Locke, Boyle and Peter Stahl

Abstract

John Locke and Robert Boyle first met at some time before May 1660 but do not seem to have become closely acquainted until 1664 when they were both in Oxford. 1 Locke’s notebooks for 1664-67 contain many short entries ending ‘Mr.Boyle’, which appear to be details that Locke received from Boyle personally. 2 In his work, Boyle relied on various assistants, quite apart from craftsmen like glass-blowers and blacksmiths, who ranged from his amanuensis, needed because of his poor sight, and his servants who watched experiments through the night, to skilled collaborators like Robert Hooke. 3 In addition, Boyle was in touch with independent workers, notably Richard Lower whose name appears in Locke’s notebooks some time before Boyle’s; 4 and Dewhurst suggested that Locke was also a member of this group. 5 It is certainly true that Locke provided Boyle with barometric and meteorological readings about this time and that 21 of his headings for the ‘chymicall Analysis’ of blood are related to Boyle’s 46 headings in his Memoirs for the Natural History of Human Blood (1683/4). 6 But it is going too far to conclude from Locke’s practical notes on blood that he was then acting as Boyle’s assistant. Those notes come from Bodleian MS. Locke f.25. What they describe are not ‘experiments’ done by Locke, Boyle or anyone else. They are a record of the practical work Locke did when he attended a course of lectures in 1666 which were given by Peter Stahl, the German chemist brought by Boyle to Oxford in 1659.