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 总 目 录
富爸爸穷爸爸（20周年修订版）本版根据当今世界经
济形势作了大幅更新
富爸爸财务自由之路
富爸爸为什么富人越来越富
 目录
致中国读者的一封信
出版人的话
献词
感谢
后见之明 20年后的今天
序言
第一章
第一课 富人不为钱工作
讨论学习环节
第二章
第二课 为什么要教授财务知识
讨论学习环节
第三章
第三课 关注自己的事业
讨论学习环节
第四章
第四课 税收的历史和公司的力量
讨论学习环节
第五章
第五课 富人的投资
讨论学习环节
第六章
第六课 学会不为钱工作
讨论学习环节
第七章
 克服困难
讨论学习环节
第八章
开始行动
讨论学习环节
第九章
还想要更多吗? 这里有一些要做的事情
讨论学习环节
结束语
讨论学习环节
返回总目录
图书在版编目（CIP）数据

富爸爸穷爸爸 / ( 美 ) 罗伯特·清崎著 ; 萧明译 . — 成都

: 四川人民出版社 , 2017.8（2017.11 重印）

ISBN 978-7-220-10291-2

Ⅰ . ①富… Ⅱ . ①罗… ②萧… Ⅲ . ①私人投资－通 俗读

物 Ⅳ . ① F830.59-49

中国版本图书馆CIP数据核字（2017）第 193092 号

Rich Dad ， Poor Dad ： What The Rich Teach Their

Kids About Money-That The Poor And Middle Class
Do Not!

Copyright ⓒ 2017 by Robert T. Kiyosaki

This edition published by arrangement with Rich Dad

Operating Company, LLC.

版权合同登记号：图进 21-2017- 491

FUBABA QIONGBABA

富爸爸穷爸爸（20 周年修订版）

〔美〕罗伯特·清崎 著 萧明 译

责任编辑 张春晓

特约编辑 张 芹 赵 晶

封面设计 朱 红

版式设计 乐阅文化

责任印制 聂 敏

出版发行 四川人民出版社 （成都市槐树街２号）

网 址 http://www.scpph.com

E-mail scrmcbs@sina.com

新浪微博 @ 四川人民出版社
微信公众号 四川人民出版社 发行部业务电话 （028）
86259624 86259453 防 盗 版 举 报 电 话 （ 028 ）
86259624

照 排 北京乐阅文化有限责任公司

印 刷 三河市中晟雅豪印务有限公司

成品尺寸 152mm×215mm 1/32

印 张 11.5

字 数 247 千

版 次 2017 年 9 月第 1 版

印 次 2017 年 11 月第 3 次印刷

书 号 ISBN 978-7-220-10291-2

■版权所有·侵权必究 本书若出现印装质量问题，请与
我社发行部联系调换 电话：（028）86259453
致中国读者的一封信
亲爱的中国读者 ： 你们好！

今年是《富爸爸穷爸爸》在美国出版 20 周年，
其在中国上市也已经整整 17 年了。我非常高兴地从
我的中国伙伴——北京读书人文化艺术有限公司（他
们在这些年里收到了很多读者来信）那里了解到，你
们中的很多人因为读了这本书而认识到财商的重要
性，从而努力提高自己的财商，最终同我一样获得了
财务自由。

我很骄傲我的书能够让你们获益。20 年后的今
天，世界又处在变革的十字路口。全球经济形势日益
复杂，不断涌现的“黑天鹅事件”加剧了世界发展的不
确定性，人们对未来充满迷茫，悲观主义情绪正在蔓
延。

而对于你们，富爸爸广大的中国读者来说，除了
受世界经济的影响，还要面对国内经济转型的阵痛，
这个过程艰苦而漫长。当然，为了成就这种时代的美
好，你必须坚持正确的选择，拥有前进的智慧和勇
气。这就需要你努力学习。此次修订除了对原来内容
的更新，还增加了许多全新的小版块。这些小版块贯
穿全书，可以看作是穿越时光的透视镜，它们从今天
回望1997 年这本书诞生的时候，用今天的形势来印证
富爸爸当初的理念。

最后，我还是要说，任何人都能成功，只要你选
择这么做！

罗伯特·清崎

2017年 6月
出版人的话
转眼间，“富爸爸”问世已20年，与中国读者相伴
也已17 余年。在中国经济和社会蓬勃发展的17余年
间，“富爸爸”系列丛书的出版影响了千千万万的中国
读者，有超过1000万的读者认识了富爸爸、了解了财
商。在“富爸爸”的忠实读者中，既有在餐厅打工的服
务员，也有执教讲堂的大学教授；既有满怀创业梦想
的年轻人，也有安享晚年的退休人士。“富爸爸”的读
者群体之广、之大，是我们不曾预料到的。

作为一套在中国风靡大江南北、引领国人创业创
富的财商智慧丛书，“富爸爸”系列伴随和见证了千万
读者的创富经历和成长历程，他们通过学习财商，已
然成为中国的“富爸爸”，这也是我们修订此书的动
力。十几年来，“富爸爸”系列也在不断地增加新的“家
族成员”，新书的内容也越来越贴合当下经济的快速发
展以及国内风起云涌的经济大潮，我们也在十几年的
财商教育过程中摸索出了一套适合国内大众群体
的“MBW”财商理论体系，即从创富动机、创富行为习
惯、创富路径三方面培养学员的财商，增强大家和财
富打交道的积极意识，提高抗风险的能力。

曾有一位来自深圳的学员告诉我，他当年就是因
为读了《富爸爸穷爸爸》一书，并通过系统的财商训
练，才在事业上取得了巨大的成功。难能可贵的是，
成功后的他并没有独享财富，而是将自己致富的秘诀
——“富爸爸”财商理念分享给了更多想要创业、想要
致富、想要成功的人。

在“富爸爸”的忠实读者群中，类似的成功故事还
有很多很多。在“富爸爸”的影响下，每一位创富的读
者都非常乐意向更多的朋友传授自己从财商训练中获
得的成功经验。

值此“富爸爸”20周年之际，作者的最新修订版再
次契合了时代的发展、读者的需要。在经济金融全球
化的发展与危机中，作者总结过去、现在和未来财富
的变化与趋势，并重温了富爸爸那些简洁有力的财商
智慧，在中华民族伟大复兴的新时代，“富爸爸”系列
丛书将结合财商教育培训，为读者带来提高财商的具
体办法，以及在中国具体环境下的MBW创富实践理
论。丛书的出版公司北京读书人文化艺术有限公司将
和相关的财商教育培训机构一起，从图书、财商游
戏、财商培训、财商俱乐部等多角度多方面，打造出
一个立体的“富爸爸”，不仅要从财商理念上引导中国
读者，更要在实践中帮助中国读者真正实现财务自
由 。 读 者 和 创 业 者 可 以 通 过 登 录 官 方 网 站 ： www.
readers.com.cn及www.fubaba.com，或关注读书人俱
乐部微信，来了解更多有关“富爸爸”系列丛书和财商
培训的信息。

正如富爸爸在书中所说，世界变了，金钱游戏的
规则也变了。对于读者和创富者来说，也要应时而
变，理解金钱的语言、学会金钱的游戏。只有这样，
你才能玩转金钱游戏，实现财务自由。

汤小明

2017年 4月
 《富爸爸穷爸爸》是任何一个想掌握自己财务未
来 的人的起点。

——《今日美国》
献词
致这世上所有的父母——每个孩子的第一位也是
最重要的老师。

致那些教育、影响别人和以身作则的读者。
感谢
当有太多的人需要感谢的时候，人们通常如何来
表达“谢谢你”？显然，这本书就是我对于两位父亲表
达的感谢，他们是我强大的榜样。也要感谢我的母
亲，她教会我爱与善良。

还有对完成此书帮助最大的一个人，那就是我的
妻子金——我婚姻、事业和生活的伴侣。她使我的生
活变得完整。
后见之明 20年后的今天
1967年6月1日，甲壳虫乐队发行专辑《佩伯军士
的寂寞芳心俱乐部》。它一经推出，便获得巨大的商
业成功，稳居英国唱片排行榜榜首整整27周，在美国
同样居于第一位整整15周。

《时代》杂志宣称此唱片为“音乐进步的历史性起
点”。它赢得了1968年的四项格莱美奖项以及年度最佳
专辑——这是第一张获此殊荣的摇滚专辑。

《富爸爸穷爸爸》在20年前就已发行，那是1997
年4月8 日，我50岁生日的时候。跟甲壳虫的故事不一
样，这本书没有很快获得商业上的成功。恰恰相反，
这本书发行后随之而来的是如风暴般的批评。

《富爸爸穷爸爸》最初是由我自行出版，因为每
一个出版商都拒绝了我的出版请求。有些退稿通知还
附带评论如“你自己都不知道你在说些什么”。我知道大
部分的出版商都喜欢我受过高等教育的穷爸爸胜过富
爸爸。他们不同意富爸爸的金钱观……穷爸爸也是如
此。

年后的今天
20

1997年，《富爸爸穷爸爸》是一个警示，是一本
学习未来的书。

20年后，全球数以百万计的人们越来越意识到富
爸爸的警示以及他关于未来的课程，这是20年的后见
之明，很多人都说他的课程是有预示性的……预言实
现了。其中一些课程是：

富爸爸第一课：“富人不会为钱而工作”

20年前，一些出版商拒绝出版我的书是因为他们
并不认同富爸爸的第一课。
 今天，人们越来越意识到富人和其他人之间的差
距。在 1993年到2010年期间，美国超过50%的国家收
入都被1%的富人占有。在那之后，情况变得更糟。加
利福尼亚大学的经济学家们发现，在2009年到2012年
期间，95%的国家收入都进入了1% 的富人的口袋。

课程总结：大部分增长的收入都流向企业家及投
资者，而并非劳动者——那些为钱而工作的人们。

富爸爸课程：“储蓄是失败者所为”

20年前，绝大多数出版商强烈地反对富爸爸这个
理念。对于穷人和中产阶级来说，“存钱”是他们的信
仰，可将他们从贫穷中拯救出来，保护他们在这个残
酷的世界中不受伤害。对于很多人来说，把储户称
作“失败者”就像是在亵渎上帝之名一样。

课程总结：一张图胜过千言万语。请看这张为期
120年的道琼斯工业指数图表，你会发现为什么储户会
变成失败者以及他们是如何变成失败者的。

此图证明在这个新世纪的最初10年有三次巨大的
股市崩盘，并详细地展示了这三次股市崩盘。

第一次崩盘是2000年左右的科技股崩盘。第二及
第三次则是2007年的房地产市场崩盘，紧接着便是
2008年的次贷危机。

年经济大萧条
1929
 当你拿21世纪最初的三次崩盘和1929年的经济大
萧条相比时，你会发现本世纪前三次的崩盘到底有
多“大”。

印钞票

下图表明，在每次崩盘之后，美国政府和联邦储
备银行就开始“印钞票”。
拯救富人

在2000年到2016年期间，打着拯救经济的名义，
世界各地的银行开始降低利率和印制钞票。然而我们
的领导们却要我们相信他们是在拯救世界，实际上，
富人们只是在拯救自己，并没有将穷人和中产阶级拉
上被拯救的列车。

今天，许多国家的利率都低于零，这也是说储蓄
是失败者所为的原因。如今最大的输家是穷人和中产
阶级，他们为钱工作，然后把钱存起来。

富爸爸课程：“你的房子并非资产”

20年前，在1997年，每个拒绝我的出版商都反对
富爸爸这个理念“你的房子并非资产”。

10年之后，在2007年，当次贷者开始拖欠贷款的
时候，全球房地产泡沫开始破裂，数百万的房产持有
人以惨痛的代价发现了这个事实——他们的房子并非
资产。

真正的问题
 大部分人并不知道房地产市场的崩溃并不是真正
的崩溃。穷人并没有引起房地产市场的崩溃，那是富
人们导致的。富人们设计了一系列衍生性金融产品
——这些产品曾被沃伦·巴菲特称为“大规模杀伤性武
器”。当这个大规模杀伤性武器爆炸的时候，房地产市
场崩溃了……然后穷人们、次贷者们便受到谴责。

据估算，2007年大概有700万亿美元的金融衍生产
品。

而今天，据估算仍有1200万亿美元的金融衍生产
品。换句话说，实质性的问题正在变得更大，而不是
更小。

富爸爸课程：“为什么富人缴的税更少”

20年前，一些出版商批评《富爸爸穷爸爸》揭露
了富人们少缴税的秘密。其中有一个人甚至说这些内
容是违法的。

10年以后，在2007年，巴拉克·奥巴马总统再次参
加竞选，对决前州长米特·罗姆尼。当奥巴马总统将个
人收入的近30%用来缴税而米特·罗姆尼只缴低于13%
的税的消息曝光后，米特·罗姆尼的支持率每况愈下，
最终竞选失败。2016年，税收再一次成为美国总统竞
选的焦点。

穷人和中产阶级并没有去寻找像米特·罗姆尼和唐
纳德·特朗普总统这样的人少缴税而不违法的原因，他
们只是单纯地开始愤怒起来。

当特朗普总统承诺减少穷人和中产阶级的税收
时，实际上富人总是可以缴更少的税。富人缴更少的
税的原因可以追溯到富爸爸的第一课：“富人不会为了
钱而工作。”只要一个人为了钱而工作，他就要缴税。

即使当总统候选人希拉里·克林顿承诺提高富人们
的税收时，她也只是承诺提高那些高收入者的税——
例如医生、演员以及律师——他们并不是真正意义上
的富人。
 年前
20

虽然《富爸爸穷爸爸》没有像甲壳虫乐队的唱片
一样很快获得成功，它却在2000年登上了《纽约时
报》的畅销书排行榜，并且保持在畅销行列将近7年。
同样是在2000年，奥普拉·温弗莉打来电话。我上了奥
普拉的节目。整整一个小时，正如大家所说的，“接下
来发生的事就众所周知了”。

《富爸爸穷爸爸》成为历史上最畅销的个人理财
书籍，“富爸爸”系列图书已在全球范围内发行近4000万
册。

真的有富爸爸吗？
 无数人问过：“真的有富爸爸吗？”为了解开这个谜
题，你可以收听一个由富爸爸的儿子迈克担任嘉宾的
广播节目。登录Richdadradio.com你可以收听到这个
节目。

富爸爸研究院

《富爸爸穷爸爸》写得通俗易懂，所以几乎所有
人都能理解书中富爸爸的课程。

对于那些想要进一步学习的人，同时也作为对富
爸爸20周年的庆祝，我写了另外一本书——《为什么
富人越来越富》。

《为什么富人越来越富》更加深入细致地阐述了
富爸爸曾经教给他儿子和我的关于金钱和投资的智
慧。

《为什么富人越来越富》是《富爸爸穷爸爸》留
给准备进一步学习的人的，也是研究院留给富爸爸的
学生的。

是警示，也是邀请

我尽力让《为什么富人越来越富》这本书保持通
俗易懂的风格，但这并不容易。解读富人们所做的需
要真正意义上的财商教育，可惜的是，我们的学校至
今未能提供这种教育。

我建议先阅读《富爸爸穷爸爸》，然后如果你想
进一步学习，那么这本《为什么富人越来越富》则是
为你准备的。

感谢，伟大的20年

致所有的读者，过去的、现在的、将来的……
 所有富爸爸公司的人都在说：

“感谢，伟大的20年!”

提升人类的金钱幸福指数是我们的使命，

一旦开始，便是一生。
序言
两个爸爸都给我建议，这就为我提供了
一个在截然不同的观念间进行选择的机会，
即选择富人的观念或穷人的观念。

我有两个爸爸，一个富，一个穷。一个受过良好
的教育，聪明绝顶，拥有博士头衔，曾经没用两年就
修完了 4 年的本科学业，随后又在斯坦福大学、芝加
哥大学和西北大学深造，并都拿到了全额奖学金；但
另一个却连八年级①都没能念完。

两个爸爸的事业都相当成功，而且一辈子都非常
勤奋。他们都有着丰厚的收入。然而其中一个人终其
一生都在个人财务问题的泥沼中挣扎，另一个人则成
了夏威夷最富有的人之一。一个爸爸去世后为家人、
慈善机构和教堂留下了数千万美元的遗产，而另一个
爸爸只留下一些待付的账单。
 两个爸爸都是那种意志坚强、富有魅力、具有影
响力的人。他们都曾给我建议，但建议的内容并不相
同；他们也都深信教育的力量，但推荐给我的课程却
从不一样。

如果我只有一个爸爸，那么对于他的建议我可以
选择接受或者拒绝；但两个爸爸都给我建议，这就为
我提供了一个在截然不同的观念间进行选择的机会，
即选择富人的观念或穷人的观念。

对于富爸爸和穷爸爸的观念，我并不简单地接受
或拒绝，我发现自己有更多的思考，在它们之间进行
了比较，再为自己做出选择。但问题是，在给我建议
的时候，富爸爸还不算富有，穷爸爸也并不贫穷，他
们的事业都刚刚起步，都在为钱和家庭而奋斗。然
而，他们对钱的理解却迥然不同。

例如，一个爸爸会说：“贪财乃万恶之源。”而另
一个爸爸却说 ：“贫穷才是万恶之本。”

当时我还只是一个小男孩，拥有两个对我同样有
影响力的爸爸可不是一件好应付的事。我想成为一个
听话的好孩子，但两个爸爸的话却完全不同。他们的
观点正好相反，尤其在涉及金钱的问题上更是如此，
这让我既好奇又迷惑。我开始花很多时间思考他们每
个人讲的话。

我花了很多时间思考，问自己诸如“他为什么那样
说”之类的问题，然后又对另一个爸爸的话提出同样的
疑问。如果只是说“噢，他是对的，我同意”，或是
说“他不知道自己在说什么”应该是很容易的事。相
反，拥有两位我深爱的父亲，这促使我去思考，最终
为自己选择其中一种思维方式。这一过程是我自己去
选择而不是简单地接受或否定的过程，在后来的漫长
岁月中被证明对我非常有益。

富人之所以越来越富，穷人之所以越来越穷，中
产阶级之所以总是在债务的泥潭中挣扎，其中一个主
要原因就是，他们对金钱的认识不是来自学校，而是
来自家庭。大多数人都是从父母那儿了解钱是怎么回
事的。关于金钱，贫穷的父母能够教给孩子们什么
呢？他们只会说：“在学校里要好好学习喔。”结果，
他们的孩子可能会以优异的成绩毕业，但同时也秉承
了穷人的理财方式和思维习惯。这是孩子们在很小的
时候就从父母那里学到的。

遗憾的是 , 学校并没有
开设有关“金钱”的课程。学
校教育只专注于学术知识的
传授和专业技能的培养，却
忽视了理财技能的培训。所
以众多精明的银行家、医生和会计师在学校时成绩优
异，可还是要一辈子在财务问题上挣扎。美国岌岌可
危的债务问题在很大程度上也应归因于那些政治家和
政府官员们做出的财务决策，他们虽然受过高等教
育，但很少甚至几乎没有接受过理财方面的培训。

今天我常常在想，当数百万人需要经济和医疗援
助时该怎么办？当然，他们可以得到家人的支持和政
府的救助。可是，当医疗保险和社会保险都用完时又
该怎么办？如果我们继续把教孩子理财的重任交给那
些濒于贫困边缘或已陷入贫困境地的父母，我们的国
家又该怎么发展下去？
 由于我有两位极具影响力的爸爸，所以我从他们
两人身上都学到了很多东西。我不得不思考每个爸爸
的建议，在我把这些建议付诸实际的同时，我认识到
有一点很重要，那就是一个人的观念对他的一生影响
巨大。例如，我的一个爸爸总是习惯说“我可付不
起”，而另一个爸爸则禁止我们说这样的话，他坚持让
我这样说 ：“我怎样才能付得起？”这两句话，一句是
陈述句，另一句是疑问句。一句让你放弃，而另一句
则促使你去想办法。我那个在不久之后就富起来的爸
爸解释，当你下意识地说出“我付不起”的时候，你的
大脑就会停止思考；而如果你自问“我怎样才能付得
起”，则会让你的大脑动起来。当然，他的意思并不是
让你把每件想要的东西都买到手，这里只是强调要不
停地锻炼你的大脑—它是世界上最强大的“计算机”。
富爸爸说：“我的大脑越用越活，大脑越活，我挣的钱
就越多。”他认为，下意识地说“我可付不起”意味着精
神上的懒惰。

虽然两个爸爸工作都很努力，但我注意到，在遇
到钱的问题时，一个爸爸习惯于逃避，另一个爸爸则
总是想办法解决问题。长此以往，其结果就是，一个
爸爸的理财能力越来越弱，而另一个爸爸的理财能力
则越来越强。这种结果类似于一个经常去健身房锻炼
的人与一个总坐在沙发上看电视的人在体质上的不同
变化。适当的体育锻炼可以增加获得健康的机会，同
样，适当的脑力训练可以增加获得财富的机会。

两个爸爸的观念完全不同，这又决定了他们有不
同的思考方式。一个爸爸认为，富人应该多缴税去照
顾那些相对不幸的人； 另一个爸爸则说：“税是惩勤奖
懒。”

一个爸爸劝我：“努力学习吧，那样你就能去好公
司工作。”而另一个爸爸则说：“努力学习吧，那样你
就能发现一家好公司并收购它。”

一个爸爸说：“我不富有，因为我有孩子。”而另
一个爸爸则说 ：“我必须富有，因为我有孩子。”

一个爸爸提倡在餐桌上讨论钱和生意，而另一个
爸爸则禁止在吃饭时谈论这些话题。
 一个爸爸说：“当涉及
钱的时候要小心，别去冒
险。”而另一个爸爸则
说：“要学会管理风险。”

一个爸爸认为“房子 是
最 大的 投资 和资 产”，而
另一个爸爸则相信“房子是负债，如果你的房子是你最
大的投资，你就有麻烦了”。

两个爸爸都会准时付账，但不同的是：一个预先
支付账单，而另一个到限期才支付账单。

一个爸爸相信政府和公司会关心和满足人们的需
求。他总是很关心加薪、退休政策、医疗补贴、病
假、假期以及津贴这类事情。他有两个参军的叔叔，
在服役 20 年后获得了退休金和终身保障，这让他深
受影响。他很喜欢军队向退役人员发放医疗补贴和开
办福利社的做法，也很喜欢大学里的终身聘任制。对
他而言，职业保障和职位补贴有时甚至比职业本身更
重要。他经常说：“我辛辛苦苦为政府工作，我有权享
受这些待遇。”
 另一个爸爸则信奉完全的经济自立，他反对这
种“理所应当”的心理，认为正是这种心理造成了人们
的软弱、贫穷。他特别重视理财的能力。

一个爸爸努力存钱，另一个爸爸则不断投资。一
个爸爸教我怎样去写一份让人印象深刻的简历，以便
找到一份好工作；另一个爸爸则教我写下雄心勃勃的
事业规划和财务计划，进而创造创业的机会。

作为两个意志坚定的爸爸的“杰作”，我有幸了解
到不同的观念怎样带来不同的人生。我发现人们的思
想确实可以决定他们的生活。

例如，我的穷爸爸总是说：“我永远也不会成为富
人。”于是这句话就成了事实。而我的富爸爸恰恰相
反，他总是把自己说成是一个富人。他会这样说：“我
是一个富人，富人不会这么做。”

甚至当一次严重的经济挫折使他一文不名后，他
仍然把自己当作富人。他会这样安慰自己：“贫穷和破
产的区别是：破产是暂时的，而贫穷是永久的。”
 我的穷爸爸也会说“我对钱不感兴趣”或“钱对我来
说并不重要”，而我的富爸爸则说“金钱就是力量”。

尽管思想的力量无法测量或评估，但当我还是一
个孩子时，我就已经知道，明白自己内心的想法，也
知道如何表达自己是多么重要。我注意到穷爸爸之所
以穷，不在于他挣钱的多少（尽管这也很重要），而
在于他的想法和行为。因为拥有两个爸爸，我敏锐地
觉察到要小心地选择和利用其中一种观念。我到底应
该听谁的：是富爸爸还是穷爸爸？

尽管两个爸爸都高度重
视教育和学习，但两人对于
什么才是最应该学习的看法
却不同。一个爸爸希望我努
力学习，获得学位，找个工资高的好工作。他希望 我
能成为一名专业人士，例如律师、会计师，或者去商
学院读 MBA。另一个爸爸则鼓励我学习成为富人，了
解钱的运动规律并让钱为我工作。“我不为钱工作”，
这句话他说了一遍又一遍，“我要让钱为我工作”。
 在我 9 岁那年，我最终决定听从富爸爸的话并向
他学习有关钱的知识。同时，我决定不听穷爸爸的，
即使他拥有那么多大学学位。

罗伯特·弗罗斯特的教诲

罗伯特·弗罗斯特是我最喜欢的诗人，他的许多诗
我都很喜欢，不过最爱的还是下面这首《未选之
路》。从诗中受到的启发我几乎每天都要用到：

未选之路②
林中两路分，可惜难兼行。游子久伫立，极目望
一径。

蜿蜒复曲折，隐于丛林中。我选另一途，合理亦
公正。

草密人迹罕，正待人通行。足迹踏过处，两路皆
相同。
 两路林中伸，落叶无人踪。我选一路走，深知路
无穷。

我疑从今后，能否转回程。数十年之后，谈起常
叹息。

林中两路分，一路人迹稀。我独选此路，境遇乃
相异。

选择不同，命运也会不同。这些年来，我时常回
味这首诗。选择不接受受过高等教育的爸爸关于钱的
态度和建议，这是一个痛苦的决定，但这个决定塑造
了我的人生。

一旦决定了要听从谁的建议，我的关于金钱的教
育就开始了。富爸爸教了我 30 多年，直到我 39 岁为
止。他一直努力向我那愚笨的头脑灌输东西，当他意
识到我已经懂得并完全理解了，就不再给我上课了。

钱是一种力量，但更有力量的是财商教育。钱来
了又会去，但如果你了解钱是如何运动的，你就获得
了驾驭它的力量，就能开始积累财富了。大多数人光
想不干，原因是他们在接受学校教育时并没有掌握钱
的运动规律，所以他们终生都在为钱工作。

我开始学习金钱这门课程时只有 9 岁，因此富爸
爸教我的东西都非常简单。他把所有想教给我的东西
说完、示范完，概括起来也只有 6 门主要的课程，在
过去的 30 多年中，我们一直在重复和加强这些课
程。本书就教授了这 6 门课程，我尽可能使它像当年
富爸爸教我时那样简单。这些课程并不仅仅意味着提
供答案，它们也是路标。无论这个充满不确定性和飞
速变化的世界会发生什么事情，这些路标都能帮助你
和你的孩子、你的家人积累财富。

第一课富人不为钱工作

第二课为什么要教授财务知识

第三课关注自己的事业

第四课税收的历史和公司的力量

第五课富人的投资
第六课学会不为钱工作
第一章
第一课 富人不为钱工作

穷人和中产阶级为钱而工作。富人让钱
为他工作。

“爸爸，你能告诉我怎样才能变得富有吗？”

爸爸放下手中的晚报，问道：“你为什么想变富有
呢，儿子？”

“因为基米的妈妈会开一辆新凯迪拉克带基米去海
滨别墅度周末。基米说要带 3 个朋友去，但他没有邀
请我和迈克，他说这是因为我们是穷孩子。”

“他们真的这么说？”爸爸不相信地问。
 “是啊，他们就是这么说的！”我用一种受伤的语
调答道。

爸爸默默地摇了摇头，把眼镜往鼻梁上推了推，
然后又继续看报纸了。我站在那儿等着答案。

那是 1956 年，当时我才 9 岁。由于命运的捉

弄，我进了一所公立学校，里面多数学生是富人的孩
子。我们这个镇是由夏威夷最初的甘蔗种植园发展起
来的。种植园主和镇上其他有钱人，比如医生、公司
老板、银行家，都把孩子送进了这所学校。六年级之
后这些孩子通常会被送进私立学校。因为我家住在街
的这一边，所以我进了这所学校。如果我家住在街的
另一边，我就会去另外一所学校，和那些与我出身差
不多的孩子在一起上学。上完六年级之后，我们这些
穷孩子会去上公立中学。镇上没有为我们设立的私立
中学。

爸爸终于放下了报纸，我敢说他刚才一定是在思
考我的话。
 “哦，儿子，”他慢慢地开口了，“如果想富有，你
就必须学会挣钱。”

“那么怎么挣钱呢？”我问。

“用你的头脑，儿子。”他说着，并微笑了一下，
其实我知道这种微笑意味着“我要告诉你的就这些”，
或者“我不知道答案，别为难我了”。

建立合伙关系

第二天一早，我就把爸爸的话告诉了我最好的朋
友迈克。我和迈克可以说是学校里仅有的两个穷孩
子。他进这所学校和我一样是由于命运的捉弄。要是
有人在学校里划分一条明确的界限，那么我和迈克在
和那些有钱的孩子相处时就不会那么局促不安了。其
实我们并非真的很穷，但我们感觉很穷，因为其他男
孩都有新棒球手套、新自行车，他们的东西都是新
的。
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
somehow it was August 13 before the two names came up again;
and at that moment the Indemnity Bill was hanging in mid-air
between the Lords and Commons. Neither of the two men had been
found; and though the Proclamation calling in all copies of their
books for burning by the hangman was then duly placarded all over
London, there was no further order for the arrest of the two men
themselves. On August 28 the Indemnity Bill had passed both
Houses; on August 29 it had received the King’s assent, the Act of
Indemnity and Oblivion was on the Statute Book, and there was no
mention of Milton in it from first to last. Goodwin’s name appeared;
he was incapacitated for life for any public trust. But of Milton, the
Republican pamphleteer, Cromwell’s Latin secretary, who had done
so incalculably much more, nothing—his name had somehow
dropped out. Milton was saved—“to the surprise of all people,” says
Bishop Burnet.[259]
If Milton had been hanged with the Regicides at Charing Cross, or
carted to Tyburn! And more than once during the passage of the Bill
it seemed possible that it might be so. As it was, with the passing of
this Act of Oblivion, and the emerging of a blind Puritan into the
murky sunshine of the old London streets, Milton drops out of the
story of Lady Ranelagh and the Boyle family. For a little while after
the passing of the Act (his hiding-place having apparently been
discovered) he seems to have been detained in custody by the
Sergeant-at-Arms. Perhaps he was safer so. His offending tracts
were duly burnt; his regicide comrades were duly hanged, drawn and
quartered; and in December Milton was at large. Staunch friends he
had had; Andrew Marvell was perhaps bravest and most
indefatigable of them all; but it must have required more powerful
influence than Marvell’s and Davenant’s to save John Milton. Had
Lady Ranelagh done him one more service greater than all before?
Had she enlisted the interest of her powerful brother Broghill, and of
such Privy Councillors as she knew best—men like Sandwich and
Manchester, and Annesley[260] and Morrice, and the old Lord
Goring, poor Lettice’s father-in-law,[261] and the young Charles
Howard, who had married “Robyn’s yonge Mrs.” and was going to be
first Earl of Carlisle? Had Lady Ranelagh’s silken strings reached the
little private Junto about the King himself—Hyde, and Ormonde, and
Southampton? One remembers that Mr. Boyle had been “treated
with great civility and respect by the King, as well as by the Earl of
Southampton, Lord High Treasurer, and the Earl of Clarendon, Lord
Chancellor of England.” And it is good to think that the Boyle family
—perhaps Boyle himself, whose memories went back to the Milton
of Comus and Eton, the Milton of the Epitaphium Damonis and the
Villa Diodati in Geneva, may have had a hand in saving Milton, the
blind Republican,—to write Paradise Lost. But if to any of them, it
was certainly to Lady Ranelagh that Milton owed his life and
freedom. There is no record of any further visits from Lady Ranelagh
to Milton after that date, but it is difficult to believe her friendship for
Milton ended with the Restoration. The garden-house in Petty
France was to be no more his home: his blind steps turned
eastward, to Holborn again, and Jewin Street, and then to Artillery
Walk, near Bunhill Fields, where he was to resume and finish his
great poem, and where he was to end his days. It is difficult to
believe that Lady Ranelagh never again knocked at the blind man’s
door; and it must be taken for granted that one day in late August or
early September 1667 a presentation-copy of Paradise Lost arrived
at the house in Pall Mall.

On a November afternoon—Nov. 28, 1660—the usual little

audience of philosophers had assembled to listen to one of Dr.
Christopher Wren’s astronomy lectures at Gresham College, in
Basinghall Street.[262] Wren, who had been astronomy professor
there since 1657, lectured on Wednesday afternoons during Term-
time from two to three—and it was a custom for the little company to
stay on after the lecture, adjourning to another room for “mutuall
converse.” The political disasters of the last year or two had
somewhat interrupted the advancement of learning; the soldiers had,
in fact, for a time, been quartered in Gresham College. But by the
end of November 1660 things were settling down again, and the
lectures were going on as usual. At this particular lecture the virtuosi
present were Lord Brouncker, Mr. Boyle, Mr. Bruce, Sir Robert
Moray, Sir Paule Neile, Dr. Wilkins, Dr. Goddard, Dr. Petty, Mr. Ball,
Mr. Rooke, Mr. Wren, and Mr. Hill; and their “mutuall converse”
turned on the formation of a scientific society, on a broader basis
than had been hitherto attempted—a society “for the promoting of
Physico-Mathematicall-Experimentall Learning,” to consist of weekly
meetings, which were to be held every Wednesday from that date
onwards.
This, it must be remembered, was no outcome of the Restoration.
It was fifteen years since the Invisibles had begun their meetings,
“precluding matters of theology and state affairs,” sometimes at
Gresham College, oftener in Dr. Goddard’s house in Wood Street, or
at the Bull’s Head Tavern in Cheapside. Robert Boyle at that time
had been a boy of eighteen, just back from Geneva, and introduced
into the little Hartlib-Durie-Comenius circle to find that the Parliament
men were already interested in a scheme of “Verulamian education.”
In November 1660 the Invisibles were fifteen years wiser than they
had been in 1645. And what a fifteen years it had been! Had there
ever been such a fifteen years in English History? Some of them,
after the visitation of Oxford, had migrated there, taking posts
vacated by Royalists, and forming the Oxford branch of the Invisible
Society; and now again these same men, removed at the
Restoration from their posts in Oxford University, were turning back
to London. It was the old Invisible College of 1645 that was to merge
itself in the Royal Society.
So, on that November afternoon 1660, in Gresham College, a new
Society was formed. It was arranged that its “original members” were
to be those present, with some others then and there proposed as
eligible, thirty-nine names being suggested and written down. Among
them were John Evelyn, Dr. Wallis, Dr. Seth Ward, Dr. Willis, Dr.
Bathurst, Sir Kenelm Digby, Abraham Cowley, John Denham, Mr.
William Croone, Mr. Richard Jones, and Henry Oldenburg. Robert
Boyle’s influence was already making itself felt. Most of these men
were Oxford colleagues, personal friends, and old Invisibles. The last
three must have been his special nominations, and two of them were
his own kinsmen. Dick Jones, his hopeful nephew, had just returned
with Henry Oldenburg from their foreign tour. William Croone, who
was nominated in absentia for the post of Registrar of the Society,
was presumably a son of the old Earl of Cork’s “Cozen Croone”, the
vintner of the King’s Head in Cheapside;[263] because the “Croonian
Lecture Fund,” long afterwards bequeathed to the Royal Society by
Mr. Croone’s widow, was derived from “one fifth of the clear rent of
the King’s Head Tavern in or near old Fish Street, London, at the
corner of Lambeth Hill.”[264] This makes William Croone a cousin of
Robert Boyle’s; and he was a creditable relative, this heir of old
Cozen Croone the vintner, for he was afterwards Doctor of Physic
and Gresham Professor of Rhetoric; and the Royal Society owes its
Croonian Lecture Fund to his and his widow’s generosity, and to the
takings at the old King’s Head in Cheapside.
Other original members—they were afterwards “Fellows”—were
added at later meetings. And what a list it was! There was Aubrey of
the “Lives,” and Ashmole, of museum celebrity, and Dryden and
Waller the poets, and old Haak the originator of the Invisible College,
and Robert Hooke, whose services at Oxford Boyle amiably
dispensed with so that he might be Curator,[265] and Peter Pett the
Naval Commissioner, and Thomas Sprat, the Society’s enthusiastic
first biographer, and Governor Winthrop from Connecticut, and Isaac
Barrow the scholarly divine,[266] and John Graunt, the “tradesman”
who drew up the Bills of Mortality. Peers there were in plenty,—the
Duke of Buckingham and the Earls of Devonshire, Northampton, and
Sandwich, among them; and Bishops—present and future. Doctors
of Physic, of course, and Lawyers of the Temple; Churchmen,
Statesmen, Army-men, Navy-men, and City-men. “It is to be noted,”
says Sprat, “that they have freely admitted men of different
Religions, Countries, and Professions of Life. This they were obliged
to do, or else they would come far short of the largeness of their own
declarations. For they openly profess not to lay the foundation of an
English, Scotch, Irish, Popish, or Protestant Philosophy; but a
Philosophy of Mankind.”[267]
Sir Robert Moray, a Scotsman and a favourite at Whitehall, had
quickly “brought in word from the Court” that the King approved of
the aims of the Society. Moray, who had a laboratory of his own at
Whitehall, acted for a time as interim-President, and was certainly
the life and soul of the infant Society; and on May 3, 1661—not
many days after his coronation, Charles II was shown, through his
own great telescope, Saturn’s rings and Jupiter and his satellites. His
Majesty became really interested, and began to discourse astronomy
as he sat at supper in Whitehall.[268] And a few weeks later—Sir
Robert Moray still acting as go-between—the King granted the
Society’s petition for a Royal Charter, and was “pleased to offer
himselfe to be entered one of the Society.” On July 15, 1662, the
Charter of Incorporation passed what Evelyn calls the “Broade
Seale.” Lord Brouncker was elected first President and Henry
Oldenburg Secretary.[269] The King presented the Society with its
mace,[270] on which were emblematically embossed the Crown and
Royal Arms, the rose, harp, thistle, and fleur de lys. In April 1663,
however, a second and improved Charter passed the Great Seal.
[271] The King in this declared himself Founder and Patron; Arms
were granted to the Society, and a motto from Horace was chosen—
Nullius in Verba. And the Royal Society kept its first anniversary on
November 30, 1663, St. Andrew’s Day having been selected partly
as nearest to November 28, the day of its first meeting, but also in
compliment, it is believed, to Sir Robert Moray, the popular
Scotsman who from the very beginning had been one of its most
energetic members.
Strange times! It has been rightly said that the foundation of the
Royal Society was one of the few creditable events of the
Restoration. Exactly a month before the Charter of Incorporation
passed the Great Seal, Sir Henry Vane had been beheaded on
Tower Hill, “the trumpets brought under the scaffold that he might not
be heard”; and little more than a month later came the dreaded St.
Bartholomew’s Day, which turned nearly two thousand rectors and
vicars—one-fifth of the English clergy—out of their parishes. The
doings of “Our Society”, meantime, read like a little oasis in a desert
of intolerance. The old Earl of Cork, who had sent his sons to fight
the “rebelleows” Presbyterian Scots, and spent the last days of his
own life in fighting the rebellious Irish Papists, would have rubbed his
eyes if he could have seen his Robyn walking in procession, side by
side with the Roman Catholic Sir Kenelm Digby, each wearing a St.
Andrew’s Cross pinned into his hat!
“It being St. Andrew’s Day, who was our patron,” says Evelyn
complacently, “each fellow wore a St. Andrew’s Crosse of ribbon on
the crowne of his hatt. After the election we din’d together, his
Majesty sending us venison.”[272]
Some difference of opinion, however, there seems to have been
among the philosophers about the choice of their patron saint. Pepys
did not care much who the saint was, but he grumbled at having to
pay two shillings for the badge.[273] Aubrey once confided to Sir
William Petty that he would have preferred St. George, or, failing
him, St. Isidore—“a philosopher canonised.”
“No,” said the irrepressible Petty, “I had rather have had it been St.
Thomas’s Day, for he would not believe till he had seen and putt his
finger into the holes, according to the motto, Nullius in Verba.”[274]
 CHAPTER XV
THE PLAGUE AND THE FIRE
“It hath commonly been looked upon as very strange that a diligent Cultivator of
Experimental Philosophy should be a zealous Embracer of the Christian Religion;
and that a great Esteem of Experience and a High Veneration for Religion should
be compatible in the same Person; but....”—Robert Boyle, The Christian
Virtuoso.

“The hottest day that ever I felt in my life ... I did in Drury Lane see two or three
houses marked with a red cross upon the doors, and ‘Lord have mercy upon us’
writ there....”—Pepys’s Diary, June 7, 1665.

“... it still encreasing, and the wind great ... and all over the Thames, with one’s
faces in the wind, you were almost burned with a shower of fire-drops ... saw the
fire grow; and as it grew darker appeared more and more, and in corners and upon
steeples, and between churches and houses, as far as we could see up the hill of
the city, in a most horrid malicious bloody flame ... one entire arch of fire from this
to the other side of the bridge.... The churches, houses and all on fire and flaming
at once ... and a horrid noise the flames made and the cracking of houses at their
ruine....”—Pepys’s Diary, September 2, 1666.

The year 1661 saw the publication not only of Boyle’s

Physiological Essays[275] already mentioned, but of his epoch-
making Scepticall Chymist.[276] It was the first year of “Our Society’s”
existence; a year of immense interest and activity among its
members; but Boyle himself was not always in London, and not
indeed wholly occupied with the claims of experimental science. In
1662 he found himself unexpectedly in possession of more Irish
land, a grant of “forfeited impropriations” having been obtained from
the King in Robert Boyle’s name, though without his knowledge. To
Boyle, the gift seems to have been somewhat in the nature of a
white elephant, and he applied for advice in the matter to his friend
the Bishop of Lincoln.[277] He was not sure if he ought to take the
grant at all, and still less decided as to what he ought to do with the
proceeds. He did not wish to “reflect upon those persons of honour”
who had done him the kindness unasked, and he would dearly have
liked to spend the proceeds, if he did take the grant, in “the
advancement of real knowledge.” Ultimately he did decide to accept
it, and to spend two-thirds of the proceeds in Ireland on the relief of
the poor and the maintenance of the Protestant religion; while the
other third was to go to the purposes of the Corporation for the
Propagation of the Gospel in New England, of which the King had
lately appointed him governor. This, too, had been done without
Boyle’s knowledge.
“So that the main benefit I intend to derive from the King’s bounty,”
says Boyle laconically, “is the opportunity of doing some good with
what, if my friends had not obtained it, might have been begged by
others, who would have otherwise employed it.”[278]
The matter settled—to nobody’s entire satisfaction—Boyle went on
with his work in Oxford, sending his communications to the Royal
Society through the secretary, Henry Oldenburg. Present or absent,
Mr. Boyle was the hero of the hour at Gresham College, and his air-
pump the chief attraction of its meetings.[279]
“I waited on Prince Rupert to our assembly,” says Evelyn, “where
we tried severall experiments in Mr. Boyle’s vacuum. A man thrusting
in his arm upon exhaustion of the air had his flesh immediately
swelled so as the blood was neare bursting the veins: he drawing it
out we found it all speckled.”[280]
Mr. Boyle, Mr. Boyle’s air-pump, and Mr. Boyle’s books—especially
that on the Spring and Weight of the Air—were the talk of the Court
as well as of the College. It is quite true that “the weighing of ayre”
was, in those early days of the Society’s existence, its favourite
occupation. A great change had come over the Philosophers. They
found themselves invited into a kind of scientific Kindergarten, where
knowledge was to be gained, not through their old black-letter books,
but out of pots and pans and pendulums, and shining ores, and
precious stones, and “anatomes” and “curiosities” and “things of
nature.” And the most fascinating thing of nature at this moment—
just because, perhaps, it was intangible, invisible, elusive—was “the
ayre.” These men had discovered that “the ayre” possessed
properties, obeyed laws; in fact, they had suddenly realized that they
were all going about under an atmosphere. Mr. Boyle had shown it to
be so; and there, in their midst, was the machina Boyleana.
But there were other “transactions” of the infant Royal Society. In
Oldenburg’s letters, and Hooke’s letters, and in the diaries of Pepys
and Evelyn, there are vivid contemporary glimpses of what went on
at Gresham College. Poor old Hartlib was dead, and Oldenburg
seems to have taken Hartlib’s place as Boyle’s London
Correspondent. He gave Boyle the latest gossip, not only of “Our
Society,” but of “State affairs” at home and abroad. From him Boyle,
at Oxford, heard of the visits of distinguished foreigners—Huygens,
Sorbière, and others—to Gresham College. Even when the
attendances were “thin,” and there was not much being shown,
these men were struck with admiration of “our experimental method,”
our “sedate and friendly way of conference,” and “the gravity and
majestickness of our order.”
The indefatigable Secretary, overworked and underpaid as he
undoubtedly was, and asking in vain for an “amanuensis,” had soon
put himself in touch with experimentalists in France, Holland,
Germany, Italy, the Bermudas, Poland, Sweden, New England, and
the East Indies. A new governor of “Bombaia” had offered his
services to the Society “for philosophical purposes”: “We have taken
to taske the whole universe,” wrote Oldenburg to Governor Winthrop
in Connecticut.
There was really no form of “curiosity” of earth, or sea, or sky, that
was not grist to the Gresham College mill. Chariots and watches,
masonry, ores, “the nature of salts,” injection into the veins and the
transfusion of blood, the velocity of bullets, mine-damp, musical
sounds and instruments, thermometers and barometers, fossils,
shooting stars, and double keels were all mixed up in most admired
disorder; and Mr. Boyle at Oxford was doing his best to interest the
“Oxonians” in the work going on at Gresham College; he himself
being equally interested in the experiments of transfusion of blood
carried on in London and the “musical experiments” made under his
direction in the Oxford colleges. Oldenburg reported everything to
him, and Hooke, too, his old assistant, who was now curator of Our
Society. Winthrop had written about the ores to be found in New
England, and an enthusiastic young Londoner had been planting a
“Virginian garden.” At one meeting of the Society there had been “a
good store of discourse concerning star-shoots”; at another all the
experiments were of “the descent of bodies in water.” On more than
one occasion a party of the philosophers—Sir Robert Moray, Dr.
Wilkins, Dr. Goddard, Hooke, and others—had climbed to the top of
the steeple of St. Paul’s “to make the ‘Torricellian experiments’ of
falling bodies and of pendulums.” And after the Correspondence
Committee had met at Mr. Povy’s house in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, for
the purpose of collecting evidence from “all parts of the world,”
Oldenburg wrote to Boyle: “This was our entertainment above
ground, I leave you to guess what our correspondence was
underground in the grotto, and near the well, that is the conservatory
of so many dozen of wine-bottles of all kinds.”[281]
So the letters came and went between London and Oxford; and
Boyle’s manuscripts and proof-sheets were sent to Oldenburg by
coach or carrier, or by Boyle’s own servant. “These coachmen and
carriers are incorrigible,” wrote Oldenburg, when parcels were
charged double and letters went astray; and there was, in particular,
a “she-porter” who specially annoyed Mr. Oldenburg. Presently, Mr.
Sprat was writing the Society’s history—as far as it went; and
Samuel Butler was satirising Gresham College up and down the
town. Everybody knew that the King kept a copy of Hudibras in his
pocket: might not the young Society suffer from Butler’s sarcasm?
The Secretary was ruffled and anxious; and he owned to Boyle that
he could have done a good deal more in pushing and popularising
certain investigations for the Society “if I had not been afraid of
Hudibras.”[282]
But while Hudibras was ridiculing the experimentalists, and
Restoration-orthodoxy was shaking its head over the new
philosophy, the Society had its votaries—a good many of them, it is
true, on the other side of the channel.[283] If Butler made fun of the
Philosophers—

“Their learned speculations,

And all their constant occupations
To measure and to weigh the air
And turn a circle to a square”[284]—

a certain Italian enthusiast composed twenty-six stanzas of

unqualified praise, one of which Oldenburg committed to memory
and sent triumphantly to Boyle—

“Heroic constellations dispense

One ray of your celestial influence
That with the telescope I may descry
The sacred treasures of your Pansophy!”

Perhaps the prettiest compliment of all came from a Parisian friend

of Oldenburg’s, who was so charmed with Mr. Boyle’s writings, and
so desolated to hear of Mr. Boyle’s delicate health, that he begged
Oldenburg to suggest to Mr. Boyle that he should migrate into the
sweet air of France. “Proposez-luy la chose: il pourra philosopher
par tout, et faire provision de santé pour philosopher plus
longtemps.”
The message was duly delivered; but Boyle’s philosophising was
to go on at home, and praise and blame seem to have had small
effect upon him. “I freely confess,” he wrote, “that the great difficulty
of things, and the little abilities I find myself furnished with to
surmount it, do often, in general, beget in me a great distrust even of
things, whereof my adversary’s objections give me not any.”[285]
The year 1663 saw the publication of three of Robert Boyle’s
books. Some Considerations touching the Usefulness of
Experimental Natural Philosophy, collected from the work of the
previous year or two, was published at Oxford. Some Experiments
and Considerations touching Colour was published in London; and in
the same year he published, also in London, Some Considerations
touching the Style of the Holy Scriptures. This last, originally
suggested to him by Broghill at Marston Bigot, had been the work of
some years; and at the time of its publication he was interesting
himself in a scheme for the translation of the New Testament for use
in Turkey. Oldenburg “rejoiced hugely” over this scheme. “I confess,”
says the Puritan secretary of the Royal Society, “it will be
troublesome and dangerous to spread such a book as the Bible in
Turkey; but yet it ought to be attempted.”
The summer vacations, when Oxford was deserted, seem to have
been spent by Boyle partly in London with Lady Ranelagh and
among the virtuosi, and partly in the various family country houses,
where he was always welcomed as at once the hero, the puzzle, and
the pet of this great family. Delicious Leeze, in Essex, where Charles
and Mary lived, was not far from London. “You shall be absolute
master of your own time,” Mary assured him—conscious, no doubt,
that Charles did not know much about the New Philosophy. And at
Marston Bigot, in Somersetshire, dear Broghill and Lady Pegg, when
they were in England, were most excellent company. Marston was
not far from Stalbridge, and though Boyle did not now often stay at
his manor-house, he liked to keep it in perfect order, for Frank’s
sake, who might have it after him. The “fruit-nurseries” of Stalbridge,
especially, were well known in the neighbourhood. “I hear you have
that way also a large charity for the public good of England,” wrote
Dr. John Beale of Yeovil, in one of his delightful screeds to Boyle.
In the summer of 1664, Boyle had been suffering with his eyes;
and on his journey to the west—he was apparently that summer at
Stalbridge and Marston Bigot—he stayed at Salisbury, to consult his
friend and oculist, Dr. Turberville.[286]
That autumn, State affairs were almost of more interest at the
moment than the transactions of the Society; and war-gossip and
Court-gossip occupied a considerable portion of Oldenburg’s letters
to Boyle. Hooke, the Curator, wrote also, but his letters were of “the
conjunction of Mercury and Sol.” Boyle was back in Oxford in
October; and on October 24, when Evelyn paid a visit to Oxford, he
found Boyle “with Dr. Wallis and Dr. Christopher Wren in the Tower of
the Scholes with an inverted tube or telescope, observing the discus
of the Sunn for the passing of Mercury that day before it; but the
latitude was so great that nothing appeared.” The little party,
disappointed, went on to the Bodleian, and to look at the Sheldonian,
then building by the generosity of the Archbishop, and the great
picture with too many “nakeds” in it, over the Altar in the chapel of All
Souls.[287]
Boyle was still in Oxford in November, when the Duke of York and
“many gallants” were going off to join the Fleet; and in December,
when the “mighty vote” of £2,500,000 was passed, that Charles II
might “be possessed of the dominion at sea, and the disposal of
Trade.”[288] Everybody in London was feeling very rich and
belligerent—the exact methods by which the money was to be raised
not having been yet decided upon. That same November, Oldenburg
was begging for Boyle’s communications to the Society on the
History of Cold. They would come, as he said, very seasonably, “Our
Society having already, by the late Frost, excited one another to the
prosecution of experiments of freezing.” The frost lasted long enough
to please the little London boys and the Philosophers alike. January
came in, with “excessive sharp frost and snow.”[289] The London
streets were full of snowballs on January 2, when Mr. Pepys dined in
the Piazza, Covent Garden, with my Lord Brouncker—who was a
great many other things besides President of the Royal Society,—
and occasioned such mirth by reading aloud to the company the
“ballet” lately made “by the men at sea to the ladies in town.” Who
does not remember Buckhurst’s—

“To all ye ladies now on land

We men at sea indite;
But first would have you understand
How hard it is to write.
The Muses now, and Neptune too,
We must implore to write to you,
With a fa la la la la!”

And it is very certain Lord Brouncker and his company laughed

loudest over the second verse—
 “For though the Muses should prove kind
And fill our empty brain,
Yet if rough Neptune rouse the wind
To wave the azure main,
Our paper, pen, and ink, and we
Roll up and down our ships at sea,
With a fa la la la la!”

Robert Boyle was in town during that winter of 1664-5. There were
several fixtures in December, January and February, which may
have drawn him there. In December he had been elected into the
Company of the Royal Mines, “and into that of Battery.” On
December 22, Petty’s double-bottomed boat, the Experiment, was at
last launched, in the presence of the King.[290] On January 9, the
Royal Society carried their new Charter Book and Laws to the King
at Whitehall, for the King to write “Founder” after his name, and the
Duke of York to enter himself as a Fellow. Gresham College was
particularly active in February and March, and Hooke was lecturing
there on the Comet which had lately been the talk of London. “Mighty
talk there is of the Comet that is seen a’ nights; and the King and
Queen did sit up last night to see it, and did, it seems.”[291] Lord
Sandwich, who was with the fleet at Portsmouth, thought it was “the
most extraordinary thing he ever saw.” And Robert Hooke, the little
deformed chorister of Christchurch, was trying to explain this
phenomenon to the London of 1665: “Among other things, proving
very probably that this is the very same Comet that appeared before,
in the year 1618, and that in such a time probably will appear again,
which is a very new opinion; but all will be in print.”[292] And on
February 15, the day on which Mr. Pepys was admitted a member of
the Royal Society, the discussion and experiments had been on Fire:
“how it goes out in a place where the ayre is not free, and sooner out
where the ayre is exhausted, which they shewed by an engine on
purpose.”[293]
It was after this meeting that some of the philosophers adjourned
to the Crown Tavern, behind the Exchange, for a “club supper”; but
though Pepys expressly mentions having seen Mr. Boyle at the
afternoon meeting of the Society, he does not make it clear whether
Mr. Boyle was at the club supper afterwards. He may have been:
“Here excellent discourse, till ten at night,” records Pepys—“and then
home.”
In February, Boyle brought out at last his little volume of
Occasional Reflections on Several Subjects; youthful essays, written
long before, in the Dorset lanes or by the slow-burning wood fire in
his manor-house: “the mislaid scribbles which I drew up in my
infancy,” he calls them. The book was published by Herringman at
his shop at the Anchor in the Lower Walk in the New Exchange. It
was not intended to occasion the mirth that Buckhurst’s “ballet” had
produced: it was criticised, rather sharply, by some people at the
time; but it gained an extraordinary popularity, and it was to be
ridiculed as only the books that have been very popular ever are.
And its appearance gave great pleasure to Lady Ranelagh, who had
long begged him to collect and publish these fugitive pieces, and
now at last held in her hand a little volume containing a dedicatory
letter to herself—to Sophronia, “my dearest sister.”
The spring of 1665 in London was, as everybody knows—in spite
of impending war, and the absence of “many gallants” at sea—one of
the gayest of gay London seasons. The theatres were full; the great
“noon-hall” at Whitehall had been turned into a playhouse. Another
comet, every bit as bright as the last, was reported in the April sky.
The Park was filled with fair women; chief among them, according to
Pepys, was the “very great beauty,” Mrs. Middleton, for whom
Boyle’s hopeful young nephew—Milton’s pupil—Mr. Dick Jones, had
quite forsaken the Philosophers.[294] And while the bees in Evelyn’s
garden at Deptford were making their honey and combs “mighty
pleasantly,” and Evelyn himself was immersed in the provision of
hospital accommodation for sick and wounded seamen, in the
coffee-houses the talk was all of the Dutch fleet, and of the Plague
that was growing in London. Everybody was ready with a remedy,
“some saying one thing and some another.” On June 3, all London
was on the river, listening to the guns of the opposing Dutch and
English fleets;[295] and on June 7, the day before the news of the
great victory arrived in London, Mr. Pepys, much to his discomfiture,
saw those red crosses on the doors in Drury Lane, and the poor
human appeal, “Lord, have mercy on us!”[296]
While the Plague raged in London, Lady Ranelagh and her two
daughters—“my girls” she always calls them—were at delicious
Leeze. It was not the same patriarchal Leeze to which the romantic
runaways had been carried in Lady Ranelagh’s coach. The husband
and wife, who were Charles and Mary Rich in those days, were Earl
and Countess of Warwick now. It was four-and-twenty years since
they had been obliged to run away to be married, because Charles
Rich was only a younger son. Charles Rich was “my Lord of
Warwick” now. It was six years since he had succeeded to the
earldom; and a great deal can happen in six years. Their son—their
only child—whose illness in babyhood had so changed Mary’s
outlook on life, had been reared to manhood, and had been married
—a girl and boy marriage it was—to my Lord of Devonshire’s very
young daughter. For the sake of her boy, and to arrange this alliance
satisfactorily, Mary had gone to London, leaving “the sweet quiet of
the country for the horrid confusion of the town”; and from there she
had written to Robert Boyle at Oxford, whom she still always called
her “dearest, dearest squire,” in great spirits: “We are like to be very
great,” she said, “for the lad is like to be a successful lover.”
After the marriage, the bridegroom had been sent to travel in
France, and the bride taken home by her husband’s parents to
Leeze; and after the boy husband came back to her, for a very little
while they had all lived together, and Mary had seen her son with a
wife of his own. But in May 1664 he fell ill of smallpox. They were all
in London at the time, at Warwick House, in Lincoln’s Inn Fields,
where Mary herself had had smallpox in 1648. The little wife was
removed, out of the infection, to her father’s house. The “young
ladies,” Charles Rich’s nieces, who lived with them, daughters of the
dead elder brother, were packed off to Leeze. “My Lord” himself was
persuaded to go to his sister-in-law Ranelagh’s house in Pall Mall.
And then—
“I shut up myself with him,” says Mary, the mother, “doing all I
could both for his soul and body.” But the boy died in eight days: “He
wanted about four months of being of age.” Mary sent the Earl of
Manchester to Lady Ranelagh’s house to break the news to my Lord
of Warwick, who, when he heard it, “cried out so terribly that his cry
was heard a great way.” But Mary was “unrewly” no longer; she had
made her vow and she had found her Master: “I was dumb,” she
says, “and held my peace, because God did it.”
For the second time Lady Ranelagh fetched Mary away to her own
house. The great Warwick House in Lincoln’s Inn Fields was put up
for sale—Mary never entered it again. Later she went to drink the
waters at Epsom and Tonbridge, “to remove the great pain I had
constantly at my heart after my son’s death.” And Dr. Walker, the
worthy chaplain who had preached so awakingly to Mary twenty
years before, after her child recovered, did his best to comfort her
after her child was dead.
A year had passed since then, and now, in the summer of 1665,
with the Plague raging in London, the childless pair were at Leeze
again with the young ladies and the very young widow, and Lady
Ranelagh and her girls; and my Lord of Warwick—much in the
minority—was not quite so good-tempered as he used to be in the
old-young days before he was so tormented by gout.[297]
They had left London only just in time; for early in July several of
the houses in Pall Mall were infected, and one “almost emptied.”[298]
The meetings of the Royal Society had been adjourned. The King
and Court were gone:[299] people were rapidly leaving town. Hooke
and Petty and Wilkins were thinking of removing to Nonsuch, taking
an operator with them in order to carry on their experiments out of
range of infection.[300] Oldenburg and his family remained in
London. He had carefully separated his papers—Mr. Boyle’s, the
Society’s, and his own—into bundles, and had written instructions
what should be done with them should he succumb to the Plague.
Robert Boyle was back in Oxford before the end of June, but before
leaving town he had sent Oldenburg a “receipt for the Sickness.”
Pepys, it is known, went about with a bottle of “Plague-water”
presented to him by Lady Carteret, of which he took a sip when he
felt particularly depressed. Whether Oldenburg drank Mr. Boyle’s
medicine or not is unrecorded, but he escaped infection; and the
Transactions of the Royal Society, and some of Boyle’s papers with
them, went safely through the Plague only to suffer havoc in the Fire.
In July Lady Ranelagh was writing to her brother at Oxford,
begging him to join the family-party at Leeze, and to bring any
number more of his Occasional Meditations with him, which the
ladies of the family would help him to transcribe for a second edition
of his delightful book. At Leeze they were all taking “palsy-balsam.”
“Our palsy-balsam does wonders here,” she wrote. “Crip,” who
seems to have been the family apothecary, major-domo, and
factotum, had been very careful of them all, she says. The palsy-
balsam, Crip’s “jealousy,” and God’s providence together had kept,
not only the family at Leeze itself, but the entire neighbourhood, free
of infection. And all the ladies, and the Countess, and “my girls” were
at Robert Boyle’s service.[301]
And yet he did not go. He was still at Oxford in August, much tied
in attendance on Lady Clarendon and the Lord Chancellor and their
new daughter-in-law.[302] He had declined the Provostship of Eton,
vacant by Dr. Meredith’s death, and had accepted the degree of
Doctor of Physic at the hands of the University. And he was still in
Oxford early in September, when Lady Ranelagh wrote again—this
time in more sombre mood, for the weekly Bills of Mortality had been
grim reading. She could not help seeing a Nemesis over London: a
connexion—as awful as it was inscrutable—between “what was
going on there before we left it and what has been suffered there
since.”[303] Would not her brother still seek a shelter at delicious
Leeze?
“For my Lord of Warwick, I can assure you, as he does me, that he
is not only not afraid, but desirous of your company here; he advises
your lying at Kimbolton, my Lord Chamberlain’s house, a day’s
journey from Oxford; and from thence at Audley End, another day’s
journey, and thence hither, but to Mr. Waller’s,[304] which I hope is
uninfected ... and thence to Parkhall,[305] which is also clear for
aught I know, and thence hither is your nearest way, and Crip would
send a man to guide you....”
 And she leaves her strongest argument for the postscript—
“If you make not haste, the Court will overtake you at Oxford.”
Robert Boyle was no courtier. He did run away from Oxford, but
not, it seems, to Leeze. He disappeared almost as effectively as
Milton disappeared at the Restoration. For a time his friends did not
know his retreat, and sent letters to him haphazard “by way of
London.” In November the Plague was decreasing, and Lady
Ranelagh could report that at Leeze they were still all well—“Crip
only excepted, who had lately a roaring fit of the gout, but a very
short one, in respect of those he used to have at this time of year,
which he attributes much to his chewing of scurvy-grass.” Lady
Ranelagh herself was reading all her brother’s books over again to
comfort herself for his absence, and was lending them, one after the
other, to the “few studious persons” whom she met at Leeze. And
her fingers were itching to open a sealed roll of papers belonging to
him, labelled “About Religious Matters.”
It was January 22 before the Royal Society met again. “The first
meeting of Gresham College since the Plague,” says Pepys, who
had, with exceptional bravery, remained in London through it all. “Dr.
Goddard did fill us with talk, in defence of his and his fellow-
physicians going out of town in the plague-time, saying that their
particular patients were most all gone out of town, and they left at
liberty, and a great deal more, etc. But what, among other fine
discourse pleased me most, was Sir G. Ent[306] about Respiration;
that it is not to this day known, or concluded on among physicians,
nor to be done, either, how the action is managed by nature, or for
what use it is.”
April came; and the brilliant, wanton Court was back in London;
and Robert Boyle had come, not into London itself, but to a lodging
found for him in the village of Newington, on the Surrey Side.
Oldenburg had walked out to Newington one day in March, before
Boyle arrived, and inspected the house and its surroundings—
“It seems to be very convenient for you,” he wrote to Boyle, “there
being a large orchard, a walk for solitary meditations, a dry ground
round about, and in all appearance a good air”; advantages which
were accompanied by “a civil Landlord and fair Landlady.”[307]
The immediate object of Boyle’s visit to London was probably to
be present at some of the performances of Valentine Greatrakes, the
“Stroaker,” who was making a great sensation in London by his
semi-miraculous cures. Greatrakes had originally been a lieutenant
in Lord Broghill’s regiment in Munster, and had more recently—
having felt an “impulse”—practised his cures in county Cork. He had
come to England by Lord Broghill’s advice, and had made his début
in an attempt to cure Lady Conway’s violent headaches. In this he
failed; but he was more successful with other patients, and the King
sent for him to Whitehall, and he was patronised by Prince Rupert.
Of course, the Faculty was divided, and the Royal Society cautious.
Mr. Stubbe, a worthy doctor of Stratford-on-Avon, went so far as to
publish in Oxford a tract, “The Miraculous Conformist”, addressed,
without permission, to Mr. Boyle—to which, very naturally, Mr. Boyle
took exception. It was followed by a London-published tract,
“Wonders no Miracles”; and the controversy still waged about the
“Stroaker” when Boyle went to London and was present at some of
his “stupendous performances.” Mr. Boyle made careful notes, and
submitted to Mr. Greatrakes a series of written questions—which do
not seem to have been answered. But in the end, Robert Boyle was
one of those who, having seen the “Stroaker” at work, gave him a
testimonial before he left London. The Greatrakes episode stands on
the threshold of a whole realm of medical treatment undreamed of in
1666.
Meantime, Boyle’s treatise, Hydrostatical Paradoxes, that had
been slowly printing for several months, appeared early in that year.
This was shortly followed by his Origin of Forms; and a good many
of his philosophical transactions also belong to this year. Later in the
summer, when the London season was over, he was living in his
Chelsea lodging; but he had been ill again; and Lady Ranelagh was
back in her house in Pall Mall.
Was Boyle in London from the second of September to the fifth?
Did he watch, as it grew dark on the eve of Cromwell’s “lucky day”,
from Chelsea, or from Pall Mall, that arc of fire over the poor blazing