Page:History of Modern Philosophy (Falckenberg).djvu/84

 Oxford from 1654, and later in Cambridge, and died, 1692, in London, president of the Royal Society. His principal work, The Sceptical Chemist (Works, vol. i. p. 290 seq.), appeared in 1661, the tract, De Ipsa Natura, in 1682. By his introduction of the atomic conception he founded an epoch in chemistry, which, now for the first, was freed from bondage to the ideas of Aristotle and the alchemists. Atomism, however, was for Boyle merely an instrument of method and not a philosophical theory of the world. A sincerely religious man, he regards with disfavor both the atheism of Epicurus and his complete rejection of teleology—the world-machine points to an intelligent Creator and a purpose in creation; motion, to a divine impulse. He defends, on the other hand, the right of free inquiry against the priesthood and the pedantry of the schools, holding that the supernatural must be sharply distinguished from the natural, and mere conjectures concerning insoluble problems from positions susceptible of experimental proof; while, in opposition to submission to authority, he remarks that the current coin of opinion must be estimated, not by the date when and the person by whom it was minted but by the value of the metal alone. Cartesian elements in Boyle are the start from doubt, the derivation of all motion from pressure and impact, and the extension of the mechanical explanation to the organic world. His inquiries relate exclusively to the world of matter so far as it was "completed on the last day but one of creation." He defends empty space against Descartes and Hobbes. He is the first to apply the mediaeval terms, primary and secondary qualities, to the antithesis between