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EA-Biography

(Dorothy Stimson)

JOHN WILKINS

        John Wilkins (1614-1672, one of the founders of the Royal Society

and Bishop of Chester (1668-1672), as an amateur scientist and the writer

of several books on scientific subjects did much to popularize the "new

learning" of the mid-seventeenth century and to further the work of true

scientists. Of puritan antecedents and training, after graduation from

Magdalen Hall, Oxford, he was ordained in 1637 and appointed vicar of

Fawsley, Northamptonshire, his birthplace. Shortly thereafter he resigned

and for the next twelve years he was a private chaplain, first to Lord Saye

and Sele, then to George, Lord Berkeley, and finally to the Prince Elector

Palatine, nephew of Charles I, while he was in England. In 1648 he was

made Warden of Wadham College, Oxford, by the Parliamentary Visitors,

receiving his D.D. the next year. He resigned in 1659 to accept appointment

by Richard Cromwell as Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, whence he was

ejected immediately after the Restoration in 1660. On his return to London,

after some lesser appointments he succeeded Seth Ward, newly appointed

Bishop of Salisbury, as Vicar Of St. Lawrence Jewry in the City of London

(1662-68. The last four years of his life he was Bishop of Chester. His

marriage in 1656 with Oliver Cromwell's youngest sister, Robina, the widow

of Dr. Peter French, brought him added social and political prominence. His

stepdaughter, Elizabeth French, married John Tillotson, then his curate at

St. Lawrence Jewry, later Archbishop of Canterbury, his close friend and his

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executor. To his stepson, Robert French, in his will he left books from

his study worth forty pounds "at a reasonable appraisal." The bishop had

no children of his own.

        During the twenty-five or more years that as private chaplain, as a

college head, and as vicar of a prominent City church, he was living in

or near London, Dr. Wilkins was an important member first of the "invisible

college" or club that Boyle and Wallis described as meeting weekly in 1645

to discuss the current scientific news, then of the Oxford Philosophical

Society that gathered together a similar group to meet often at the Warden's

lodgings to perform experiments of all sorts. These two groups were the

forerunners of the Royal Society for the promotion of natural knowledge,

proposed in November 1660, after the return of the Royalists, and chartered

by Charles II in 1662. Dr. Wilkins was very active in the Society during

its first years, serving repeatedly as a temporary president until the

Society was formally organized, then becoming one of its first secretaries.

He served on its Council until he was made Bishop. He was a member of

many of its committees, he proposed many of the men elected to fellowship

and he took an active part in experimental work himself as well as in

encouraging the work of others. In his will he left the sum of 400 pounds

to the Royal Society, its first large legacy.

        Wilkins' leadership and influence were not solely because of his social

and ecclesiastical connections nor because of his personality, though he was

said to have been "universally loved by all who knew him" (Evelyn). It

was an open secret even in his own day that he was the author of three books

published anonymously: The Discovery of a World in the Moone, or a Discourse

tending to prove that 'tis probable there may be another habitable World in

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EA-Biog. Stimson: John Wilkins

that Planet (1638), reissued in 1640 with an additional proposition, on

the possibility of a flight to the moon, and also with a second discourse,

Concerning a New Planet, tending to prove That ('tis probable) our Earth is

one of the Planets; Mercury or the Secret and Swift Messenger (1641), a

study of codes, ciphers and other means of secret, swift communication; and

Mathematical Magick (1648) a little handbook on mechanics. Particularly in

the first of these books Wilkins proved himself to be one of the early

supporters in England of the Copernican (heliocentric) theory of the universe,

evincing a wide acquaintance with the literature on that subject, a highly

controversial one in those days. His advocacy of it - in English - helped

the spread of that doctrine and increased the general knowledge of Galileo's

studies in mechanics as well as in astronomy. After 1648 Wilkins devoted

most of his writing to his theological interests until, at the urgency of

his colleagues in the Royal Society, be published his Essay toward a Real

Character and a Philosophical Language (1668).

        Mathematical Magick with its quaint illustrations is still of interest,

for in it Wilkins foreshadows modern inventions, from talking images and

flying chariots to machine guns and submarines. The first section, named

Archimedes in honor of that "ancient" who was "chiefest" in discovering

mechanical powers, explains the principles of the balance, the lever, the

wheel, the pulley, the wedge, and the screw and describes their practical

uses. In the second section, named Daedalus for that one most famous among

the ancients for his skill in making "automata," Wilkins describes various

"self-movers," such as windmills, sailing-chariots, clocks and spheres.

        In chapter V of this second edition, Wilkins considers the possibility

of framing an ark for submarine navigation. He refers to Peère Mersenne in

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the first sentence as having pleasantly descanted upon the maki n g of a ship

wherein men may safely swim under water, and in the next sentence beyond

all question because it has been done in England by Cornelius Dreble ( sic ).

But, he goes on, the submarine boat needs improvement for public use and

for longer voyages and larger cargoes. Three serious difficulties are

apparent: how to keep the water out as at the oar holes, how to know one's

course under water, and how to maintain fresh air, especially as fires will

be needed for light, for cooking, and for warmth.

        The first difficulty he remedies by devising long soft leather bags

or tubes, one end fastened to an opening in the side of the boat, but with

a string to hold it tight. Material to be emptied into the water could then

be put into the leather bag or tube inside the boat and that end tied. When

the outer string is untied, the material will fall out of the boat but no

water will come in. Thus a person or a thing may be brought in or let out

of the boat without inconvenience.

        The second difficulty he minimizes because the ship will be less in–

fluenced in her course under water by the surface tides and currents, but

it would be well to proceed slowly. A heavy weight attached to the bottom of

the ship might be raised or lowered by ropes to assist the ship to descend or to

rise in the water. Movement could be secured by several oars protected at the

oar holes by leather bags similar to those previously proposed. And the

mariner's compass would be expected to provide the direction.

        The third difficulty is much the most serious. Possibly a man may train

himself by long use and custom not to need as pure air as persons ordinarily

do. The vessel may be large enough to permit impure air [ ?] in one part to

be freshened while fresh air in the other part is being used. Giving the

air motion by a bellows might help to cool it. Or lamps or fire in the

boat's center might rarefy the air while the coldness along the sides of

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the vessel might cool and condense it, thus making such a change as would

fit for use. Furthermore, he states, Mersenne reports that a diver in

France has some method of by which he can breathe under water for six hours

and even carry a small lanthorn, "which if it be true ... might be a

sufficient help against this greatest difficulty."

        The advantages of such a submarine ark, Wilkins claims, are many. It

is private, as a man travels invisibly. It is safe from tides, tempests,

pirates, robbers, and "From Ice and great Frosts, which do so much endanger

the Passages towards the Poles." It would be of great value against a

hostile navy, which might be undermined and blown up. It could bring

relief to a besieged place on a coast, or serve to surprise any place access–

ible by water. It would be of unspeakable benefit for submarine experiments

and discoveries, whether of deep caverns and subterranean passages or of the

nature and kinds of fishes. Some of these fishes might serve for food or

for fuel oil most conveniently for the voyage. "The many fresh springs

that may probably be met with in the bottom of the sea, will serve for the

supply of drink and for other occasions." Most of all, it would be useful

for hunting sunken treasure along the floor of the sea not only from ship–

wrecks but from the "several precious things that grow there, as pearl, coral,

mines." For this purpose the great ark may have tied about it at various

distances lesser cabins for scouts to make such observations as the admiral

shall direct. Not only could any activity be carried on within this vessel,

even the printing of its observations if need be, but several colonies could

inhabit these boats for long periods of time and could bring up their chil–

dren without any knowledge of land.

        Wilkins ends this fifth chap e ter with the comment that he is not able

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to judge other advantages there are or whether experiment would fully

answer his conjectures, but because the invention seemed to him ingenious,

new, and pertinent to his general subject, he thought it worth mentioning.

However, he has not really made it clear to the reader that in this chapter

"without any notable exception, every idea put forward by the Bishop "is

found in the Cogitata Physico Mathematica (Paris 1644), in the section

"Navis Subaquis Natans," by P e è re Mersenne (1588-1648), the French theologian

and philosopher. "In the chapter [ ?] penned by Wilkins, the ideas are those

of Marini Mersenni," (J. Joly, "The Origin of the Submarine," Blackwood's

Magazine, vol.202, July, 1917, pp. 106-117). Furthermore, Cornelius

Drebbel (1572-1634) a Dutchman much favored by James I for his many in–

ventions, some time between 1610 and 1622 had "built a ship in which one

could row and navigate under water from Westminster to Greenwich, the

distance of two Dutch miles, even five or six miles, or se far as one

pleased... Not long ago this remarkable ship was yet to be seen lying in

Thames or London river." (C. van der Wonde, 1645, quoted by July, op. cit .

110-111). Consequently, Wilkins cannot be credited with originating the

submarine either in theory or in actuality.

        Wilkins' achievement is none the less of value. His scientific writings

were well received in his own day and at least The Discovery of a World in the

Moon was translated into French in London in 1640 and in Rouen in 1656.

Several English editions were issued, the later ones with Wilkins' name thereon.

Mathematical Magick was reissued in 1680 and 1681. It was included in 1694

in The Mathematical Works of ... J. W., late Lord Bishop of Chester, and again

in 1708 in The Collected Mathematical and Philosophical Works of ... John Wilkins

..., reissued in 1802.

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        In contemporary literature little or nothing was said of his ideas

about the submarine but a great deal about his conjectures on the possi–

bility of a flight to the moon. The satirists and the wits seized upon

this and other suggestions of the early Fellows of the Royal Society as

a fruitful topic for their plays and poems. Thus Bishop Wilkins' name was

well known long after his death, and considerable interest was shown in his

speculations. Also, he was one of the early exponents of the direct, "naked"

stype of writing advocated by these early Fellows, and as he wrote in short,

pointed, exact sentences his books were easily read and comprehended.

        Obviously not a great genius nor even a notable innovator, Dr. John

Wilkins was a lover of scientific pursuits, with an eager curiosity and an

openness of mind combined with a lively and courageous imagination that

enabled him to fire others as well as himself with the possibilities he

saw in the future of science. His most important contribution to science

was the encouragement and help he gave cooperative experimentation which

led to the founding of the Royal Society. His books in scientific fields

may perhaps not unfairly be classed among the curiosities of the history of

thought, but they have played their part well in making plain to the general

reader the possibilities that lay ahead of the new science of his day.

        The only modern biography of Bishop Wilkins, The Life and Times of John

Wilkins (1910) was written by P. A. Wright Henderson, Warden of Wadham College,

for the tercentenary of that college. There is also an essay by the Warden on

Wilkins under the title "An Oxford Trimme," Blackwoods' Magazine , vol. 179

(February 1906) 166-79. For Wilkins' scientific activities, wee "Doctor Wilkins

and the Royal Society" by Dorothy Stimson, Journal of Modern History, III

(December 1931) 539-563. A brief list and a list of his works form a preface of The Collected Mathematical and Philosophical Works of the Right

Reverend John Wilkins, 1708, reissued in 1802, in two volumes.

       

Dorothy Stimson