The sceptical chymist / by the Hon. Robert Boyle.

  • Boyle, Robert, 1627-1691.
Date:
[between 1900 and 1999]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The sceptical chymist / by the Hon. Robert Boyle. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    20/264
    “ hermetick philosophers,” and Carneades, who expresses the opinions and urges the arguments of Boyle. Themistius would fain base his arguments on the homogeneity and unity of the whole Aristotelian teaching; he is anxious to show that the existence of the four elements follows necessarily from the doctrine of “ the kinds of simple motion belonging to simple bodies.” He asserts that the upholders of the four elements “ value reason so highly, and are furnished with arguments enough drawn from thence, to be satisfied that there must be four elements, though no man had ever yet made any sensible trial to discover their number.” He is very averse to descend to experimental evidence. “It is much more high and philosophical to discover things a priori than a posteriori. And therefore the Peripateticks have not been very solicitous to gather experiments to prove their doctrines, contenting themselves with a few only, to satisfy those that are not capable of a nobler conviction. And indeed they employ experiments rather to illustrate than to demon- strate their doctrines.” Carneades (that is, Boyle) insists on dragging the philosopher back to facts and reasoned hypotheses. He proclaims that careful verification of facts must go before attempts to express in general terms the features common to many facts. He does not deny the usefulness of principles as means for bring- ing into one point of view material changes which are really similar; but he reiterates the assertion, based on experience, that the similarities between certain natural events can be grasped only by making many experiments, each of which is suggested by the results of those which preceded it; that to begin with grandiose phrases and make these take the place of discreet, particular facts, is fatal to the progress of genuine knowledge. Boyle knew that the high-sounding phrases of the peripatetics and the spagyrists distorted their vision, and made them see hi nature only what they wanted to see. In one of his essays Boyle said— “ I remember Mr. R., the justly famous maker of dioptical glasses, for merriment telling one that came to look upon a great tube of his of thirty foot long, that he saw through it in a mill six miles off a great spider in the midst of her web; the credulous man, though at first he said he discerned no