Daily entries from the 17th century London diary
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Wikipedia
John Wilkins (January 1, 1614 – November 19, 1672) was an English clergyman, natural philosopher and author. He was the founder of the metric system and first secretary of the Royal Society in 1660 and Bishop of Chester from 1668 until his death.
Wilkins is one of the only persons to have headed a college at both the University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge. He was a polymath, although not a deep innovator in science.[clarification needed] His personal qualities were brought out, and obvious to his contemporaries, in reducing political tension in Interregnum Oxford, in founding the Royal Society on non-partisan lines, and in efforts to reach out to religious nonconformists. He was one of the founders of the new natural theology compatible with the science of the time.[1]
As an author, he is particularly known for An Essay towards a Real Character and a Philosophical Language in which, amongst other things, he proposed a decimal system of measure not unlike the modern metric system. The Ballad of Gresham College (1663), an ode to the Society, describes his efforts:
| “ |
A Doctor counted very able Designes that all Mankynd converse shall, Spite o' th' confusion made att Babell, By Character call'd Universall. How long this character will be learning, That truly passeth my discerning.[2] |
” |
[edit] Early life
Wilkins was likely born at Canons Ashby, Northamptonshire. His father was a goldsmith, and died when he was young; his mother remarried, and Walter Pope was half-brother to Wilkins. His maternal grandfather was a Puritan vicar, John Dod. He was educated at Magdalen Hall (which later became Hertford College), Oxford, being tutored by John Tombes and graduating B.A. in 1631 and M.A. in 1634.[3] He studied astronomy with John Bainbridge.[4]
After ordination, Wilkins became vicar of his home town of Fawsley in 1637, but he soon resigned. He became chaplain successively to Lord Saye and Sele and George Berkeley, 8th Baron Berkeley. In 1644 he became chaplain to Prince Charles Louis, nephew of King Charles I, who was in England; from 1648 Charles Louis was able to take up his position as elector palatine on the Rhine, as a consequence of the Peace of Westphalia. Wilkins may have accompanied him on his return to Heidelberg.
Wilkins was one of the group of savants interested in experimental philosophy who gathered round Charles Scarburgh, the royalist physician who arrived in London in summer 1646 after the fall of Oxford to the parliamentarian forces. These included George Ent, Samuel Foster, Francis Glisson, Jonathan Goddard, Christopher Merrett, and John Wallis. Others of Scarburgh's circle were William Harvey and Seth Ward. This London group was described much later by Wallis, who mentions also Theodore Haak, anchoring it also to the Palatine exiles; while there are clear connections to the Wilkins Oxford 'club', it is no longer considered that these were founders of what later became the Royal Society.[5]
[edit] In Oxford and Cambridge
In 1648 he became warden of Wadham College, Oxford. Under him the college prospered. Wilkins fostered political and religious tolerance and drew talented minds to the college, including Christopher Wren.[6] Although he was a supporter of Oliver Cromwell, Royalists placed their sons in his charge. From those in Oxford interested in experimental science, he drew together a significant group or 'club', which by 1650 had been constituted with a set of rules. Besides some of the London group (Goddard, Wallis, Ward, Wren who was a young protégé of Scarburgh), it included (in the account of Thomas Sprat) Ralph Bathurst, Robert Boyle, William Petty, Lawrence Rooke, Thomas Willis, and Matthew Wren.[7] Robert Hooke was gradually recruited into the Wilkins group: he arrived at Christ Church, Oxford in 1653, working his way to an education, became assistant to Willis, and became known to Wilkins (possibly via Richard Busby) as a technician. By 1658 he was working with Boyle.[8]
In 1656, he married Robina French née Cromwell, youngest sister of Oliver Cromwell, who had been widowed in 1655 when her husband Peter French, a canon of Christ Church, Oxford, had died. Wilkins thereby joined a high stratum of Parliamentary society, and the couple used rooms in Whitehall Palace. In 1659, shortly before his death, Oliver Cromwell arranged for Wilkins a new appointment as Master of Trinity College, Cambridge,[9][10] an appointment that was confirmed by Richard Cromwell who succeeded him as Lord Protector. He was there long enough to befriend and become a patron of Isaac Barrow.[11]
[edit] In London
Upon the Restoration in 1660, the new authorities deprived Wilkins of the position given him by Cromwell; he gained appointment as prebendary of York and rector of Cranford, Middlesex. In 1661 he was reduced to preacher at Gray's Inn, lodging with his friend Seth Ward. In 1662 he became vicar of St Lawrence Jewry, London. He suffered in the Great Fire of London, losing his vicarage, library and scientific instruments.[12]
Possessing strong scientific tastes, Wilkins was a founding member of the Royal Society and was soon elected fellow and one of the Society's two secretaries: he shared the work with Henry Oldenburg, whom he had met in Oxford in 1656.[6][13]
[edit] Bishop
He became vicar of Polebrook, Northamptonshire, in 1666; prebendary of Exeter in 1667; and in the following year, prebendary of St Paul's and bishop of Chester.
He owed his position as bishop of Chester to the influence of George Villiers, 2nd Duke of Buckingham. Buckingham's approach to the religious problem of the day was 'comprehension', something less than religious tolerance but aimed at least at bringing in the Presbyterians among nonconformists to the Church of England by some peaceful form of negotiation and arrangement. Wilkins too thought along these lines.[14] He had been a sympathetic reader of John Humfrey's 1661 justification of his acceptance of re-ordination by William Piers, having already once been ordained in the Presbyterian style by a classis.[15]
As he was ordained he spoke out against the use of penal laws, and immediately tried to gather support from other moderate bishops to see what concessions to the nonconformists could be made.[16] A serious effort was made in 1668 to secure a scheme of comprehension, with William Bates, Richard Baxter and Thomas Manton for the dissenters meeting Wilkins and Hezekiah Burton. Wilkins felt the Presbyterians could be brought within the Church of England, while the Independent separatists were left outside. It fell through by late summer, with Manton blaming John Owen for independent scheming for general toleration with Buckingham, and Baxter pointing the finger at the House of Lords.[17]
[edit] Death and legacy
He died in London, most likely from the medicines used to treat his kidney stones and stoppage of urine.[18]
The influence and ambitions of John Wilkins were an important thread in the historical fiction trilogy The Baroque Cycle by Neal Stephenson.
Jorge Luis Borges wrote the short essay The Analytical Language of John Wilkins published in Other Inquisitions 1937-1952.
[edit] Works
His numerous written works include:
- The Discovery of a World in the Moone (1638)[19][20]
- A Discourse Concerning a New Planet (1640)
- Mercury, or the Secret and Swift Messenger (1641), the first English-language book on cryptography
- Ecclesiastes (1646)
- Mathematical Magick (1648)
- A Discourse Concerning the Beauty of Providence (1649)
- A discourse concerning the gift of prayer: shewing what it is, wherein it consists and how far it is attainable by industry (1651)
- Vindiciae academiarum (1654), with Seth Ward
- An Essay towards a Real Character and a Philosophical Language (London, 1668), in which he proposes a new universal language for the use of natural philosophers.
- Of the Principle and Duties of Natural Religion (London, 1675).
The early scientific works were in a popular vein, and have links to the publications of Francis Godwin. The Discovery of a World in the Moone (1638) was followed up by A Discourse Concerning a New Planet (1640). Godwin'sThe Man in the Moone was also published in 1638. In 1641 Wilkins published an anonymous treatise entitled Mercury, or The Secret and Swift Messenger.[21] This was a small work on cryptography; it may well have been influenced by Godwin's Nuncius inanimatus (1629).[22] His Mathematical Magic (1648) was divided into two sections, one on traditional mechanical devices such as the lever, and the other, more speculative, on machines. It drew on many authors, both classical writers and moderns such as Guidobaldo del Monte and Marin Mersenne.[23] It alludes to Godwin's The Man in the Moone, for bird-powered flight.[24] These were light if learned works and admitted both blue-sky thinking, such as the possibility of the Moon being inhabitable, and references to figures on the "occult" side: Trithemius, John Dee, the Rosicrucians, Robert Fludd.[25][26]
Ecclesiastes (1646) is a plea for a plain style in preaching, avoiding rhetoric and scholasticism, for a more direct and emotional appeal.[27][28] It analysed the whole field of available Biblical commentary, for the use of those preparing sermons, and was reprinted many times. It is noted as a transitional work, both in the move away from Ciceronian style in preaching, and in the changing meaning of elocution to the modern sense of vocal production.[29][30]
A Discourse Concerning the Beauty of Providence (1649) took an unfashionable line, namely that divine providence was more inscrutable than current interpreters were saying. It added to the reputation of Wilkins, when the Stuarts returned to the throne, to have warned that the short term reading of events as managed by God was risky.[31]
In 1654, Wilkins joined with Seth Ward in writing Vindiciae academiarum, a reply to John Webster's Academiarum Examen, one of many attacks at the time on the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, and their teaching methods. This attack had more clout than most: it was dedicated to John Lambert, a top military figure, and was launched during Barebone's Parliament, when radical change seemed on the cards. Wilkins (as N. S.) provided an open letter to Ward; and Ward (as H. D., also taking the final letters of his name therefore) replied at greater length. Wilkins makes two main points: first, Webster is not addressing the actual state of the universities, which were not as wedded to old scholastic ways, Aristotle, and Galen, as he said; and secondly Webster's mixture of commended authors, without fuller understanding of the topics, really was foolish. In this approach Wilkins had to back away somewhat from his writings of the late 1630s and early 1640s. He made light of this in the way of pointing to Alexander Ross, a very conservative Aristotelian who had attacked his own astronomical works, as a more suitable target for Webster. This exchange was part of the process of the new experimental philosophers throwing off their associations with occultists and radicals.[32]
In 1668 he published his Essay towards a Real Character and a Philosophical Language. In it he attempted to create a universal language to replace Latin as a completely unambiguous tongue with which scholars and philosophers could communicate.[33] One aspect of this work was the suggestion of a decimal system of measurement, such as the metric system.[34] In his lexicographical work he collaborated with William Lloyd.[35]
[edit] References
- ^ Alister E. McGrath, A Scientific Theology: Nature (2001), p. 242.
- ^ Stimson, Dorothy. "'Ballad of Gresham College'". Isis volume 18, number 1, 1932. pp. 103-117.
- ^ Dictionary of National Biography
- ^ Mordechai Feingold, Mathematical Sciences and New Philosophies, p. 380 in Nicholas Tyacke (editor) The Histosry of the University of Oxford: Vol. IV Seventeenth-century Oxford (1997).
- ^ Adrian Tinniswood, His Invention So Fertile: A life of Christopher Wren (2001), pp. 23-4.
- ^ a b "Wilkins, John." Oxford Dictionary of National Biography Oxford University Press. Sept 2004. Online edition
- ^ Margery Purver, The Royal Society: Concept and Creation (1967), p. 205.
- ^ Lisa Jardine, The Curious Life of Robert Hooke (2003), pp. 63-75.
- ^ The Master of Trinity at Trinity College, Cambridge
- ^ Wilkins, John in Venn, J. & J. A., Alumni Cantabrigienses, Cambridge University Press, 10 vols, 1922–1958.
- ^ Mordechai Feingold, Before Newton: The Life and Times of Isaac Barrow (1990), pp. 52-3.
- ^ http://www.gutenberg.org/files/26674/26674-h/26674-h.htm
- ^ Daniel Garber, Michael Ayers (editors), The Cambridge History of Seventeenth-century Philosophy (2003) Volume II, p. 1455.
- ^ N. H. Keeble, The Restoration: England in the 1660s (2002), p. 123.
- ^ Dictionary of National Biography, article Humfrey, John.
- ^ John Marshall, Locke and Latitudinarianism, p. 257 in Richard W. F. Kroll, Richard Ashcraft, Perez Zagorin (editors), Philosophy, Science, and Religion in England, 1640-1700 (1991).
- ^ William M. Lamont, Richard Baxter and the Millennium (1979), p. 220.
- ^ Inwood, Stephen (2005). The Forgotten Genius: The Biography of Robert Hooke 1635-1703. MacAdam/Cage Publishing. ISBN 1596921153.
- ^ Cromwell's moonshot: how one Jacobean scientist tried to kick off the space race from The Independent
- ^ The Discovery of a World in the Moon from http://www.positiveatheism.org
- ^ M E R C V R Y: The secret and swift Messenger Scan of original book
- ^ http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Francis_Godwin
- ^ http://faculty.ed.uiuc.edu/westbury/paradigm/fauvel1.html
- ^ http://www.newberry.org/renaissance/conf-inst/2007proceedings.pdf, p. 25.
- ^ Noel E. Brann, Trithemius and Magical Theology: A Chapter in the Controversy over Occult Studies in Early Modern Europe (1999), p. 233.
- ^ Francis Yates, The Rosicrucian Enlightenment (1986), p. 284.
- ^ Richard Foster Jones, The Seventeenth Century: Studies in the History of English Thought and Literature from Bacon to Pope (1951), p. 78.
- ^ Paul Goring, Rhetoric of Sensibility in Eighteenth-century Culture (2005), p. 37.
- ^ I. M. Green, Print and Protestantism in Early Modern England (2000), p. 109.
- ^ Theresa Enos (editor), Encyclopedia of Rhetoric and Composition: Communication from Ancient Times to the Information Age (1996), p. 764.
- ^ Nicholas Guyatt, Providence and the Invention of the United States, 1607-1876 (2007), p. 43.
- ^ Allen G. Debus, Science and Education in the Seventeenth Century: The Webster-Ward Debate (1970).
- ^ The Analytical Language of John Wilkins from alamut.com
- ^ Metric system 'was British' - from the BBC video news
- ^ http://helmer.aksis.uib.no/batmult/Natascia-final-report.htm
[edit] Further reading
- Patrick Arkley Wright Henderson, The Life and Times of John Wilkins; Project Gutenberg text
- O. Funke (1959), On the Sources of John Wilkins' philosophical language. English Studies XL 208.
- Barbara J. Shapiro (1968), John Wilkins 1614–1672: An Intellectual Biography
- Fredric Dolezal (1985), Forgotten But Important Lexicographers: John Wilkins and William Lloyd. a Modern Approach to Lexicography Before Johnson
- J. L. Subbiondo (editor) (1992), John Wilkins and 17th-Century British Linguistics
- J. L. Subbiondo, Educational Reform in Seventeenth-Century England and John Wilkins' Philosophical Language, anguage & Communication, v21 n3 p273-84 Jul 2001
[edit] External links
- MacTutor biography
- Hertford College biography
- Galileo Project: Wilkins from the Rice University website
- John Wilkins' «Musical Alphabet» (online service).
- Works by John Wilkins at Project Gutenberg
- The Mathematical and Philosophical Works of the Right Rev. John Wilkins Volume 1, Volume 2
| Academic offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by John Pitt | Warden of Wadham College, Oxford 1648–1659 | Succeeded by Walter Blandford |
| Preceded by John Arrowsmith | Master of Trinity College, Cambridge 1659–1660 | Succeeded by Henry Ferne |
| Church of England titles | ||
| Preceded by George Hall | Bishop of Chester 1668–1672 | Succeeded by John Pearson |
| Persondata | |
|---|---|
| NAME | Wilkins, John |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | |
| SHORT DESCRIPTION | Warden of Wadham College, Oxford, Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, Secretary of the Royal Society, Bishop of Chester |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 1614-01-01 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Fawsley, Northamptonshire, England |
| DATE OF DEATH | 1672-11-19 |
| PLACE OF DEATH | London, England |
Annotations
-
Fascinating figure
A mathematician and divine, Wilkins (1614-72) was about 56 years old when he first shows up in the diary on 25 November 1660.
During the Interregnum, Wilkins’s connection to Oliver Cromwell, his brother-in-law, “had done much to protect Oxford from political interference. His written works, composed in language notable for its simplicity and clarity, included forecasts of submarines and interplanetary travel,” says his entry in the L&M Companion volume (source of all the information in this annotation).
Pepys’s library eventually contained at least seven of Wilkins’s books, including his “Essay towards … a philosophical language” (1668), in which the author created a universal language in the form of symbols. Pepys made some criticisms of the naval section of the book.
-
Correction:
Wilkins had his 46th birthday 1660. Not 56th. -
Career
(his age, roughly, in parentheses below)
1614 — born
1648-59 (34-45)
Warden of Wadham College, Oxford1659-60 (45-46)
Master of Trinity College, Cambridge1662-onward (48- )
Vicar of “St. Lawrence Jewry”1663-onward (49- )
Dean of Ripon1663-68 (49-54)
One of the two secretaries of the Royal Society1668-72 (54-58)
Bishop of Chester1672 — died (58)
— L&M Companion volume -
Wilkins’s standing & where he stood
“One of the most original scholars of his day; a founder of the Royal Society,” he was a “liberal” divine who strongly favored keeping moderate Presbyterians in the Church of England and advocated toleration for Nonconformists.
— L&M Companion -
Wilkins on the web
The L&M Companion only hints at Wilkins’s extraordinary life. He had connections both to some of the highest members of English society during the Interregnum and the Restoration. He was the (popular) head of Oxford and Cambridge universities at different times, and was influential in the groupings of scholars who eventually founded the Royal Society. He invented various mechanical devices, speculated on others that would be invented in the next few centuries and wrote pioneering books in ciphers and symbolic language.
Imagine a kind of 17th century clerical Benjamin Franklin or Thomas Jefferson, in terms of their holding of high office, intellect, originality, literary output and interest in tolerance.
Links to some informative web pages:
Much more detailed resume:
http://es.rice.edu/ES/humsoc/Galileo/Catalog/Files/wilkins.htmlExcellent online biographical essay:
http://www.hertford.ox.ac.uk/alumni/wilkins.htmMany links to Wilkins-related web pages:
http://reliant.teknowledge.com/Wilkins/
-
Wilkins’s airy speculation …
“Yet I do seriously and on good grounds affirm it possible to make a flying chariot in which a man may sit and give such a motion unto it as shall convey him through the air. And this perhaps might be made large enough to carry divers men at the same time, together with food for their viaticum and commodities for traffic. It is not the bigness of anything in this kind that can hinder its motion, if the motive faculty be answerable thereunto. We see a great ship swims as well as a small cork, and an eagle flies in the air as well as a little gnat
-
Jorge Luis Borges on Wilkins’s language book
Borges here is writing about “An Essay Towards a Real Character and a Philosophical Language” (600 pages in large quarto, 1668) by Wilkins (the translation seems a little rough at points):
“He divided the universe in forty categories or classes, these being further subdivided into differences, which was then subdivided into species. He assigned to each class a monosyllable of two letters; to each difference, a consonant; to each species, a vowel. For example: de, which means an element; deb, the first of the elements, fire; deba, a part of the element fire, a flame. … The words of the analytical language created by John Wilkins are not mere arbitrary symbols; each letter in them has a meaning …”
“[I]t is clear that there is no classification of the Universe not being arbitrary and full of conjectures. … The impossibility of penetrating the divine pattern of the universe cannot stop us from planning human patterns, even though we are conscious they are not definitive. The analytic language of Wilkins is not the least admirable of such patterns. The classes and species that compose it are contradictory and vague; the nimbleness of letters in the words meaning subdivisions and divisions is, no doubt, gifted. The word salmon does not tell us anything; zana, the corresponding word, defines (for the man knowing the forty categories and the species of these categories) a scaled river fish, with ruddy meat.”
From: “The Analytical Language of John Wilkins”
A short essay by Jorge Luis Borges -
Head of colleges at both Cambridge and Oxford
There’s a mistake in my “Wilkins on the web” annotation. He didn’t head up both universities, but colleges at Oxford and Cambridge. I misread a sentence at this web page, which has another very good biographical essay on Wilkins.
-
See added notes for contacts and writings by some leaned Gents.http://www.pepysdiary.com/archive/1663/08/23/
-
Saw the error of my ways
See added notes for contacts and writings by some learned Gents. http://www.pepysdiary.com/archive/1663/08/23/