periments; in the same year also appeared his Seraphic Love, a piece which had been written as early as 1648. In 1661 he issued certain physiological essays and other tracts; and in 1662 his Sceptical Chemist. All these were successful, and were reprinted-some of them more than once-within a few years. In 1663, on the incorporation of the Royal Society, he was appointed one of the council. In the same year he published Considerations touching the Usefulness of Experimental Natural Philosophy; Experiments upon Colours, a curious and useful work; and Considerations upon the Style of the Holy Scriptures. In the year 1665 appeared his Occasional Reflections upon Several Subjects, a work satirized by Swift, but which is said to have actually given that genius his first hint of Gulliver's Travels. In that year also was issued New Experiments and Observations on Cold. On the 8th March, 1666, he wrote his celebrated letter to Mr. Stubbe on the controversy as to Valentine Greatrakes, who professed to cure diseases by stroking. This letter is upwards of twenty octavo pages in length, "very learned and very judicious, wonderfully correct in diction and style, remarkably clear in method and form, highly exact in the observations and remarks, and abounding in pertinent and curious facts. Yet it appears it was written within the compass of a single morning." In this year also he published Hydrostatical Paradoxes and The Origin of Forms and Qualities. In 1668 Boyle settled permanently in London in the house of his beloved sister Lady Ranelagh, and from this until his death work after work appeared from his pen in rapid succession. Free Enquiry into the vulgarly received Notion of Nature, 1691; and finally, in same year, Experimenta et Observationes Physicæ. In 1677 Boyle, who was a director of the East India Company, printed at Oxford and sent abroad 500 copies of the Gospels and Acts of the Apostles in the Malayan tongue, and in November of this year he was appointed president of the Royal Society. In the early part of 1689 his health began to decline, and on the 18th of July, 1691, he made his will. In October of that year he grew worse, chiefly owing, it is supposed, to the illness of his favourite sister, who died on the 23d December. On the 30th he followed her, dying peacefully in the sixty-fifth year of his age. Among the good deeds of Boyle's life we must not omit to mention his large contributions to the printing and publishing of Bibles for Ireland, Scotland, and Wales; his contributions towards propagating Christianity in America; his large expenditure over the publication and dispersal of an Arabic edition of Grotius, On the Truth of the Christian Religion; and above all, his establishment of the Boyle Lectures in Defence of Revealed Religion. Boyle never married; but in early life it is said he loved a fair daughter of Cary, earl of Monmouth, and to this we owe the production of Seraphic Love. As to Boyle's present position in the theological, philosophical, and scientific worlds we will say nothing. What it was in his own time, and for long after, is well indicated in the words of Boerhaave, who declares that "Boyle, the ornament of his age and country, succeeded to the genius and inquiries of the great Chancellor Verulam. To him we owe the secrets of fire, air, water, animals, vegetables, fossils: so that from his works may be deduced the whole system of natural knowledge."] We cannot do more than name the chief of them here:-Continuation of Experiments touching the Spring and Weight of Air, 1669; Tracts about the Cosmical Qualities of Things, 1670; Essay on the Origin and Virtue of Gems, 1672; Essays on the Strange Subtlety, &c., of Effluvia, 1673; The Excellence of Theology, 1673; The Saltness of the Sea, &c., 1674; Some Considerations about the Reconcilableness of Reason and Religion, 1675; Experiments about the Mechanical Origin or Production of POSSIBILITY OF THE RESURRECTION. Particular Qualities, 1676; Historical Account of a Degradation of Gold by an Anti-Elixir, 1678; Discourse of Things above Reason, 1681; Memoirs on the Natural History of Human Blood, 1684; Essay on the Great Effects of Even, Languid, and Unheeded Motion, 1690; Of the High Veneration Man's Intellect Owes to God, 1690; The Christian Virtuoso, 1690; VOL. I. SOME CONSIDERATIONS ABOUT THE (FROM COLLECTED WORKS PUBLISHED IN 1772.) They who assent to the possibility of the resurrection of the same bodies, will, I presume, be much more easily induced to admit the possibility of the qualifications the Christian religion ascribes to the glorified bodies of 5 the raised saints. For, supposing the truth of the history of the Scriptures, we may observe that the power of God has already extended itself to the performance of such things as import as much as we need infer, sometimes by suspending the natural actings of bodies upon one another, and sometimes by endowing human and other bodies with preternatural qualities. And indeed, lightness, or rather agility, indifferent to gravity and levity, incorruption, transparency, and opacity, figure, colour, &c., being but mechanical affections of matter, it cannot be incredible that the most free and powerful Author of those laws of nature according to which all the phenomena of qualities are regulated, may (as he thinks fit) introduce, establish, or change them in any assigned portion of matter, and consequently in that whereof a human body consists. Thus, though iron be a body above eight times heavier, bulk for bulk, than water, yet in the case of Elisha's behest its native gravity was rendered ineffectual, and it emerged from the bottom to the top of the water: and the gravitation of St. Peter's body was suspended whilst his Master commanded him, and by that command enabled him to come to him walking on the sea. Thus the operation of the most active body in nature, flame, was suspended in Nebuchadnezzar's fiery furnace, whilst Daniel's three companions walked unharmed in those flames that, in a trice, consumed the kindlers of them. Thus did the Israelites' manna, which was of so perishable a nature that it would corrupt in a little above a day when gathered in any day of the week but that which preceded the Sabbath, keep good twice as long, and when laid up before the ark for a memorial would last whole ages uncorrupted. And to add a proof that comes more directly home to our purpose, the body of our Saviour after his resurrection, though it retained the very impressions that the nails of the cross had made in his hands and feet, and the wound that the spear had made in his side, and was still called in the Scripture his body, as indeed it was, and more so than according to our past discourse it is necessary that every body should be that is rejoined to the soul in the resurrection: and yet this glorified body had the same qualifications that are promised to the saints in their state of glory; St. Paul informing us "that our vile bodies shall be transformed into the likeness of his glorious body," which the history of the gospel assures us was endowed with far nobler qualities than before his death. And whereas the apostle adds, as we formerly noted, that this great change of schematism in the saints' bodies will be effected by the irresistible power of Christ, we shall not much scruple at the admission of such an effect from such an agent, if we consider how much the bare, slight, mechanical alteration of the texture of a body may change its sensible qualities for the better. For without any visible additament, I have several times changed dark and opacous lead into finely-coloured transparent and specifically lighter glass. And there is another instance, which, though because of its obviousness it is less heeded, is yet more considerable, for who will distrust what advantageous changes such an agent as God can work by changing the texture of a portion of matter, if he but observe what happens merely upon the account of such a mechanical change in the lighting of a candle, that is newly blown out, by the applying another to the ascending smoke. For in the twinkling of an eye an opacous, dark, languid and stinking smoke loses all its smell and is changed into a most active, penetrant, and shining body. THE CHRISTIAN VIRTUOSO. (PUBLISHED IN 1690.) I have taken notice of two other accounts upon which the experimental knowledge of God's works may, in a well-disposed mind, conduce to establish the belief of his providence, and therefore, though I shall not dwell long upon them, I must not altogether pretermit them. First then, when our Virtuoso sees how many, and how various, and oftentimes how strange and how admirable structures, instincts, and other artifices the wise Opisicer hath furnished even brutes and plants withal, to purchase and assimilate their food, to defend or otherwise secure themselves from hostile things, and, to be short, to maintain their lives and propagate their species, it will very much conduce to persuade him that so wise an Agent, who has at command so many differing and excellent methods and tools to accomplish what he designs, and does oftentimes actually employ them for the preservation and welfare of beasts, and even of plants, can never want means to compass his most wise and just ends in relation to mankind, being able, by ways that we should never dream of, to execute bis able to him, and to encourage man to both these by explicit promises of that felicity that man without them can but faintly hope for, he would be ready then thankfully to acknowledge that this way of procuring beseems the transcendent goodness of God, without derogating from his majesty and wisdom. And by these and the like reflections, whereof some were formerly intimated, a philosopher that takes notice of the wonderful providence that God descends to exercise for the welfare of inferior and irrational creatures, will have an advantage above men not versed in the works and course of nature to believe upon the historical and other proofs that Christianity offers, that God has actually vouchsafed to man, his noblest and only rational visible creature, an explicit and positive law, enforced by threatening severe penalties to the stubborn transgressors, and promising to the sincere obeyers rewards suitable to his own greatness and goodness. And thus the consideration of God's providence, in the conduct of things corporeal, may prove, to a well-disposed contemplator, a bridge whereon he may pass from natural to revealed religion. menaces and fulfil his promises. But of these rare structures, instincts, and other methods, and, if I may so style some of them with reverence, stratagems and fetches of divine skill, that God is pleased to employ in the conduct of the visible world, especially animals, I have already elsewhere purposely discoursed, and therefore shall now proceed, and observe, in the second place, that when we duly consider the very different ends to which many of God's particular works, especially those that are animated, seem designed, in reference both to their own welfare and the utility of man, and with how much wisdom, and, I had almost said care, the glorious Creator has been pleased to supply them with means admirably fit for the attainment of these respective ends, we cannot but think it highly probable that so wise and so benign a Being has not left his noblest visible creature man unfurnished with means to procure his own welfare, and obtain his true end, if he be not culpably wanting to himself. And since man is endowed with reason, which may convince him (of what neither a plant nor brute animal is capable of knowing, namely) that God is both his maker and his continual benefactor, since his reason likewise teacheth him, that upon both those accounts, besides others, God may justly expect and require worship and obedience from him; FISHING WITH A COUNTERFEIT FLY.1 since also the same rational faculty may persuade him, that it may well become the majesty and wisdom of God, as the sovereign rector of the world, to give a law to man, who is a rational creature capable of understanding and obeying it, and thereby glorifying the author of it; since (farthermore), finding in his own mind (if it be not depraved by vice or lusts) a principle that dictates to him that he owes a veneration and other suitable sentiment to the divinely excellent Author of his being, and his continual and munificent benefactor; since, on these scores, his conscience will convince him of his obligation to all the essential duties of natural religion; and since, lastly, his reason may convince him that his soul is immortal, and is therefore capable as well as desirous to be everlastingly happy, after it has left the body, he must in reason be strongly inclined to wish for a supernatural discovery of what God would have him believe and do. And therefore, if being thus prepared he shall be very credibly informed that God hath actually been pleased to discover by supernatural revelation (what by reason without it he can either not at all, or but roughly guess at) what kind Being at length come to the river-side we quickly began to fall to the sport for which we came thither, and Eugenius finding the fish forward enough to bite, thought fit to spare his flies till he might have more need of them, and therefore tied to his line a hook, furnished with one of those counterfeit flies which in some neighbouring countries are much used, and which, being made of the feathers of wild fowl, are not subject to be drenched by the water, whereon those birds are wont to swim. This fly being for a pretty while scarce any oftener thrown in than the hook it hid was drawn up again with a fish fastened to it: Eugenius looking on us with a smiling countenance seemed to be very proud of his success, which Eusebius taking notice of, Whilst (says he) we smile to see how easily you beguile these silly fishes, that you catch so fast with this false bait, possibly we are not much less unwary ourselves, and the world's treacherous pleasures do little less delude both me and you: for Eugenius (con 1 This and the following piece are from Occasional Re of worship and obedience will be most accept- | flections. tinues he), as the apostles were fishers of men | pretty while withdrew that luminous liquor, that is as it were the candle to this dark lanthorn, he had continued to forbear the disclosing of it, he might have deluded my search and escaped his present confinement. Rare qualities may sometimes be prerogatives without being advantages. And though a needless ostentation of one's excellencies may be more glorious, yet a modest concealment of them is usually more safe, and an unseasonable disclosure of flashes of wit may sometimes do a man no other service than to direct his adversaries how they may do him a mischief. And as though this worm be lodged in a crystalline prison, through which it has the honour to be gazed at by many eyes, and among them are some that are said to shine far more in the day than this creature does in the night, yet no doubt, if he could express a sense of the condition he is in, he would bewail it, and think himself unhappy in an excellency which procures him at once admiration and captivity, by the former of which he does but give others a pleasure, while in the latter he himself resents a misery. in a good sense, so their and our grand adversary is a skilful fisher of men in a bad sense, and too often in his attempts to cheat fond mortals meets with a success as great and easy as you now find yours. And certainly that tempter, as the Scripture calls him, does sadly delude us, even when we rise at his best baits, and, as it were, his true flies: for, alas! the best things he can give are very worthless, most of them in their own nature, and all of them in comparison of what they must cost us to enjoy them. But however riches, power, and the delights of the senses are real goods in their kind, though they be not of the best kind, yet, alas! many of us are so fitted for deceits that we do not put this subtle angler to make use of his true baits to catch us. We suffer him to abuse us much more grossly, and to cheat us with empty titles of honour, or the ensnaring smiles of great ones, or disquieting drudgeries dignified with the specious names of great employments, and though these, when they must be obtained by sin, or are proposed as the recompenses for it, be, as I was going to say, but the devil's counterfeit flies, yet, as if we were fond of being deceived, we greedily swallow the hook for flies that do but look like such, so dim-sighted are we as well to what vice shows as to what it hides. Let us not then (concludes Eusebius) rise at baits, whereby we may be sure to be either grossly or at least exceedingly deceived; for, whoever ventures to commit a sin, to taste the luscious sweets that the fruition of it seems to promise, certainly is so far deceived as to swallow a true hook for a bait, which either proves but a counterfeit fly or hides that under its allur-attract the eye of others but are not suffered ing show which makes it not need to be a counterfeit one to deceive him. ON A GLOW-WORM IN A PHIAL. If this unhappy worm had been as despicable as the other reptiles that crept up and down the hedge whence I took him, he might as well as they have been left there still, and his own obscurity as well as that of the night had preserved him from the confinement he now suffers. And if, as he sometimes for a This ofttimes is the fate of a great wit, whom the advantage he has of ordinary men in knowledge, the light of the mind exposes to so many effects of other men's importunate curiosity as to turn his prerogative into a trouble; the light that ennobles him tempts inquisitive men to keep him as upon the score we do this glow-worm from sleeping, and his conspicuousness is not more a friend to his fame than an enemy to his quiet, for men allow such much praise but little rest. They to shut their own, and find that by a very disadvantageous bargain they are reduced for that imaginary good called fame to pay that real blessing liberty. And as though this luminous creature be himself imprisoned in so close a body as glass, yet the light that ennobles him is not thereby restrained from diffusing itself, so there are certain truths that have in them so much of native light or evidence, that by the personal distresses of the proposer it cannot be hidden or restrained, but in spite of prisons it shines freely, and procures the teachers of it admiration even when it cannot procure them liberty. |