The Shannon Portrait of the Hon. Robert Boyle, F.R.S. (1627–1691), by Johann Kerseboom (d. 1708). CHF Collections. Robert Boyle (1627–1691) Every general-chemistry student learns of Robert Boyle as the person who discovered that the volume of a gas decreases with increasing pressure and vice versa—the famous Boyle’s law. Boyle was born in Ireland, the son of the Earl of Cork, and spent his professional career in England. In addition to his gas laws, he is famous for his book The Sceptical Chymist. It is commonly believed that this book was a convincing argument against transmutation and that it effectively ended the age of alchemy. The truth is very different. The existence of elements was the target of Boyle’s "scepticism," not transmutation. In fact, Boyle practiced alchemy, believed he had seen base metals transmuted, and successfully lobbied Parliament to repeal England’s ban on transmutation. But his book did have an effect on alchemy. In his questioning of the existing of elements, he stated that no substance should be considered an element unless repeated attempts to break it down into simpler substances had failed. This new definition of an element led later scientists to discover that gold was an element, and thus could not be made by joining simpler substances. Further investigations into the nature of elements and compounds led John Dalton to formulate his atomic theory many years later, putting the possibility of transmuting one element into another to rest once and for all.