Boole was trying to improve logic for humans, "The Laws of Thought". So it has a connection to human problems, and eventually to practical matters. He could instead have been working on something much more abstract and much less useful.

By which I'm trying to make an abstract point about the inevitability of staying somewhat down to earth. I mean "pure" curiosity is great, except it isn't ever really pure, and abstract mathematics isn't ever totally abstract, it's just sort of meta in relation to practical things that humans care about.