76 THE AIM AND ACHIEVEMENTS OF SCIENTIFIC METHOD. 



that their fellows have given or are giving to all the problems- 

 of Time and Existence, it was inevitable that -this revival of 

 atomism in the fields of speculation should attract the attention 

 of the two great men who were destined to be most prominent 

 in naturalising the philosophy of Gassendi and Hobbes in the 

 positive sciences.* 



28. 



To Eobert Boyle belongs the credit (in addition to his 

 most notable discoveries in Physics) of applying the new 

 corpuscular notions to rescue the investigation of the chemical 

 properties of matter from the unworthy hands of the alchemists 

 In his dialogues entitled The Sceptical Chymist, he conducts 

 (through the mouth of the character Carneades) a polemic 

 against the " Peripatetick Doctrine," in which, carrying a step 

 further the revolt initiated by " Paracelsus and some few other 

 sooty Empiriks/'t he propounds in a perfectly clear form the 

 modern concepts of chemical compounds and elements. "It- 

 seems not absurd to conceive that at the first Production of 

 mixt Bodies, the Universal Matter whereof they among other 

 Parts of the Universe consisted, was actually divided into little 

 Particles of several sizes and shapes variously moved." J 

 " Neither is it [im] possible," continues Carneades, " that of 

 these minute Particles divers of the smallest and neighbouring 

 ones were here and there associated into minute Masses or 

 Clusters, and did by their Coalitions constitute great store of 

 such little primary Concretions or Masses as were not easily 

 dissipable into such Particles as composed them." 



It is clear from the discussion that follows, as well as from 

 the more systematic exposition given in another work|| that the 



* Lange, op. tit., i, p. 300. 



t I quote from the English edition, Oxford, 1680. 

 } P. 37. 

 P. 38. 



|| Boyle, The Origines of Formes and Qualities (According to the Cor- 

 puscular Philosophy). I quote from the second edition, Oxford, 1667. 



