William Molyneux

From A Compendium of Irish Biography, 1878

Molyneux, William, patriot and philosopher, was born 17th April 1656, in New-row, Dublin. [His father, Samuel Molyneux, was a master gunner, and an officer in the Irish Exchequer. He had distinguished himself in the War of 1641-'52, and although offered the recordership of Dublin, clung with fondness to his own profession, making experiments in gunnery and the construction of cannon, at private butts of his own.] William entered Trinity College in April 1671, and having taken out his bachelor's degree, proceeded to London and entered at the Middle Temple in 1675.

While diligently studying law, his attention was also turned towards scientific pursuits. He returned to Dublin in 1678, and soon afterwards married Lucy Domville, daughter of the Irish Attorney-General. In 1683 was formed the Dublin Philosophical Association, the forerunner of the Royal Dublin Society and the Royal Irish Academy. Sir William Petty was president, and Molyneux acted as secretary. Its first meetings were held in a house on Cork-hill. He now became acquainted with some of the leading personages of the time, and through the Duke of Ormond's influence, was in 1684 appointed Engineer and Surveyor of the King's Buildings and Works. Next year he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society.

Sent by the Government to survey fortresses on the coast of Flanders, he passed on to Holland and France, and in Paris became acquainted with Borelli, the famous mathematician. In 1686, soon after his return, he published an account of the telescope dial invented by himself. The following year he had the pleasure of reading advanced sheets of Newton's Principia, sent him by Halley. During the War of 1689-91 he resided at Chester, where he lost his wife. He there occupied himself in the composition of a work on dioptrics. On his return he was appointed one of the Commissioners of Forfeited Estates, with a salary of £500. But the task was suited neither to his tastes nor his feelings; he was indifferent about money, and soon resigned a laborious and highly invidious and unpopular office.

About this time he speaks of his well-selected library of 1,000 volumes, and of being visited by the Duke of Wurtemberg, General De Ginkell, and Scravamoer. Both in 1692 and 1695 he was elected member for the University of Dublin, which had conferred upon him the degree of LL.D. The laws passed for the destruction of Irish trade and commerce induced Molyneux to write the work that has since rendered his name conspicuous in Irish history: The Case of Ireland, being bound by Acts of Parliament made in England, Stated, published, with a dedication to the King, early in 1698. It maintained that Ireland and England were separate and independent kingdoms under the same sovereign — that Ireland was annexed, not conquered — "If the religion, lives, liberties, fortunes, and estates of the clergy, nobility, and gentry of Ireland may be disposed of without their privity or consent, what benefit have they of any laws, liberties, or privileges granted unto them by the crown of England? I am loth to give their condition an hard name; but I have no other notion of slavery but being bound by a law to which I do not consent... We have heard great outcries, and deservedly, on breaking the Edict of Nantes, and other stipulations; how far the breaking our constitution, which has been of five hundred years' standing, exceeds that, I leave the world to judge."

The work created a great sensation, was stigmatized as seditious and libellous by the English Parliament, and ordered to be burned by the common hangman. Shortly after its publication, he went to England to visit his friend and correspondent, John Locke. The fatigues of the journey brought on a severe attack of illness, and he died on the 11th October 1698, soon after reaching home, aged 42. He was buried in St. Audoen's Church, Dublin. Some interesting notes regarding his monument will be found in Notes and Queries, 3rd and 4th Series.

Locke, writing to his brother, said: "I have lost in your brother not only an ingenious and learned acquaintance, that all the world esteemed, but an intimate and sincere friend, whom I truly loved, and by whom I was truly loved." The highest tribute ever paid to his patriotism and genius was by Grattan, in his great speech in the Irish Parliament, on 16th April 1782. Harris's Ware enumerates fifteen works, 4 chiefly philosophical, from his pen. The most important, besides his Case of Ireland, were Six Metaphysical Meditations (Lond. and Dub. 1680), Sciothericum Telescopicum (Dub. 1686), and Dioptrica Nova (Lond. 1692). [His son Samuel, born in 1689, was secretary to George II. when Prince of Wales, and was afterwards Lord of the Admiralty and a member of the Privy-Council. He died childless in 1727.

Wikipedia Biographical Summary

William Molyneux FRS (17 April 1656 – 11 October 1698) was an Irish natural philosopher and writer on politics.

Life

He was born in Dublin to Samuel Molyneux (1616–1693), lawyer and landowner (whose grandfather had come to Dublin from Calais), and his wife, Anne, née Dowdall. The second of five children, William Molyneux came from a relatively prosperous Anglican background, with the family holding large estates inherited from the Dowdall's in Ballymulvey, (Mulvey being an Anglicization of Molyneux) near Ballymahon in the County of Longford. He was close to his brother Thomas, with whom he later shared philosophical interests. In 1671 Molyneux started at Trinity College, Dublin where he became an avid reader of the leading figures of the Scientific Revolution. After attaining a Bachelor of Arts there, Molyneux was sent to study law in the Middle Temple, London from 1675 to 1678. In 1678 he married Lucy Domville (?–1691), the youngest daughter of Sir Wiliam Domville the Attorney-General for Ireland. His wife became ill, which led to blindness, after their marriage and died young. Of their 3 children, only Samuel Molyneux (1689–1728) lived past childhood. Samuel went on to become an astronomer and politician who worked with his father on various scientific endeavours.

Career & Publications

Due to his inheritance, Molyneux was financially independent. Nonetheless, he held a number of official positions throughout his life. He was appointed Joint Surveyor General of the King's buildings and works in Ireland in 1684. He represented Dublin University in Parliament from 1692 until his death. He had also served as a commissioner of forfeited estates in 1693, resigning a few months later due to ill health.

Meanwhile, Molyneux was responsible for a number of publications reflecting his diverse interests. His first book was editing and translating into English the work of René Descartes which was published in London, 1680 as Six Metaphysical Meditations, Wherein it is Proved that there is a God.... In 1682 Molyneux collaborated with Roderic O'Flaherty to collect material for Moses Pitt's Atlas. In 1685, Pitt's financial crisis lead to cancellation of the project but much valuable early Irish history had been collected. Molyneux struck a friendship with O'Flaherty and assisted when the latter's treatise Ogygia was published in London.

Meanwhile, in October 1683 he founded the Dublin Philosophical Society along the lines of the Royal Society (of which Molyneux became a fellow in 1685), and became its first Secretary. He was active in the proceedings of the society—recording weather data, calculating eclipses and demonstrating instruments and experiments.

Molyneux also published several papers in Philosophical Transactions, as well as papers on optics, natural philosophy, and miscellaneous topics. Perhaps his best known scientific work was Dioptrica Nova, A treatise of dioptricks in two parts, wherein the various effects and appearances of spherick glasses, both convex and concave, single and combined, in telescopes and microscopes, together with their usefulness in many concerns of humane life, are explained, published in London 1692.

After John Locke published his Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690), Molyneux wrote to him praising the work.

Early in 1698, Molyneux published The Case of Ireland's being Bound by Acts of Parliament in England, Stated. This controversial work—through application of historical and legal precedent—dealt with contentious constitutional issues that had emerged in the latter years of the seventeenth century as a result of attempts on the part of the English Parliament to pass laws that would suppress the Irish woolen trade. It also dealt with the disputed appellate jurisdiction of the Irish House of Lords. Molyneux's arguments reflected those made in an unpublished piece written by his father-in-law Sir William Domville, entitled A Disquisition Touching That Great Question Whether an Act of Parliament Made in England Shall Bind the Kingdom and People of Ireland Without Their Allowance and Acceptance of Such Act in the Kingdom of Ireland.

Following a debate in the English House of Commons, it was resolved that Molyneux's publication was 'of dangerous consequence to the crown and people of England by denying the authority of the king and parliament of England to bind the kingdom and people of Ireland'. Despite condemnation in England, Molyneux was not punished but his work was condemned as seditious and was ceremonially burned at Tyburn by the public hangman. His arguments remained topical in Ireland as constitutional issues arose throughout the eighteenth century, and formed part of Swift's argument in Drapier's Letters. The tract also gained attention in the American colonies as they moved towards independence. Although The Case of Ireland, Stated was later associated with independence movements—both in Ireland and America—as one historian points out, 'Molyneux's constitutional arguments can easily be misinterpreted' and he was 'in no sense a separatist'.

Legacy

Molyneux, who died in Dublin on 11 October 1698, also proposed the philosophical question that has since become known as Molyneux's Problem, which Locke discussed in later editions of the Essay. The problem of the blind man who gains sight, which he proposed to Locke, remains a topic that is discussed even in our day. The University Philosophical Society of Trinity College, Dublin views itself as the successor of the Dublin Philosophical Society, and thus recognises Molyneux as its founder and first president.

SOURCE: Wikipedia contributors, 'William Molyneux', Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 29 October 2013, 08:47 UTC, <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=William_Molyneux&oldid=57...> [accessed 12 January 2014]