Excerpt from The Sceptical Chymist Oxford, and, after some fourteen years' residence there, to London. Boyle spent his life in the experimental study of various branches of natural science, meditating and writing on theological subjects - he learned Greek and Hebrew that he might read the Bible in the original languages - and the active exercise of a large and generous benevolence. He was one of the founders, and afterwards for a time President, of the Royal Society. He died in 1691, and was buried in West minster Abbey. Boyle published many works on scientific subjects, both in English and Latin. A collected edition of his scientific writings appeared in 1744, and another edition in 1772. The subjects which chiefly attracted Boyle's atten tion, every one of which was greatly advanced and enriched by his experimental labours and sound reasoning, were these the pressure of air, the distribution of pressure in water and other liquids, the phenomena of fire and flame, colour, self-luminous substances, acids and alkalis, the qualities of volatility and fixedness in bodies, and, more especially, all questions connected with the composition and the qualities of material things, and with the nature of those simpler substances whereof mixt bodies are supposed to be com pounded. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.