BOOK REVIEW

The theological empiricist

Michael Hunter: Robert Boyle: Between God and science.New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2010, 384pp, $28.00 PB

William Eaton

Published online: 20 March 2012

� Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2012

Michael Hunter has written a tour de force that paints a comprehensive picture of

the life and work of Robert Boyle (1627–1691), a leading figure in the scientific

revolution. Boyle was the first to systematically wed the new mechanical philosophy

with experimental falsification. This puts him in the ranks of great minds such as

Galileo, Descartes, and Newton. Nevertheless, to this day, his contributions to the

development of the modern world are overlooked and misunderstood. Hunter’s goal

in the long-awaited biography is to show that a proper understanding of this great

but complicated natural philosopher requires taking into account the theological

influences and motivations of his scientific achievements. Boyle thought the world

was a divine machine, intentionally created by God to be intelligible. He believed

that while the Bible revealed truths that were necessary for salvation, natural

philosophy complimented these by uncovering the mechanisms at work behind

God’s creation. Thus, using experimental observation, Boyle sought to mechani-

cally explain the natural world.

What makes this work demonstrably surpass the very good previous biographies

by earlier scholars such as Thomas Birch (1744) and R. E. W. Maddison (1969) is

that Hunter appreciates important recent discoveries in Boyle studies, including

his education in Helmontian chemistry under the tutelage of George Starkey, his

alchemical pursuits, the deep influence of his religious beliefs on his scientific work,

and an overall better understanding of the complex social context of seventeenth-

century English intellectual life. This allows Hunter to provide the most complete

account of Boyle’s life to date.

Hunter’s book is the culmination of a lifetime’s work on Boyle. Working in the

history of modern science since the early 1980s, Hunter’s scholarship really took off

in 1994 when he edited a collection of papers reassessing Boyle’s significance

W. Eaton (&)

Department of Literature and Philosophy, Georgia Southern University,

08023 Newton Building, P.O. Box 8023, Statesboro, GA 30460-8023, USA

e-mail: weaton@georgiasouthern.edu

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Metascience (2012) 21:343–345

DOI 10.1007/s11016-012-9654-5

entitled Robert Boyle Reconsidered. This was followed the same year by RobertBoyle by Himself and His Friends, a collection of biographical essays by Boyle’s

contemporaries, edited with the help of Edward Davis. Hunter and Davis went on to

publish the fascinating but obscure Boyle treatise A Free Enquiry into the VulgarlyReceived Notion of Nature, followed by the massive fourteen-volume edition of

The Works of Robert Boyle, as well as the six-volume edition of Boyle’s extensive

correspondence (with the help of Antonio Clericuzio and Lawrence Principe).

Finally, in 2000 Hunter wrote Robert Boyle: Scrupulosity and Science, an excellent

book exploring the religious dimensions of Boyle’s life, from which the new

comprehensive biography heavily draws. To my mind, this collection of outstanding

research demonstrably establishes Hunter as the greatest Boyle scholar of all time

(although there will always be a special place in my heart for the work of Marie

Boas-Hall).

Besides establishing the significance of Boyle’s religious beliefs to his scientific

accomplishments, Hunter masterfully reconstructs the story of Boyle’s journey from

mediocre student at Eton to leading natural philosopher of his day. He presents

Boyle’s formative years with special emphasis on the educational tour of Europe

with Isaac Marcombes, during which the young Boyle experienced a terrible storm

that caused him to pledge his life to religious and charitable pursuits. He provides

a detailed account of the Stalbridge period in which Boyle devoted himself to

writing ethical and theological works. Hunter then thoroughly explores Boyle’s

discovery, fascination, and love of experiment, with particular attention paid to the

vital relationship between Boyle and the American alchemist George Starkey, the

importance of which has only recently been appreciated thanks to the work of

William Newman and Lawrence Principe. Hunter also includes a much needed

presentation of Boyle’s involvement with the famous Invisible College, a

surprisingly elusive underground anti-Aristotelian think tank. He paints a complete

portrait of Boyle’s fertile years at Oxford, including his famous vacuum

experiments with Robert Hooke, the controversy with Thomas Hobbes over the

significance of experimental observation, and the formation of the Royal Society.

But most importantly, Hunter deftly navigates all of the known primary and

secondary sources to reveal the person behind the science, the pious philanthropist

troubled by religious doubt, the self-medicating hypochondriac, and the ambitious

alchemist. The reader also gets an appreciation of Boyle’s profound love for his

sister, Katherine, Lady Ranelagh, which manifests itself throughout his life as his

closest personal relationship.

Perhaps the only section of this meticulously researched book in which Hunter

could have gone into more detail is his account of a visit to Holland that Boyle made

in 1648. Hunter admits that the lack of information about this trip is frustrating, so

his cautious account is understandable. But more speculation at this point may have

been warranted, since it is during this trip that Boyle was likely first exposed to the

mechanical philosophy of Descartes, as well as the new schools of human anatomy

and dissection, which by that time were flourishing in Holland. Boyle even went on

to translate and publish a recipe for preserving anatomical specimens written by the

Dutch anatomist Lodewijk de Bils. Thus, his experiences in the Netherlands could

have been what led Boyle to find a way to connect his interests in natural philosophy

344 Metascience (2012) 21:343–345

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with his religious mission, by investigating the mechanical nature of the human

body and dispensing the results publicly for their medical value. But given the

book’s excellent nature, this small shortcoming is easily forgiven. If you are

interesting at all in Robert Boyle, you must read this book. If you are interested at all

in the history of science, you should read it.

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