Samuel Hartlib and Universal Reformation
Studies in Intellectual Communication

A collaborative study of the theoretical and practical interests of Samuel Hartlib and his circle.

Mark Greengrass (Edited by), Michael Leslie (Edited by), Timothy Raylor (Edited by)

9780521452526, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 1 December 1994

394 pages, 8 b/w illus.
23.5 x 16 x 2.6 cm, 0.687 kg

"...those who take the subtitle seriously will find a number of fascinating "studies in intellectual communication." Stanford Lehmberg, Rebaissance Quarterly

Samuel Hartlib was a key figure in the intellectual revolution of the seventeenth century. Originally from Elbing, in Prussig, Hartlib settled permanently in England from the late 1620s until his death in 1662. His aspirations formed a distinctive and influential strand in English intellectual life during those revolutionary decades. This volume reflects the variety of the theoretical and practical interests of Hartlib's circle and presents them in their continental context. The editors of the volume are all attached to the Hartlib Papers Project at the University of Sheffield, a major collaborative research effort to exploit the largely untapped resources of the surviving Hartlib manuscripts. In an introduction to the volume they explore the background to the Hartlib circle and provide the context in which the essays should be read.

Introduction Mark Greengrass, Michael Leslie and Timothy Raylor
Part I. The Cultivation of Mind and Soul: 1. Philosophical pedagogy in reformed central Europe between Ramus and Comenius Howard Horson
2. In search of 'The True Logick' Stephen Clucas
3. Comenius and his ideals Dagmar Capkova
4. 'The unchanged peacemaker'? John Dury and the politics of irenicism in England, 1628–1643 Anthony Milton
5. Hartlib, Dury and the Jews Richard Popkin
6. Millenarianism and the new science: the case of Robert Boyle Malcolm Oster
Part II. The Communication of Knowledge: 7. Closed and open languages: Samuel Hartlib's involvement with cryptology and universal languages Gerhard Strasser
8. Language as the product and the mediator of knowledge: the concept of J. A. Comenius Jana Privratska and Vladimir Privratsky
9. Milton among the monopolists: Areopagitica, intellectual property and the Hartlib circle Kevin Dunn
10. George Starkey and the selling of secrets William Newman
Part III. The Improvement of Nature and Society: 11. Benjamin Worsley: engineering for universal reform from the Invisible College to the Navigation Act Charles Webster
12. New light on Benjamin Worsley's natural philosophy Antonio Clericuzio
13. 'These 2 hundred years not the like published as Gellibrand has done de Magnete': the Hartlib circle and magnetic philosophy Stephen Pumfrey
14. Technology transfer and scientific specialization: Johann Wiesel, optician of Augsburg, and the Hartlib circle Inge Keil
15. The Hartlib circle and the cult and culture of improvement in Ireland T. C. Barnard
16. Natural history and historical nature: the project for a natural history of Ireland Patricia Coughlin
17. Hortulan affairs John Dixon Hunt
18. 'Another epocha'?: Hartlib, John Lanyon and the improvement of London in the 1650s Mark Jenner
Appendix.

Subject Areas: Early modern history: c 1450/1500 to c 1700 [HBLH], British & Irish history [HBJD1]