Robert Boyle Quotes on Nature
Robert Boyle's Sceptical Chymist (1661), the experimental work on the air-pump, and the philosophical writings on the corpuscular hypothesis (notably The Origin of Forms and Qualities, 1666) made Boyle the principal philosophical spokesman of the early Royal Society. The corpuscularian natural philosophy — that the apparent qualities of macroscopic bodies are to be explained in terms of the size, shape, motion, and arrangement of the imperceptible corpuscles of which they are composed — supplied an empirical-experimental version of the matter theory that Descartes had developed on more rationalist foundations and that Locke would inherit as the philosophical background to the Essay. Boyle's parallel theological writings — The Christian Virtuoso, A Disquisition About the Final Causes of Natural Things — defend the compatibility of the new mechanical philosophy with Christian doctrine and supply the most sustained early modern argument for the design inference from natural order.
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:
“The world is a great piece of clockwork.”
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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. -
“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 -
“For it very rarely otherwise happens, than that theories, that are grounded but upon few and obvious experiments, are subject to be contradicted by some such instances, as more free and diligent inquiries into what of nature is more abstruse, or even into the less obvious qualities of things, are wont to bring to light.”
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