Robert Boyle’s Desiderata. (Patreon)

These lists served as “markers for what humankind might achieve together… serving to expand the horizon of possibility.”

Above:

-The Prolongation of Life.

-The Recovery of Youth, or at least some of its Marks, such as new Teeth, new Hair colored as in youth.

-The Art of Flying.

-The Art of Continuing Long Underwater, and Exercising Functions Freely There.

-The Cure of Wounds at a Distance.

-The Cure of Diseases at a Distance or at least by Transplantation.

-The Attaining Gigantic Dimensions.

-The Emulating of Fish without Engines by Custom and Education Only.

-The Acceleration of the Production of Things from Seed.

-The Transmutation of Metals. The Making of Malleable Glass.

-The Transmutation of Species into Minerals, Animals, and Vegetables.

-The Liquid Alka-Seltzer and Other Dissolving Menstruals.

-The Making of Parabolic and Hyperbolic Glasses.

-The Making of Armor Light and Extremely Hard.

-The Practicable and Certain Way of Finding Longitudes

-The use of pendulums at sea and in journeys, and the application of it to watches.

-Potent drugs to alter or exalt imagination, waking, memory, and other functions, and appease pain, procure innocent sleep, harmless dreams, etc.

Below:

-A ship to sail with all winds, and a ship not to be sunk.

-Freedom from the necessity of much sleeping, exemplified by the operations of Tea and what happens in Mad Men.

-Pleasing dreams and physical exercises, exemplified by the Egyptian electuary and by the fungi mentioned by the French author.

-Great strength and agility of body, exemplified by that of frantic epileptics and hysterical persons.

-A perpetual light. Varnishes perfumed by rubbing.

σ 42