Robert Boyle, the favorite son of the wealthiest man in England and Ireland, could have lived a life of luxury. Instead he committed himself to advancing scientific knowledge and to helping lay the foundation of modern chemistry. Boyle used his wealth to help found the Royal Society, the first state chartered scientific organization, and to build an elaborate laboratory in which he performed dozens of experiments in chemistry and physics. Robert Boyle lived during an exciting time of revolution and scientific advancement, and his life and work are vividly portrayed for a new generation of young readers in Skeptical Chemist: The Story of Robert Boyle. Book jacket.

This book offers a comprehensive study of the thought of Robert Boyle in the context of his time. Boyle was a pioneer of experimental physics and founder of modern chemistry. Hooykaas provides a historical study of the relations between science and Christian faith in Boyle focusing on his views of religion, revelation, reason and experience. Boyle's conception of science is compared with those of Descartes, Gassendi, Newton, Bacon and Pascal. It is a close textual study of the collected works of Boyle using the edition of 1772. It corrects criticism that Hooykaas abused history of science to engage in Christian apologetics. It is intended for historians of science, philosophers of science, students of religion and science relations, Boyle scholars, and historians of chemistry. Contents: Foreword; Introduction; Chapter I: Boyle's Life and Times; Chapter II: Science; Chapter III: Religion and the Study of Nature; Chapter IV: Special Revelation; Index of Names. Co-published with The Pascal Center for Advanced Studies in Faith and Science.

An important treatise by one of the leading mechanical philosophers of the seventeenth century.

In a provocative reassessment of one of the quintessential figures of early modern science, Rose-Mary Sargent explores Robert Boyle's philosophy of experiment, a central aspect of his life and work that became a model for mid- to late seventeenth-century natural philosophers and for many who followed them. Sargent examines the philosophical, legal, experimental, and religious traditions—among them English common law, alchemy, medicine, and Christianity—that played a part in shaping Boyle's experimental thought and practice. The roots of his philosophy in his early life and education, in his religious ideals, and in the work of his predecessors—particularly Bacon, Descartes, and Galileo—are fully explored, as are the possible influences of his social and intellectual circle. Drawing on the full range of Boyle's published works, as well as on his unpublished notebooks and manuscripts, Sargent shows how these diverse influences were transformed and incorporated into Boyle's views on and practice of experiment.

Reproduction of the original: The Sceptical Chymist by Robert Boyle