This paper discusses the methodological relation between natural history and natural philosophy in the case of John Evelyn (1620–1706). I propose to examine Evelyn’s tree cultivation projects and to identify relevant aspects of his attempt to move from descriptive natural history to experimental natural history. My central argument is that Evelyn’s intention in this endeavour was to develop a series of experimental natural history projects that could provide general laws and axioms of nature as foundations for natural philosophy. I suggest that, considering Bacon’s methodological recommendations regarding the relation between natural history and natural philosophy, Evelyn evolved from one “Baconian” role to another. While in the 1650s Evelyn acted as a “merchant of light,” as he devoted his interest to writing natural history projects based on collecting data and commonplacing different sources, in the 1660s he moved to an advanced role, that of a “compiler” or a “lamp,” in which he composed projects of experimental natural history. In Evelyn’s view, the latter kind of natural history would serve as a methodological step in building a natural philosophy.

This paper investigates the relation between Gabriel Plattes’ (c. 1600–1644) cosmology and theory of matter, on the one hand, and his method of experimentation, on the other. In my view Plattes based his cosmology and theory of matter on specific “principles of nature” expressed as alchemical qualitative relations between bodies, and these principles formed the theoretical framework for his experimental method and technologies. I also claim that Plattes’ method of experimentation has heuristic purposes, acting as a tool to instantiate and illustrate these natural principles. By quantifiable manipulations of matter (expressed in terms of proportions and numbers), Plattes made use of experimentation to provide technologies whose immediate purpose was to ameliorate or improve the material world.