Cover not available

Article published In: Historiographia Linguistica
Vol. 28:3 (2001) ► pp.331–364

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload PDF
authorization required

The efforts of the Aubrey correspondence group to revise John Wilkins’ Essay (1668) and their context

 | Jesus College, Oxford
Published online: 13 June 2002
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/hl.28.3.03lew
Summary
In the aftermath of the publication of John Wilkins’s Essay towards a Real Character and a Philosophical Language (1668), the Royal Society established a committee to consider and develop Wilkins’s proposals, whose members included Seth Ward (1617–89), Robert Hooke (1635–1703), Robert Boyle (1627–1691), John Wallis (1616–1703), John Ray (1627–1705), Christopher Wren (1632–1723) and William Holder (1616–1698). Despite the fact that this committee never reported, work on the Essay did continue, with many of the individual members conducting a detailed correspondence, marshalled by John Aubrey (1626–1697). In addition to the members of the original Royal Society committee, this group’s participants included Francis Lodwick (1619–1694), the Somerset clergyman Andrew Paschall (c.1630–c.1696), and Thomas Pigott (1657–1686), fellow of Wadham College, Oxford. The correspondents could not, however, agree on the best means of advancing the Essay, with the principal bone of contention being the ideas of Seth Ward. Thus, their efforts were eventually fruitless. This article traces the activities of this group and the intellectual milieu in which the revision of Wilkins’s Essay took place.
Résumé
A la suite de la parution de l’Essay towards a Real Character and a Philosophical Language (1668) de John Wilkins, la Société Royale de Londres établit une commission afin d’examiner et de développer les propositions de Wilkins. La commission comprenait parmi ses adhérents Seth Ward (1617–1689), Robert Hooke (1635–1703), Robert Boyle (1627–1691), John Wallis (1616–1703), John Ray (1627–1705), Christopher Wren (1632–1723) et William Holder (1616–1698). La commission ne finit par écrire aucun rapport officiel, mais beaucoup de ses membres participèrent à une correspondance détaillée au sujet de l’Essay mobilisée par John Aubrey (1626–1697). En plus des premiers adhérents de la commission de la Royal Society, le groupe de correspondants comprenait Francis Lodwick (1619–1694), l’ecclésiastique de Somerset, Andrew Paschall (c.1630–c.1696), et Thomas Pigott (1657–1686), associé de Wadham College, Oxford. Néanmoins, les correspondants ne pouvaient pas se mettre d’accord sur la meilleure façon d’avancer l’Essay, les idées de Seth Ward étant particulièrement controversées. En fin de compte, leurs tentatives furent, donc, vaines. Cet article retrace les discussions de ce groupe et esquisse le milieu intellectuel qui avait provoqué la révision de la dissertation de Wilkins.
Zusammenfassung
Als Reaktion auf die Veröffentlichung von John Wilkins’ Essay towards a Real Character and a Philosophical Language (1668) berief die Royal Society eine Kommission, die Wilkins’ Vorschläge zur Erstellung einer universellen Wissenschaftssprache prüfen und weiterentwickeln sollte. Die Mitglieder dieser Kommission waren Seth Ward (1617–1689), Robert Hooke (1635–1703), Robert Boyle (1627–1691), John Wallis (1616–1703), John Ray (1627–1705), Christopher Wren (1632–1723) und William Holder (1616–1698). Obwohl sie keinerlei Ergebnisse vorlegten, setzten sich diese Gelehrten durchaus mit dem Essay auseinander. Dokumentiert wird dies in ausführlichen Briefwechseln zwischen ihnen, die von John Aubrey (1626–1697) koordiniert wurden. Die Korresponenten schlossen neben den Mitgliedern der Kommission noch Francis Lodwick (1619–1694), den Geistlichen Andrew Paschall (c.1630–c.1696) aus Somerset und Thomas Pigott (1657–1686), einen Fellow des Wadham College der Universität Oxford, ein. Zu einer Einigung über die Weiterentwicklung des Essay kam es also nicht, hauptsächlich wohl wegen gruppeninternen Unstimmigkeiten bezüglich der Ideen von Seth Ward, und so blieb die Arbeit der Kommission letztlich ergebnislos. Der vorliegende Artikel skizziert diese unmittelbare Rezeption von Wilkins’ Essay sowie ihr intellektuelles Umfeld.
References (70)
References
Aarsleff, Hans. 1982. From Locke to Saussure: Essays on the study of language and intellectual history. London: Athlone.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Acosta, Joseph. 1604. The Naturall and Morall Histories of the East and West Indies. Intreating of the remarkeable things of heaven, of the elements, mettall, plants and beasts which are proper to that countrey: together with the manners, ceremonies, lawe, governments, and warres of the Indians. Transl. by E. G. London: William Aspley & Edward Blount.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Additional mss.: London, British Library Additional mss.
Ashmole mss.: Oxford, Bodleian Library Ashmole mss.
The Athenian Oracle: Being an entire collection of all the valuable questions and answers in the old Athenian Mercuries. Intermix’d with many cases in divinity, history, philosophy, mathematics, love, poetry never before published. 31 vols. London: Andrew Bell, 1703–1704.
Aubrey, John. 1898. ‘Brief lives’, chiefly of contemporaries, set down by John Aubrey, between the years 1669 & 1696. 21 vols., Ed. by Andrew Clark. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Aubrey mss.: Oxford, Bodleian Library Aubrey mss.
Bacon, Francis. 1996. The Oxford Authors: Francis Bacon. Ed. by Brian Vickers. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Birch, Thomas. 1744. The Life of the Honourable Robert Boyle. London: A. Millar.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1757. The History of the Royal Society of London for the Improving of Natural Knowledge, from its first rise. 41 vols. London: A. Millar.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
[Cicero]. 1954. Rhetorica ad Herennium. Ed. by Harry Caplan. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Clucas, Stephen. 1993. “The Correspondence of a XVII Century ‘Chymical Gentleman’: Sir Cheney Culpeper and the chemical interests of the Hartlib circle”. Ambix 401.147–170.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Coudert, Allison. 1978. “Some Theories of a Natural Language from the Renaissance to the Seventeenth Century”. Studia Leibnitiana Sonderheft 71.56–113.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cram, David. 1994a. “Universal Language, Specious Arithmetic and the Alphabet of Simple Notions”. Beiträge zur Geschichte der Sprachwissenschaft 41.213–233.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1994b. “The World in a List of Words: Concordances of words and concordances of things. A neglected aspect of seventeenth-century English lexicography”. Sonderdruck aus Lexicographica (Series maior, Band 58). Tübingen: Max Niemeyer.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
De Mott, Benjamin. 1957. “Science versus Mnemonics”. Isis 481.3–12.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Derham, William. 1760. Select Remains of the Learned John Ray, with his life. London: J. Dodsley.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1848. “The Life of John Ray”. Memorials of John Ray. London: The Ray Society.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dryden, John. 1892. The Works of John Dryden. Ed. by Sir Walter Scott & George Salisbury. 161 vols. London: William Patterson & Co.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Eco, Umberto. 1997. The Search for the Perfect Language. London: Fontana.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Grew, Nehemiah. 1681. Musaeum Regalis Societatis. Or a catalogue and description of the natural and artificial rarities belonging to the Royal Society and preserved at Gresham Colledge. London: W. Rawlins.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Guildhall ms.: London, Guildhall Library ms.
Gunther, Robert T., ed. 1923–1967. Early Science in Oxford. 151 vols. Oxford: Privately printed.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Henshawe, Thomas, ed. 1671. Etymologicon linguæ Anglicanæ, seu explicatio vocum Anglicarum etymologica ex propriis fontibus. London: H. Brome, R. Clavel, B. Tooke & T. Sawbridge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hesse, Mary B. 1966. “Hooke’s Philosophical Algebra”. Isis 571.67–83.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hill, Abraham. 1767. Familiar Letters Which Passed Between Abraham Hill, Esq. […] and Several Eminent and Ingenious Persons of the Last Century. Transcribed from the original letters. London: W. Johnston.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Holder, William. 1669. The Elements of Speech, an essay of inquiry into the natural production of letters; with an appendix concerning persons deaf and dumb. London: John Martyn.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hooke, Robert. 1676. A Description of Helioscopes and Some Other Instruments. London: John Martyn.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1686. “Some Observations and Conjectures Concerning the Chinese Characters”. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London 16:180.63–78.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1935. The Diary of Robert Hooke M. A., M. D., F. R. S. 1672–1680. Transcribed from the original in the possession of the Corporation of the City of London (Guildhall Library). Ed. by Henry W. Robinson & Walter Adams. London: Taylor & Francis.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hoppen, K. Theodore. 1970. The Common Scientist in the Seventeenth Century: A study of the Dublin Philosophical Society. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Horace. 1926. Satires, Epistles and Ars Poetica. Ed. by H. Rushton Fairclough. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hüllen, Werner. 1999. English Dictionaries 800–1700: The topical tradition. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hunter, Michael. 1975. John Aubrey and the Realm of Learning. London: Duckworth.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mulligan, Lotte B. 1992. “Robert Hooke and Certain Knowledge”. The Seventeenth Century 71.151–169.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Nate, Richard. 1993. Natursprachenmodelle des 17. Jahrhunderts. Münster: Nodus.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Oldenburg, Henry. 1965–86. The Correspondence of Henry Oldenburg. Ed. by A. Rupert Hall & Marie Boas Hall. 131 vols. Madison & Milwaukee: University of Wisconsin Press; London: Mansell; London: Taylor & Francis.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Oughtred, William. 1648. Clavis mathematica denuò limata. Cui accedit tractatus de resolutione æquationum qualitercunque adfectarum in numeris: et declaratio tum decimi elementi Euclidis de lateribus incommensurabilibus: tum decimi tertii & decimi quarti elementi de quimque solidis regularibus. Oxford: Leonard Lichfield. [3rd ed. 1652.]Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
[Paschall, Andrew]. 1670. Propositions for the Carrying On a Philosophical Correspondence, already begun in the county of Sommerset, upon incouragement given from the Royal Society. London: James Collins.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pepys, Samuel. 1932. Letters and the Second Diary of Samuel Pepys. Ed. by R. G. Howarth. London: J. M. Dent.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Petty, Sir William. 1648. The Advice of W. P. to Mr. Samuel Hartlib. For the advancement of some particular parts of learning. London: [s.n.].Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1674. The Discourse Made before the Royal Society the 26. of November 1674. Concerning the use of duplicate proposition in sundry important particulars: together with a new hypothesis of springing or elastique motions. London: John Martyn.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1927. The Petty Papers: Some unpublished writings of Sir William Petty. Ed. by the Marquis of Lansdowne. 21 vols. London: Constable & Co.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1997. The Petty-Southwell Correspondence, 1667–1687. Ed. by the Marquis of Lansdowne. London: Routledge/Thommes Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Powell, Anthony. 1948. John Aubrey and his Friends. London: Eyre & Spottiswoode.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Quintilian. 1920. Institutio oratoria. Ed. by H. E. Butler. 41 vols. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ray, John. 1682. Methodus plantarum nova, brivitatis et perspicuitatis causa synoptice in tabulis exhibita. London: Henry Faithorne & John Kersey.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1718. Philosophical Letters Between the Late Learned Mr. Ray and Several of his Ingenious Correspondents, Natives and Foreigners. To which are added those of Francis Willughby esq; the whole consisting of many curious discoveries and improvements in the history of quadrupeds, birds, fishes, insects, plants, fossiles, fountaines, &c. Ed. by William Derham. London: William & John Innys.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1848. The Correspondence of John Ray. Ed. by Edwin Lankester. London: The Ray Society.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ritschel, George. 1648. Contemplationes metaphysicæ ex naturâ rerum & rectæ rationis lumine deductæ; quibus universales rerum habitudines, & respectus, atq; dependentiæ monostrantur, & notionum communium, ex illorum conjunctione surgentium exhibetur specimen. Præfixa præfatio quid sit metaphysica, & quis ejus usus ostendit. Oxford: Leonard Lichfield.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Royal Society Classified Papers mss.: London: Royal Society Library.
Royal Society Letter Book ms.: London: Royal Society Library.
Salmon, Vivian. 1972. The Works of Francis Lodwick: A study of his writings in the intellectual context of the seventeenth century. London: Longman.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1974. “John Wilkins’ Essay (1668): Critics and continuators”. Historiographia Linguistica 11.147–163. (Repr. in V. Salmon, The Study of Language in 17th-Century England, 2nd ed., 191–206. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 1988.)Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Simpson, William. 1669. Hydrologia chymica: or, the chymical anatomy of the Scarborough, and other spaws in York-shire. London: Richard Chiswel.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Slaughter, Mary M. 1982. Universal Languages and Scientific Taxonomy in the Seventeenth Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sloane mss.: London, British Library Sloane mss.
Swift, Jonathan. 1910–1914. The Correspondence of Jonathan Swift, D.D. Ed. by F. Elrington Ball & John H. Bernard. 61 Vols. London: G. Bell & Sons.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Turnbull, G. H. 1950. “Samuel Hartlib’s Acquaintance with John Aubrey”. Notes and Queries 1951.31–33.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Turner, Anthony J. 1974. “Learning and Language in the Somerset Levels: Andrew Paschall of Chedsey”. Learning, Language and Invention: Essays presented to Francis Maddison. Ed. by W. D. Hackmann & Anthony J. Turner. Aldershot: Variorum.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
1978. “Andrew Paschall’s Tables of Plants for the Universal Language, 1678”. Bodleian Library Record 91.346–350.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wallis, John. 1653. Grammatica linguæ Anglicanæ. Cui præfigitur de loquela, sive sonorum formatione, tractatus grammatico-physicus. Oxford: Leonard Lichfield.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1670. “A Letter of Dr. John Wallis to Robert Boyle Esq.”. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London 5:61.1087–1097.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1678. A Defence of the Royal Society, and the Philosophical Transac- tions, particularly those of July, 1670. In answer to the cavils of Dr. William Holder. London: Thomas Moore.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ward, Seth. 1654. Vindiciae academiarum. Oxford: Leonard Lichfield.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Webb, John. 1669. An Historical Essay Endeavouring the Probability that the Language of the Empire of China Is the Primitive Language. London: Nathaniel Brook.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wilkins, John. 1668. An Essay Towards a Real Character and a Philosophical Language. London: Samuel Gellibrand & John Martyn.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wood mss.: Oxford, Bodleian Library Wood mss.
Wotton, William. 1694. Reflections upon Ancient and Modern Learning. London: Peter Buck.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Young, Robert Fitzgibbon. 1925. A Bohemian Philosopher at Oxford in the 17th Century: George Ritschel of Deutschkhan. London: Eyre & Spottiswoode.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (4)

Cited by four other publications

Sacco, Francesco G.
2020. Philosophical Algebra. In Real, Mechanical, Experimental [International Archives of the History of Ideas Archives internationales d'histoire des idées, 231], ► pp. 47 ff. DOI logo
Turner, Olivia Horsfall
2011. ‘The Windows of this Church are of several Fashions’: Architectural Form and Historical Method in John Aubrey’s ‘Chronologia Architectonica’. Architectural History 54 ► pp. 171 ff. DOI logo
Cram, D. & J. Maat
2006. Universal Language Schemes in the 17th Century. In Encyclopedia of Language & Linguistics, ► pp. 259 ff. DOI logo
Poole, William
2003. The divine and the grammarian. Historiographia Linguistica 30:3 ► pp. 273 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 10 december 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue