref. 91), 134), and one modern scholar has taken this as evidence that he was a Socinian, also citing a letter to him from William Rand, in which a favourable view of the Socinians was expressed: Barnard , op. cit. (ref. 3), 221. On the other hand, others clearly owned Socinian books so as better to be able to refute them ( McLachlan , op. cit., ch. 8, passim), while the danger of presuming that William Rand's views were necessarily shared by his correspondents is revealed by the case of John Evelyn (see Hunter Michael , Science and the shape of orthodoxy: Intellectual change in late seventeenth-century Britain (Woodbridge, 1995), ch. 3).

See above, at ref. 19.

Highmore , op. cit. (ref. 42)), passim. See also Frank , op. cit. (ref. 49), 97–101.

See above, ref. 108.

For accounts of Charleton's ideas, see Rattansi P. M. , “Paracelsus and the Puritan revolution”, Ambix, xi (1963), 24–32; Gelbart N. R. , “The intellectual development of Walter Charleton”, Ambix, xviii (1971), 149–68; and Mulligan Lotte , “‘Reason’, ‘right reason’ and ‘revelation’ in mid-seventeenth-century England”, in Vickers Brian (ed.), Occult and scientific mentalities in the Renaissance (Cambridge, 1984), 375–401.

Fisch , op. cit. (ref. 55), 253–6 and passim. Compare Browne Thomas Sir , Religio medici, ed. by Greenhill W. A. (London, 1881), passim, esp. p. 76, with “Study” (ref. 48), passim, and “Scriptures” (ref. 51), esp. fol. 57. It should be noted that Fisch was dependent on Usefulness for Boyle's views, and was unaware of the existence of these earlier MSS.

See esp. the studies collected in Hutton Sarah (ed.), Henry More (1614–87): Tercentenary studies (Dordrecht, 1990). See also Hall A. R. , Henry More: Magic, religion and experiment (Oxford, 1990).

For an emphasis on such common features, see Mulligan , op. cit. (ref. 146), and Elmer Peter , “Medicine, religion and the puritan revolution”, in French Roger Wear Andrew (eds), The medical revolution of the seventeenth century (Cambridge, 1989), 10–45. Studies stressing the difference between the thinkers whom these authors tend to group together include Rattansi , op. cit. (ref. 146) and Burnham F. B. , “The More–Vaughan controversy: The revolt against philosophical enthusiasm”, Journal of the history of ideas, xxxv (1974), 33–49. See also Brann N. L. , “The conflict between reason and magic in seventeenth-century England”, Huntington Library quarterly, xliii (1980), 103–26 and Guinsburgh A. M. , “Henry More, Thomas Vaughan and the late Renaissance magical tradition”, Ambix, xxvii (1980), 36–58.

Hunter , op. cit. (ref. 142), Introduction.

Elmer , op. cit. (ref. 149). As Elmer points out, his grouping includes all but those satisfied with the status quo (ibid., 30–34). For presumptions of polarization over ‘enthusiasm’, see the studies referred to in refs 146, 149, above.

See esp. Shapin Steven Schaffer Simon , Leviathan and the air-pump: Hobbes, Boyle and the experimental life (Princeton, 1985). For a more general view, see Henry John , “The scientific revolution in England”, in Porter Roy Teich Mikuláš (eds), The scientific revolution in national context (Cambridge, 1992), 178–209.

See esp. Worden Blair , “Toleration and the Cromwellian protectorate”, Studies in church history, xxi (1984), 199–233.

Ibid., 204.

Barlow Thomas , “The case of a toleration in religion”, in his Several miscellaneous and weighty cases of conscience (London, 1692), 36–37.

“Scriptures” (ref. 51), fol. 5.

In addition, Boyle occasionally speaks of “sects” as a synonym for “interests” in his treatises of the mid-late 1640s. See his “Of the Study & Exposition of the Scriptures”, where he was anxious to avoid bias by “the Partiality of Sects & Interests” (BP 3, fol. 92). Cf. Harwood , Essays (ref. 5), 5.

Works (ref. 2), i, pp. xxxii–xxxiii. On the blasphemy bill, see Jordan W. K. , The development of religious toleration in England, 1640–60 (London, 1938), 89f.

Works (ref. 2), i, p. xxxv.

Ibid. , i, p. xxxvi; vi, 40: The interpolation of “Coleman” is Birch's, alluding to Coleman Street (where Worsley then resided) as a notorious home of conventicles.

Ibid., i, pp. xxxix–xl. On Jonah's gourd, which through God's power “came up in a night, and perished in a night”, see Jonah, 4:10.

Works (ref. 2), vi, 45; Jordan , op. cit. (ref. 158), 112f.

British Library Harleian MS 7003, fols 179–80. For Boyle's view on the readmission of the Jews to England, see also Hunter , op. cit. (ref. 3), 66. On the background, see Katz David , Philo-semitism and the readmission of the Jews to England, 1603–55 (Oxford, 1982).

British Library Add. MS 32093, fol. 293.

Jacob , Boyle (ref. 2), 87 and passim.

Ibid., 93–94, 22–23.

Ibid. , 85 and 83f. passim, also 195 n. 8. It is perhaps worth pointing out that, in view of the diffuseness which Boyle attributed to the sects, the idea of a “dialogue” with them is rather odd. It was also, even according to Jacob's reading of it, an entirely one-sided affair, in that Jacob nowhere provides any evidence of “sectaries” responding to what he perceives as Boyle's attacks on them. In fact “response to the sects” would have been a more appropriate description.

Ibid. , 85, 93, and 83–88, 92–96, passim. For Seraphic love and Theodora, see above, ref. 11.

Jacob , Boyle (ref. 3), 202 n. 168; Boyle , Works (ref. 2), ii, 307. Cf. Jacob , op. cit., 94–95, and Boyle , Works, ii, 412–14, 417–18.

Jacob , Boyle (ref. 3), 110–11, 129. Jacob has recourse to a similar argument concerning the notes on sermons by Fifth Monarchists in the hand of Henry Oldenburg, now in BP 43, fols 290–7, though he admits that there is no evidence that Boyle ever saw them: ibid., 128–9.

Van der Wall , op. cit. (ref. 136), 245; Fix A. C. , Prophecy and reason: The Dutch collegiants in the early Enlightenment (Princeton, 1991), 41–42. See also ibid., 86–87, 91, 189. On the other hand, Boreel's position was changing by the 1660s, when he attacked the Quakers in Amsterdam ( Hull W. I. , The rise of Quakerism in Amsterdam, 1655–65 (Swarthmore, Pa., 1938), 261f.).

BP 36, fols 144–5, 161–2: The comments are those of Henry Miles. See further my forthcoming study of the depredations of the Boyle correspondence in the eighteenth century.

Bodleian Library, Oxford, ms Rawlinson D 833, fol. 63v; Birch Thomas , The history of The Royal Society (4 vols, London, 1756–57), iii, 351, 363, 366–7, 371.

See ibid., pp. lxx f.

Works (ref. 1), iv, 155.