The Works of the Honourable Robert Boyle in Five Volumes, To which is Prefixed the Life of the Author
London: Printed for A. Millar, 1744.
Hardcover. Good+. First complete edition of the works of Robert Boyle, one of the founders of modern chemistry. Five folio volumes in uniform contemporary full-leather binding. Vol. I: pp vii, 583, [1], with engraved frontis portrait of Boyle and one folding plate (bound in between 554 and 555 rather than at the end); Vol. II: pp 565, [1], with five folding plates; Vol.III: pp. 652, with five folding plates; Vol. IV : pp 556, with three folding plates; Vol. V: pp. 736, one folding plate, index. Uniformly bound in contemporary full calf, with armorial bookplate (Arms of the Dundas of Arniston) on each front pastedown. Boards professionally reattached on Volume I, several joints cracked or starting to crack on remaining volumes, but still sound overall and internally quite clean. Robert Boyle (1627-1691) was an "Anglo-Irish natural philosopher and theological write [and] a preeminent figure of 17th-century intellectual culture. He was best known as a natural philosopher, particularly in the field of chemistry, but his scientific work covered many areas including hydrostatics, physics, medicine, earth sciences, natural history, and alchemy. His prolific output also included Christian devotional and ethical essays and theological tracts on Biblical language, the limits of reason, and the role of the natural philosopher as a Christian" (Britannica). In 1659, Boyle and Robert Hooke began a series of experiments that led to important discoveries relating to air pressure and the vacuum, which appeared in Boyle’s first scientific publication, New Experiments Physico-Mechanicall, Touching the Spring of the Air and Its Effects (1660). Boyle and Hooke discovered several physical characteristics of air, including its role in combustion, respiration, and the transmission of sound. One of their experimental findings was the principle expressing the inverse relationship between the pressure and volume of a gas that became known as Boyle's Law. Boyle’s scientific work is characterized by its reliance on experiment and observation and its reluctance to formulate generalized theories. His contributions to chemistry were based on a brand of atomism that claimed that everything was composed of minute (but not indivisible) particles of a single universal matter and that these particles were only differentiable by their shape and motion. He argued so strongly for the need to apply the principles and methods of chemistry to the study of the natural world and to medicine that he became known as the “father of chemistry.”.
Item #24396
Price: $2,500.00