Boyle: Between God and Science

by Michael Hunter

Robert Boyle ranks with Newton and Einstein as one of the world’s most important scientists. Aristocrat and natural philosopher, he was a remarkably wide-ranging and penetrating thinker—pioneering the modern experimental method, championing a novel mechanical view of nature, and reflecting deeply on philosophical and theological issues related to science. But, as Michael Hunter shows, Boyle was also a complex and contradictory personality, fascinated by alchemy and magic and privately plagued with doubts about faith and conscience, which troubled the rational vision he heralded.

This extraordinary work is the first biography of Boyle in a generation, and the culminating achievement of a world-renowned expert on the scientist. Deftly navigating Boyle’s voluminous published works as well as his personal letters and papers, Hunter’s complete and intimate account gives us the man rather than myth, the troubled introvert as well as the public campaigner. Lively, perceptive, and full of original insights, this is the definitive account of a remarkable man and the changing world in which he lived.

Genres: Biography, History, Science

400 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2009

About the author

Michael Hunter is Emeritus Professor of History, Birkbeck, University of London. He is the author of numerous works on early modern science and culture such as The Occult Laboratory and the award-winning Boyle: Between God and Science.

Reviews

[Ed · Rating 3 out of 5]

this is a very thorough biography of Boyle. The earlier chapters are more interesting as they discuss his formative years and creative work. Later chapters include a lot of material that must be in a definitive biography, but is not all that interesting to a general reader like myself. Hunter is particularly interested in psychological issues related to Boyle. He uses some 'confessional' material that was apparently available until recently. Boyle would certainly be an odd duck in the 21st century, but it is very hard to make psychological evaluations of such a creative and productive person without knowing how to weigh cultural and historical factors. Boyle was very religious, but does't using the term 'religiosity' tell us more about the author than the subject. I certainly can understand how spending as much time living with a subject, as Hunter has with Boyle, would make you what makes this guy tick, but my own preference would be to take the subject, in all his complexity, and see how this affects his life and work. Fortunately, in spite of Hunter's occasionally giving into his impulse to explain Boyle, he does provide us with a rich description of how this man lived and worked.