Robert Boyle Quotes on Knowledge
Robert Boyle (1627–1691), the Anglo-Irish natural philosopher whose Sceptical Chymist (1661) and the long experimental memoirs of the Royal Society period gave early-modern natural philosophy its most influential experimental programme, defended an explicit "mechanical" or "corpuscular" hypothesis according to which the qualities of natural bodies are to be explained by the size, shape, motion, and texture of their imperceptible material parts. The framework couples a thoroughgoing experimentalism in the production of new natural-philosophical knowledge with a careful voluntarist theology in which the laws of nature are the freely instituted regularities of God's creative will, and the resulting position would shape the broader Restoration philosophy of nature in which the young Newton was formed.
Quotes
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Attributed to Robert Boyle:
“Nature is the work of God; the natural philosopher is its priest.”
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Attributed to Robert Boyle:
“Things are to be inquired into by experiment, not by argument from authority.”
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Attributed to Robert Boyle:
“True science begins where prejudice ends.”
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Attributed to Robert Boyle:
“All natural things are made by God for the contemplation of intelligent beings.”
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“Those hypotheses do not a little hinder the progress of Humane knowledge, that introduce Morals and Politicks into the Explications of Corporeal Nature, where all things are indeed transacted according to Laws Mechanical.”
Reflections upon the Hypothesis of Alcali and Acidum (1675) p. 33. -
“Reflections upon the Hypothesis of Alcali and Acidum (1675) p. 33.”
Those hypotheses do not a little hinder the progress of Humane knowledge, that introduce Morals and Politicks into the Explications of Corporeal Nature, where all things are indeed transacted according to Laws Mechanical. -
“The phaenomena afforded by trades, are a part of the history of nature, and therefore may both challenge the naturalist's curiosity and add to his knowledge, Nor will it suffice to justify learned men in the neglect and contempt of this part of natural history, that the men, from whom it must be learned, are illiterate mechanicks... is indeed childish, and too unworthy of a philosopher, to be worthy of an honest answer.”
That the Goods of Mankind May be Much Increased by the Naturalist's Insight into Trades" in the Works of Robert Boyle , (1772) Vol.3 as quoted in Clifford D. Conner , A People's History of Science (2005) Note: Compare Francis Bacon's The Great Instauration -
“And therefore I think you have done very wisely to make it your business to consider the Phœnomena relating to the present question, which have been afforded by experiments, especially since it might seem injurious to our senses, by whose mediation we acquire so much of the knowledge we have of things corporal, to have recourse to far-fetched and abstracted Ratiocination, to know what are the sensible ingredients of those sensible things that we daily see and handle, and are supposed to have the liberty to untwist (if I may so speak) into the primitive bodies they consist of.”
Wikiquote -
“I cannot conceive, how a body, destitute of understanding and sense, truly so called, can moderate and determine its own motions; especially so as to make them conformable to laws that it has no knowledge of.”
A Free Inquiry into the Vulgar Notion of Nature (1682) | Sect.1. -
“Doubtless, it shews the wisdom of God, to have so fram'd things at first, that there can seldom or never need any extraordinary interposition of his power; or the employing from, time to time, an intelligent overseer, to regulate, assist, and control the motions of matter.”
A Free Inquiry into the Vulgar Notion of Nature (1682) | Sect.1.