^{page 1059 note 1} See C. K. Ogden and I. A. Richards, The Meaning of Meaning (New York, 1923), pp. 103–114.

^{page 1059 note 2} See Jones, “Science and English Prose Style in the Third Quarter of the Seventeenth Century,” PMLA, xlv (1930), 978 ff., and “Science and Language in England,” JEGP, xxxi (1932), 323 ff., both rptd. in The Seventeenth Century (Stanford, 1951). Jones's view of the schemes as essentially scientific and Baconian in spirit is followed by Clark Emery, “John Wilkins' Universal Language,” Isis, xxxvm (1948), 184; Francis Christensen, “John Wilkins and the Royal Society's Reform of Prose Style,” MLQ, vii (1946), 179, 286–287; Harold Fisch, “Puritans and the Reform of Prose Style,” ELE, xlx (1952), 247; and Fisch and H. W. Jones, “Bacon's Influence on Sprat's History,” MLQ, xii (1946), 406.

^{page 1059 note 3} For this point of view see F. H. Anderson, The Philosophy of Francis Bacon (Chicago, 1948), p. 179.

^{page 1059 note 4} See, e.g., Matthew Spinka, John Amos Comenius, That Incomparable Moravian (Chicago, 1943), pp. 79–83; M. W. Keatinge, tr. The Great Didactic of John Amos Comenius (London, 1921), pp. 64 ff. (“Introduction”); and R. L. Syfret, “The Origins of the Royal Society,” Notes and Records of the Royal Society, v (1948), 117–118.

^{page 1059 note 5} See the usage of George Dalgarno, Tables of the Universal Character (London, 1657), n. p.; Francis Lodowyck, The Groundwork or Foundation Laid {or so intended) For the Framing of a New Perfect Language (London, 1652), pp. 1 ff.; and Robert Hooke, Description of Helioscopes and some other Instruments (London, 1676), p. 30.

^{page 1059 note 6} Wilkins first cited the passage in his Mercury: or the Secret and Swift Messenger (London, 1641), pp. 10–11. Several other projectors also mentioned the passage. See Henry Edmundson, Lingua Linguarum, The Naturall Language of Languages (London, 1655), “To the Reader”; John Webster, Academiarum Examen (London 1653), pp. 24–25; Cave Beck, Le Charactere Universel (London, 1657), “Au Lecteur.” John Beals referred twice to Bacon in arguing the case for his “mnemonical” universal character to Boyle (see The Works of the Honourable Robert Boyle, ed. Thomas Birch, London, 1772, vi, 339), and Francis Lodowyck seems to echo passages of The Advancement in his Groundwork, pp. 1–2.

^{page 1059 note 7} The Works of Francis Bacon, edd. James Spedding, R. L. Ellis, D. D. Heath (Boston, 1863), vi, 283–285.

^{page 1059 note 8} Comenius returned to the continent in that year but left the MS behind with English friends (see The Way of Light of Comenius, tr. E. T. Campagnac, London, 1938, Dedication). The friends were probably Hartlib and Wilkins. Hartlib was in touch with Comenius as early as 1632, published several of his books in the next 2 decades, and corresponded with him about a universal language in the 1650's (see G. H. Turnbull, Hartlib, Dury, and Comenius, London, 1947, pp. 88 ff., 342, 377–388).

^{page 1059 note 9} Milon and Jakob Boehme (New York. 1914), p. 70.

^{page 1059 note 10} Two of them to whom Comenius owed much were J. K. Andreae and Jakob Boehme. Andreae believed in a mystical harmony of nations and hoped to form a universal Christian brotherhood of wise men devoted to the pursuit of knowledge that would unite mankind (see Fama Fraternitatis, 1616, pp. 3,12–13, and Christianopolis, ed. F. E. Held, New York, 1916, p. 11). We have Comenius' word that he took over the idea from Andreae (see Christianopolis, p. 104), and it doubtless stimulated his awareness of the “need” for a universal language, especially since the international union was to be composed of men who did not owe spiritual allegiance to Rome. Boehme, who shared Andreae's convictions about the harmony of nations, had dwelt at length in his works on a perfect “language of nature” (Naturs proche) that had once been vouchsafed to man. See Jakob Bohme's Sammtliche Werke, ed. K. W. Schiebler (Leipzig, 1922), iv, 83 ff. (De Triplici vita hominis, Ch. 6).

^{page 1059 note 11} Hartlib published Lodowyck's A Common Writing (London, 1646), an early attempt at a new language; encouraged various attempts to prepare a standard minimum vocabulary for modern languages (Turnbull, pp. 39, 48–52, 56–58); conducted a correspondence with Boyle concerning a universal language in 1646 (see Thomas Birch, The Life of Sir Robert Boyle, London, 1744, p. 73); and probably also brought the subject to the attention of Wilkins and Petty, the latter of whom commented on the real character in his Advice to Hartlib (London, 1648), p. 5. In addition, Hartlib subsidized the writing of Dalgarno's Ars Signorum (London, 1661) and may have brought into circulation the important ideas of Cyprian Kinner about new languages (see below).

^{page 1059 note 12} Mercury: or the Secret and Swift Messenger has a chapter on universal language; in The Way of Light Comenius speaks of a universal language as “this Mercury, this messenger which must make his way among all nations alike.” More direct allusions to Comenius' writings were made by Henry Edmundson (Lingua Linguarwn, “To the Reader”), and by Webster (Academiarum Examen, p. 22); and Lodowyck has in mind Comenius' notions about the teaching of languages when he writes his Essay Towards a Universal Alphabet (London, 1686), pp. 2–3.

^{page 1059 note 13} Dorothy L. Stimson provides much detail about this circle in “Comenius and the Invisible College,” I sis, xxiii (1935), 383–388, and in her Scientists and Amateurs (New York, 1946); Wilkins' association with it is briefly discussed by Keatinge, The Great Didactic, p. 60, and Spinka, That Incomparable Moravian, pp. 72 ff.

^{page 1059 note 14} For information about this group see Wallis' account of the early meetings of the philosophers in The Works of Thomas Eearne (London, 1810), m, cixni (Hearne's ed. of Peter Langtofl's Chronicle); also The Diary of Robert Hooke, edd. Henry W. Robinson and Walter Adams (London, 1935), pp. 119, 187, 203, 336, 349, 455; and Aubrey's Brief Lives, ed. Oliver Lawson Dick (London, 1949), p. 320 (“John Wilkins”).

^{page 1059 note 15} Among these ideas was that of a symbol expressive both of a main class and of a particular subdivision. The ideas were set forth by Kinner in a series of recently discovered letters to Hartlib; I am discussing their relation to English proposals in another article. Turnbull has translated sections of the Latin originals in his Comenius, pp. 339–340.

^{page 1059 note 16} See The Life of William Bedell, Bishop of Kilmore (London, 1685), pp. 78–79, 137. Hartlib once observed that without Bedell's support the irenic cause “might have been crushed” (see Turnbull, p. 24).

^{page 1059 note 17} In the Essay Wilkins himself resolves differences in the interpretation of the story of the Ark by appealing to classifications in his philosophical language. For an account of his method see Clark Emery, “John Wilkins and Noah's Ark,” MLQ, ix (1948), 286 ff.

^{page 1059 note 18} In the same passage Wilkins holds that the “improving of natural knowledge” would be among “the most obvious” advantages of his proposal. But the naturalist Ray, who regarded Wilkins' approach to nature as denned by the Philosophical Language to be “manifestly imperfect and ridiculous,” was frustrated in his efforts to get Wilkins to abandon it. Ray made the point that Wilkins was actually much more interested in following his “prescribed system” than in trying to “seek out the lead of nature.” See the Correspondence of John Ray, ed. Edwin Lankester (London, 1848), pp. 41–42, for the Latin text of Ray's letter condemning Wilkins' project. Wilkins repeatedly asserted that “the Scien-tifical part” of his Essay comprehended “Universal Philosophy,” the emphasis upon universality perhaps derived in part from Comenius, and in setting it up as an ideal Wilkins tacitly admitted his interests were not only scientific.

^{page 1059 note 19} Le Charactere Universel, “Au Lecteur.”

^{page 1059 note 20} See The Petty Papers, ed. Marquis of Lansdowne (London, 1927), i, 150. The treatises that accompany Petty's start on the Dictionary—the “Dialogue Between A and B” and the “Explication of 12 Theological Words”—concentrated entirely upon religious terminology. Petty declared that the dictionary was designed to “translate all words used in Argument and Important matters into words that are Signa Rerum” (The Petty-Southwell Correspondence, 1676–87, ed. Marquis of Lansdowne, London, 1928, p. 325).

^{page 1059 note 21} Tables of the Universal Character, n. p.

^{page 1059 note 22} Ars Signorum, in The Works of George Dalgarno (Edinburgh, 1834), pp. 22–23. Dalgarno gives Latin equivalents for the terms translated above.

^{page 1059 note 23} It is worth noting that they were also certain of the benefits of a reform of expression in existing languages. As Comenius had done, they condemned eloquence and metaphorical excess on the ground that these were obstacles to religious peace. Bedell argued that the “swelling words” of preachers caused religious dispute (Burnet, p. 150). Dalgarno spoke disapprovingly of “ambiguity and equivocation” in writing, relating “rhetoricall flourishes” to “strife” (Works, p. 114). Petty agreed with Beck, Edmundson, and still other reformers, in rejecting wordiness or “obscurity” of discourse, and he laid heavy emphasis on the advantages to be gained from clear definitions of key terms used in religious discourse in the language at hand (see Petty Papers, i. 161, and cf. Le Charactere Universel, “Au Lecteur,” and Edmundson's “Epistle Dedicatory”). Wilkins also saw danger to peace in the “elegancy of fine speech.” He was dismayed by the “ambiguity” resulting from metaphor (Essay, pp. 1, 17) and connected the use of “Metaphors, Allegories, and divers other Tropes of Oratory” with “heathen” customs (Mercury, p. 24) as well as with the troubles of “the late times” (Essay, p. 18).

^{page 1059 note 27} Page 63. The Society's hopes for the reconciliation of Christians were a subject of attack in the early years. In Campanella Revived, or an Enquiry into the History of the Royal Society (London, 1670), Stubbe wrote: “I believe it is not displeasing to them [the Papists], to see how friendly the Protestants and Papists converse together in this Assembly: and it must needs raise their hopes of bringing things to a closer union, when they perceive the strangeness, that ought to be, and hath been betwixt them, taken off…” (p. 1).

^{page 1059 note 28} Comenius held that before the new language was “established” a correct definition of “the Kinds, and ideas, and the qualities of things” and an exact revelation of “the qualities, the relative order, and the mutual connections of all things” must be made; he was certain the tasks would be completed in a short period of time if the philosophical college exerted itself (Way of Light, p. 219).

^{page 1059 note 29} Jones, “Science and Language,” p. 325.

^{page 1059 note 30} To the evidence of Comenius' influence on the Royal Society gathered by Miss Syfret a hitherto unnoticed fact is added: that the Society went before the public as an institution devoted to the Comenian ideal of religious brotherhood and seeking a philosophy of mankind as well as information about second causes. To the continuing discussion of the case for science as “the most important influence instrumental in changing [17th-century] prose” in the direction of simplicity (Jones, “Science and Prose Style,” p. 977), evidence is added that weighs on the negative side. As is well known, this case rests strongly upon the assumption that projects like those of Wilkins and Dalgarno were purely scientific in background and in motive—an assumption that appears to be incorrect.

^{page 1059 note 31} Jones regarded all the reformers as “scientists,” and declared that their work, which best expresses the “mathematical spirit” of the age, was undertaken only because of “science's wide dissatisfaction with language in general” (“Science and Language,” pp. 323–324). Before him Ogden and Richards, in their account of the development of our present enlightened attitude toward language, asserted that Wilkins' project was a step forward in “man's progress towards verbal independence” (The Meaning of Meaning, p. 44).

^{page 1059 note 32} One of them is that, like Comenius, the reformers believed in the possibility of a univocal relation between symbols and reality, precisely the possibility denied by modern empiricism in the tradition of Bacon and Hobbes. Another is that many outstanding scientific minds of the period—Boyle, Ray, Ward, Wallis, and others—were disinclined to regard the language projects as helpful to science (see Thomas Birch, Life of Boyle, p. 77; Wallis, Defence, pp. 16–17; Seth Ward, Vindiciae Academiarum [Oxford, 1654], pp. 15, 19; Ray's comments are cited above, n. 18). As these remarks would imply, there are interesting differences between the attitude toward language of the scientists and that of the reformers, but a full discussion of them must be reserved for another essay.