BOYLE, ROBERT

Born at Lismore Castle in Munster, Ireland, on January 25, 1627, Robert Boyle (1627–1691) was an experimentalist who made fundamental contributions to chemistry, hydrostatics, philosophy of science, and the relationship between science and religion, including morality and natural theology. Before he penned his first work on natural philosophy, the deeply pious Boyle wrote several essays and treatises on religious themes, and his early interests in morality, theology, and casuistry remained undiminished throughout his life. In some of his most important mature works he linked his religious interests explicitly with his scientific pursuits, but implicit connections are often just beneath the surface in many of his writings.

The intensity of Boyle's interest in moral philosophy is readily seen in his earliest treatise, the Aretology, an unpublished work on ethics, vocation, and self-knowledge. This work reflects influences from Aristotle and the Christian humanist tradition, especially the German theologian Johann Alsted (1588–1638), whose enormous Encyclopedia (1630) served Boyle as a quarry to mine. Boyle's first published essay was dedicated to Samuel Hartlib (1600–1662), a Prussian-born disciple of the Czech educational reformer Johann Comenius (1592–1670). Its theme—that physicians should disavow secrecy and openly disseminate recipes for effective medicines, as an act of Christian charity—would be repeated numerous times in other works. An ethical impulse to improve the human condition through the application of chemistry to medicine motivated Boyle, as much as anything else, to become a scientist. A further motivation came from his conviction that nature was the third divine book in the human library—scripture and conscience were the others. The study of nature was divinely mandated, and the knowledge it produced would point unambiguously to the creator.

The Bible and the Christian Experiment

No influence was more important, however, than the Bible. Although he was not a Puritan himself, Boyle sought before all else to be biblical in everything he did, like the Puritan divines he counted among his friends. His devotion to the Bible, which he read daily in Hebrew and Greek, was nothing short of profound. At the urging of biblical scholar James Ussher (1581–1656), Boyle wrote Some Considerations Touching the Style of the Holy Scriptures (1661), in which he rejected the claims of courtly "wits" that biblical language was too poorly chosen for a divinely authored book. He also rejected courtly mores, which promoted the sinful vices of vanity, promiscuity, and greed, rather than the biblical virtues of humility, chastity, and charity.

Boyle sought to bring such virtues not only to his private life as an anonymous giver of alms, but also to his public life as the leading English natural philosopher of his generation. His stated policy was "to speak of Persons with Civility, though of Things with Freedom," instead of "railing at a man's Person, or wrangling about his Words," for "such a quarrelsome and injurious way of writing does very much mis-become both a Philosopher and a Christian" (Hunter and Davis 1999–2000, Vol. 2, p. 26). In an age known for the strongly negative tone of its scientific controversies, Boyle was remarkable for his consistent avoidance of derision. In his last major theological work, The Christian Virtuoso (1690–1691 and 1744), he reflected on other ways in which Christianity mirrored the moral attitude and experience of the scientist (the virtuoso). Living the Christian life, he argued, is like "trying an experiment" that leads to personal peace and happiness, in this world as well as in the world to come. Just as "personal experience" could show the evil consequences of "a vicious course of life," so the same experience could "assure him of the practical possibility of performing the duties and functions of a Christian." Likewise, "heedful observations" would "satisfy a man of the vanity of the world, and the transitoriness of ... sinful engagements, and of the emptiness of those things, for which men refuse the ways of piety and virtue" (Hunter and Davis 1999–2000, Vol. 12, pp. 431–432). The Christian virtuoso, Boyle claimed, would put truth over personal gain; cultivate humility, generosity, and trustworthiness; promote open communication over secrecy (as far as possible, given his vital interest in alchemy); and show devotion to scientific work as a kind of religious vocation. In short, it is no accident that Boyle considered himself a "priest" in the "temple" of nature.

The Mechanical Philosophy and Natural Theology

Although Boyle often spoke of nature as a temple, his favorite metaphor was much more impersonal. The world was "a great piece of Clock-work" (Hunter and Davis 1999–2000, Vol. 8, p. 75), containing numerous smaller engines—the bodies of animals, sometimes likened to "watches," and of humans—with God the clockmaker. By the mid-seventeenth century, artisans could build and repair a great variety of clockwork mechanisms that were capable of following the motion of the heavens and imitating the motions of animals and humans. This encouraged natural philosophers to think that the universe and its parts could best be explained in terms of matter and motion, giving rise to what Boyle himself first called the mechanical philosophy. Although he saw the possibility that some would have the great clockwork run on its own, without divine involvement or supervision, Boyle nevertheless found the new mechanical science theologically superior to the prevailing Aristotelian concept of nature. His subtle book on the doctrine of creation, A Free Enquiry Into the Vulgarly Received Notion of Nature (1686), argued that the vulgar (i.e., commonplace) view was idolatrous for the way in which it personified nature—for example, nature abhors a vacuum, or nature does nothing in vain—effectively placing an intelligent, purposive agent, "much like a kind of 'Goddess"' (Hunter and Davis 1999–2000, Vol. 10, p. 456) between the creator and the creation. It was far more appropriate, Boyle believed, to explain phenomena in terms of impersonal, "mechanical" properties and powers created by a personal God. In this way the sovereignty of God would be underscored—and people would be more likely to worship their creator, the real source of intelligence and purpose in nature.

For Boyle, as for many of his contemporaries, science had a central religious function: to make plain the signature of God in creation. Echoing his own lifelong struggle with religious doubt, Boyle saw the design argument, especially but not exclusively in its biological form, as a powerful foil against unbelief. He did not seek merely to confute philosophical atheism, which he realized was rare in his day, but fully to persuade people of the existence of the divine creator and legislator, that they might thereby live piously in the full sight of God. Changed lives and hearts, not just changed minds, were his goal. Here again, the Christian virtuoso had much to contribute. It is "very probable," Boyle noted, "that the world was made, to manifest the existence, and display the attributes of God; who, on this supposition, may be said to have made the world for the same purpose, for which the pious philosopher studies it" (Davis and Hunter 1999–2000, Vol. 12, p. 483). In keeping with this attitude, Boyle left funds in his will to establish a lectureship for "proveing the Christian Religion against notorious Infidels [and] Atheists," including even Jews and Muslims, although lecturers were expressly forbidden from discussing "any Controversies that are among Christians themselves" (Madison 1969, p. 274). Ultimately, however, Boyle believed that the best evidence for the truth of Christianity came not from the testimony of nature, but from the testimony of those who had witnessed the miracles of Jesus and his disciples. Through the eyes of the biblical authors one could have a trustworthy vicarious experience, sufficient to establish the authenticity of the gospels as a divine revelation. Although a systematic treatment of this topic remained unfinished at his death, Boyle's published works contain much information about his views on miracles, including their consistency with the mechanical philosophy.

However, the mechanical philosophy, especially as it was articulated by the French philosopher René Descartes (1596–1650), also had a darker side. Animals were typically seen as little or nothing more than complex machines, with full rationality and sensitivity reserved only for humans, angels, and God. When coupled with a nearly universal desire to improve the human condition by advancing the knowledge of anatomy and physiology, the temptation to engage in animal experimentation was often too great to resist. Boyle, who sought as much as anyone to enhance what he called "the Empire of Man over Other Creatures" (Hunter and Davis 1999–2000, Vol. 3, p. 193), carried out numerous diverse experiments involving both vertebrate and invertebrate live animals—dogs, cats, birds, butterflies, worms, and many others. Yet he did so with considerable sympathy and even regret; on several occasions, he even released animals that had survived one experiment precisely in order to spare them further suffering. Unlike Descartes Boyle was not convinced that animals lack sensation, and he considered gratuitous cruelty to animals blasphemous, since all creatures belonged to God. At the same time he believed that God intended the creatures to serve humankind, thus sanctioning a certain amount of animal experimentation.

Boyle's Legacy

Boyle's influence on subsequent thinking about science, religion, and morality has been larger than many writers realize, much larger (for example) than that of Isaac Newton (1642–1727)—who actually published very little of importance about religion, although he devoted many years to the study of theology and church history. The Anglo-American tradition of natural theology derives substantially from Boyle's extensive treatment of the subject, and his outstanding example of a pious scientist writing about the Bible and morality has been much imitated.

EDWARD B. DAVIS

SEE ALSO Christian Perspecitves;Scientific Revolution.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Davis, Edward B., and Michael Hunter, eds. (1996). Robert Boyle: A Free Enquiry into the Vulgarly Received Notion of Nature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Harwood, John T., ed. (1991). The Early Essays and Ethics of Robert Boyle. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press.

Hunter, Michael. (1993). "Casuistry in Action: Robert Boyle's Confessional Interviews with Gilbert Burnet and Edward Stillingfleet, 1691." The Journal of Ecclesiastical History 44(1): 80–98.

Hunter, Michael, and Edward B. Davis, eds. (1999–2000). The Works of Robert Boyle, 14 vols. London: Pickering & Chatto.

Madison, R. E. W. (1969).The Life of the Honourable Robert Boyle London: Taylor & Francis.

Oster, Malcolm. (1989). "The 'Beame of Diuinity': Animal Suffering in the Early Thought of Robert Boyle." British Journal for the History of Science 22: 151–180.

Shapin, Steven. (1994).A Social History of Truth: Civility and Science in Seventeenth-Century England. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.