Editing John Wilkins (section)

==Works==

His numerous written works include:
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*''The Discovery of a World in the Moone'' (1638)<ref>{{Citation|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/cromwells-moonshot-how-one-jacobean-scientist-tried-to-kick-off-the-space-race-535171.html |title=Cromwell's moonshot: how one Jacobean scientist tried to kick off the space race |department=This Britain |work=[[The Independent]] |place=UK |date=10 October 2004 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090509103750/http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/cromwells-moonshot-how-one-jacobean-scientist-tried-to-kick-off-the-space-race-535171.html |archive-date= 9 May 2009 |url-status=dead }}.</ref><ref>{{Citation | title = History | chapter = 14; The Discovery of a World in the Moon | chapter-url = http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/brunof14.htm | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20010906004046/http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/brunof14.htm | url-status = dead | archive-date = 6 September 2001 | publisher = Positive atheism }}</ref>
*''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]]'' (1668), in which he proposes a new universal language for the use of [[natural philosopher]]s.
* {{Citation|url=https://archive.org/details/principlesanddu01lloygoog|title=Of the Principles and Duties of Natural Religion|place=London, UK|year=1675|publisher=Archive}}
}}

[[File:Wilkins - Mathematical magick, 1691.tiff|thumb|upright|''Mathematical magick'', 1691]]
[[File:Wilkins An Essay towards a real.jpg|thumb|upright|Frontispiece of John Wilkins "An Essay towards a Real Character and a Philosophical Language" (1668)]]

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). The author highlights the similarities between the Earth and the Moon. Based on these similarities, he proposes the idea that the Moon would house living beings, the [[Selene|Selenites]].<ref>Bouyre Claire, «  Vivre et Aller sur la Lune en 1640 ? Les sciences du vivant dans le discours sur la pluralité des Mondes, à partir de l’œuvre de John Wilkins: The Discovery Of A New World (1640) » Bulletin d’Histoire et d’épistémologie des Sciences de la vie, 2014, 21 (1), pp. 7–37.</ref><ref>In 1701 ''The Discovery of a World in the Moone'' was included in the Vatican list of condamned books [https://bibofthedamned.com/2018/08/28/the-discovery-of-a-world-in-the-moone-1638/ Library of Condamned books]</ref> Godwin's ''The Man in the Moone'' was also published in 1638. In 1641 Wilkins published an anonymous treatise entitled ''Mercury, or The Secret and Swift Messenger''.<ref>{{Citation|publisher=Light of truth|url=http://www.light-of-truth.com/Secret_Messenger/secret.html|title=MERCVRY: The secret and swift Messenger|type=scan of original book|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090904210148/http://www.light-of-truth.com/Secret_Messenger/secret.html|archive-date=4 September 2009}}.</ref> This was a small work on [[cryptography]]; it may well have been influenced by Godwin's ''Nuncius inanimatus'' (1629).<ref name="Knowlson">{{citation|last=Knowlson|first=James R.|title=A Note on Bishop Godwin's "Man in the Moone:" The East Indies Trade Route and a 'Language' of Musical Notes|journal=[[Modern Philology]]|year=1968|volume=65|issue=4|pages=357–91|jstor=435786|doi=10.1086/390001|s2cid=161387367}}</ref><ref>{{Cite EB1911 |wstitle=Godwin, Francis |volume=12 |page=176}}</ref> 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]].<ref>{{Citation|url=http://faculty.ed.uiuc.edu/westbury/paradigm/fauvel1.html|title=Fauvel|publisher=UIUC|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090813150013/http://faculty.ed.uiuc.edu/westbury/paradigm/fauvel1.html|archive-date=13 August 2009|access-date=16 February 2009}}</ref> It alludes to Godwin's ''The Man in the Moone'', for bird-powered flight.<ref>{{Citation|url=http://www.newberry.org/renaissance/conf-inst/2007proceedings.pdf|title=Proceedings|publisher=Newberry|page=25|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090224234027/http://www.newberry.org/renaissance/conf-inst/2007proceedings.pdf|archive-date=24 February 2009}}</ref> 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]].<ref>{{Citation|first=Noel E.|last=Brann|title=Trithemius and Magical Theology: A Chapter in the Controversy over Occult Studies in Early Modern Europe|year=1999|page=233}}</ref><ref>{{Citation|author-link=Frances Yates|first=Frances|last=Yates|title=The Rosicrucian Enlightenment|year=1986|page=284}}</ref>

''Ecclesiastes'' (1646) is a plea for a plain style in preaching, avoiding rhetoric and scholasticism, for a more direct and emotional appeal.<ref>{{Citation|first=Richard Foster|last=Jones|title=The Seventeenth Century: Studies in the History of English Thought and Literature from Bacon to Pope|year=1951|page=78}}</ref><ref>{{Citation|first=Paul|last=Goring|title=Rhetoric of Sensibility in Eighteenth-century Culture|year=2005|page=37}}</ref> 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.<ref>{{Citation|first=I.M.|last=Green|title=Print and Protestantism in Early Modern England|year=2000|page=109}}</ref><ref>{{Citation|editor-first=Theresa|editor-last=Enos|title=Encyclopedia of Rhetoric and Composition: Communication from Ancient Times to the Information Age|year=1996|page=764}}</ref>

''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.<ref>{{Citation|title=Providence and the Invention of the United States, 1607–1876|last1=Guyatt|first1=Nicholas|publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]]|year=2007|page=43|isbn=978-0-521-86788-7|quote=<nowiki>[Wilkins]</nowiki> urged his readers to 'remember <nowiki>[that]</nowiki> we are but short-sighted, and cannot discern the various references, and dependences, amongst the great affairs in the world, and may therefore be easily mistaken in our opinion of them.'...  After the Restoration, Wilkins's words seemed particularly prescient.}}</ref>

In 1654, Wilkins joined with Seth Ward in writing ''Vindiciae academiarum'', a reply to [[John Webster (minister)|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 (general)|John Lambert]], a top military figure, and was launched during [[Barebone's Parliament]], when radical change seemed on the cards. Wilkins (as NS) provided an open letter to Ward; and Ward (as HD, 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 (writer)|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.<ref>{{Citation|author-link=Allen G. Debus|first=Allen G.|last=Debus|title=Science and Education in the Seventeenth Century: The Webster-Ward Debate|year=1970}}</ref>

In 1668 he published his ''[[An Essay towards a Real Character and a Philosophical Language|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.<ref>{{Citation|url=http://www.alamut.com/subj/artiface/language/johnWilkins.html|title=The Analytical Language of John Wilkins|publisher=Alamut|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060202011631/http://www.alamut.com/subj/artiface/language/johnWilkins.html|archive-date=2 February 2006}}</ref> One aspect of this work was the suggestion of an integrated system of measurement, similar to the [[metric system]] but which was never promoted.<ref name=Rooney>{{cite book
 |url         = https://books.google.com/books?id=5O67iqeIHZ8C&q=Naughtin+wilkins+2007&pg=PA65
 |title       = The History of Mathematics
 |first1      = Anne
 |last1       = Rooney|author-link=Anne Rooney
 |publisher   = Rosen Publishing Group
 |location    = New York
 |isbn        = 978-1-4488-7227-5
 |year        = 2013
 |page        = 65
 |url-status     = live
 |archive-url  = https://web.archive.org/web/20160516120236/https://books.google.com/books?id=5O67iqeIHZ8C&pg=PA65&lpg=PA65&dq=Naughtin+wilkins+2007&source=bl&ots=zBtxsKaSPb&sig=f8V3S_r34OU7U9H0KGGkaDHn0m0&hl=en&sa=X&ei=zXFXUuvcDsrF0QWgn4DgCw&ved=0CFAQ6AEwBjgK#v=onepage&q=Naughtin%20wilkins%202007&f=false
 |archive-date = 16 May 2016
 |df          = dmy-all
}}</ref><ref name=Treese-2018>{{Cite book |last=Treese |first=Steven A. |url=http://link.springer.com/10.1007/978-3-319-77577-7 |title=History and Measurement of the Base and Derived Units |date=2018 |publisher=Springer International Publishing |isbn=978-3-319-77576-0 |location=Cham |language=en |doi=10.1007/978-3-319-77577-7}}</ref>{{rp|85}}

In his lexicographical work he collaborated with [[William Lloyd (bishop of Worcester)|William Lloyd]].<ref>{{Citation|url=http://helmer.aksis.uib.no/batmult/Natascia-final-report.htm|title=Natascia final report|publisher=UIB|place=NO|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061014145349/http://helmer.aksis.uib.no/batmult/Natascia-final-report.htm|archive-date=14 October 2006}}</ref> The ''[[s:Ballad of Gresham College|Ballad of Gresham College]]'' (1663), a gently satirical ode to the Society, refers to this project:

{{quote|<poem>
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.<ref>{{Citation|last=Stimson|first=Dorothy|contribution=Ballad of Gresham College|title=Isis|volume=18|number=1|year=1932|pages=103–17}}</ref></poem>}}