Award of the Boyle Medal and Rep. of Sci. Com. R.D.S. 99 
points of water, as fixed points on the thermometer. He studied 
light (which he endeavoured to weigh), as well as sound (the propa- 
gation of which, by the atmosphere, he is said to have first 
demonstrated)—also electricity, magnetism, and hydrostatics. 
He invented what is practically the modern air pump, and, by its 
aid, many new experiments. His discovery of the elastic law of 
gases in 1662, fourteen years before Mariotte confirmed it, is 
known to all, and, doubtless, inspired Hooke to his celebrated 
investigation of the elastic law of metals. 
But physical and chemical science did not limit him. He 
contributed much valuable material to medicine, and devoted 
himself with ardour to the study of anatomy. ‘The occasion for 
entering on this latter study was a visit to his native land, then 
(1652) in a very unsettled state. His description of it reads like 
a contribution to the science of heredity :—“ A barbarous country 
where chemical spirits were so misunderstood and chemical 
instruments so unprocurable that it was hard to have any hermetic 
thoughts in it.” Accordingly, for lack of hermetic thoughts, he 
fell to practice anatomy, satisfying himself as to the truth of 
Harvey’s revolutionary discovery, then recently made of the 
circulation of the blood. There is, unfortunately, on this side the 
grave no means of estimating to the full the value of a man’s 
life-work. We cannot place that work on the one side of a 
balance and on the other place units of usefulness to mankind. 
Could we do so, many of the estimates which historians have 
made of the worth of past lives would be found wanting. One 
arises from the consideration of Boyle’s life with the feeling that 
much of that life’s work was of the kind which finds no record; 
which effects, indeed, the deepest currents of human life, but not 
the less, is writ in water so far as the future historian is concerned. 
Contrast the fame of Newton with that of Boyle. The estimate 
which we possess of Newton is probably far more complete than 
that which we have of Boyle. In Newton’s writings we have his 
work, but while Newton shrank from the bustle and contention of 
scientific advance, Boyle stood with ready counsel and ready 
