The Excellencies of Robert Boyle (review)

In the last generation or so, the accepted canon of seventeenth-century philosophy has been increasingly subjected to challenge, and a powerful case has been made, by a variety of scholars, for the inclusion of figures such as Bacon, Gassendi, Malebranche, and Bayle. One might also make a case for the inclusion of Robert Boyle, not just because of his clear influence on Locke and Newton, or for his important contributions to natural philosophy, but because of the intrinsic interest and importance of his own writings on a wide variety of topics. Thanks to Michael Hunter, we now have both a new edition of Boyle's Works, and a new biography of the man, which is certain to supersede all previous studies.

In this context, a new edition of the Excellency of Theology and the Excellency and Grounds of the Mechanical Hypothesis is sure to find a welcome from scholars and students alike. The former work is addressed to a group of virtuosi (roughly, scientists) who, although still nominally Christians, have neglected the Book of God for the Book of Nature. Boyle seeks to persuade such men that they have an obligation to study the Scriptures and may reasonably hope to derive great profits from such studies. The latter belongs in the entirely different context of natural philosophy. Here, Boyle is defending the explanatory power of the mechanical hypothesis against its critics. The two "excellencies" thus belong in entirely different argumentative contexts, and have no natural connection. Still, each is important in its own right, and combining them in one reasonably-priced volume can do no harm.

To supplement the texts of the two works, MacIntosh has added a brief life of Boyle, a substantial editorial introduction, a mass of explanatory notes, and eighty pages of appendices. Students will find explanations of archaic terms and constructions, helpful guidance regarding the contexts of the two works, informative paragraphs on figures mentioned in the text (ranging from Biblical kings to obscure seventeenth-century scientists), and even Jonathan Swift's famous satire on Boyle's "Occasional Reflections." A great deal of time and labor has clearly gone into MacIntosh's attempt to make these works accessible to the modern reader.

There remain, regrettably, a small number of significant errors and omissions. In Appendix G (304), MacIntosh lists Descartes among the advocates of the argument from design. But Descartes's explicit rejection of final causes in natural philosophy (Principles I.28) and his clear statement that matter, by the mere operation of the laws of motion, "must successively assume all the forms of which it is capable" (Principles III.47) led to him being generally regarded, by the philosophers of Boyle's generation, as rejecting the design argument (MacIntosh might usefully have consulted Boyle's own Disquisition about the Final Causes of Natural Things before writing this appendix). And much of the recent literature on Boyle's Mechanical Philosophy is passed over without a mention. The traditional picture of Boyle as a mechanist has been questioned by scholars such as Margaret Osler, John Henry, and Antonio Clericuzio. Whether Boyle's mechanical philosophy genuinely informs his science has been challenged by Alan Chalmers in a 1993 article in Studies in the History and Philosophy of Science. This in turn led to an exchange between Chalmers, Peter Anstey, and myself in the same journal in 2002, and we are all subsequently taken to task by William Newman in Atoms and Alchemy (2006) for our various alleged misunderstandings of what Boyle meant by 'mechanism' and 'mechanical philosophy'. MacIntosh may choose, of course, not to engage in these controversies about what exactly Boyle was defending in the second of the "Excellencies," but students might reasonably expect at least a brief editorial note and a signpost directing them to the relevant literature.

Will this student-friendly new edition of the Excellency of Theology help the work to find a host of enthusiastic new readers and admirers in the twenty-first century? The answer, I fear, may be negative, for...