Dialogue on Transmutation

Dialogue on Transmutation is just that, a dialogue. In it Boyle never says that he witnessed the foreigner s projection. However, the same incident is described in notes taken by Boyle s confidant, Bishop Gilbert Burnet, when Boyle told him of the incident. And Boyle refers to the incident himself in his book Producibleness of Chymical Principles. Here he referred to the operation carried out by the foreigner only as a Metalline experiment, not as a projection. However, the details that he recounted were the same as those in the Dialogue. 

The Colloquies of Erasmus, 248-54. Interestingly, Robert Boyle included a character named Philoponus, "Lover of Work," to defend the chymists in his Dialogue on Transmutation. One wonders whether Boyle had Erasmus in mind when he named this character. See Lawrence M. Principe, The Aspiring Adept Robert Boyle and His Alchemical Quest (Princeton, N.J. Princeton University Press, 1998), 98-103. 

Principe, Lawrence M. The aspiring adept Robert Boyle and his alchemical quest including Boyle s "lost" Dialogue on the transmutation of metals. Princeton Princeton Univ P, 1998. xiv, 339p. ISBN 0-691-01678-X... 

Principe, Lawrence. 1998. The Aspiring Adept Robert Boyle and His Alchemical Quest Including Boyle s Lost Dialogue on the Transmutation of Metals. Princeton Princeton University Press. 

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