Queries in early-modern English science

Abstract

ABSTRACT The notion of a “query” occurred in legal, medical, theological and scientific writings during the early modern period. Whereas the “questionary” (from c. 1400s) sought replies from within a doctrine (such as Galenic medicine), in the 1600s the query posed open-ended inquiries, seeking empirical information from travellers, explorers and others. During the 1660s in Britain, three versions of the query (and lists of queries) emerged. Distinctions need to be made between queries seeking information via observation and those asking for experimentation, and between those aiming to keep theory to one side and those that framed theoretical conjectures. My examples are drawn from the work of the Royal Society of London (founded 1660) and from some of its leading members, especially Robert Boyle, Robert Hooke and Isaac Newton.