 This cluster of doctrines about experiment was set in Boyle’s writings within a broader Baconian context, namely the Baconian method of natural history. Baconian natural histories were, in the first instance, vast collections of matters of fact derived from observation and experiment and which were to provide the foundation for natural philosophical theorising. (In fact, few natural philosophers were able to respect this two-stage process.) They are to be distinguished from classificatory natural history that was concerned with describing and classifying natural kinds (Ogilvie 2006). Thus, many of Boyle’s actual experimental reports are found in works that are natural histories after the style of Francis Bacon. For example, Boyle viewed his famous air-pump experiments that led eventually to the discovery of Boyle’s Law, as part of a broader natural history of the air. Indeed, the philosopher John Locke, who was also committed to the Baconian method of natural history, edited Boyle’s General History of the Air and saw it through the press the year after Boyle died.