Robert Boyle (January 25, 1627-December 30, 1691) considered a "Father of Modern Chemistry," was a British natural philosopher. He studied Bacon, Descartes, and other contemporaries including: scientists Isaac Newton, Robert Hooke and Galileo; philosophers John Locke and Thomas Hobbes; and poet John Milton. Boyle was noted for contributions in physics and chemistry, especially his pneumatic experiments with the vacuum pump and the espousal of atomism, that gases were made of tiny particles. He put forward the basic law of gas dynamics, which related gas pressures to temperature and volume, known as "Boyle's Law": that if the volume of a gas is decreased, the pressure increases proportionally. Boyle defined the modern idea of an 'element', and first used the term "chemical analysis," introducing the litmus test to tell acids from bases.
In 1660, Boyle and 11 others formed the Royal Society in London to witness experiments and discuss scientific topics. In 1668, Boyle moved permanently to London, living with his sister. In 1680 he refused the presidency of the Royal Society because the oath required violated his strongly held religious principles. His works include: The Skeptical Chemist, 1661; The Defense Against Linus, 1662; Discourse of Things Above Reason, 1681; and Memoirs for the Natural History of the Human Blood, 1684.
Boyle studied the Bible in Hebrew, Cyriac, Chaldee, and Greek, writing:
<Even when some revelations are thought not only to transcend reason, but to clash with it, it is to be considered whether such doctrines are really repugnant to any absolute catholic rule of reason, or only to something which depends upon the measure of acquired information we enjoy.> 1627RB001
While in Geneva, during a frightening thunderstorm, he had a deepening conversion experience. Boyle devoted much effort to apologetics, defending and propagating the Christian religion.
He wrote the Boyle Lectures; Of the high Veneration Man's Intellect owes to God (1684); Discourse Of Things Above Reason (1681); Some Considerations touching the Style of the Holy Scriptures (1661); and The Christian Virtuoso (1690), which was reviewed by John Locke in 1681, and was in part the basis for Cotton Mather's book The Christian Philosopher, 1721.
Boyle was a director of the East India Company, and spent large sums supporting missionary societies in the spread of Christianity in the East. He believed all races no matter how diverse came from the same source, Adam and Eve.
In a letter to a Mr. Clodius, Boyle was concerned about helping the poor, and for propagating the gospel among the natives in New England and the rest of America, even translating and printing the Bible in the Indian language.
He funded Bible translations, supporting the policy that the Bible should be available in people's vernacular language in contrast to the previous Latin-only policy.
He published an Irish translation of the Bible (1680-1685), which was unpopular among the English ascendancy class.
Dr Andrew Sail wrote from Oxford to Robert Boyle in 1678 about his intentions to print an Irish New Testament:
<I bless God for inspiring to you so holy a zeal, and to those worthies that join with you therein.> 1627RB002
Robert Boyle wrote:
<Our Saviour would love at no less rate than death; and from the supereminent height of glory, stooped and debased Himself to the sufferance of the extremest of indignities, and sunk himself to the bottom of abjectness, to exalt our condition to the contrary extreme.> 1627RB003
Boyle wrote:
<There are divers truths in the Christian religion, that reason left to itself would never have been able to find out..., nor perhaps to have so much as dreamed of; Such as are most of those that depend upon the free will and ordination of God, as, that the world was made in six days, that Christ should be born of a virgin, and that in his person there should be united two such infinitely distant natures as the divine and human; and that the bodies of good men shall be raised from death and so advantageously changed, that the glorified persons shall be like or equal to, the angels.> 1627RB004
Boyle noted that:
<We ought, whenever we speak of God and of His attributes, to stand in great awe.> 1627RB005
In his work titled Some Considerations Touching the Style of the Holy Scriptures, Robert Boyle wrote:
<The Books of Scripture illustrate and expound each other; as in the mariner's compass, the needle's extremity, though it seems to point purposely to the north, doth yet at the same time discover both east and west, as distant as they are from it and each other, so do some texts of Scripture guide us to the intelligence of others, for which they are widely distant in the Bible.> 1627RB006
In Disquisition on the Final Causes of Natural Things (1688), Robert Boyle wrote:
<That my reader should not barely observe the wisdom of God, but be, in some measure, affectively convinced of it...Men may be brought, upon the same account, both to acknowledge God, to admire Him, and to thank Him.> 1627RB007
He wrote:
<The subsequent course of nature, teaches, that God, indeed, gave motion to matter; but that, in the beginning, he so guided the various motion of the parts of it, as to contrive them into the world he design'd they should compose; and establish'd those rules of motion, and that order amongst things corporeal, which we call the laws of nature. Thus, the universe being once fram'd by God, and the laws of motion settled, and all upheld by his perpetual concourse, and general providence; the same philosophy teaches, that the phenomena of the world, are physically produced by the mechanical properties of the parts of matter; and, that they operate upon one another according to mechanical laws. 'Tis of this kind of corpuscular philosophy, that I speak.> 1627RB008
<Nor is this indirect way of instructing men unlawful for a Christian or unworthy of him, for in the spiritual warfare, where our adversary is the old serpent, strategems are as lawful as expedient, and he that gets the victory, whether or not he wins reputation by the manner, is sure to obtain (a greater recompense) glory, by the success.> 1627RB009
<For in the history of the creation, it is expressly said that, "in the beginning God made the heavens and the earth ", and in the whole account that Moses gives of the progress of it, there is not a word of the agency of nature.> 1627RB010
Boyle believed:
<Self-denial is a kind of holy association with God; and, by making you his partner, interests you in all his happiness.> 1627RB011
<Men may be brought, upon the same account, both to acknowledge God, to admire Him, and to thank Him.> 1627RB012
<The gospel comprises indeed, and unfolds, the whole mystery of man's redemption, as far forth as it is necessary to be known for our salvation.> 1627RB013
Henry Miles and Thomas Birch edited the voluminous works of Robert Boyle in the mid-18th century, including the line:
<"Ex rerum Causis Supremam cognoscere Causam." ("From the causes of things, to know the First Cause.")> 1627RB014
Boyle wrote:
<For this erroneous conceit defrauds the true God of diverse acts of veneration and gratitude that are due to him from men, upon the account of the visible world, and diverts them to that imaginary being they call nature, which has no title to them.> 1627RB015
Boyle wrote:
<The...service I hope our doctrine may do religion is that it may induce men to pay their admiration, their praises and their thanks, directly to God Himself, Who is the true and only Creator of the sun, moon, earth and those other creatures that men are wont to call the works of nature.> 1627RB016
Boyle wrote of the destruction of the world by fire at the end of this age:
<The present course of nature shall not last always, but that one day this world...shall either be abolished by annihilation, or which seems far more probable, be innovated, and as it were transfigured, and that, by the intervention of that fire, which shall dissolve and destroy the present frame of nature: so that either way, the present state of things, (as well natural as political) shall have an end.> 1627RB017
Boyle wrote of the 'sinful world's ruin':
<In Noah's time a deluge of impiety called for a deluge of waters...and so when (in the last days) the earth shall be replenished with those scoffers mentioned by St Peter, who will walk after their own lusts, and deride the expectation of God's foretold coming to judge and punish the ungodly, their impiety shall be as well punished as silenced by the unexpected flames...that shall either destroy or transfigure the world. For as by the law of Moses the leperous garment which would not be recovered by being washed in water, was to be burnt in the fire, so the world, which the Deluge could not cleanse, a general conflagration must destroy.> 1627RB018
Alluding to his experience using a furnace as a chemist, Boyle wrote:
<He whose Spirit inspired the prophets is...represented as a refiner: and it is not the custom of refiners to snatch the beloved metal out of the fire as soon as it feels the violence of that purifying element; nay, nor as soon as it is melted by it, but they let it long endure the brunt of the active flames, actuated by exciting blasts, until it has stood its due time in the fire and there obtained its full purity and splendour...Nor do these crosses that seem do to his anger destroy the immutability of his love, since even that anger is an effect of it, proceeding from a fatherly impatience of seeing a spot unwiped off in the face he loves too well to see a blemish in it; and from a desire to see his child an object fit for a larger measure of his kindness...The furnace of affliction being meant but to refine us from our earthly drossiness and soften us for the impression of God's own stamp and image.> 1627RB019
Boyle wrote in A Discourse of Things Above Reason (1681):
<When with bold telescopes I survey the old and newly discovered stars and planets when with excellent microscopes I discern the unimitable subtility of nature's curious workmanship; and when, in a word, by the help of anatomical knives, and the light of chymical furnaces, I study the book of nature I find myself oftentimes reduced to exclaim with the Psalmist, How manifold are Thy works, O Lord! in wisdom hast Thou made them all!> 1627RB020
Robert Boyle died in London on December 31, 1691, and was buried in the Church of Saint-Martin-in-the-Fields. He wrote in his Last Will and Testament, dated July 28, 1691:
<Whereas I have an intention to settle in my lifetime the sum of fifty pounds per annum forever, or at least for a considerable number of years, to be for an annual salary so some learned Divine or Preaching Minister, from time to time to be elected and resident within the city of London or circuit of the Bills of Mortality, who shall be enjoined to perform the offices following, viz.:-
To preach eight sermons in the year, for proving the Christian Religion against notorious Infidels, viz., Atheists, Theists, Pagans, Jews, and Mahometans, not descending lower to any controversies that are among Christians themselves; these lectures to be on the first Monday of the respective months of January, February, March, April, September, October, November, in such church as my trustees herein named shall from time to time appoint;
to be assisting to all Companies, and encouraging them in any undertaking for Propagating the Christian Religion in foreign parts; to be ready to satisfy such real scruples as any may have concerning these matters and to answer such new objections and difficulties as may be started, to which good answers have not yet been made.> 1627RB021
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American Quotations by William J. Federer, 2024, All Rights Reserved, Permission granted to use with acknowledgement.
Endnotes:
1627RB001. William J. Federer, American Quotations (2014). Robert Boyle. Reflections on a Theological Distinction. Dao, C. 2008. Man of Science, Man of God: Robert Boyle. Acts & Facts. 37 (4): 8.
1627RB002. William J. Federer, American Quotations (2014). Robert Boyle. 1678, letter from Dr. Andrew Sail regarding Boyle's intention to print a translation of the Bible in the Irish language. The Works of the Honourable Robert Boyle, T. Birch (ed.), J. Rivington et al., London, Vol. 6, (1772), pp. 56, 57, 592. John Kaplan, Robert Boyle: Christian Man of Science, CEN Tech. J., vol. 12, no. 1, 1998, pp. 115-120.
1627RB003. William J. Federer, American Quotations (2014). Robert Boyle, Statement. Allibone's Quotations, p. 104. Stephen Abbott Northrop, D.D., A Cloud of Witnesses (Portland, OR: American Heritage Ministries, 1987; Mantle Ministries, 228 Still Ridge, Bulverde, Texas), p. 43.
1627RB004. William J. Federer, American Quotations (2014). Robert Boyle. The Words of the Honourable Robert Boyle, T. Birch (ed.), J. Rivington et al., London, Vol. 4, (1772), p. 6. John Kaplan, Robert Boyle: Christian Man of Science, CEN Tech. J., vol. 12, no. 1, 1998, pp. 115-120.
1627RB005. William J. Federer, American Quotations (2014). Robert Boyle. The Works of the Honourable Robert Boyle, T. Birch (ed.), J. Rivington et al., London, Vol. 5, (1772), p. 157. John Kaplan, Robert Boyle: Christian Man of Science, CEN Tech. J., vol. 12, no. 1, 1998, pp. 115-120.
1627RB006. William J. Federer, American Quotations (2014). Robert Boyle, in his work titled, Some Considerations Touching the Style of the Holy Scriptures. Stephen Abbott Northrop, D.D., A Cloud of Witnesses (Portland, Oregon: American Heritage Ministries, 1987; Mantle Ministries, 228 Still Ridge, Bulverde, Texas), p. 43-44.
1627RB007. William J. Federer, American Quotations (2014). Robert Boyle. In Disquisition on the Final Causes of Natural Things (1688).
1627RB008. William J. Federer, American Quotations (2014). Robert Boyle. The Excellence and Grounds of the Mechanical Philosophy. P. Shaw (ed.), The Philosophical Works of Robert Boyle (1725), Vol. 1, 187.
1627RB009. William J. Federer, American Quotations (2014). Robert Boyle. Occasional Reflections upon Several Subjects, H. Herringman, London, (1665), pp. 68,69. John Kaplan, Robert Boyle: Christian Man of Science, CEN Tech. J., vol. 12, no. 1, 1998, pp. 115-120.
1627RB010. William J. Federer, American Quotations (2014). Robert Boyle. Of the Reconcileableness of Specifick Medicines to the Corpuscular Philosophy, to which is annexed a discourse about the advantages of the use of simple medicines, S. Smith, London (1685).
1627RB011. William J. Federer, American Quotations (2014). Robert Boyle. Statement.
1627RB012. William J. Federer, American Quotations (2014). Robert Boyle. Statement.
1627RB013. William J. Federer, American Quotations (2014). Robert Boyle. Statement. http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/r/robert_boyle.html#cwxgo0FlK6tP z0yF.99
1627RB014. William J. Federer, American Quotations (2014). Robert Boyle, the Christian Virtuoso. Edward B. Davis, Professor of the History of Science, Messiah College, Grantham, PA 17027, tdavis@messiah.edu, 717-766-2511, ext 6840. Talk given at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, January 9, 1998, in the series, "The Faith of Great Scientists," organized by Dr. Ian Hutchinson. The Scientific Revolution: An Encyclopedia, ed. Wilbur Applebaum, Garland Publishing, Inc., forthcoming.
1627RB015. William J. Federer, American Quotations (2014). Robert Boyle. A Free Enquiry into the Vulgarly Received Notion of Nature, E. Davis and M. Hunter (eds), Cambridge University Press, London, (1996), p. 38-41, 62. John Kaplan, Robert Boyle: Christian Man of Science, CEN Tech. J., vol. 12, no. 1, 1998, pp. 115-120.
1627RB016. William J. Federer, American Quotations (2014). Robert Boyle. A Free Enquiry into the Vulgarly Received Notion of Nature, E. Davis and M. Hunter (eds), Cambridge University Press, London, (1996), p. 29, 38, 163. John Kaplan, Robert Boyle: Christian Man of Science, CEN Tech. J., vol. 12, no. 1, 1998, pp. 115-120.
1627RB017. William J. Federer, American Quotations (2014). Robert Boyle. The Words of the Honourable Robert Boyle, T. Birch (ed.), J. Rivington et al., London, Vol. 4, (1772), p. 11. John Kaplan, Robert Boyle: Christian Man of Science, CEN Tech. J., vol. 12, no. 1, 1998, pp. 115-120.
1627RB018. William J. Federer, American Quotations (2014). Robert Boyle. Some Considerations Touching the Usefullness of Experimental Natural Philosophy, R. Davis, Oxford, (1664), p. 25. John Kaplan, Robert Boyle: Christian Man of Science, CEN Tech. J., vol. 12, no. 1, 1998, pp. 115-120.
1627RB019. William J. Federer, American Quotations (2014). Robert Boyle. Seraphick Love, Kessinger Publishing Co., Kila, Montana, pp. 78,79. John Kaplan, Robert Boyle: Christian Man of Science, CEN Tech. J., vol. 12, no. 1, 1998, pp. 115-120.
1627RB020. William J. Federer, American Quotations (2014). Robert Boyle, 1681, A Discourse of Things Above Reason. 1660. Seraphic Love. Dao, C. 2008. Man of Science, Man of God: Robert Boyle. Acts & Facts. 37 (4): 8.
1627RB021. William J. Federer, American Quotations (2014). Robert Boyle, 1691, Last Will and Testament. Stanley Leathes, The Witness of the Old Testament to Christ, Boyle lectures, (London: Rivingtons, 1868, Stanley Leathes, Professor of Hebrew, King's College), Preface.