Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class, a production
Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly
Speaker 1: Frye and I'm Crazy v Wilson. Robert Boyle came up
Speaker 1: in our recent episode on modern Inventions that are actually
Speaker 1: old because I mentioned an old thing and said Robert
Speaker 1: Boyle didn't start messing around with that. For a while.
Speaker 1: That made me want to do an episode on him,
Speaker 1: but then I ended up doing the heart lib episode
Speaker 1: first because that gives extra context to the kind of
Speaker 1: situation that was going on in England at the time
Speaker 1: regarding science and science clicks. And now here we are,
Speaker 1: at last, are ready for the Robert Boyle of it all.
Speaker 1: Boyle is sometimes called the father of modern chemistry. There
Speaker 1: are other scientists that get called that, though, like Antoine
Speaker 1: Lavoisier that we've talked about before. Boyle is frequently described
Speaker 1: as the first modern chemist, which is closer to accurate.
Speaker 1: But his work encompassed a lot more than that, including
Speaker 1: being a founding member of the Royal Society. He also
Speaker 1: wrote a lot of religious tracts and he was a
Speaker 1: product of his time. So you're ready because that means
Speaker 1: some of his ideas were just flat out super yucky.
Speaker 1: Robert Boyle was born January twenty fifth, sixteen twenty seven,
Speaker 1: in County Waterford, Ireland. He was born in the family home,
Speaker 1: which was Lismore Castle. His father was Richard Boyle, first
Speaker 1: Earl of Cork, who purchased that home again being a castle,
Speaker 1: from Sir Walter Raleigh in the first years of the
Speaker 1: sixteen hundreds. Richard is credited with repairing, renovating, and revitalizing
Speaker 1: the twelfth century property that had fallen into disrepair. Robert
Speaker 1: was the fourteenth of Richard Boyle's fifteen children, which he
Speaker 1: had over the course of two marriages. Robert's mother was Catherine,
Speaker 1: daughter of Ireland's Secretary of State. When Robert was born,
Speaker 1: his father wrote in his diary quote, my wife, God
Speaker 1: ever be praised, was about three of the clock in
Speaker 1: the afternoon of this day, and the sign in Gemini
Speaker 1: Libra safely delivered of her seventh son at Lismore. God
Speaker 1: bless him for his name is Robert Boyle. Robert was
Speaker 1: christened a week later at Lismore's Chapel, and there was
Speaker 1: a huge party to celebrate. Yeah, I didn't include it
Speaker 1: in these notes, but I did read a very kind
Speaker 1: of charming and illustrative note in some of Robert's writing
Speaker 1: about his family dynamic and how his brothers were treated
Speaker 1: versus him, because he was the last son, and he
Speaker 1: was saying, you know, even though the oldest son might
Speaker 1: inherit all of the property, the youngest son gets all
Speaker 1: of the love. And that certainly seemed to play out
Speaker 1: for them. Yeah, that huge party that they had to
Speaker 1: celebrate his christening was one of men large social events
Speaker 1: that happened at the castle when Robert was young. The
Speaker 1: Boyle family, due to their status, was constantly busy with guests,
Speaker 1: arranging marriages for their men and children, etc. But Robert,
Speaker 1: who was called Robin by his family, and his siblings
Speaker 1: also got a lot of time outdoors and they ate
Speaker 1: what he described as a quote coarse but cleanly diet.
Speaker 1: The luxuries that they experienced were not a constant, but
Speaker 1: they were saved for special occasions, and this kind of
Speaker 1: approach to their upbringing was all intended to make sure
Speaker 1: that the children were hearty and resilient. Robert's mother died
Speaker 1: of tuberculosis when he was three or four. Different sources
Speaker 1: report both of those ages, but basically when he was
Speaker 1: still very young. His father, the Earl, was present in
Speaker 1: his children's lives, but it seems as though most of
Speaker 1: the time that they had was spent with tutors and
Speaker 1: nannies and other staff. At the age of five, Robert
Speaker 1: was assigned his own personal valet. But though there had
Speaker 1: been a very big focus on this idea of country
Speaker 1: living that would ensure that Robert and the other kids
Speaker 1: in the family grew up to be healthy and strong.
Speaker 1: As Robert matured into adulthood, he actually had a lot
Speaker 1: of health issues, and he's often described as having been
Speaker 1: pretty frail. Among other things, he developed kidney stones at
Speaker 1: a very young age. Usually that's something that would onset
Speaker 1: later in life, but he got them when he was
Speaker 1: still a child. He also had very bad vision from
Speaker 1: the time he was quite young, and so a lot
Speaker 1: of time was spent trying to preserve what vision he had.
Speaker 1: Robert started attending Eton College at the age of eight,
Speaker 1: and he was a good student, so dedicated to learning
Speaker 1: that teachers had to stop him from reading so much
Speaker 1: in the hopes of not further damaging his eyesight. He
Speaker 1: was at Eton for three years and then was taught
Speaker 1: privately at the family's Stawbridge estate in Dorset, England, first
Speaker 1: with the Reverend William Douche and then with a French
Speaker 1: tutor named Isaac Marcom. When Robert was twelve, he and
Speaker 1: his older brother Francis, who was sixteen, began a tour
Speaker 1: of Europe that was customary for adolescent boys of wealth.
Speaker 1: This was a multi year affair and the boys were
Speaker 1: accompanied by Marcom, so their education continued during their travels.
Speaker 1: They were mostly based in Switzerland. They stayed at a
Speaker 1: home in Geneva, and then they would make trips out
Speaker 1: to other places from there. Robert was abroad for almost
Speaker 1: six years for this tour, but his brother Francis had
Speaker 1: to return home earlier in sixteen forty two, as the
Speaker 1: ongoing conflict between Catholics and Protestants escalated in Ireland. Richard
Speaker 1: Boyle was English by birth. This was really an English
Speaker 1: family that had moved to Ireland. The family were Protestants
Speaker 1: and by that point Francis would have been nineteen, so
Speaker 1: he would have needed to defend the family's holdings in
Speaker 1: the event of an attack. There's a whole context here
Speaker 1: of like the English colonization of Ireland, yes, which we
Speaker 1: have talked about before. So I was like, I don't
Speaker 1: know that we need to retread all that. We don't
Speaker 1: need to re explain the whole thing again. My understanding
Speaker 1: too is that even though his brother Francis went back,
Speaker 1: they their home was never attacked, he never actually had
Speaker 1: to do any of that defense that they were worried about.
Speaker 1: But in addition to furthering his education, including the acquisition
Speaker 1: of a very high degree of French language proficiency, you'll
Speaker 1: read a lot of accounts that basically say that Robert
Speaker 1: Boyle was so fluent in French that French people thought
Speaker 1: he was French. There was also a very significant event
Speaker 1: that happened during this time in Boyle's life where he
Speaker 1: was taking his years abroad. He wrote about it later
Speaker 1: when he was twenty one. At that point he penned
Speaker 1: a third person autobiography titled An Account of Filleratus during
Speaker 1: his minority. We're going to talk a little bit more
Speaker 1: about this third person conceit of this biography on Friday.
Speaker 1: In it, Boyle described a stormy night in Geneva that
Speaker 1: happened when he was thirteen and how it changed his life.
Speaker 1: He wrote, quote and Phileridus is his stand in name,
Speaker 1: like the name he gives to the character who is
Speaker 1: obviously him quote. But during Philaridus's residence at Geneva, there
Speaker 1: happened to him an accident which he always used to
Speaker 1: mention as the considerablest of his whole life. To frame
Speaker 1: a right apprehension of this, you must understand that though
Speaker 1: his inclinations were ever virtuous, and his life free from
Speaker 1: scandal and inoffensive, yet had the piety he was master
Speaker 1: of already so diverted him from aspiring unto more. That Christ,
Speaker 1: who long had lain asleep in his conscience, as he
Speaker 1: once did in the ship, must now as then be
Speaker 1: waked by a storm. For at a time which, being
Speaker 1: the very heat of summer, promised nothing less about the
Speaker 1: dead of night that adds most terror to such accidents,
Speaker 1: Philardus was suddenly waked in affright with such loud claps
Speaker 1: of thunder, which are oftentimes very terrible in those hot
Speaker 1: climbs and seasons, that he thought the earth would owe
Speaker 1: an ague to the air. The long continuance of that
Speaker 1: dismal tempest, where the winds were so loud as almost
Speaker 1: drowned the noise of the very thunder, and the shower
Speaker 1: so hideous as almost quenched the lightning ere it could
Speaker 1: reach his eyes, confirmed feloratus in his apprehensions of the
Speaker 1: day of judgments being at hand. Whereupon the consideration of
Speaker 1: his unpreparedness to welcome it, and the hideousness of being
Speaker 1: surprised by it in an unfit condition, made him resolve
Speaker 1: and vow that if his fears were that night disappointed,
Speaker 1: all his further additions to his life should be more
Speaker 1: religiously and watchfully employed. The morning came, and a serener,
Speaker 1: cloudless sky returned when he ratified his determination so solemnly
Speaker 1: that from that day he dated his converse renewing. Now
Speaker 1: he was past changer the vow he had made, so
Speaker 1: the storm scared him so badly that he pledged to
Speaker 1: become an ardent Christian. A lot of people have moments
Speaker 1: like this in their lives. Something happens, you feel like
Speaker 1: you're committing yourself to something up for a lot of
Speaker 1: get me through this, yeah, whether it's whether it's religion
Speaker 1: or something else. Like for a lot of folks, though,
Speaker 1: that kind of fades away. But Boyle stuck to that
Speaker 1: promise for the rest of his life, while he was
Speaker 1: already interested in science before this event. His newfound religiousness
Speaker 1: shifted his approach to science as it grew up. He
Speaker 1: pursued science always as a means to show the marvels
Speaker 1: of the natural world as the work of God. One
Speaker 1: of the ideas that Boyle wrote about over the years
Speaker 1: was this concept that the universe is a huge machine.
Speaker 1: Everything in it functions as a component of it, down
Speaker 1: to minute particles that are different perentiated by shape and motion.
Speaker 1: In his religious worldview, this was a mechanism that had
Speaker 1: been carefully designed by a higher power. Coming up, we
Speaker 1: will talk about Boyle's life after his tour of Europe,
Speaker 1: but first we will hear from the sponsors that keep
Speaker 1: the show going. At the age of seventeen, Robert Boyle
Speaker 1: finished his travels, but he did not return to Ireland. Instead,
Speaker 1: he went to London and he stayed with his sister
Speaker 1: Catherine for four and a half months. From there he
Speaker 1: moved on to Dorset, England, where he had a family
Speaker 1: estate that was the manner of Stalbridge that he had
Speaker 1: inherited upon his father's death in sixteen forty three. While
Speaker 1: there was a great deal of turmoil in play at
Speaker 1: this time that impacted the aristocracy in regards to their landholdings.
Speaker 1: Boyle's property was safe. Other people in similar situations were
Speaker 1: having their estates seized by the parliamentarians. But Boyle's sister Catherine,
Speaker 1: who had become Viscountess Randlaw when she married Arthur Jones,
Speaker 1: had good relationships with members of the parliamentarians, which had
Speaker 1: helped ensure that Robert would get and keep his inherited land.
Speaker 1: Boyle wrote of this advantageous relationship this way, quote he
Speaker 1: reaped also a collateral advantage by it, which was that
Speaker 1: a sister in law of Lady Randlaw, who was with
Speaker 1: them in the house and was wife of one of
Speaker 1: the principal members of the then House of Commons, brought
Speaker 1: him into the acquaintance and friendship of some great men
Speaker 1: of that party, which was then growing and soon after victorious,
Speaker 1: by whose means he got early protection for his English
Speaker 1: and Irish estates. At Stalbridge, Boyle started his life's work
Speaker 1: in earnest studying science and theology in parallel. In his autobiography,
Speaker 1: he wrote that quote he applied himself with great figures
Speaker 1: to his studies of various kinds, particularly those of natural
Speaker 1: philosophy and chemistry. He had already spent a lot of
Speaker 1: time studying ancient languages so that he could study religious
Speaker 1: texts in their original languages. This is also when he
Speaker 1: started writing seriously about religion and ethics, and he wrote
Speaker 1: the autobiography that we've already mentioned. He also started a
Speaker 1: series of scientific experiments, and when Boyle first got to Stalbridge,
Speaker 1: he wrote his sister a very long letter. He includes
Speaker 1: it in that autobiography, and that letter concluded, quote, my
Speaker 1: stay here, god willing, shall not be long, this country
Speaker 1: being generally infected with three epidemical diseases besides that old
Speaker 1: liger sickness, the troop flux, namely the plague which now
Speaker 1: begins to revive again at Bristol and Jovel six miles off,
Speaker 1: fits of the committee, and consumption of the purse to
Speaker 1: which so violent expulsives. I is so potent and a
Speaker 1: attractive as a letter from you were, but added it
Speaker 1: would both extremely sweeten this day and accelerate the departure
Speaker 1: of your most affectionate brother and humble servant. So he
Speaker 1: basically thought England was not cool. But his time at
Speaker 1: Stallbridge was not short as he had hoped. He ended
Speaker 1: up living there more than a decade. In sixteen forty seven,
Speaker 1: Robert Boyle became acquainted with the Heartlibs circle, which we
Speaker 1: covered just recently, and it was through the chemists in
Speaker 1: the group that Boyle started to think about doing his
Speaker 1: own chemistry experiments. He wrote of this quote. His acquaintance
Speaker 1: with mister Samuel Hartlib began very early, and he included
Speaker 1: several letters that he wrote Heartlib in this autobiography to
Speaker 1: illustrate their ongoing relationship. The two men bonded over both
Speaker 1: science and religion, and Boyle referenced writing of Heartlib's friend
Speaker 1: and collaborator John Durry on that subject. In May of
Speaker 1: sixteen forty seven, Boyle wrote a letter to Dorry encouraging
Speaker 1: his efforts to bring Lutherans and Calvinists together, stating quote,
Speaker 1: it is strange that men should rather be quarreling for
Speaker 1: a few trifling opinions wherein they dissent, than to embrace
Speaker 1: one another for those many fundamental truths wherein they agree.
Speaker 1: And it is in this letter to Heartlib that Boyle
Speaker 1: mentioned that the information he had received from Heartlib gave
Speaker 1: him something to do at Stalbridge, where he was kind
Speaker 1: of lonely and bored. Quote as for me, during my
Speaker 1: confinement to this melancholy solitude, I often divert myself at
Speaker 1: leisure moments in trying such experiments as the unfurnishedness of
Speaker 1: the place and the present distractedness of my mind will
Speaker 1: permit me, which when once my vacant intervals of time,
Speaker 1: will give me leave to block paper with and make
Speaker 1: some short discourses and reflections upon you may with all
Speaker 1: the services you shall be pleased to command their author
Speaker 1: confidently expect from your most affectionate friend and humble servant. Yeah. So,
Speaker 1: just in case that's unclear, He's like, thank you so
Speaker 1: much for those materials you sent me. That's going to
Speaker 1: help me in the experiments I want to try, and
Speaker 1: whatever I find out, I'm going to send back to
Speaker 1: you for circulation in the circle. So yeah, he was like,
Speaker 1: this is very convenient. With my big empty house, I
Speaker 1: have lots of space for doing experiments. I'm bored and
Speaker 1: I can do activities. Another person that became highly influential
Speaker 1: in Boyle's intellectual life also entered it during the Stalbridge years.
Speaker 1: That was physician Nathaniel Highmore. Hi Moore was educated at Oxford,
Speaker 1: and at one point he had cared for members of
Speaker 1: the royal family. He wasn't the regular royal surgeon. It
Speaker 1: was like an instance where at least one member of
Speaker 1: the family had gotten quite ill when they were traveling,
Speaker 1: and he happened to be the nearby doctor. By the
Speaker 1: time Boyle met him, Himore had set up a private
Speaker 1: practice in Sherburne, a little more than seven miles west
Speaker 1: of Stallbridge. Him Moore was a leader in the medical
Speaker 1: field in a now me In particular, he is often
Speaker 1: described as an anatomy pioneer. He is credited with being
Speaker 1: the first person to describe in writing the maxillary sinus
Speaker 1: and the part of testicular anatomy that separates the testicles.
Speaker 1: Highmore and Boyle became very fast friends, so much so
Speaker 1: that when Highmore published his book The History of Generation
Speaker 1: in sixteen fifty one, he dedicated it to Robert Boyle,
Speaker 1: writing to the Honorable Mister Robert Boyle, son to the
Speaker 1: right Honorable the Earl of Cork, my much honored friend,
Speaker 1: Noble Sir, Where virtue shall be found in conjunction with
Speaker 1: nobility and such black the last and worst times, it
Speaker 1: no less invites and amazes the eyes and hearers of
Speaker 1: beholders than some new star or blazing comet. But with
Speaker 1: the difference, the one is cause of their fear, the
Speaker 1: other gives life to their hopes and joy. You have, sir,
Speaker 1: so enriched your tender years with such choice principles of
Speaker 1: the best sort and even, and to admiration, manage them
Speaker 1: to the greatest advantage, that you stand both a pattern
Speaker 1: and a wonder to our nobility and gentry. Along with
Speaker 1: the land he had inherited in England, Boyle also had
Speaker 1: land in Ireland. During the two years that ran from
Speaker 1: sixteen fifty two to sixteen fifty four, he was frequently
Speaker 1: in Ireland, but that didn't slow down his scientific work.
Speaker 1: He had also begun years earlier to attend get togethers
Speaker 1: of the group of men who wo had come to
Speaker 1: be known as the Invisible College. That's a name Boyle
Speaker 1: is credited with coining. Through these meetings and the relationships
Speaker 1: he developed, it became well known that Boyle was working
Speaker 1: in a number of areas, but especially chemistry, and that
Speaker 1: he was recording a lot of information in his home lab. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he definitely garnered a lot of respect through this, and
Speaker 1: you'll often even see him described as the center of
Speaker 1: the Invisible College. In sixteen fifty four, Boyle had rush
Speaker 1: returned from Ireland to Stallbridge, and he was at that
Speaker 1: point invited to join the University of Oxford. Doctor John Wilkins,
Speaker 1: who was an Anglican clergyman, a natural philosopher and the
Speaker 1: warden of Wadham College at Oxford, had offered him a
Speaker 1: position there, and for Boyle, who had been working on
Speaker 1: his own out in the country, London had started to
Speaker 1: look really quite appealing, so in sixteen fifty five he
Speaker 1: left Dorset. The move to Oxford put Boyle in close
Speaker 1: proximity to many intellectuals, and he soon fell in with
Speaker 1: a group of them that includes very familiar names. Among
Speaker 1: them were John Locke and Christopher Wren. The men started
Speaker 1: meeting at Boyle's home and dubbed themselves the Experimental Philosophy Club.
Speaker 1: And Boyle's scientific work also got a huge boost in
Speaker 1: this move because he was able to set up a
Speaker 1: laboratory in High Street and fill it with a full staff.
Speaker 1: This enabled Boyle to do more experiments and to publish
Speaker 1: a lot of information, and his lab became came a
Speaker 1: hub of new discoveries that propelled the entire European scientific
Speaker 1: community forward. One of the members of Boyle's staff was
Speaker 1: his assistant Robert Hook. Boyle had shared information with Hook
Speaker 1: about an air pump that had been developed in Germany
Speaker 1: in sixteen fifty four for creating a vacuum for scientific experimentation,
Speaker 1: but the German design wasn't ideal and it had performance issues.
Speaker 1: Hook solved these problems with his own version of the pump,
Speaker 1: which he developed in sixteen fifty nine. The Hook model
Speaker 1: worked consistently and opened the door for an array of experiments.
Speaker 1: He worked on projects that examined the functions of vacuums,
Speaker 1: air pressure, and combustion, as well as others. In sixteen
Speaker 1: sixty Boyle published his new writing based on this work,
Speaker 1: New Experiments Physico Mechanical Touching the Spring of the Air
Speaker 1: and its Effects. A second edition was published in sixteen
Speaker 1: sixty two with additional notes, and In this work, Boyle
Speaker 1: described the inverse relationship between the pressure and volume of
Speaker 1: a gas at a constant temperature. He described this only
Speaker 1: as a hypothesis that was based on data that he
Speaker 1: collected from an experiment, but that idea would eventually be
Speaker 1: recognized as Boyle's law today, Boyle's original description is a
Speaker 1: little difficult to recognize as that law of inverse relationship
Speaker 1: that students are taught about today. This kind of interesting
Speaker 1: way that he described it was discussed at length in
Speaker 1: this nineteen ninety nine paper by John B. West, which
Speaker 1: was published in the Journal of Applied Psychology. West writes
Speaker 1: this of Boyle's work, quote, the original presentation of what
Speaker 1: we know as Boyle's law has several interesting features, and
Speaker 1: then West outlines these interesting features, the first being that
Speaker 1: Boyle was using a very long J shaped tube was
Speaker 1: two and a half meters long, which made the whole
Speaker 1: experiment of trying to measure gas and volume a little
Speaker 1: bit tricky. Additionally, the numbers that Boyle recorded look really
Speaker 1: nutty to modernize, because his calculations led to some wild fractions.
Speaker 1: You'll see things listed as a number with ten thirteenths
Speaker 1: of something and eighteen twenty thirds. Because while the concept
Speaker 1: of decimals to represent fractions less than the number one
Speaker 1: had been used in Europe already during the seventeenth century,
Speaker 1: they weren't common and they weren't standard practice. Fractions were
Speaker 1: really the style of the day when it came to notation.
Speaker 1: And the other odd thing that West notes is that
Speaker 1: the two numbers that needed to be compared to see
Speaker 1: that relationship between pressure and volume were included in Boyle's
Speaker 1: writing in two different tables, so a reader trying to
Speaker 1: understand and grasp the concept have to look back and
Speaker 1: forth between them, which is just not very efficient. And again,
Speaker 1: it was a hypothesis. It wasn't like he was saying
Speaker 1: this was a for sure thing. But this concept was
Speaker 1: described by Boyle as an experiment and his observations. As
Speaker 1: we said a moment ago, it only later came to
Speaker 1: be known as Boyle's law. And we have to note
Speaker 1: too that Boyle and Hook get credit for this, but
Speaker 1: they were not the only scientists trying to understand the
Speaker 1: property of air and gases. Several other scientists arrived at
Speaker 1: similar conclusions around the same time, including English physician Henry Power,
Speaker 1: English mathematician Richard Townley, and French physicist Edme Mariott. So
Speaker 1: while Boyle is often called the first modern chemist, his
Speaker 1: most significant and enduring contribution to science is also something
Speaker 1: that is a physics concept. I feel like I learned
Speaker 1: Boyle's law in physics before it ever came up in chemistry.
Speaker 1: I think I did too. We'll talk about the founding
Speaker 1: of the Royal Society and beyond, but first we'll take
Speaker 1: a quick sponsor break. The same year that the first
Speaker 1: edition of New Experiments Physico Mechanical was published, the Royal
Speaker 1: Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge was founded on
Speaker 1: November twenty eighth at Gresham College when Boyle and eleven
Speaker 1: other men in his circle met after a lecture given
Speaker 1: by Christopher Wren. Ren was also one of the founders.
Speaker 1: This official founding brought together a few separate but overlapping
Speaker 1: kind of casual circles of natural philosophers. By the way,
Speaker 1: the word natural philosopher just means scientists. They just didn't
Speaker 1: have the word scientists yet. And all of these men
Speaker 1: had started meeting as far back as the sixteen forties,
Speaker 1: because a big part of what brought them together was
Speaker 1: the writing of Sir Francis Bacon, who had put forth
Speaker 1: the idea of the scientific method, and this concept of
Speaker 1: establishing a set of rules for conducting experiments and collating
Speaker 1: data and making things all work in a way that
Speaker 1: everyone in the field could understand. So with the founding
Speaker 1: of this formal group. It was possible to then set
Speaker 1: scheduled meetings and also to seek a royal charter, and
Speaker 1: that meant that they would have a right to publish.
Speaker 1: Robert Hook's book Micrographia was one of the group's earliest publications.
Speaker 1: In sixteen sixty five, the periodical Philosophical Transactions of the
Speaker 1: Royal Society was launched that, of course, continues to date.
Speaker 1: I have used it a lot in research. It is
Speaker 1: the world's first scientific journal, and that means it is
Speaker 1: also the longest running. Boyle's next book was The Skeptical Chemist,
Speaker 1: which was published in sixteen sixty one. The full title
Speaker 1: of that is The Skeptical Chemist or Chemico Physical Doubts
Speaker 1: and Paradoxes touching the Spagyrists' principles, commonly called hypostatical as
Speaker 1: they are wont to be proposed and defended by the
Speaker 1: generality of alchemists. Whereuntio is premised part of another dis
Speaker 1: course relating to the same subject. This is a scientific work,
Speaker 1: but it is presented as a fictional discussion among five characters.
Speaker 1: The whole thing takes place in a garden, and the
Speaker 1: characters all debate various matters that were being debated throughout
Speaker 1: the scientific community, including alchemy. He wrote it in this
Speaker 1: unusual style to help people who were not scientists understand
Speaker 1: these ideas. In the preface, he states this quote, I
Speaker 1: have endeavored to deliver matters of fact so faithfully that
Speaker 1: I may as well assist the less skillful readers to
Speaker 1: examine the chemical hypothesis as provoked the spagyrical philosophers to
Speaker 1: illustrate it, which if they do, and that either the
Speaker 1: chemical opinion or the parapatetic or any other theory of
Speaker 1: the elements differing from that I am most inclined to,
Speaker 1: shall be intelligibly explicated and duly proved to me. Yeah,
Speaker 1: in case anybody didn't know, we're not getting into it all,
Speaker 1: holl whole lot here. Robert Boyle believed in alchemy and
Speaker 1: thought you could transmute metals, which we'll talk about a
Speaker 1: little more towards the end of the episode. Throughout all
Speaker 1: of this scientific work, Boyle continued to write religious works
Speaker 1: as well, and he published numerous Christian essays. He also
Speaker 1: bankrolled projects that published the Bible in multiple languages, so
Speaker 1: he paid for the translation and the publication, and this
Speaker 1: work in the promotion of Christianity led him to a
Speaker 1: leadership position with the Company for the Propagation of the
Speaker 1: Gospel in New England. This organization, which still exists today
Speaker 1: as the New England Company, which is a grant giving charity,
Speaker 1: was founded in sixteen forty nine, originally to send missionaries
Speaker 1: to the New England colonies to evangelize the indigenous population there.
Speaker 1: Boyle was made that company's governor in sixteen sixty two.
Speaker 1: In sixteen sixty eight, Boyle, who was then in his
Speaker 1: early forties, concluded his time at Oxford and moved to London.
Speaker 1: He lived there with his sister, Catherine Jones, Viscountess Renla.
Speaker 1: This was in part so that he would not be
Speaker 1: living alone as is Boyle's health was not especially good.
Speaker 1: His sister had separated from her husband, so he also
Speaker 1: provided her with companionship, and the two of them were
Speaker 1: well known and popular in London society. In his new home,
Speaker 1: Boyle was able to assemble an ideal set up for
Speaker 1: his work, with a full laboratory and staff, but his
Speaker 1: popularity caused some problems. He had so many visitors dropping
Speaker 1: into chat that it interrupted his work. He had to
Speaker 1: make a sign to put on the door when he
Speaker 1: was busy with his experiments to let callers know that
Speaker 1: it was not a good time. Yeah. Between him and
Speaker 1: his sister, their house was like a social hub in London.
Speaker 1: Everybody wanted to just pop by and it was like,
Speaker 1: oh no, I'm in the middle of moving air around
Speaker 1: that moved to London also enabled Boyle to regularly meet
Speaker 1: up with many of the most influential thinkers of the day.
Speaker 1: Once he was living in London, he was then at
Speaker 1: the Royal Society's epicenter, and he could be more fully
Speaker 1: involved in the organization and attend those regular meetings. He
Speaker 1: was asked to be the group's president in sixteen eighty,
Speaker 1: but he declined. Both Robert and his sister Catherine were
Speaker 1: ill in the autumn of sixteen ninety one. Catherine died
Speaker 1: on December twenty third of that year. This death devastated Boyle,
Speaker 1: and he became even sicker immediately after the loss. He
Speaker 1: died eight days later on December thirty first. The brief
Speaker 1: time between their deaths meant that Robert did not have
Speaker 1: time to update his will, which listed Catherine as one
Speaker 1: of the executors and the principal beneficiary. This was very
Speaker 1: clearly a matter of him in trusting Catherine to use
Speaker 1: her judgment regarding his life's work. In one second of it,
Speaker 1: he wrote, quote, I give to the said lady Randala
Speaker 1: all my manuscripts and collections of receipts, beseeching her to
Speaker 1: have a care that they, or any of them come
Speaker 1: not into the hands or perusal to any to whom
Speaker 1: she thinks that, if I were alive, I should be
Speaker 1: unwilling to have them communicated. I sort of love that.
Speaker 1: Don't give these people I don't like. You know, you
Speaker 1: know who they are, You know who they you know
Speaker 1: who's on the list. He also left his collaborator and
Speaker 1: former assistant, Hook, meaningful tools of their shared trade quote,
Speaker 1: I give to mister Robert Hook, author of micrographia, now
Speaker 1: professor of Mathematics in Gresham College, my best microscope and
Speaker 1: my best loadstone. One of the book queathments that is
Speaker 1: still in play today, was a sum of money to
Speaker 1: set up a lecture series to examine the relationship between
Speaker 1: science and religion. The Boil lectures started out with what
Speaker 1: would today be a very narrow and problematic focus. It
Speaker 1: was about proving Christianity to atheists and people who practiced
Speaker 1: religions other than Christianity. Over time, the lectures have taken
Speaker 1: on a more progressive worldview. Yeah, if you look at
Speaker 1: a list of these lectures from early on, they're not
Speaker 1: cool yikes. It's yeah, there's it's yikes on bikes. And
Speaker 1: there was actually a little gap from the sixties to
Speaker 1: I think two thousand and four when they started back
Speaker 1: up again, but they are still ongoing. In addition to
Speaker 1: that lecture series bequest, there were also directions for missionary
Speaker 1: efforts in North America. Boyle wrote quote, I had set apart,
Speaker 1: among other things, the sum of four hundred one for
Speaker 1: certain pious uses. And whereas his late Majesty King Charles
Speaker 1: the Second, having, by his special grace in favor, without
Speaker 1: my seeking or knowledge, been pleased to constitute me governor
Speaker 1: of the Corporation for propagating of the Gospel amongst the
Speaker 1: Heathen natives of New England and other parts of America,
Speaker 1: hath thereby given me opportunity to discern that work to
Speaker 1: be unquestionably pious and charitable. And whereas I have given
Speaker 1: and paid the sum of three hundred pounds toward that piety,
Speaker 1: I do hereby give and devise the sum of one
Speaker 1: hundred pounds more to the said corporation, though by reason
Speaker 1: of sickness and infirmity, I have resigned the office of
Speaker 1: Governor to be set aside and employed as a stock
Speaker 1: for the relief of poor Indian converts, which I hope
Speaker 1: will prove of good effect for the advancement of the
Speaker 1: pious work for which they are constituted, and which I
Speaker 1: heartily pray him whose glory of the work itself tends unto,
Speaker 1: and I hope the persons entrusted with it aim at
Speaker 1: to give them a prosperous success. Yuck. So he was
Speaker 1: one of the earliest Europeans to really throw their support
Speaker 1: behind this idea of converting the indigenous peoples of North
Speaker 1: America to Christianity and as immolating them into white communities,
Speaker 1: which is we have discussed many times on this show before,
Speaker 1: created so many problems for indigenous people that are still
Speaker 1: being felt and sorted out today. One of the most
Speaker 1: touching passages in the Will, which also leaves some mysteries,
Speaker 1: is about a ring quote I given bequeath unto my
Speaker 1: dear sister Lady Catherine, Viscountess Randla, a small ring usually
Speaker 1: worn by me on my left hand, having in it
Speaker 1: two small diamonds with an emerald in the middle, which
Speaker 1: ring being held by me ever since my youth in
Speaker 1: great esteem and worn for many years for a particular
Speaker 1: reason not unknown to my said sister, the lady Randla.
Speaker 1: I do earnestly beseech her, my, said sister, to wear
Speaker 1: it in remembrance of a brother that truly honored and
Speaker 1: most dearly loved her. We don't know that meaning that
Speaker 1: they shared about that ring. We have no idea. We
Speaker 1: also don't know where that ring is ow She had
Speaker 1: passed at that point, so she couldn't take possession of it,
Speaker 1: and no one has ever found it. It has never
Speaker 1: appeared on like any kind of inventory of you know,
Speaker 1: somebody's holdings or a museum. I think the prevailing opinion
Speaker 1: is probably that he was buried with it. I was
Speaker 1: gonna ask if if he buried it with her. No,
Speaker 1: he willed it to her. He wore it until he
Speaker 1: died right days later, so I was thinking. But since
Speaker 1: he didn't have time to update his will when she died,
Speaker 1: did he bury it with her? I doubt it, but
Speaker 1: I could be wrong. Nobody knows. It's possible. I don't know,
Speaker 1: but both Catherine and Robert were buried close together in
Speaker 1: the chancel of Saint Martin's in the Fields. Robert had
Speaker 1: specified that he wanted a simple funeral quote without the
Speaker 1: least pomp. The sermon for that service was given by
Speaker 1: the Bishop of Salisbury. What if The most interesting legacies
Speaker 1: of Boyle is his scientific wish list. This list was
Speaker 1: draft did in the early years the Royal Society, and
Speaker 1: it features two dozen concepts that in some instances seem
Speaker 1: wildly outlandish but in other sort of prescient. It's a
Speaker 1: good illustration of how long we've been chasing certain dreams
Speaker 1: and ideas and how far we've come and fulfilling those ideas.
Speaker 1: Some of the things that we have managed to do
Speaker 1: include the prolongation of life. We have made some progress
Speaker 1: here since Boil's time, although there's a whole separate discussion
Speaker 1: about life expectancy versus life span and how long people
Speaker 1: actually lived in the past, Like how much of this
Speaker 1: is about deaths in childhood, All of that, all of
Speaker 1: that's outside the scope of this episode. Though there's also
Speaker 1: the recovery of youth, or at least some of the
Speaker 1: marks of it as new teeth, new hair colored as
Speaker 1: in youth, the art of flying, the practicable and certain
Speaker 1: way of finding longitudes. Potent drugs to alter or exalt imagination,
Speaker 1: waking memory and other functions, and appease pain for cure
Speaker 1: innocent sleep, harmless dreams, et cetera. Cure of diseases at
Speaker 1: a distance or at least by transplantation, and the making
Speaker 1: armor light and extremely hard. Yeah, that's stuff we figured
Speaker 1: out for the most part. I mean, there's lots of
Speaker 1: things we could still do. But yeah, I'm wondering what
Speaker 1: he meant by cure of diseases at a distance. I
Speaker 1: don't know. But we did get the transplantation thing mostly
Speaker 1: figured out there. We did get transplantation. I know. There
Speaker 1: are various kind of new agy things that are about
Speaker 1: sort of healing other people at a distance with your mind,
Speaker 1: And is that what he was about. I don't think so,
Speaker 1: But I don't know. Some of these don't have any notations.
Speaker 1: If you look at the list, it's just the List's
Speaker 1: not like the things that he writes. Some of his thing.
Speaker 1: Items on the list are longer than others, but it's
Speaker 1: just the list. There's no intentional notes, there are some
Speaker 1: things we have not yet managed to achieve, right, the
Speaker 1: art of continuing long underwater and exercising functions freely. There
Speaker 1: This ties into the next one, which is the emulating
Speaker 1: of fish without engines by custom and education only. So
Speaker 1: the idea that you could just learn, yeah, how to
Speaker 1: hang out underwater. If we could just you know, crack
Speaker 1: the code, a ship to sail with all winds and
Speaker 1: a ship not to be sunk. We have certainly managed
Speaker 1: to create ships that operate without need of wind, but
Speaker 1: not that are unsinkable. Yeah, less easy to sink than
Speaker 1: they used to be, but not unsinkable. Yeah. We we
Speaker 1: do have things like scuba gear now, but you gotta
Speaker 1: have the gear. You just can't think your way into
Speaker 1: staying under the water indefinitely. I'm learn I'm gonna go
Speaker 1: to living underwater school and I'm going to learn all
Speaker 1: the ways. There are also some things on this wish
Speaker 1: list that are kind of debatable in their achievement or
Speaker 1: they're just problematic. There's the transmutation of metals, for example.
Speaker 1: That's certainly part of Boyle's interests in alchemy, and this
Speaker 1: desire to create precious metals from non precious ones. We
Speaker 1: can sort of do it today with particle accelerators or
Speaker 1: nuclear reactions, but the expense of doing that is way
Speaker 1: more than the amount of gold you can produce. That way,
Speaker 1: there's freedom from necessity of much sleeping, exemplified by the
Speaker 1: operations of Tea and what happens in mad Men. That
Speaker 1: has some issues as well. We do have stimulants that
Speaker 1: they can stave off sleepiness, but the idea of figuring
Speaker 1: out what makes people with mental illness unable to sleep
Speaker 1: and then harnessing that to make you able to stay awake,
Speaker 1: that's tricky and troubling. Really. Also, no matter what stimulant
Speaker 1: you might use short term, your body ultimately needs to sleep.
Speaker 1: We know there are a lot of problems that come
Speaker 1: from not get sleep. Similarly, Boyle also wanted to study
Speaker 1: the quote strength and agility of the body that people
Speaker 1: with epilepsy and quote hysteria appeared to exhibit. So there
Speaker 1: are some interesting goals and ideas in this list. It's
Speaker 1: overall kind of a mixed bag. Yeah, it's interesting when
Speaker 1: you read a lot of biographical sketches of him. It's
Speaker 1: a lot about the cool ones. Sure, sure, not much
Speaker 1: mention of the like, whoa he wanted to do? What
Speaker 1: with what? I'm not saying any of that is okay,
Speaker 1: but I will give him the modicum of grace that
Speaker 1: comes with writing this in the sixteen sixties when we
Speaker 1: did not really understand various diseases, mental illnesses, etc. The
Speaker 1: way we do now. Just the idea that you could
Speaker 1: harness the things that like I'm air quoting this so hard,
Speaker 1: the beneficial parts of having any of those is really
Speaker 1: creepy to me. But Robert Boyle, I really want to
Speaker 1: know what the deal was with that rank, What did
Speaker 1: it mean between the two of them. Yeah, it could
Speaker 1: be a scandalo, but he's really interesting. The thing that
Speaker 1: is funny is that of all of the experimenting he did,
Speaker 1: none of his stuff really like remains in play except
Speaker 1: for Boyle's Law, which was kind of just like a footnote.
Speaker 1: I think it appears in the appendix of that second edition.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, And the rest of it was a lot
Speaker 1: of work, and he did bring people together, which is important.
Speaker 1: But it's kind of fascinating to me that he is
Speaker 1: this very important person in science history, but like what
Speaker 1: he achieved in science is not all that much in
Speaker 1: terms of Yeah, it's more like he helped people with
Speaker 1: the concept that we could keep moving forward and keep
Speaker 1: trying new things. Also, again, do not go looking for
Speaker 1: that list of lectures if you are not ready to
Speaker 1: be grossed out by the titles of those lectures saying
Speaker 1: very disparaging things about other religions. They are yucky, but
Speaker 1: that is uh. Robert Boyle, do you have some listener
Speaker 1: mail for us? Also, I surely do. Let me pull
Speaker 1: it up here. Listen, this listener mail is not about
Speaker 1: history at all, Okay, but I love it. If I
Speaker 1: just want to talk about it, I have other history
Speaker 1: ones I will talk about, but this is from our
Speaker 1: listener Tiffany. The title was demon Cats at the Vet. Oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: I read this. I liked this email a lot. Listen.
Speaker 1: I had some kinship feelings with this email, which is
Speaker 1: why I wanted to read it. Tiffany writes, You're behind
Speaker 1: the scenes discussion about cats at the vet had me giggling.
Speaker 1: I had a cat named Kitty who was infamous for
Speaker 1: terrorizing any medical professional. We would warn the tex and
Speaker 1: Vets that they had approximately fifteen seconds from the opening
Speaker 1: of the crate until bloodshed, so they needed to come prepared.
Speaker 1: Bless our vet for always being so willing to treat her.
Speaker 1: Despite this, her file received the designation of having a
Speaker 1: comically large red stop sign on the front of it,
Speaker 1: along with several bright red tabs running down the side,
Speaker 1: indicating that she was not to be handled. One time,
Speaker 1: my husband took her to the VET and a new
Speaker 1: tech looked at the repeated warnings and said, I'm a
Speaker 1: cat whisperer. It'll be fine. My husband pleaded with the
Speaker 1: tech to get the gauntlets and wait until everybody was ready,
Speaker 1: but to no avail. She opened the crate and the
Speaker 1: inevitable happened. As the tech was heading to urgent care.
Speaker 1: My husband was falling all over himself to apologize for
Speaker 1: our demon cat. I have had this exact moment. The vet,
Speaker 1: who was now in the room trying to diffuse our
Speaker 1: angry cat, held up the giant and I mean giants
Speaker 1: stop sign on the chart and shrugged, saying, we can't
Speaker 1: make the stop sign any bigger. I missed that evil
Speaker 1: cat dearly. For as much as she was a terror
Speaker 1: to everybody else, she was my special cuddlebug for pet
Speaker 1: tax I've attached a picture of her cuddled up with
Speaker 1: our retired greyhound in one of their many shared naps.
Speaker 1: This was the picture that made me realize that we
Speaker 1: somehow had ended up with the pets for the Simpsons.
Speaker 1: Thank you for all you do, Tiffany. You do. They
Speaker 1: have snowball in Santa's little helper right there. I love it.
Speaker 1: You could have written this about mister Burns, same exact thing.
Speaker 1: Sent a tech to the er, destroyed some drywall in
Speaker 1: the vet's office. I felt so bad, but my vet
Speaker 1: was the same. Although my vet got to the point
Speaker 1: where I had some training on how to handle some
Speaker 1: things at home rather than in danger her staff. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because mister Burns would also fight with one of our
Speaker 1: other cats sometimes. It never got crazy crazy, but there
Speaker 1: were some times some scrapes and cuts. Although mister Burns
Speaker 1: also had the best injury that made him look super
Speaker 1: street tough. But he did it to himself, which is
Speaker 1: he had a split in one of his ears. But
Speaker 1: it was because he was scratching one day and his
Speaker 1: claw got hooked in it, and I swear he just
Speaker 1: looked at me and shrugged and yanked it the rest
Speaker 1: of the way and was like, I guess my ear
Speaker 1: split now, Like, yeah, he's also my baby. I love
Speaker 1: this kitty is amazing. I understand, I understand the bad
Speaker 1: cat that is your barnacle special baby. I just wanted
Speaker 1: to honor that today. So cute listen cats animals. I
Speaker 1: feel like both of our cats have probably gone down
Speaker 1: in history and those texts are probably telling their friends
Speaker 1: right now about the horrible animals they had to deal with.
Speaker 1: But they make for good stories. So thank you Tiffany
Speaker 1: for writing down. If you would like to write to
Speaker 1: us about your poorly behaved animals and solidarity or anything else, really,
Speaker 1: you can write about history stuff. You can do that
Speaker 1: at History podcast at iHeartRadio dot com. If you want
Speaker 1: to see the show notes from the episode, they are
Speaker 1: available at mystinhistory dot com for any of the episodes
Speaker 1: we have done. If you have yet to subscribe to
Speaker 1: the podcast and you want to do that, that is
Speaker 1: easiest pie You can do it on the iHeartRadio app
Speaker 1: or anywhere you listen to your favorite shows. Stuff you
Speaker 1: Missed in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio. For
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