Nevertheless, religious faith was only one part of the total faith which Boyle exhibited. He had as much faith in the capabilities, the future progress, and the promise of science as he did in traditional religion. Throughout all his works we see great evidence of his religious piety. But his faith in science, particularly as it affected medicine, we see with utmost clarity in the essay "The Usefulness of Natural Philosophy." He had great vision of the benefits that science would eventually bring to the healing arts. Unlike many of his contemporaries, particularly persons such as Glanvill or Spratt, he realized that many anatomical discoveries, for example, were of little practical value, but he felt that such discoveries would, "in process of time (when the _historia facti_ shall be fully and indisputably made out, and the theories thereby suggested clearly established) highly conduce to the improvement of the therapeutical part of physick...."[72] And with extraordinary perceptiveness he indicated the different ways in which he expected progress to be made through the proper application of mechanical philosophy. He was clear-sighted enough to realize that the discoveries made hitherto were not of great practical value but that the future was indeed bright, and he provided a remarkable blueprint of progress to come. The measure of progress is, perhaps, the quantity of faith which moves mankind. The study of Robert Boyle emphasizes some divisions among mankind. Some are content to look backward, to be satisfied with the achievements of the past, to rely on accepted systematization, doctrine, and explanation. Others, while dissatisfied with the past, have no guide to lead them anywhere. Still others, however, have a strong faith in the new course which they are pursuing, a faith which can guide them over great difficulties. Boyle was such a man of faith--a word which is really synonymous with "attitude." He marked the transition between the old and the new, and pointed up the difficulties which transition always involves. _Notes_ [37] Thomas Birch, _The Life of the Honourable Robert Boyle_, in Robert Boyle, _The Works of the Honourable Robert Boyle_, ed. Thomas Birch, London; 1772, I, liv, reprinted Hildesheim, 1965, I, Introduction, viii-ix; Marie Boas Hall, _Robert Boyle on Natural Philosophy: An Essay with Selections from His Writings_, Bloomington, Indiana, 1965, p. 16. [38] John F. Fulton, _A Bibliography of the Honourable Robert Boyle_, 2nd ed., Oxford, 1961, p. 37. [39] Hall, _op. cit._, p. 47. [40] Margaret E. Rowbottom, "The Earliest Published Writing of Robert Boyle," _Annals of Science_, VI (1950), 376-389; R. E. W. Maddison, "The Earliest Published Writing of Robert Boyle," _Annals of Science_, XVII (1961), 165-173. [41] Lazarus Riverius, _The Universal Body of Physick, in five books,... Exactly translated into English by William Carr_, London, 1657. [42] Lazari Riverii, _Opera Medica Universa_, Geneva, 1727.