Boyle's great merit as a scientific investigator is that he carried out the principles which Francis Bacon espoused in the Novum Organum.
Robert Boyle was an alchemist;[REF] and believing the transmutation of metals to be a possibility, he carried out experiments in the hope of achieving it; and he was instrumental in obtaining the repeal, in 1689, of the statute of Henry IV against multiplying gold and silver [REF].