BOYLE, Robert.

A Disquisition about the final Causes of natural Things: wherein it is inquir’d, whether, and (if at all), with what Cautions, a Naturalist should admit them? … To which are subjoyn’d, by Way of Appendix some uncommon Observations about vitiated Sight … London, H. C. for John Taylor, 1688.

8vo, pp. [xvi], 96, 81–112, 129–274, [2, errata], [4, advertisements]; a fine copy; in contemporary speckled calf, edges slightly rubbed, small chip at foot of spine; ownership inscription to title-page ‘GMusgrave'.

£750

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A Disquisition about the final Causes of natural Things: wherein it is inquir’d, whether, and (if at all), with what Cautions, a Naturalist should admit them? … To which are subjoyn’d, by Way of Appendix some uncommon Observations about vitiated Sight …

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First edition, second issue, with Boyle’s name in full on the title-page. ‘Boyle is just revered as an enthusiastic early protagonist of the experimental method … [but] he recognized the limitations of experiment and wrote widely upon the philosophical implications of scientific investigation … In the “Final Causes of Natural Things” Boyle takes us into his confidence and gives us briefly his confession fidei as a biologist’. The treatise ‘is essentially a plea for a teleological interpretation of natural phenomena … and there are many references to physiology; perhaps the most interesting is the record of a conversation with William Harvey on how he discovered the circulation of blood’ (Fulton).

The Appendix is on disturbances of vision including cataracts, with fourteen case histories.

ESTC R11832; Wing B3946; Fulton 186A.

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BOYLE, Robert.

A Disquisition about the final Causes of natural Things: wherein it is inquir’d, whether, and (if at all), with what Cautions, a Naturalist should admit them? … To which are subjoyn’d, by Way of Appendix some uncommon Observations about vitiated Sight … London, H. C. for John Taylor, 1688.