Samuel Hartlib
Encyclopedia
Samuel Hartlib (ca. 1600 – 10 March 1662) was a German-British polymath
. An active promoter and expert writer in many fields, he was interested in science, medicine, agriculture, politics, and education. He settled in England
, where he married and died. He was a contemporary of Robert Boyle
whom he knew well, and a neighbour of Samuel Pepys
in Axe Yard.
Hartlib is often described as an "intelligencer
", and indeed has been called "the Great Intelligencer of Europe". His main aim in life was to further knowledge and so he kept in touch with a vast array of contacts, from high philosophers to gentleman farmers. He maintained a voluminous correspondence and much of this has survived, having been lost entirely from 1667 to 1945; it is housed in a special Hartlib collection at the University of Sheffield
in England. He became one of the best-connected intellectual figures of the Commonwealth
era, and was responsible for patents, spreading information and fostering learning. He circulated designs for calculators, double-writing instruments, seed-machines and siege engines. His letters, in German
and English
, have been the subject of close modern scholarship.
Hartlib set out with the universalist goal "To record all human knowledge and to make it universally available for the education of all mankind". His work has been compared to modern internet search engines.
, Royal Prussia
. His mother was the daughter of a rich English merchant at Danzig. His father is said to have been a refugee merchant from Poland. He studied at the Gymnasium
in Brieg (Brzeg)
, and at the Albertina
. At Herborn Academy
he studied under Johannes Heinrich Alsted and Johannes Bisterfeld. He was briefly at the University of Cambridge
, supported by John Preston
.
Hartlib met the Scottish
preacher John Dury
in 1628; the same year Hartlib relocated to England, in the face of the prospect of being caught in a war zone, as Imperial armies moved into the western parts of Poland, and the chance of intervention by Sweden grew. He first unsuccessfully established a school in line with his theories of education, in Chichester
, and then lived in Duke's Place, London
. An early patron was John Williams, the bishop of Lincoln
and hostile to William Laud
. Another supporter was John Pym
; Pym would use Hartlib later, as a go-between with Dutch Calvinists in London, in an effort to dig up evidence against Laud. It is Hugh Trevor-Roper's thesis, in his essay Three Foreigners (meaning Hartlib, Dury and the absent Comenius), that Hartlib and the others were the “philosophers” of the “country party” or anti-court grouping of the 1630s and early 1640s, who united in their support for these outside voices, if agreeing on little else.
During the Civil War
, Hartlib occupied himself with the peaceful study of agriculture, publishing various works by himself, and printing at his own expense several treatises by others on the subject. He planned a school for the sons of gentlemen, to be conducted on new principles, and this probably was the occasion of his friend John Milton
's Tractate on Education, addressed to him in 1644, and of William Petty
's Two Letters on the same subject, in 1647 and 1648. Another associate of his in that period was Walter Blith
, a noted writer on husbandry.
For his various labours, Hartlib received a pension of £100 from Oliver Cromwell
, afterwards increased to £300, as he had spent all his fortune on his experiments. But Hartlib died in poverty. His association with Oliver Cromwell
and the Commonwealth resulted in him being sidelined after Charles II
's Restoration
. He lost his pension, which had already fallen into arrears. Some of his correspondents went as far as to ask for their letters from his archive, fearing that they could be compromised.
for a general theory of education, and this formed common ground for him and Jan Comenius. Hartlib published two studies of Comenius's work: Conatuum Comenianorum praeludia (1637) and Comenii pansophiae prodromus et didactica dissertatio (1639). He also put much effort into getting Comenius, of the Protestant Moravian Brethren, to visit England. Hartlib's two closest correspondents were John Dury, and Comenius. The latter had the concept of a "tree of knowledge", continuously branching out and growing. He also put his own spin on Bacon's ideas. Shortly before the English Civil War
broke out, John Gauden
preached in 1640 to Parliament, recommending that Dury and Comenius be invited to England, and naming Hartlib as a likely contact.
Men like Hartlib and Comenius wanted to make the spread of knowledge easier, at a time when most knowledge was not categorised or standardised by any widespread conventions or academic disciplines, and libraries were mostly private. They wanted to enlighten and educate, and to improve society, as religious people who saw this as the work of God. Comenius arrived in England in 1641, bad timing considering that war was imminent. His presence failed to transform the position in education, though a substantial literature grew up, particularly on university reform, where Oliver Cromwell
set up a new institution. Comenius left in 1642; under Cromwell elementary schooling was expanded from 1646, and Durham College was set up, with staff from Hartlib's associates.
Bacon had formulated a project for a research institute, under the title "Salomon's House" in his New Atlantis
of 1624. This theoretical scheme was important for Hartlib, who angled during the 1640s for public funding for it. He was unsuccessful except for a small pension for himself, but gathered like-minded others: Dury, John Milton
, Kenelm Digby
, William Petty
, Frederick Clod
(Clodius).
Milton dedicated his 1644 Of Education
to Hartlib, whom he had come to know the year before and who had pressed him to publish his educational ideas. But he gave the Comenian agenda short shrift in the work. Barbara Lewalski considers his dismissive attitude as disingenous, since he had probably used texts by Comenius in his own teaching. Hezekiah Woodward
, linked at the time in the minds of Presbyterians and officialdom with Milton as a dangerous writer, was also significant as an educational follower of Comenius and Bacon, and friend of Hartlib.
which was established a generation later, in 1660. The relationship, however, is not transparent, because Hartlib and close supporters, with the exception of William Petty, were excluded from the Royal Society when it was set up from 1660.
(1600–1655), a friend. A practical project was the establishment of a workhouse
, as part of the Corporation of the Poor of London. This initiative is reckoned a major influence on the later philanthropic schemes of John Bellers
.
In 1641, Hartlib wrote Relation of that which hath been lately attempted to procure Ecclesiastical Peace among Protestants. After Comenius left England, and in particular from 1646 onwards, the Hartlib group agitated for religious reform and toleration, against the Presbyterian dominance in the Long Parliament
. They also proposed economic, technical and agricultural improvements, particularly through Sir Cheney Culpeper, and Henry Robinson. Benjamin Worsley
, Secretary to the Council of Trade from 1650, was a Hartlibian.
Hartlib valued useful knowledge: anything that could increase crop yields, or cure disease. One of Hartlib's great interests was agriculture. He worked to spread Dutch
farming practices in England, such as using nitrogenous crops like cabbage
to replenish the soil with nitrogen, to increase the yield of next season's crop. In 1652 he issued a second edition of Richard Weston
's Discourse of Flanders Husbandry (1645). Hartlib corresponded with many landowners, as well as academics, in his quest for knowledge.
From 1650 Hartlib was very interested in, and influential on, fruit husbandry. A letter by Sir Richard Child, surveying the area, received publication in one of his books Samuel Hartlib, his Legacy, or an Enlargement of the Discourse of Husbandry used in Brabant and Flanders; and Hartlib introduced John Beale
, another author on orchards, to John Evelyn who would eventually write an important work in the area, Sylva of 1664. In 1655 Hartlib wrote The Reformed Commonwealth of Bees, featuring a transparent glass beehive
, to a design by Christopher Wren
. John Evelyn showed him the manuscript of his Elysium Britannicum, at the end of the 1650s.
, a 16th century physician and alchemist who made bold claims for his science, was also one of the inspirations to Hartlib and early chemistry. Harlib was very open-minded, and often tested the ideas and theories of his correspondents. For his own trouble with kidney stones Hartlib took to drinking diluted sulphuric acid — a cure that may have contributed to his death.
Hartlib was interested in theories and practices that modern science would deem irrational, or superstitious — for example, sympathetic medicine. Sympathetic medicine was based on the concept that things in nature that bear a resemblance to an ailment could be used to treat that ailment. Hence, a plant that looked like a snake might be used to treat snakebites, or a yellow colored herb might be used to treat jaundice
.
Polymath
A polymath is a person whose expertise spans a significant number of different subject areas. In less formal terms, a polymath may simply be someone who is very knowledgeable...
. An active promoter and expert writer in many fields, he was interested in science, medicine, agriculture, politics, and education. He settled in England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, where he married and died. He was a contemporary of Robert Boyle
Robert Boyle
Robert Boyle FRS was a 17th century natural philosopher, chemist, physicist, and inventor, also noted for his writings in theology. He has been variously described as English, Irish, or Anglo-Irish, his father having come to Ireland from England during the time of the English plantations of...
whom he knew well, and a neighbour of Samuel Pepys
Samuel Pepys
Samuel Pepys FRS, MP, JP, was an English naval administrator and Member of Parliament who is now most famous for the diary he kept for a decade while still a relatively young man...
in Axe Yard.
Hartlib is often described as an "intelligencer
Intelligencer
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, an intelligencer is "One who conveys intelligence or information", "One employed to obtain secret information, an informer, a spy, a secret agent", or "A bringer of news; a messenger; an informant; a newsmonger"...
", and indeed has been called "the Great Intelligencer of Europe". His main aim in life was to further knowledge and so he kept in touch with a vast array of contacts, from high philosophers to gentleman farmers. He maintained a voluminous correspondence and much of this has survived, having been lost entirely from 1667 to 1945; it is housed in a special Hartlib collection at the University of Sheffield
University of Sheffield
The University of Sheffield is a research university based in the city of Sheffield in South Yorkshire, England. It is one of the original 'red brick' universities and is a member of the Russell Group of leading research intensive universities...
in England. He became one of the best-connected intellectual figures of the Commonwealth
Commonwealth of England
The Commonwealth of England was the republic which ruled first England, and then Ireland and Scotland from 1649 to 1660. Between 1653–1659 it was known as the Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland...
era, and was responsible for patents, spreading information and fostering learning. He circulated designs for calculators, double-writing instruments, seed-machines and siege engines. His letters, in German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
and English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
, have been the subject of close modern scholarship.
Hartlib set out with the universalist goal "To record all human knowledge and to make it universally available for the education of all mankind". His work has been compared to modern internet search engines.
Life
Hartlib was born in ElbingElbing
Elbing is the German name of Elbląg, a city in northern Poland which until 1945 was a German city in the province of East Prussia.Elbing may also refer to:- Ships :* SMS Elbing, light cruiser of the Imperial Germany Navy...
, Royal Prussia
Royal Prussia
Royal Prussia was a Region of the Kingdom of Poland and of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth . Polish Prussia included Pomerelia, Chełmno Land , Malbork Voivodeship , Gdańsk , Toruń , and Elbląg . It is distinguished from Ducal Prussia...
. His mother was the daughter of a rich English merchant at Danzig. His father is said to have been a refugee merchant from Poland. He studied at the Gymnasium
Gymnasium (school)
A gymnasium is a type of school providing secondary education in some parts of Europe, comparable to English grammar schools or sixth form colleges and U.S. college preparatory high schools. The word γυμνάσιον was used in Ancient Greece, meaning a locality for both physical and intellectual...
in Brieg (Brzeg)
Brzeg
Brzeg is a town in southwestern Poland with 38,496 inhabitants , situated in Silesia in the Opole Voivodeship on the left bank of the Oder...
, and at the Albertina
University of Königsberg
The University of Königsberg was the university of Königsberg in East Prussia. It was founded in 1544 as second Protestant academy by Duke Albert of Prussia, and was commonly known as the Albertina....
. At Herborn Academy
Herborn Academy
The Herborn Academy was a German institution of higher learning very similar to a university in Herborn, which existed from 1584 to 1817...
he studied under Johannes Heinrich Alsted and Johannes Bisterfeld. He was briefly at the University of Cambridge
University of Cambridge
The University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...
, supported by John Preston
John Preston (clergyman)
John Preston D.D. was an English puritan minister of the church, and master of Emmanuel College, Cambridge.-Upbringing:John Preston was the son of Thomas Preston, a farmer, was born at Upper Heyford in the parish of Bugbrook, Northamptonshire, and was baptised at Bugbrook church on 27 October...
.
Hartlib met the Scottish
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
preacher John Dury
John Dury
John Dury was a Scottish Calvinist minister and a significant intellectual of the English Civil War period. He made efforts to re-unite the Calvinist and Lutheran wings of Protestantism, hoping to succeed when he moved to Kassel in 1661, but he did not accomplish this...
in 1628; the same year Hartlib relocated to England, in the face of the prospect of being caught in a war zone, as Imperial armies moved into the western parts of Poland, and the chance of intervention by Sweden grew. He first unsuccessfully established a school in line with his theories of education, in Chichester
Chichester
Chichester is a cathedral city in West Sussex, within the historic County of Sussex, South-East England. It has a long history as a settlement; its Roman past and its subsequent importance in Anglo-Saxon times are only its beginnings...
, and then lived in Duke's Place, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
. An early patron was John Williams, the bishop of Lincoln
Bishop of Lincoln
The Bishop of Lincoln is the Ordinary of the Church of England Diocese of Lincoln in the Province of Canterbury.The present diocese covers the county of Lincolnshire and the unitary authority areas of North Lincolnshire and North East Lincolnshire. The Bishop's seat is located in the Cathedral...
and hostile to William Laud
William Laud
William Laud was Archbishop of Canterbury from 1633 to 1645. One of the High Church Caroline divines, he opposed radical forms of Puritanism...
. Another supporter was John Pym
John Pym
John Pym was an English parliamentarian, leader of the Long Parliament and a prominent critic of James I and then Charles I.- Early life and education :...
; Pym would use Hartlib later, as a go-between with Dutch Calvinists in London, in an effort to dig up evidence against Laud. It is Hugh Trevor-Roper's thesis, in his essay Three Foreigners (meaning Hartlib, Dury and the absent Comenius), that Hartlib and the others were the “philosophers” of the “country party” or anti-court grouping of the 1630s and early 1640s, who united in their support for these outside voices, if agreeing on little else.
During the Civil War
English Civil War
The English Civil War was a series of armed conflicts and political machinations between Parliamentarians and Royalists...
, Hartlib occupied himself with the peaceful study of agriculture, publishing various works by himself, and printing at his own expense several treatises by others on the subject. He planned a school for the sons of gentlemen, to be conducted on new principles, and this probably was the occasion of his friend John Milton
John Milton
John Milton was an English poet, polemicist, a scholarly man of letters, and a civil servant for the Commonwealth of England under Oliver Cromwell...
's Tractate on Education, addressed to him in 1644, and of William Petty
William Petty
Sir William Petty FRS was an English economist, scientist and philosopher. He first became prominent serving Oliver Cromwell and Commonwealth in Ireland. He developed efficient methods to survey the land that was to be confiscated and given to Cromwell's soldiers...
's Two Letters on the same subject, in 1647 and 1648. Another associate of his in that period was Walter Blith
Walter Blith
Walter Blith was an English writer on husbandry and an official under the Commonwealth.-Family:Blith was baptised in Allesley, Warwickshire, as the fourth and youngest son of John Blith , yeoman, a prosperous cereal and dairy farmer, and Ann, daughter of Barnaby Holbeche of Birchley Hall, Fillongley...
, a noted writer on husbandry.
For his various labours, Hartlib received a pension of £100 from Oliver Cromwell
Oliver Cromwell
Oliver Cromwell was an English military and political leader who overthrew the English monarchy and temporarily turned England into a republican Commonwealth, and served as Lord Protector of England, Scotland, and Ireland....
, afterwards increased to £300, as he had spent all his fortune on his experiments. But Hartlib died in poverty. His association with Oliver Cromwell
Oliver Cromwell
Oliver Cromwell was an English military and political leader who overthrew the English monarchy and temporarily turned England into a republican Commonwealth, and served as Lord Protector of England, Scotland, and Ireland....
and the Commonwealth resulted in him being sidelined after Charles II
Charles II of England
Charles II was monarch of the three kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland.Charles II's father, King Charles I, was executed at Whitehall on 30 January 1649, at the climax of the English Civil War...
's Restoration
English Restoration
The Restoration of the English monarchy began in 1660 when the English, Scottish and Irish monarchies were all restored under Charles II after the Interregnum that followed the Wars of the Three Kingdoms...
. He lost his pension, which had already fallen into arrears. Some of his correspondents went as far as to ask for their letters from his archive, fearing that they could be compromised.
Baconian
Hartlib was indebted to Francis BaconFrancis Bacon
Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Albans, KC was an English philosopher, statesman, scientist, lawyer, jurist, author and pioneer of the scientific method. He served both as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England...
for a general theory of education, and this formed common ground for him and Jan Comenius. Hartlib published two studies of Comenius's work: Conatuum Comenianorum praeludia (1637) and Comenii pansophiae prodromus et didactica dissertatio (1639). He also put much effort into getting Comenius, of the Protestant Moravian Brethren, to visit England. Hartlib's two closest correspondents were John Dury, and Comenius. The latter had the concept of a "tree of knowledge", continuously branching out and growing. He also put his own spin on Bacon's ideas. Shortly before the English Civil War
English Civil War
The English Civil War was a series of armed conflicts and political machinations between Parliamentarians and Royalists...
broke out, John Gauden
John Gauden
John Gauden was an English bishop of Exeter then bishop of Worcester and writer, and the reputed author of the important Royalist work Eikon Basilike.-Life:...
preached in 1640 to Parliament, recommending that Dury and Comenius be invited to England, and naming Hartlib as a likely contact.
Men like Hartlib and Comenius wanted to make the spread of knowledge easier, at a time when most knowledge was not categorised or standardised by any widespread conventions or academic disciplines, and libraries were mostly private. They wanted to enlighten and educate, and to improve society, as religious people who saw this as the work of God. Comenius arrived in England in 1641, bad timing considering that war was imminent. His presence failed to transform the position in education, though a substantial literature grew up, particularly on university reform, where Oliver Cromwell
Oliver Cromwell
Oliver Cromwell was an English military and political leader who overthrew the English monarchy and temporarily turned England into a republican Commonwealth, and served as Lord Protector of England, Scotland, and Ireland....
set up a new institution. Comenius left in 1642; under Cromwell elementary schooling was expanded from 1646, and Durham College was set up, with staff from Hartlib's associates.
Bacon had formulated a project for a research institute, under the title "Salomon's House" in his New Atlantis
New Atlantis
New Atlantis and similar can mean:*New Atlantis, a novel by Sir Francis Bacon*The New Atlantis, founded in 2003, a journal about the social and political dimensions of science and technology...
of 1624. This theoretical scheme was important for Hartlib, who angled during the 1640s for public funding for it. He was unsuccessful except for a small pension for himself, but gathered like-minded others: Dury, John Milton
John Milton
John Milton was an English poet, polemicist, a scholarly man of letters, and a civil servant for the Commonwealth of England under Oliver Cromwell...
, Kenelm Digby
Kenelm Digby
Sir Kenelm Digby was an English courtier and diplomat. He was also a highly reputed natural philosopher, and known as a leading Roman Catholic intellectual and Blackloist. For his versatility, Anthony à Wood called him the "magazine of all arts".-Early life and career:He was born at Gayhurst,...
, William Petty
William Petty
Sir William Petty FRS was an English economist, scientist and philosopher. He first became prominent serving Oliver Cromwell and Commonwealth in Ireland. He developed efficient methods to survey the land that was to be confiscated and given to Cromwell's soldiers...
, Frederick Clod
Frederick Clod
Frederick Clod , was a physician and ‘mystical chemist’ of German extraction. He lived in a sizeable house in Axe Yard, London, next door to the Hartlibs , whose daughter Mary he married in 1660. He was also a neighbour to the diarist Samuel Pepys, who mentions him several times...
(Clodius).
Milton dedicated his 1644 Of Education
Of Education
The tractate Of Education was published in 1644, first appearing anonymously as a single eight-page quarto sheet . Presented as a letter written in response to a request from the Puritan educational reformer Samuel Hartlib, it represents John Milton's most comprehensive statement on educational...
to Hartlib, whom he had come to know the year before and who had pressed him to publish his educational ideas. But he gave the Comenian agenda short shrift in the work. Barbara Lewalski considers his dismissive attitude as disingenous, since he had probably used texts by Comenius in his own teaching. Hezekiah Woodward
Hezekiah Woodward
Hezekiah Woodward was an English nonconformist minister and educator, also involved in the pamphlet wars of the 1640s. He was a Comenian in educational theory, and an associate of Samuel Hartlib. He was one of those articulating the Puritan argument against the celebration of Christmas.-Life:In...
, linked at the time in the minds of Presbyterians and officialdom with Milton as a dangerous writer, was also significant as an educational follower of Comenius and Bacon, and friend of Hartlib.
Hartlib Circle, Invisible College, and the Royal Society's background
The 'Hartlib circle' of contacts and correspondents, built up from around 1630, was one of the foundations of the Royal Society of LondonRoyal Society
The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, known simply as the Royal Society, is a learned society for science, and is possibly the oldest such society in existence. Founded in November 1660, it was granted a Royal Charter by King Charles II as the "Royal Society of London"...
which was established a generation later, in 1660. The relationship, however, is not transparent, because Hartlib and close supporters, with the exception of William Petty, were excluded from the Royal Society when it was set up from 1660.
Economics, agriculture, politics
The utopian tract Description of the Famous Kingdome of Macaria appeared under Hartlib's name. It is now considered that it was written by Gabriel PlattesGabriel Plattes
Gabriel Plattes was an English writer on agriculture and science, and also now recognised as the author of the utopian work Description of the Famous Kingdome of Macaria, often attributed to Samuel Hartlib under whose name it was published....
(1600–1655), a friend. A practical project was the establishment of a workhouse
Workhouse
In England and Wales a workhouse, colloquially known as a spike, was a place where those unable to support themselves were offered accommodation and employment...
, as part of the Corporation of the Poor of London. This initiative is reckoned a major influence on the later philanthropic schemes of John Bellers
John Bellers
John Bellers was an English educational theorist and Quaker, author of Proposals for Raising a College of Industry of All Useful Trades and Husbandry .-Life:...
.
In 1641, Hartlib wrote Relation of that which hath been lately attempted to procure Ecclesiastical Peace among Protestants. After Comenius left England, and in particular from 1646 onwards, the Hartlib group agitated for religious reform and toleration, against the Presbyterian dominance in the Long Parliament
Long Parliament
The Long Parliament was made on 3 November 1640, following the Bishops' Wars. It received its name from the fact that through an Act of Parliament, it could only be dissolved with the agreement of the members, and those members did not agree to its dissolution until after the English Civil War and...
. They also proposed economic, technical and agricultural improvements, particularly through Sir Cheney Culpeper, and Henry Robinson. Benjamin Worsley
Benjamin Worsley
Benjamin Worsley was an English physician, Surveyor-General of Ireland, experimental scientist, civil servant and intellectual figure of Commonwealth England. He studied at Trinity College, Dublin, but may not have graduated....
, Secretary to the Council of Trade from 1650, was a Hartlibian.
Hartlib valued useful knowledge: anything that could increase crop yields, or cure disease. One of Hartlib's great interests was agriculture. He worked to spread Dutch
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
farming practices in England, such as using nitrogenous crops like cabbage
Cabbage
Cabbage is a popular cultivar of the species Brassica oleracea Linne of the Family Brassicaceae and is a leafy green vegetable...
to replenish the soil with nitrogen, to increase the yield of next season's crop. In 1652 he issued a second edition of Richard Weston
Richard Weston (1591-1652)
Sir Richard III Weston was an English canal builder and agricultural improver. He instigated the construction of the Wey Navigation one of the first man-made navigations in Britain and introduced new plants and systems of crop rotation....
's Discourse of Flanders Husbandry (1645). Hartlib corresponded with many landowners, as well as academics, in his quest for knowledge.
From 1650 Hartlib was very interested in, and influential on, fruit husbandry. A letter by Sir Richard Child, surveying the area, received publication in one of his books Samuel Hartlib, his Legacy, or an Enlargement of the Discourse of Husbandry used in Brabant and Flanders; and Hartlib introduced John Beale
John Beale (writer)
John Beale was an English clergyman, scientific writer, and early Fellow of the Royal Society. He contributed to John Evelyn's Sylva, or A Discourse of Forest-Trees and the Propagation of Timber, and was an influential author on orchards and cider...
, another author on orchards, to John Evelyn who would eventually write an important work in the area, Sylva of 1664. In 1655 Hartlib wrote The Reformed Commonwealth of Bees, featuring a transparent glass beehive
Beehive
A beehive is a structure in which bees live and raise their young.Beehive may also refer to:Buildings and locations:* Bee Hive, Alabama, a neighborhood in Alabama* Beehive , a wing of the New Zealand Parliament Buildings...
, to a design by Christopher Wren
Christopher Wren
Sir Christopher Wren FRS is one of the most highly acclaimed English architects in history.He used to be accorded responsibility for rebuilding 51 churches in the City of London after the Great Fire in 1666, including his masterpiece, St. Paul's Cathedral, on Ludgate Hill, completed in 1710...
. John Evelyn showed him the manuscript of his Elysium Britannicum, at the end of the 1650s.
Science and medicine
The work of ParacelsusParacelsus
Paracelsus was a German-Swiss Renaissance physician, botanist, alchemist, astrologer, and general occultist....
, a 16th century physician and alchemist who made bold claims for his science, was also one of the inspirations to Hartlib and early chemistry. Harlib was very open-minded, and often tested the ideas and theories of his correspondents. For his own trouble with kidney stones Hartlib took to drinking diluted sulphuric acid — a cure that may have contributed to his death.
Hartlib was interested in theories and practices that modern science would deem irrational, or superstitious — for example, sympathetic medicine. Sympathetic medicine was based on the concept that things in nature that bear a resemblance to an ailment could be used to treat that ailment. Hence, a plant that looked like a snake might be used to treat snakebites, or a yellow colored herb might be used to treat jaundice
Jaundice
Jaundice is a yellowish pigmentation of the skin, the conjunctival membranes over the sclerae , and other mucous membranes caused by hyperbilirubinemia . This hyperbilirubinemia subsequently causes increased levels of bilirubin in the extracellular fluid...
.
Literature
- H. M. Knox. “William PettyWilliam PettySir William Petty FRS was an English economist, scientist and philosopher. He first became prominent serving Oliver Cromwell and Commonwealth in Ireland. He developed efficient methods to survey the land that was to be confiscated and given to Cromwell's soldiers...
's Advice to Samuel Hartlib,” British Journal of Educational Studies, Vol. 1, No. 2 (May, 1953), pp. 131–142
External links
- Samuel Hartlib at The Garden, the Ark, the Tower, and the Temple: Biblical metaphors of knowledge in early modern Europe. Published by the Museum of the History of Science at the University of OxfordUniversity of OxfordThe University of Oxford is a university located in Oxford, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest surviving university in the world and the oldest in the English-speaking world. Although its exact date of foundation is unclear, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096...
.