Robert Boyle and the early Royal Society: a reciprocal exchange in the making of Baconian science

Abstract

This paper documents an important development in Robert Boyle's natural-philosophical method – his use from the 1660s onwards of ‘heads’ and ‘inquiries’ as a means of organizing his data, setting himself an agenda when studying a subject and soliciting information from others. Boyle acknowledged that he derived this approach from Francis Bacon, but he had not previously used it in his work, and the reason why it came to the fore when it did is not apparent from his printed and manuscript corpus. It is necessary to look beyond Boyle to his milieu for the cause, in this case to the influence on him of the Royal Society. Whereas the Royal Society in its early years is often seen as putting into practice a programme pioneered by Boyle, this crucial methodological change on his part seems rather to have been stimulated by the society's early concern for systematic data-collecting. In this connection, it is here shown that a key text, Boyle's influential ‘General Heads for a Natural History of a Country, Great or small’, published in Philosophical Transactions in 1666, represents more of a shared initiative between him and the society than has hitherto been appreciated.

Studying the echo in the early modern period: between the academy and the natural world

“…The questionnaire became a popular method for states and academies in early modern Europe to gather data on a region, whether newly discovered areas or already familiar land that was to be more thoroughly exploited. Travellers, professional scholars, merchants, and amateurs could all participate, methodically investigating each territory they came across (Hunter 2007;Leoni 2013). See also Carey (1997).…”

Review of periodical literature published in 2007

“…The history of science provided further micro‐level insights into the careers of a variety of seventeenth‐century figures. Hunter explores the origins of Robert Boyle's influential methodology for natural philosophy, in which subjects were arranged under various linked ‘heads’. He suggests that Boyle's ‘innovation’ of 1664–6 had its origins in the Royal Society's information‐gathering questionnaires of the early 1660s, and its desire for ‘the compilation of comparable documents’.…”

Scientific writing: following Robert Boyle's principles in experimental essays -1704 and 1998

“…But Robert Boyle also played an important role in the evolution of scientific writing (Gotti, 1996(Gotti, , 2001Hunter, 2007). Fulton (1932: 78) has highlighted the contribution of the scientist, describing Boyle's undertaking "to establish science as an integral part of the intellectual life of ordinary men".…”