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Alchemy, magic and moralism in the thought of Robert Boyle

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2009

Michael Hunter
Affiliation:
Department of History, Birkbeck College, University of London, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HX, U.K.

Extract

At some point during the last two years of his life, Robert Boyle dictated to his friend, Gilbert Burnet, Bishop of Salisbury, some notes on major events and themes in his career. Some of the information he divulged in these memoranda has become quite widely known because Burnet used it in the funeral sermon for Boyle that he delivered a month after his death, at St Martin's in the Fields on 7 January 1692. In addition, these notes were cited several times by Thomas Birch in the ‘Life of the Honourable Robert Boyle’ that he prefixed to his edition of Boyle's collected works of 1744: he there describes his source as ‘Mr. Boyle's memorandums of his own life, dictated by himself to Bishop Burnet’.2 What has hitherto been virtually overlooked is that the manuscript of these notes, which is in Burnet's hand, survives among the Birch Papers in the British Library: it is this document—and particularly a substantial component of it which was publicized by neither Burnet nor Birch—that forms the starting point for this paper.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © British Society for the History of Science 1990

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References

1 Burnet, Gilbert; A Sermon Preached at the Funeral of the Honourable Robert Boyle, London, 1692, especially pp. 23f.Google Scholar

2 Birch, Thomas, ‘The Life of the Honourable Robert Boyle’Google Scholar in his edition of Boyle, 's Works, 2nd edn, 6 vols, London, 1772, 1, p. xxviGoogle Scholar. Cf. ibid., pp. lx, lxix, cxxxviii, cxliii, cxliv.

3 British Library Add. MS 4229, fols 60–63, endorsed: ‘Mr Boyle's papers dictated by him, copied by Dr Burnet, relating to his Life’. I intend to publish an edition of the whole of this text, with a commentary, at a later stage. Its authenticity is underlined by its occasionally garbled character—presumably due to haste in writing the notes down—and its verbal alterations.

4 Foxcroft, H. C., (ed.), A Supplement to Burnet's History of My Own Time, Oxford, 1902, p. 464Google Scholar. On Burnet's friendship with Boyle, see also Burnet, , A Sermon (op. cit. 1), pp. 22, 32Google Scholar; Burnet's letters to Boyle in Boyle, , Works (op. cit. 2), 6, pp. 625–8Google Scholar; see also ibid., 1, p. cxx. Burnet's Some Letters. Containing, An account of what seemed most remarkable in Switzerland, Italy, &c. (1686)Google Scholar were addressed to ‘T. H. R. B.’; he was the only churchman to receive a bequest in Boyle's will, his Hebrew Bible (Maddison, R. E. W., The Life of the Hon. Robert Boyle, London, 1969, pp. 259260)Google Scholar; while Boyle had earlier supported him while he was writing his History of the Reformation of the Church of England (see Burnet, , History, Part 2, London, 1681, Sig. a2)Google Scholar. See also below, p. 393.

5 Burnet, , A Sermon (op. cit. 1), p. 22Google Scholar; Miles, Henry to Birch, , 21 10, 1742Google Scholar, B. L. Add. MS 4314, fol. 70Google Scholar. See also Maddison, R. E. W., ‘A Summary of Former Accounts of the Life and Work of Robert Boyle’, Annals of Science, (1957), 13, pp. 90108, especially pp. 9195CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For what is evidently a surviving chapter of Wotton's Life, see B. L. Add. MS 4229, fols 1f.Google Scholar

6 In this passage, ‘was an[?]’ is deleted before ‘man’. Subsequently, in the passage concerning Boyle's virginity, ‘he’ is repeated and the second deleted.

7 For Presidents, see Hunter, Michael, The Royal Society and its Fellows, 1660–1700, Chalfont St Giles, 1982, p. 80Google Scholar. Southwell's memorandum book for part of his Italian trip is now B. L. Egerton MS 1632: but it contains no clues on this subject. Other Presidents who might count as men ‘of quality and Estate’ include Brouncker, Williamson, Carbery, Pembroke and perhaps Wyche, but none seems a likely candidate. The slightly odd reference to the man's being chosen President ‘pro tempore’ could refer to the arrangements in the Society's formative years (Hunter, , op.cit., p. 77Google Scholar): if so, the most likely candidate of those who served as ‘president’ at that stage is perhaps Sir Robert Moray. But there is no evidence that Moray had been to Italy: see Stevenson, David, ‘Masonry, Symbolism and Ethics in the Life of Sir Robert Moray, F.R.S.’, Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, (1984), 114, pp. 405431Google Scholar. Alternatively, the odd phrasing could relate to Southwell's recent election (in 1690) at the time when the document was compiled: or it could conceivably refer to Boyle himself, who had visited Padua, Venice and Moulins (also referred to as a place the gentleman in question had visited (fol. 61 v; see Maddison, , Life (op. cit. 4), pp. 2728, 38Google Scholar; on Boyle and the presidency, see below, p. 393).

8 Thomas, Keith, Religion and the Decline of Magic, London, 1971Google Scholar, especially Chapters II–III. I am indebted to an anonymous referee for pointing this theme out to me.

9 Maddison, , Life (op. cit. 4), especially pp. 39f.Google Scholar; see also, e.g. Boyle's ‘Essay of the Holy Scriptures’, Royal Society Boyle Papers, 7, fols If.; Boyle to Barlow, ?1684, Royal Society Boyle Letters, 6, fol. 68. On the background see Canny, Nicholas, The Upstart Earl, Cambridge, 1982, especially pp. 130131.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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12 Boyle, , Works (op. cit. 2), 1, pp. lvi, lxvviiiGoogle Scholar. Boyle also consulted Michael Boyle, Bishop of Cork, about the impropriations. See also ibid., 6, pp. 303–305; Boyle Letters, 3, fol. 165; Sir Peter Pett's memorandum in B. L. Add. MS 4229, fol. 44v; and Barlow, 's Several Miscellaneous and Weighty Cases of Conscience, London, 1692Google Scholar: a copy of the case concerning the setting up of images in the church at Moulton survives as B.P., 4, fols 132–134. On ‘tutiorism’, see McAdoo, , Structure (op. cit 10), pp. 90f.Google Scholar

13 B.P., 3, fols 138141Google Scholar. For a text of these notes and a commentary, see my forthcoming article, ‘Casuistry in Action: Robert Boyle's Confessional Interviews with Gilbert Burnet and Edward Stillingfleet, 1691’. On the 1680 episode see Maddison, Life (4), pp. 138139.Google Scholar

14 Boyle, , Works (op. cit. 2), 1, p. cxxxivGoogle Scholar; Maddison, , Life (op. cit. 4), pp. 257282.Google Scholar

15 See Robert Kirk's notes on his interview with Stillingfleet in 1689, Edinburgh University Library Laing MS III.545, fols 18v, 19v, printed (with slight inaccuracies) in Transactions of the London and Middlesex Archaeological Society, (1933), n.s. 7, p. 139.Google Scholar

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19 See Walker, D. P., Spiritual and Demonic Magic from Ficino to Campanella, London, 1958Google Scholar, and Clulee, N. H., John Dee's Natural Philosophy: between Magic and Religion, London, 1988, especially pp. 127fGoogle Scholar. On medieval hostility to magic see esp. Peters, Edward, The Magician, the Witch and the Law, Hassocks, 1978.Google Scholar

20 Perrault, F., The Devill of Mascon, Oxford, 1658Google Scholar; Boyle, , Works (op. cit. 2), 1, pp. ccxxiiiGoogle Scholar. Cf. Webster, , Paracelsus to Newton (op. cit. 18), pp. 9293.Google Scholar

21 Boyle, , Works (op. cit. 2), 5, pp. 604f.Google Scholar

22 Ibid., 1, p. ccxxxviii; B.P. 39, fols 216217Google Scholar. See also Kirk, Robert, The Secret Common-wealth (ed. Sanderson, S.), Cambridge & Ipswich, 1976, pp. 73f.Google Scholar; Tanner, J. R. (ed.), Private Correspondence and Miscellaneous Papers of Samuel Pepys, 2 vols, London 1926, voi i, 219225.Google Scholar

23 R. S. MS 186, fol. 113vGoogle Scholar. Cf. fol. 32, and see also fol. 175.

24 See especially B.P. 37, fols 78103, 120Google Scholar; 40, fols 100–137.

25 See especially Prior, M. E., ‘Joseph Glanvill, Witchcraft and Seventeenth-century Science’, Modern Philology, (1932), 30, pp. 167193CrossRefGoogle Scholar, Cope, J. I., Joseph Glanvill, Anglican Apologist, St Louis, 1956, pp. 62f, 89fGoogle Scholar, and Schaffer, Simon, ‘Godly Men and Mechanical Philosophers: Souls and Spirits in Restoration Natural Philosophy’, Science in Context, (1987), 1, pp. 5585.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

26 Boyle, , Works (op. cit. 2), 6, pp. 5759.Google Scholar

27 Boyle, , Works (op. cit. 2), 4, p. 6Google Scholar. See also ibid., pp. 9–10, 19–20; 5, pp. 146–148.

28 B.P. 7, fols 134v–5, 136–150. It is possibly significant that the names of two of the interlocutors, Arnobius and Timotheus, also appear in Boyle, 's Discourse of Things above Reason, Works (op. cit. 2), 4, pp. 406fGoogle Scholar. I am grateful to Lawrence Principe for this point.

29 Ashmole, Elias, Theatrum Chemicum Britannicum, London, 1652, Sig. Blv.Google Scholar

30 Casaubon, Meric (ed.), A True & Faithful Relation of What passed For many Yeers Between Dr John Dee… and Some Spirits, London, 1659, Sig. E4Google Scholar. For a similar view stated from a favourable standpoint, see Lilly, William, Christian Astrology, London, 1647, pp. 442443Google Scholar. See also Evans, R. J. W., The Making of the Hapsburg Monarchy 1550–1700, Oxford, 1979, p. 364Google Scholar. For background, see Thomas, , Religion and the Decline of Magic (op. cit. 8), pp. 269270.Google Scholar

31 Boyle, Robert, The Sceptical Chymist, London, 1911, reprinted 1937, pp. 113fGoogle Scholar. and passim. Many of these passages are collected in Vickers, Brian, ‘Analogy versus Identity: the Rejection of Occult Symbolism, 1580–1680’, in Vickers, Brian (ed.), Occult and Scientific Mentalities in the Renaissance, Cambridge, 1984, pp. 114115 and 158 n. 37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

32 See, e.g. B.P. 25, p. 295; R.S. MS 187, fols 5v–6; 198, fol. 143v; 199, fols 25f., 46f.

33 See Principe, L. M., ‘The Gold Process: Directions in the Study of Robert Boyle's Alchemy’ in Alchemy Revisited: Proceedings of an International Congress at the University of Groningen, 17–19 April 1989 Brill, Leiden).Google Scholar

34 Boyle, , Works (op. cit. 2), 3, p 108Google Scholar. Cf. ibid., pp. 102f. passim. See Dobbs, B. J. T., The Foundations of Newton's Alchemy, Cambridge, 1975, Chapter VIGoogle Scholar; More, L. T., ‘Boyle as Alchemist’, Journal of the History of Ideas, (1941), 2, pp. 6176CrossRefGoogle Scholar (reprinted in The Life and Works of the Honourable Robert Boyle, New York, 1944, Chapter XI), especially p. 69Google Scholar; Boas, Marie [Hall, ], Robert Boyle and Seventeenth-century Chemistry, Cambridge, 1958, pp. 102f.Google Scholar; Hide, A. J., ‘Alchemy in Reverse: Robert Boyle on the Degradation of Gold’, Chymia, (1964) 9, pp. 4757, especially p. 55Google Scholar. See also West, Muriel, ‘Notes on the Importance of Alchemy to Modern Science in the Writings of Francis Bacon and Robert Boyle’, Ambix, (1961), 9, pp. 102114CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Cf. Boyle, , Works (op. cit. 2), 1, p. cxxxiGoogle Scholar, where Birch notes how Halley had told him that Boyle had avowed his conviction of the possibility of transmutation in a conversation with him.

35 The Latin section is B.P. 25, pp. 185215Google Scholar. For the list of ‘Heads’, see ibid., p. 305 (of which that in ibid, pp. 185–186, isa Latin translation): this is clearly copied from the earlier version in R.S.MS 198, fols 144–145 (cited in Boas, , Boyle and Seventeenth-century Chemistry, (op. cit. 34), p. 102Google Scholar). For fragments, see B.P. 25, pp. 287290, 291294, 299300Google Scholar (all endorsed as belonging to this work) and probably also 283–285, 303–304 and 419–421; 38, fol. 160 and probably also fols 157–159. See also the items referred to in nn.32, 45.

36 For the quotations, see B.P. 25, pp. 287288, 305Google Scholar; 38, fol. 160. The date is suggested by B.P. 25, p. 419 (assuming that this does indeed belong to the treatise), in which Boyle's interview with Waldstein concerning the Seiler episode is referred to as recent.

37 R.S.MS 198, fol. 143v.Google Scholar

38 Boyle, , Works (op. cit. 2), 4, pp. 371379Google Scholar. A draft for a section of this survives as B.P. 38, fols 71–72. See also Ihde, , ‘Alchemy in Reverse’ (op. cit. 34), passimGoogle Scholar; More, ‘Boyle as Alchemist’ (op. cit. 34), pp. 6567Google Scholar. For Tachenius' view that the gold thus degraded was in fact recoverable see Boyle, , Works, (op. cit. 2) 1, p. cxi.Google Scholar

39 Philosophical Transactions, (1676), 10, pp. 515533Google Scholar (reprinted in Boyle, , Works (op. cit. 2), 4, pp. 219230)Google Scholar; Newton, to Oldenburg, , 26 04 1676Google Scholar, in Turnbull, H. W., Scott, J. F., Hall, A. R. and Tilling, Laura (eds), The Correspondence of Isaac Newton, 7 vols, Cambridge, 19591977, vol. ii, 12Google Scholar. Cf. More, ‘Boyle as Alchemist’ (op. cit 34), pp. 6164Google Scholar; Ihde, , ‘Alchemy in Reverse’ (op. cit 34), p. 55.Google Scholar

40 See Maddison, , Life (op. cit. 4), pp. 166176.Google Scholar

41 Such letters are to be found among the Boyle Letters, passim: for example, those referred to below, n. 51.

42 , W.C., A Philosophicall Epitaph in Hierogliphicall Figures with Explanation. A Briefe of the golden Calfe (the Worlds Idoll)…, London, 1673, Sig. A23Google Scholar and passim. The narrative concerning the transmutation is conveniently reprinted in Taylor, F. Sherwood, The Alchemists, Paladin, edn., St Albans, 1976, pp. 137fGoogle Scholar. Though the translator is often presumed to be the bookseller, William Cooper, see Josten, C. H., Elias Ashmole, Oxford, 1966, vol. iii, 1289Google Scholar, for the fact that it was one William Chamberlaine. An earlier English translation of Helvetius' Vitulus Aureus had appeared in 1670. For Ashmole's interest in this and Becher's book, see ibid., vol. iv, 1655.

43 Becher, J. J., Magnalia Naturae (London, 1680), passimGoogle Scholar. For a recent review of the whole affair, see Evans, , Hapsburg Monarchy (op. cit. 30), pp. 365fGoogle Scholar. On Becher, see also Partington, J. R., A History of Chemistry, vol. ii, London, 1961, Chapter XVII.Google Scholar

44 Robinson, H. W. and Adams, W. (eds), The Diary of Robert Hooke, 1672–1680, London, 1935, p. 147 (17 02 1675)Google Scholar; B.P. 25, pp. 273–276. This item, which includes the date ‘26 June’ on p. 275, comprises a copy of Boyle's notes of his interviews with Waldstein and with the son of the Count of Lamberg, who was evidently in the ambassador's entourage. Waldstein was in England from 5 June 1677 to 9 March 1679: Maddison, , Life (op. cit. 4), p. 168n.Google Scholar

45 B.P. 25, pp. 273–276 and 277–278 (a copy of the latter appears as pp. 307–308: this originally belonged with pp. 273–276, as is shown by the fact that it is in the same hand and format, that it continues the same original pagination, and that it has been damaged by damp in the same way; it is endorsed: ‘Papers relating to the Transmutation at Vienna told him by Count Lamberg & Count Wallensteyn’). Ibid, pp. 419–421, instances the Seiler affair and quotes information from Waldstein which differs significantly from that given in pp. 273–276.

46 B.P. 25, p. 274.

47 Becher, , Magnalia Naturae (op. cit. 43), p. 29Google Scholar. Cf. ibid., pp. 2–3,15, 16, 27, 28.

48 B.P. 25, p. 281. For the original see R. S. Early Letters A 41, endorsed as being read to the Society on 23 September 1691.

49 B.P. 25, pp. 299 (it is interesting that the person from whom the powder came was said to have been murdered for the sake of the secret), p. 303.

50 Weidenfeld, J.S., De Secretis Adeptorum, London 1684, Sig. **1Google Scholar; trans in Four Books… Concerning the Secrets of the Adepts, London 1685, Sig. a3Google Scholar. Cf. Partington, , History of Chemistry (op. cit. 43), vol. ii, p. 182Google Scholar (but the suggestion in ibid., vol. ii, p. 495, that Weidenfeld was the ‘J.W.’ to whom Boyle addressed his Advertisement concerning the loss of his writings in 1688 is almost certainly wrong: this seems likeliest to have been John Warr).

51 Rothmaler, E., Consilium Philosophicum vel potius Harmonia Philosophica ad Mandatum Magni cuiusdam Principis in Chartam Projecta, B.P. 23, pp. 307fGoogle Scholar. See also Boyle Letters, 5, fol. 48, 6, fol. 46. I have not succeeding in identifying Rothmaler.

52 Boyle, , Works (op. cit. 2), 1, pp. cxxixxxxi.Google Scholar

53 Hall, M. B., Robert Boyle on Natural Philosophy, Bloomington, 1965, p. 276Google Scholar. Cf. Boas, , Boyle and Seventeenth-century Chemistry (op. cit. 34), p. 64.Google Scholar

54 Ibid, p. 102.

55 Boyle, , Works (op. cit. 2), 6, pp. 6061Google Scholar. Cf. Kirkby's letters to John Ellis, Under-secretary of State: B.L. Add. MSS 28879, fol. 186; 28881, fol. 111; 28883, fol. 183; 28897, fol. 411; 28898, fols 11,68.1 have not succeeded in tracing him in any of the standard lists of office-holders in the period.

56 1 William and Mary c. 30, printed in Boyle, , Works (op. cit. 2), 1, p. cxxxiiGoogle Scholar. For the date of royal assent, see Maddison, , Life (op. cit. 4), p. 176n.Google Scholar

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60 R.S. Copy Journal Book, 7, pp. 213214.Google Scholar

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62 Newton, to Locke, , 2 08 1692Google Scholar, Newton, , Correspondence (op. cit 39), 3, p. 217Google Scholar. He thought that, although Boyle had not tried it, this recipe was ‘the foundation’ of what Boyle published in Philosophical Transactions in 1676. He also added further deprecating remarks about the likely efficacy of the recipe on the basis of the experience of other chemists in London; but Newton's own attitude was rather convoluted: ibid, pp. 218–219. For a helpful account of Newton's alchemical interests at this time, see Westfall, R. S., ‘Newton's Alchemical Studies’Google Scholar, in Vickers, , Occult and Scienctific Mentalities (op. cit. 31), pp. 315335.Google Scholar

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65 Boyle, , Works (op. cit. 2), 4, p. 374.Google Scholar

66 On Seiler and Helvetius, see above. On Dee and Kelley, see Clulee, , John Dee (op. cit 19), p. 197Google Scholar; Smith, Charlotte Fell, John Dee (1527–1608), London, 1909, p. 77Google Scholar; Ashmole, , Theatrum (op. cit 29), p. 481.Google Scholar

67 Rowbottom, M. E., ‘The Earliest Published Writing of Robert Boyle’, Annals of Science, (1950), 6, pp. 376389CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Dobbs, , Newton's Alchemy (op. cit. 34), pp. 6869.Google Scholar

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69 R.S. MS 189, fol. 13Google Scholar; Newton, to Locke, , 2 08 1692Google Scholar, Newton, , Correspondence (op. cit 39), 3, p. 218Google Scholar. Cf. also the suggestion of More, ‘Boyle as Alchemist’ (op. cit. 34), pp. 7576Google Scholar, that alchemy explains why Boyle's papers were rifled by thieves who ‘expected to find valuabler things’ than they did, thus inspiring him to his 1688 Advertisement concerning the loss of his writings. This would indicate the risks involved in being publicly known to have found this kind of secret. For further evidence of Boyle's secrecy in such matters, see Boyle, , Works (op. cit. 2), 1, cxxxi.Google Scholar

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71 B.P, 38, fols 158–159; 25, p. 285.Google Scholar

72 Boyle, , Works (op. cit. 2), 4, 227228Google Scholar. Cf. B.P. 19, fol. 188.

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