Robert Boyle 1627 – 1691
Robert Boyle was an Anglo-Irish natural philosopher, chemist, and theologian and one of the founders of the Royal Society. His Sceptical Chymist helped to transform alchemy into modern chemistry, while Boyle's law in pneumatics bears his name. The Origin of Forms and Qualities defended a corpuscularian, mechanical philosophy of nature against scholastic substantial forms. He was throughout his life a deeply religious thinker who viewed the experimental study of nature as the highest form of natural theology, an outlook he developed in The Christian Virtuoso.
Key facts
- Nationality
- Anglo-Irish
- Era
- Modern
- Movements
- Early Modern, Empiricism
Selected quotes
-
Attributed to Robert Boyle:
“Nature is the work of God; the natural philosopher is its priest.”
-
Attributed to Robert Boyle:
“Things are to be inquired into by experiment, not by argument from authority.”
-
Attributed to Robert Boyle:
“True science begins where prejudice ends.”
-
Attributed to Robert Boyle:
“The world is a great piece of clockwork.”
-
Attributed to Robert Boyle:
“All natural things are made by God for the contemplation of intelligent beings.”