Between Memory and Paperbooks: Baconianism and Natural History in Seventeenth-Century England

Helmholtz Hermann , Popular lectures on scientific subjects, transl. by Atkinson E. (London, 1873), 12.

Letter, John Beale to Robert Boyle, 29 September 1663, in Boyle Robert , Correspondence of Robert Boyle, ed. by Hunter Michael Clericuzio Antonio Principe Lawrence M. (6 vols, London, 2001), ii, 128–42, p. 133. See also “The Mnemonical probleme”, British Library, Add. MSS: 4384, ff. 64–118.

Letter, Beale to Boyle, 29 September 1663, in Boyle , Correspondence (ref. 2), 2, quotations at pp. 131–5. The earliest known usage of “note-book” is 1579; in the early modern period, notebooks were commonly called “paper-books”. See Oxford English dictionary (2nd edn, Oxford, 1989). Paperbooks have to be distinguished from tablebooks (or writing tables) which had erasable surfaces. Beale alludes to the latter, saying that we should “wipe all off, & then engrosse what is fit to be recorded” — That is, by committing it to memory (p. 135). See Chartier Roger Mowery Frank Stallybrass Peter Wolfe Heather , “Hamlet's Tables and the technologies of writing in Renaissance England”, Shakespeare quarterly, lv (2004), 2004–419; and Woudhuysen H. R. , “Writing-tables and table-books”, The electronic British Library journal (2004), article 3.

See Goyet Francis , Le sublime du “lieu commun”: L'invention rhétorique dans l'Antiquité et à la Renaissance (Paris, 1996); and Moss Ann , Printed commonplace-books and the structuring of Renaissance thought (Oxford, 1996). On this preference for memorizing, see Petrarch Francesco , Petrarch's secret, transl. by Draper W. (Norwood, PA, 1977), 99–102 for Petrarch's imagined conversation with Saint Augustine.

Bacon Francis , De augmentis , in The works of Francis Bacon, ed. by Spedding J. Ellis R. L. Heath D. (14 vols, London, 1961–63), iv, 435.

[ Duport James ], “Rules to be observed by young scholars in the University” (1660), Trinity College, Cambridge, MS: O.10A.33.

These sermons were themselves a product of rhetorical training: Tutors and fellows, usually destined for the clergy, practised by performing “commonplaces”. In Clarke's Samuel , Lives of thirty-two divines (London, 1677), 115, these are defined as “a Colledg-exercise in Divinity, not different from a Sermon, but in length”. Cited in Harris F. Fletcher, The intellectual development of John Milton (2 vols, Urbana, 1956–61), ii, 57. As late as 1692, the subtitle to John Ray's Wisdom of God manifested in the works of the creation (London, 1691) is: “Being the substance of some common Places delivered in the Chappel of Trinity College, in Cambridge”. This did not appear in the 2nd edn, 1692.

Holdsworth Richard , “Directions for a student in the Universitie”, Emmanuel College, Cambridge, MS 1. 2. 27(1). This was begun in 1615 and completed after 1637. It was written out in a scribal hand for use in the college. For a description of the manuscript, bound in a notebook measuring 7 ½ by 5 ¾ inches, see Fletcher , Milton (ref. 7), ii, 84–88. The quotations are taken from sections 49–51 of the “Directions”, which Fletcher prints in Appendix II, ii, 623–55.

On this, and Boyle's mode of working, see Knight Harriet , “Organizing natural knowledge in the seventeenth century: The works of Robert Boyle”, Ph.D. dissertation, University of London, 2003, esp. chaps. 2–3.

Letter, Beale to Boyle, 29 September 1663, in Boyle , Correspondence (ref. 2), ii, 129–30.

The editors of Henry Oldenburg's correspondence, in which Beale features prominently, make a blunt assessment: “He suffered from total recall and confident reliance upon an unreliable memory.” See Oldenburg Henry , The correspondence of Henry Oldenburg, ed. and transl. by Hall A. Rupert Hall Marie Boas (13 vols, Madison etc., 1965–86), i, 320–1. This may be a harsh judgement, since it is founded, in part, on Beale's errors in literary allusions and citations of sources — Not unusual failings. The entry by Patrick Woodland in the Oxford dictionary of national biography is more forgiving of Beale's eccentricities.

Letter, Beale to Boyle, 25 February 1663, in Boyle , Correspondence (ref. 2), ii, 68–71. John Hales (1584–1656) was a humanist and Fellow at Eton.

Letter, Beale to Boyle, 30 July 1666, in Boyle , Correspondence (ref. 2), 2, 194–6, p. 196. For a detailed account of Beale's views and their context, see Lewis Rhodri , “‘The best mnemonicall expedient’: John Beale's art of memory and its uses”, The seventeenth century, xx (2005), 113–44.

René Descartes to Franz Burman, 16 April 1648, in The philosophical writings of Descartes, transl. by Cottingham John Stoothoff Robert Murdoch Dugald (3 vols, Cambridge, 1991), iii, 334.

Compare these features of Bacon's legacy with the more narrow focus on methodology that dominated nineteenth-century debates. See Yeo Richard , “An idol of the market-place: Baconianism in nineteenth-century Britain”, History of science, xxiii (1985), 251–98.

Bacon Francis , “Preparative towards a natural and experimental history”, Works (ref. 5), iv, 251–70, pp. 265–70. In The advancement of learning (1605), Bacon named three kinds of natural history: “of nature in course, of nature erring or varying, and of nature altered or wrought.” See Works (ref. 5), 5, 330. But he also regarded the various possible “particular histories” as natural histories. I am concerned with both “natural history” and “natural histories”.

For the relations between Hartlib's correspondents and the Royal Society, see Webster Charles , The great instauration: Science, medicine, and reform 1626–1660 (London, 1975), passim. See also Greengrass Mark (eds), Samuel Hartlib and universal Reformation (Cambridge, 1994).

Webster Charles , “The origins of the Royal Society”, History of science, vi (1967), 106–28, p. 117.

Salmon Vivian , The works of Francis Lodwick: A study of his writings in the intellectual context of the seventeenth century (London, 1972), 111. For the persistence of mnemonic skills in early print society, see Thomas Keith , “Literacy in early modern England”, in The written word: Literacy in transition, ed. by Baumann Gerd (Oxford, 1986), 97–131.

Carruthers Mary , The book of memory: A study of memory in medieval culture (Cambridge, 1990), 8.

Clanchy W. T. , From memory to written record in England, 1066–1307 (2nd edn, Cambridge, MA, 1993), 172–9.

Ong Walter , Ramus, method, and the decay of dialogue (Chicago, 2004; 1st publ. Cambridge, MA, 1958), 306–18. Ramist diagrams, based on binary subdivisions, may have assisted compression, and hence memory, of information. I cannot treat this here. For the issue of Ramus's influence in England, see Howell Wilbur S. , Logic and rhetoric in England, 1500–1700 (Princeton, 1956), 202; and Feingold Mordechai , “English Ramism: A reinterpretation”, in The influence of Petrus Ramus: Studies in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century philosophy and sciences, ed. by Feingold Mordechai Freedman Joseph S. Rother Wolfgang (Basel, 2001), 127–76.

Yates Frances , The art of memory (London, 1966), 355.

Rossi Paolo , Logic and the art of memory: The quest for a universal language, transl. by Clucas Stephen (2nd edn, London, 2000), p. x. First published as Clavis universalis: Arti della memoria e logica combinatoria da Lullo a Leibniz (Bologna, 1960, 1983).

See Ad Herennium. De ratione dicendi, with an English translation by Harry Caplan (Cambridge, MA, 1954). This anonymous work dates from about 86–82 b.c. The title indicates that it is addressed to Gaius Herennius. This text was contemporary with the works of Cicero and mistakenly attributed to him in the thirteenth century.

Agrippa Cornelius , Of the vanitie and uncertaintie of the artes and sciences (London, 1569), 24–25. The original Latin version was De incertitudine et vanitate scientiarum et artium (Paris, 1531). For a less negative, but not enthusiastic, description of “locall or artificiall memory”, see Gratarolus Gulielmus , The castel of memoirie (London, 1562; repr. New York, 1971), chap. 7.

Burton Robert , The anatomy of melancholy, ed. by Faulkner Thomas C. Kiessling Nicholas K. Blair Rhonda L. (3 vols, Oxford, 1989; 1st publ. 1621), ii, 92. Even a primer on mnemonic techniques made this admission: “Writings (I confesse) are simply the most happie keepers of any thing in memorie, and doth for speed and certaintie go beyond any art of Memorie.” Willis John , Art of memory (London, 1621), “To the reader”, sig. A3r.

Fuller Thomas , The holy state (London, 1642), Book III, 174–6. See the facsimile edition, Fuller Thomas , The holy state and the profane state, ed. by Walten Maximilian Graff (2 vols, New York, 1938), i, 174–5 for his memory feats.

Pepys Samuel , The diary of Samuel Pepys, ed. by Latham Robert Matthews William (11 vols, London, 1970), 22 January 1660/1, ii, 20–21; Aubrey John , Aubrey's brief lives, ed. by Dick Oliver L. , (London, 1950), p. cv.

Huarte Juan , The examination of mens wits (London, 1594; 1st publ. in 1575), 60–63.

[ Wallis John ], “The strength of memory”, Philosophical transactions, xv (1685), 1269–71.

Gibbon Edward , Essay on the study of literature (London, 1764; original French edn, 1761), 12.

North Roger , General preface and life of Dr John North, ed. by Millard Peter (Toronto, 1984), 155–6. North's life of his brother, John, was first published in 1744. Another illustration of this concern about the failing memory of great scholars is discernible in John Conduit's conversation with Newton in his 83rd year, on 7 March 1724/5, in which Conduit observed “his head clearer & memory stronger than I had known him for some time”. King's College, Cambridge, Keynes MS 130.11,1r. See also William Stukeley's memoir of Newton, Royal Society MS 142, 61r–62r. Both documents are available at www.newtonproject.imperial.ac.uk.

Locke John , An essay concerning human understanding, ed. by Nidditch Peter H. (Oxford, 1975), II.x.8. See also IV.i.8–9; IV.xi.11 for other notices of the crucial role of memory in knowledge.

Locke John , Some thoughts concerning education, ed. by John W. Yolton Jean S. (Oxford, 1989), sections 176 and 185.

Bacon Francis , The advancement of learning, in Works (ref. 5), 5, 329. See also Kusukawa Sachiko , “Bacon's classification of knowledge”, in The Cambridge companion to Bacon, ed. by Peltonen Markku (Cambridge, 1996), 47–74.

le Rond d'Alembert Jean , Preliminary discourse to the Encyclopedia of Diderot, transl. by Schwab Richard N. , with Rex Walter E. Schwab Richard N. (Chicago, 1995), 55–56.

Bacon , De augmentis , in Works (ref. 5), iv, 292–8. See also Advancement, in Works (ref. 5), 5, 329, 352–4; “A description of the intellectual globe”, in Works (ref. 5), 5, 503–4. For a similar account, see Burton , Melancholy (ref. 27), 27, 152: “Memory, lays up all the species which the senses have brought in, and records them as a good Register, that they may be forth-coming when they are called for by Phantasie and Reason.” Bacon's formulation seems to omit some of the complexities in the passage from senses via imagination and memory to cognition as found in earlier writings. See Smith A. Mark , “Picturing the mind: The representation of thought in the Middle Ages and Renaissance”, Philosophical topics, xx (1992), 149–70.

Hobbes Thomas , Leviathan, ed. by Tuck Richard (Cambridge, 1996), chap. 9, 60. Hobbes also assigned experimentally-produced phenomena to historia, denying that they provided a basis for knowledge any sounder than testimony in natural history. See Schaffer Simon Shapin Steven , Leviathan and the air-pump: Hobbes, Boyle, and the experimental life (Princeton, 1985), 114–15.

See Daston Lorraine Park Katherine , Wonders and the order of nature 1150–1750 (New York, 2001), 220–40; Pomata Gianna Siraisi Nancy G. (eds), Historia: Empiricism and erudition in early modern Europe (Cambridge, MA, 2005).

Faber Johannes , Thesaurus (Rome, 1651), 540, cited in and transl. by De Renzi Silvia , “Writing and talking of exotic animals”, in Books and sciences in history, ed. by Frasca-Spada Marina Jardine Nick (Cambridge, 2000), 151–67, p. 161. However, by 1600 many leading botanists doubted the capacity of memory to deal with the expanding number of known plants. See Ogilvie Brian W. , “The many books of nature: Renaissance naturalists and information overload”, Journal of the history of ideas, lxiv (2003), 2003–40, pp. 33–35; and his The science of describing: Natural history in Renaissance Europe (Chicago and London, 2006), 181.

Letter, Tancred Robinson to John Ray, 18 April 1684, in Ray John , Philosophical letters between the late learned Mr Ray … to which are added those of Francis Willughby, ed. by Derham William (London, 1718), 153–4. Robinson was knighted in 1714 and appointed physician-in-ordinary to George II. This letter (and some others) is also found in The correspondence of John Ray, ed. by Lankaster Edwin (London, 1848).

Letter, Ray to Robinson, 29 April 1685, Philosophical letters (ref. 42), 180–1.

Bacon Francis , Novum organum, in Works (ref. 5), 5, Book I, aphorisms no. 100 and 103 (pp. 95–96). Pliny the Elder, Naturalis historia, transl. by Rackham H. (10 vols, London, 1974), i, 13. See Murphy Trevor , Pliny the Elder's Natural History: The empire in the encyclopedia (Oxford, 2004).

Yates , Art of memory (ref. 23), 358. Having seen the classical and allegorical figures on the gallery windows in Bacon's house at Gorhambury, Aubrey remarked that “perhaps his Lordship might use them as Topiques for Locall memorie”. Aubrey, Aubrey's brief lives (ref. 29), 14.

Bodin Jean , Method for the easy comprehension of history, transl. by Reynolds Beatrice (New York, 1966), 28. Cited in Blair Ann , The theatre of nature: Jean Bodin and Renaissance science (Princeton, 1997), 68.

Bacon , Novum organum, Book I, aphorism 101, in Works (ref. 5), 5, 96. Compare the translation in The Instauratio Magna part II: Novum organum and associated texts, ed. by Rees Graham Wakely Maria (Oxford, 2004), 159: “But even after all the abundance and matter of natural history and experience that we need is all present and correct, the intellect is still quite incapable of working on that matter unprompted and by memory: You might just as well expect to be able to calculate and get through an ephemeris by force of memory.” For a similar point, see Bacon , De augmentis, in Works (ref. 5), iv, 435.

Bacon , Novum organum , in Works (ref. 5), iv, 96.

Rossi Paolo , Francis Bacon: From magic to science, transl. by Rabinovitch Sacha (Chicago, 1968), 212–13, 219. First published as Franceso Bacone: Dalla magia alla scienza (Bari, 1957).

Bacon , De augmentis , in Works (ref. 5), iv, 435–7.

Bacon , Novum organum , in Works (ref. 5), iv, aphorism no. 125, 110–11.

Bacon , “Of travel”, in Essays, Works (ref. 5), vi, 417–18, p. 417. See also De augmentis, “in our times journals are only used in sea-voyages and expeditions of war.” Bacon, Works (ref. 5), 5, 310.

Bacon , De augmentis, in Works (ref. 5), iv, 310.

See Chambers Ephraim , Cyclopaedia (2nd edn, 2 vols, London, 1738), “Book”: “Waste-Book, is the first, and most essential: In this, all kinds of matter are, as it were, mixed and jumbled together; to be afterwards separated and transferred into others.” See also Poovey Mary , A history of the modern fact: Problems of knowledge in the sciences of wealth and society (Chicago, 1998), 32–33, 36–38.

Bacon Francis , “Comentarius solutus sive pandecta, sive ancilla memoriae”, Works (ref. 5), xi, 61–62, for notebook entries of 1608; and pp. 18–25 for Spedding's descriptions of these “Private memoranda”.

Bacon Francis , Sylva sylvarum: Or, a natural history, in ten centuries, published by William Rawley (8th edn, London, 1664), “To the reader” (by Rawley). See also Bacon , Works (ref. 5), 5, 335.

Crane William G. , Wit and rhetoric in the Renaissance: The formal basis of the Elizabethan prose style (New York, 1937); and Wallace Karl R. , Francis Bacon on communication and rhetoric (Chapel Hill, 1943).

Moss , Printed common-place books (ref. 4), 117. For two very different examples, see Howell James , Instructions and directions for forreine travell (London, 1650; 1st publ. 1612), 21; Letter, G. W. Leibniz to Gabriel Wagner, 1696, in Leibniz Gottfried Wilhelm , Philosophical papers and letters, transl. and ed. by Loemker Leroy E. (Dordrecht, 1969), no. 48, 465. See also Stagl Justin , A history of curiosity: The theory of travel 1550–1800 (Chur, 1995).

Bacon Francis , The advancement of learning , in Works (ref. 5), iii, 398. See also Bacon , “Of discourse”, in Essays, in Works (ref. 5), 5, 455–6. Bacon was critical of simplistic epitomes that evacuated useful content. Michel de Montaigne voiced his annoyance at the deficiencies of this method, although he continued to use commonplaces in his own work. See Boutcher Warren , “Montaigne's legacy”, in The Cambridge companion to Montaigne, ed. by Langer Ulrich (Cambridge, 2005), 27–52.

Bacon , Parasceve ad historiam naturalem , in Works (ref. 5), iv, 253–7. See also Anstey Peter R. , “Locke, Bacon and natural history”, Early science and medicine, vii (2002), 65–92, pp. 71–72; Ogilvie , Science of describing (ref. 41), 4–5, 258–9.

Baconiana; or certain genuine remains of Sir Francis Bacon (London, 1679), 47–48.

Rossi , Bacon (ref. 49), 213.

Moss , Printed common-place books (ref. 4), 271. For a supportive echo, see Sprat Thomas , History of the Royal Society (1667), ed. by Cope Jackson I. Jones Harold Whitmore (London, 1959), 332.

Bacon , De augmentis , in Works (ref. 5), iv, 421. For a masterly account of Bacon's attitude to both logic and rhetoric, see Vickers Brian , “Bacon and rhetoric”, in Companion to Bacon, ed. by Peltonen (ref. 36), 200–31.

Bacon , De augmentis , in Works (ref. 5), iv, 435.

Bacon , Parasceve , in Works (ref. 5), iv, 255. See Daston Parks , Wonders and the order of nature (ref. 40), 220–31, on both Bacon's relative lack of interest in the marvellous and curious, and hence his distance from both earlier natural histories and the passion for “strange facts” displayed by some members of the Royal Society.

Bacon , Novum organum, Book I, aphorisms 119, 117, in Works (ref. 5), 5; Parasceve, in Works (ref. 5), 5, 255.

Bacon , Advancement, in Works (ref. 5), iii, 405; and “Of dispatch”, in Essays (ref. 5), 5, 434–5. Bacon distinguished his sense of brevity from Ramus's reduction of knowledge to dichotomies presented in diagrams. See Howell , Logic and rhetoric (ref. 22), 202; Feingold , “English Ramism” (ref. 22), 171–3.

Daston Lorraine , “Perché i fatti sono brevi?”, Quaderni storici, no. 108 (2001), 745–70: “La brevità inoltre favoriva le capacità di attenzione e memoria” (p. 757); and “Nel caso di fenomeni imprevedibili ed effimeri, la brevità inoltre coadiuvava la memoria” (p. 760).

Bacon , Novum organum, Book II, aphorism 26, in Works (ref. 5), iv, 162.

For a notice of this difference, see Johns Adrian , “Reading and experiment in the early Royal Society”, in Reading, society, and politics in early modern England, ed. by Sharpe K. Zwicker S. N. (Cambridge, 2003), 244–71, p. 247. For an account of the way this difference was negotiated, see Daston , “Perché i fatti sono brevi?” (ref. 69) and, more generally, Lorraine Daston, “Taking note(s)”, Isis, cxv (2005), 2005–8; also Pomata Siraisi , Historia (ref. 40), 2–22.

This was one of the assumptions behind printed commonplace books, appearing from the 1500s. See Moss , Printed commonplace-books (ref. 4), 4. 6–8.

Grafton Anthony Jardine Lisa , “‘Studied for action’: How Gabriel Harvey read his Livy”, Past and present, cxxix (1990), 30–78. See also Sharpe Kevin , Reading revolutions: The politics of reading in early modern England (New Haven, 2000), 270–95.

Grafton Anthony , “Where was Salomon's house? Ecclesiastical history and the intellectual origins of Bacon's New Atlantis”, in Die Europaische Gelehrtenrepublik im Zeitalter des Konfessionalismus, ed. by Jaumann Herbert (Wiesbaden, 2001), 21–38.

James Spedding suggested that this letter was written by Bacon on behalf of Robert Devereux, the second Earl of Essex. See Bacon , Works (ref. 5), ix, 1–26. Snow Vernon , “Francis Bacon's advice to Fulke Greville on research techniques”, Huntington Library quarterly, xxiii (1960), 369–78, gives strong reasons for concluding that Bacon was the author. I cite from Snow's transcription; see p. 373; and p. 371 for Bacon's mention “of the Notes themselves, which must be natural, moral, Politick or Military”.

Snow , “Bacon's advice” (ref. 75), 372–3. Bacon was not averse to collecting certain material “by ye labor of a servant in part”. See Works (ref. 5), 5, 62. He said that “some books also may be read by deputy, and extracts made of them by others; but that would be only in the less important arguments, and the meaner sort of books”. Bacon, “Of studies”, in Essays, in Works (ref. 5), 5, 498.

Snow , “Bacon's advice” (ref. 75), 374.

Letter, W. Rand to Hartlib, 14 February 1652, Hartlib Papers, Sheffield University Library (CD-Rom, 2nd edn), 62/17/1A–2B.

Hartlib Samuel , “Desiderata. epitomae et analyses. autorum selectiorum”. Sloane BL : MS 638 ff. 17A–23B, in Hartlib papers (ref. 78).

Petty William , The advice of W. P. to Mr. Samuel Hartlib, for the advancement of some particular parts of learning (1648), in The Harleian miscellany: Or, a collection of scarce, curious, and entertaining tracts (London, 1845), vi, 1–13, p. 3. Aubrey, Brief lives (ref. 29), 154, 240–1, said that both Petty and Hobbes professed not to have read many books, and that this was one cause of their inventiveness.

Hartlib Papers, 30/4/46A—B (Ephemerides, 1640, part 2). Cited in Malcolm Noel , “Thomas Harrison and his ‘Ark of studies’: An episode in the history of the organisation of knowledge”, The seventeenth century, xix (2004), 196–232, p. 196.

Cited in Young Robert F. , Comenius in England (London, 1932), 66. These comments occur in a letter from London of 8/18 October 1641 to his friends in Leszno, Poland.

Young , Comenius (ref. 82), 67. Comenius refers to “a learned man, N. Harisson” (p. 66).

Malcolm , “Thomas Harrison” (ref. 81), 205205, 220–1 argues that the account of this technique in Vincent Placcius, De arte excerpendi (Stockholm and Hamburg, 1689) is based on Harrison. Compare Ann Blair, “Reading strategies for coping with information overload, ca. 1550–1700”, Journal of the history of ideas, lxiv (2003), 11–28, p. 20. See “Design for an index cabinet with instructions for use, by a friend of Sam. Hartlib”, BL Add MSS: 41,846 ff. 194–204.

Young , Comenius (ref. 82), 66. See Malcolm , “Thomas Harrison” (ref. 81), 219–20, for the comparison with Leibniz.

Letter, Seth Ward to Sir Justinian Isham, 27 February 1751/2, printed in H. W. Robinson, “An unpublished letter of Dr Seth Ward”, Notes and records of the Royal Society of London, vii (1949), 1949–70, p. 69. See also Purver Margery , The Royal Society: Concept and creation (London, 1967), chap. 4. Ward became Bishop of Exeter in 1662 and of Salisbury in 1667. Wilkins was consecrated Bishop of Chester in 1668.

Hooke Robert , “Proposals for ye good of ye RS” [no date, but possibly early 1670s], Royal Society of London, Classified Papers, CI. P/20/50, ff. 85–98, at f. 86r. See also f. 94r for the means of attaining knowledge: ”to wit in three places. first in bookes. 2dly in men. 3dly in the things themselves”. For its likely date, see Hunter Michael Wood Paul B. , “Towards Solomon's house: Rival strategies for reforming the early Royal Society”, History of science, xxiv (1986), 49–108, p. 95. Weld Charles R. , A history of the Royal Society (2 vols, London, 1848), i, 146–50, prints material from similar documents, which he attributes to Hooke. For criticism of his dating of the papers, and a correction concerning their location (in BL MS Sloane 1039 ff. 112–13), see Hunter Wood (in this ref.), 94–95, 107 n. 211.

Petty , Advice (ref. 80), 3.

Bacon , Parasceve , in Works (ref. 5), iv, 251–2; also Anstey , “Locke, Bacon” (ref. 60), 71; Knight , “Organizing natural knowledge” (ref. 9), 44–54. Bacon distinguished here between collection and analysis, saying that “as much as relates to the work itself of the intellect, I shall be able to master that myself” (p. 251). I return to this point in my discussion of Hooke.

Sprat , History (ref. 63), 155–6. On the issues raised here, the locus classicus is Wood P. B. , “Methodology and apologetics: Thomas Sprat's History of the Royal Society” The British journal for the history of science, xiii (1980), 1–26. More generally, see Lynch William T. , Solomon's child: Method in the early Royal Society of London (Stanford, 2001).

[ Hartlib Samuel ], Samuel Hartlib. His legacie of husbandry (2nd edn, London, 1652), appendix. On some of the scant answers Hartlib received, see Coughlan Patricia , “Natural history and historical nature: The project for a natural history of Ireland”, in Hartlib, ed. by Greengrass (ref. 17), 298–319, pp. 306–7.

Boyle Robert , “General heads for a natural history of a countrey, great or small, imparted likewise by Mr. Boyle”, Philosophical transactions, i (1665–66), 186–9. One of the first things entered in the Register Book of the Royal Society, in January 1660/1, was “Questions propounded and agreed to be sent to Teneriffe by the Lord Brouncker and Mr. Boyle”. There were twenty-two questions, although, as Weld remarked, they were “rather a series of instructions”. See Weld , History (ref. 87), 87, 100. For a detailed account, see Hunter Michael , “Robert Boyle and the early Royal Society: A reciprocal exchange in the making of Baconian science,” The British journal for the history of science, forthcoming. I thank the author for a pre-publication copy.

See Sprat , History (ref. 63), 158–78 where some of the questions themselves invited this; and other, neutral ones, still brought tales of wonder.

I cannot deal further with these issues here, but see Daston Lorraine J. , “The factual sensibility”, Isis, lxxix (1988), 452–70; Carey Daniel , “Compiling nature's history: Travellers and travel narratives in the early Royal Society”, Annals of science, liv (1997), 1997–92; Shapiro Barbara J. , A culture of fact: England, 1550–1720 (Ithaca and London, 2000), chaps. 3–6; and Hunter , “Boyle and the early Royal Society” (ref. 92).

Boyle Robert , The general history of the air, designed and begun by the Hon. Robert Boyle (London, 1692), in The works of Robert Boyle, ed. by Hunter Michael Davis Edward B. (14 vols, London, 1999–2000), xii, 3–159. For the context of this inquiry, see Dewhurst Kenneth , “Locke's contribution to Boyle's researches on the air and on human blood”, Notes and records of the Royal Society of London, xvii (1962), 1962–206; and Anstey , “Locke, Bacon” (ref. 60).

Letter, Locke to Boyle, 21 October 1691, in The correspondence of John Locke, ed. by de Beer E. S. (8 vols, Oxford, 1976–89), iv, letter no. 1422. For Boyle's tendency to lose papers, see Boyle , Works (ref. 95), 95, pp. xxviii–xxix, and Knight, “Organizing natural knowledge” (ref. 9), 89–94.

Boyle , “The preface”, History of the air, in Works (ref. 95), xii, 9–11, p. 10.

[ Locke John ], “Advertisement of the publisher to the reader”, in Boyle , Works (ref. 95), xii, 5. The title Boyle appended to the weather records of another contributor nicely corroborates Locke's concerns: “Mr Townly's Register, if I misremember not.” See Works (ref. 95), 95, 69.

Locke's “Register” is entered under “Aer” in the folio-sized commonplace book entitled “Adversaria physcia”, Lovelace Collection, Bodleian Library, MS Locke d. 9, pp. 471–531 (starting from the back of the notebook). It appears in History of the air under “Of the weight of the air” (Title XVII). See Boyle , Works (ref. 95), xii, 70–89 (in the original London, 1692 edition, it is on pp. 104–32).

Boyle , History of the air , in Works (ref. 95), xii, 155–6. Both remarks are under “Of the air in reference to the generation, life and health of Animals” (Title XL).

Boyle , “The preface”, History of the air, in Works (ref. 95), xii, 9.

The last two empty Heads are “Promiscuous experiments and observations of the air” (Title XLVII) and “Desiderata in the history of the air, and proposals towards supplying them” (Title XLVIII).

[ Locke ], “Advertisement” in Boyle , Works (ref. 95), xii, 5–6. The editors of Boyle's Works (xii, 6, note a) state that it is not clear to which passage of Bacon Locke refers. I am not sure either, although it does bear some relation to the advice to Greville, presumably not available to Locke.

Locke to Boyle, 21 October 1691, in Locke , Correspondence (ref. 96), 96, letter no. 1422.

Sprat , History (ref. 63), 36, 44, 62–64, 95, 115; also 318–19. For the contrast with Hooke's method of making natural histories, see Wood , “Methodology and apologetics” (ref. 90), 7–8. Presumably, this difference has implications for the appropriate mode of storing information. I touch on this below in relation to Hooke, but it deserves more consideration.

See Joseph H. W. B. , An introduction to logic (2nd edn, Oxford, 1916). For pertinent complications, see MacLean Ian , “White crows, graying hair, and eyelashes: Problems for natural historians in the reception of Aristotleian logic and biology from Pomponazzi to Bacon”, in Historia, ed. by Pomata Siraisi (ref. 40), 147–79.

Wilkins John , Essay towards a real character, and a philosophical language (London, 1668), 289. See pp. 22–288 for his forty genera in tables; also pp. 289–96 for “explication of the foregoing Tables”.

Bacon , Advancement , in Works (ref. 5), iii, 383–4.

Bacon , De augmentis, in Works (ref. 5), iv, 438–9.

Bacon , Advancement , in Works (ref. 5), iii, 399–400; De augmentis, Works (ref. 5), 5, 439–40. See Slaughter M. M. , Universal languages and scientific taxonomy in the seventeenth century (Cambridge, 1982), 88–97.

There is a considerable body of work on universal languages. In addition to other publications I cite, see for example, Aarsleff Hans , “Wilkins”, in Dictionary of scientific biography, reprinted in his From Locke to Saussure: Essays on the study of language and intellectual history (London, 1982), 239–77; Knowlson James , Universal language schemes in England and France 1600–1800 (Toronto, 1975); Eco Umberto , The search for the perfect language (Oxford, 1995); and Maat Japp , Philosophical languages in the seventeenth century: Dalgarno, Wilkins, Leibniz (Dordrecht, 2004).

Wilkins , Essay (ref. 107), 21; also “Epistle”, sig. a1v.

Grew Nehemiah , who catalogued the Royal Society collection, agreed with Wilkins's approach to classification: “So that the Names of Things should always be taken from something more observably declarative of their Form, or Nature.” Grew Nehemiah , Musaeum Regalis Societatis (London, 1681), “The preface”. See also Sprat , History (ref. 63), 251 for the point that Hooke had begun this; and 113 for the much-quoted endorsement of what Wilkins's “character” might support: The communication of “many things, almost in an equal number of words”.

Wilkins John , Mercury, or the secret and starry messenger (London, 1641), 56. At this stage, Wilkins was thinking in terms of a language based on a limited number of radical words from an existing natural language, possibly Hebrew. Only in the Essay (1668) did he adopt the approach of matching words to a classification of things and notions. See DeMott Benjamin , “The sources and development of John Wilkins' philosophical language”, Journal of English and Germanic philology, lvii (1958), 1958–13, pp. 1–2.

Wilkins , Essay (ref. 107), 453–4.

“Of an universall reall caracter”, in Francis Lodwick's Commonplace Book, BL, MS Sloane: 897, ff. 32r–39v. The entire notebook consists of 43 folios. This part is printed in Salmon , Francis Lodwick (ref. 19), 223–30, p. 224. See Poole William , “The divine and the grammarian: Theological disputes in the 17th-century universal language movement”, Historiographica linguistica, xxx (2003), 273–300 on Lodwick; and also on the different interpretations of Biblical and theological accounts of language.

On Kinner, see Young , Comenius (ref. 82), 382–440.

Cited in DeMott Benjamin , “Science versus mnemonics: Notes on John Ray and on John Wilkins' Essay toward a real character, and a philosophical language”, Isis, xlviii (1957), 3–12, p. 7; and full Latin text of letter in DeMott, “Wilkins' philosophical language” (ref. 114), 11–13.

DeMott , “Wilkins' philosophical language” (ref. 114), 6. For Kinner's influence on Wilkins, see DeMott , “Science versus mnemonics” (ref. 118), 7–8; and Slaughter , Universal languages (ref. 110), 131–5.

DeMott , “Wilkins' philosophical language” (ref. 114), 8–9, for comment on this in Hartlib's Ephemerides of 1650.

[ Ward Seth ], Vindicae academiarum (Oxford, 1654), 20–21. Reprinted in Allen G. Debus, Science and education in the seventeenth century: The Webster—Ward debate (New York, 1970). For an acknowledgement of Ward's advice, see Wilkins , Essay (ref. 107), “To the reader”, sig. b2r. Ward's approach to the construction of an artificial language differed from that of Wilkins, and this disparity surfaced in later discussions. See Lewis Rhodri , “The efforts of the Aubrey correspondence group to revise John Wilkins' Essay (1668) and their context”, Historiographia linguistica, xxviii (2001), 2001–64.

Petty , Advice (ref. 80), 4.

Petty , Advice (ref. 80), 3 (no. 8). In 1687 Petty claimed to be able “at first hearing remember any 50 Nonsensical Incoherent words”, but admitted that this was “of noe use but to gett the admiration of ffoolish people”. See Letter, William Petty to Robert Southwell, 16 August 1687, in The Petty—Southwell correspondence 1676–1687, edited from the Bowood Papers by the Marquis of Landsdowne (New York, 1967; 1st publ. 1928), 282–4.

See Wallis P. J. , “An early mathematical manifesto: John Pell's Idea of mathematics”, The Durham research review, xviii (1967), 139–48. I use Wallis's transcription of the copy of the English Broadsheet of Pell's Idea (at pp. 141–5) found in British Library, shelfmark: 528.n.20; it is bound with a copy of Pell's Tabula numerorum quadratorum (1672). There was also a Latin version, entitled as both “Ideae mathematicae” and “Idea matheseos”. Petty mentioned Pell's work as an indication of his more general “Advice”: “for the more explicit understanding of our Meaning herein, we refer to Mr. Pell's most excellent Idea thereof [i.e. of mathematics] written to Master Hartlib”. See Petty , Advice (ref. 80), 5.

Aubrey said that Pell “communicated to his friends his excellent Idea matheseos in half a sheet of paper”. Aubrey, Brief lives (ref. 29), 230. See Malcolm Noel , “The life of John Pell”, in Malcolm Noel Stedall Jacqueline , John Pell (1611–1685) and his correspondence with Sir Charles Cavendish: The mental world of an early modern mathematician (Oxford, 2005), 12–244, pp. 65–76 for the “Idea” and its distribution via intermediaries. On Haak, see Stimson Dorothy , “Hartlib, Haak, and Oldenburg: Intelligencers”, Isis, xxxi (1940), 1940–26.

[ Pell John ], “An idea of mathematicks, long since written by Dr. John Pell”, in Philosophical collections, ed. by Hooke Robert (no. 5, London, February 1681/82), 127–34. See pp. 135–45 for letters from Mersenne, Pell and Descartes.

Bacon , Advancement , in Works (ref. 5), iii, 406.

Pell , Idea, in Wallis , op. cit. (ref. 124), 142–3.

Ibid., 144. A similar claim that this might be the task of “one man” occurs in Pell's letter to Thomas Goad, 7 August 1368, cited in Malcolm, “Life of Pell” (ref. 125), 65–66. Malcolm suggests that Pell was angling for employment.

OED (ref. 3) records the earliest usage of “pocket-booke” in 1617. The first title recorded containing this term, as given in Early English Books Online (www.eebo.chadwyck.com), was published in 1661. The notion of “Pocket-learning” had a negative connotation in John Selden's Historie of tithes (1618); cited in Feingold , “English Ramism” (ref. 22), 163.

Pell , Idea (ref. 124), 144–5. For Beale's interest in this point, see Lewis , “Best mnemonicall expedient” (ref. 13), 125–6.

Printed in Wallis, “An early mathematical manifesto” (ref. 124), 145–7.

Letter, Descartes to Cornelis van Hogelande, 8 February 1640, in Descartes , Philosophical writings (ref. 14), iii, 144–5; see the original Latin version in Hooke , Philosophical collections (ref. 126), 144–5. See also a partial translation of this letter in Wallis, “An early mathematical manifesto” (ref. 124), 147. Malcolm , “Life of Pell” (ref. 125), 72, explains that Hogelande forwarded this letter to Haak.

A Dutch translation appeared in 1684, and the first Latin translation in 1701. See Gaukroger Stephen , Descartes: An intellectual biography (Oxford, 1995), 111–15, 434.

Descartes , “Rules for the direction of the mind”, Sixteen Rule , in Philosophical writings (ref. 14), 14, 67. In Rule Seven, Descartes explained that he rehearsed chains of deduction several times “until I have learnt to pass from the first to the last so swiftly that memory is left with practically no role to play, and I seem to intuit the whole thing at once. In this way our memory is relieved, the sluggishness of our intelligence redressed, and its capacity in some way enlarged” (p. 25).

Some parts of the Regulae were included in Antoine Arnauld and Pierre Nicole, La logique, ou l'art de penser (2nd edn, Paris, 1664). This was translated into English in 1685. See Hesse Mary B. , “Hooke's philosophical algebra”, Isis, lvii (1966), 67–83, p. 80 n. 36.

Wilkins , Essay (ref. 107), 441. It is plausible to consider Wilkins's schema as externalized mental scaffolding that might supplement, or stimulate, content stored in the brain. In recent cognitive psychology, the “extended mind” hypothesis suggests that brain processes extend into the world when we use tools of various kinds, such as images on stone, writing on paper, or files in a computer. See, for example, Clark Andy Chalmers David , “The extended mind”, Analysis, lviii (1998), 1998–19; Rowlands Mark , Externalism: Putting mind and world back together again (Chesham, 2003); and Clark Andy , Natural-born cyborgs (Oxford, 2003).

Letters, Andrew Paschall to John Aubrey, 11 June 1678 and 8 July 1678, Bodleian MS Aubrey 13, ff. 31–32, cited in Turner A. J. , “Andrew Paschall's tables of plants for the universal language, 1678”, Bodleian Library record, ix (1978), 346–50, pp. 349–50.

Letter, Aubrey to Ray, 9 July 1678, in Ray , Philosophical letters (ref. 42), 144–5; and Slaughter , Universal languages (ref. 110), 177.

Wilkins , Essay (ref. 107). 21. On this crucial point, see Letter, Descartes to Mersenne, 20 November 1629, Philosophical writings (ref. 14), 14, 10–13.

Letter, Wilkins to Willughby, 20 October 1666, in Ray , Philosophical letters (ref. 42), 366–7.

Slaughter , Universal languages (ref. 110), 163–70, p. 176; also Emery Clark , “John Wilkins' universal language”, Isis, xxxviii (1948), 174–85.

Letter, Ray to Martin Lister, 7 May 1669, in Ray , Philosophical letters (ref. 42), 45–48, p. 47: For example, “sed ad Autoris methodum praescriptam Plantas accommodare …”. This translation of the Latin is given in DeMott, “Science versus mnemonics” (ref. 118), 5; also Raven Charles , John Ray: Naturalist (Cambridge, 1942), 182. Ray was still complaining early the next year: See Ray to Martin Lister, 28 April 1670 (pp. 62–63).

Wilkins , Essay (ref. 107), 22.

This is covered in several publications. See Slaughter , Universal languages (ref. 110), 189–212; Givner David A. , “Scientific preconceptions in Locke's philosophy of language”, Journal of the history of ideas, xxiii (1962), 1962–54; Alexander Peter , Ideas, qualities, and corpuscles: Locke and Boyle on the external world (Cambridge, 1985), chap. 13; and Cain A. J. , “John Locke on species”, Archives of natural history, xxiv (1997), 269–92.

Locke , Essay (ref. 34), 34.vi.9.

Ibid., III.xi.2. For a similar criticism, see [ Baker Thomas ], Reflections upon learning (2nd edn, London, 1700; 1st publ. 1699), 17–18. However, when his friend, Nicolas Toinard, asked him about George Dalgarno's Ars signorum (1661), Locke recommended that he look at Wilkins's book. See Letter, Locke to Nicolas Toinard, 30 August 1681, in Locke , Correspondence (ref. 96), ii, letter no. 656.

Sloan Phillip R. , “John Locke, John Ray, and the problem of natural systems”, Journal of the history of biology, v (1972), 1–53, pp. 21–26. More recently, see Anstey Peter R. Harris Stephen A. , “Locke and botany”, Studies in history and philosophy of biological and the biomedical sciences, xxxvii (2006), 2006–71.

Ray John , The wisdom of God manifested in the works of the creation (2nd edn, London, 1692), 2; see Webster Charles , “John Ray”, in Dictionary of scientific biography, xi, 313–18, p. 314.

Locke , Essay (ref. 34), III.xi.7; Slaughter , Universal languages (ref. 110), chap. 9.

Hooke Robert , A description of helioscopes (London, 1676), 31. See also Hooke Robert , “Some observations and conjectures concerning the Chinese characters”, Philosophical transactions, xvi (1686), 1686–78. For Hooke's conversations about universal languages, see Hooke Robert , The diary of Robert Hooke, 1672–1680, ed. by Robinson H. W. Adams W. (London, 1968), 69, 76–77, 84, 177–420, 430–1, 435 and many other entries between 1673 and 1680. On his debt to Wilkins, see Jardine Lisa , The curious life of Robert Hooke: The man who measured London (London, 2003), 73–77.

See Waller Richard , “The life of Robert Hooke”, in The posthumous works of Robert Hooke, ed. by Waller Richard (London, 1705), pp. i–xxviii, p. i. The Diary is in the Guidhall Library, MS 1758. The paperbook he used for the diary seems to have been acquired from the Royal Society, since one end of it has entries pertaining to his curatorial duties. See Mulligan Lotte , “Self-scrutiny and the study of nature: Robert Hooke's diary as natural history”, Journal of British studies, xxxv (1996), 1996–42, p. 320. The view that note-taking improved memory was common, although there was a counter opinion. See, for example, this estimate of Seth Ward: “The Bishop had an ill Memory, even when he was in his best Health, which he empaird, by commiting all things to writing.” Walter Pope, The life of Seth Ward, ed. by Bamborough J. B. (Oxford, 1961; 1st publ. 1697), 192; and 194–5 on his final loss of memory.

Hooke , September 1672, Diary (ref. 151), 7: “bought August Transactions, Streets book of mnemonick verses, both 1sh”.

On 11 September 1677, Hooke made a diary entry about treating “a bad memory and severall other distempers” by swallowing “very fine filings of the best refined silver”. Hooke , Diary (ref. 151), 311–12. For the full range of self-experimentation, see Jardine Lisa , “Hooke the man: His diary and his health”, in Bennett Jim Cooper Michael Hunter Michael Jardine Lisa , London's Leonardo: The life and work of Robert Hooke (Oxford, 2003), 163–206.

Aubrey , Brief lives (ref. 29), 165.

Hooke Robert , “A general scheme, or idea of the present state of natural philosophy”, in Posthumous works (ref. 152), 1–70, p. 5. Hesse , “Hooke's philosophical algebra” (ref. 136), 68 dates its composition as 1666; Wood , “Methodology and apologetics” (ref. 90), 24 n. 45 argues for 1665.

See the interpretations in Gaukroger Stephen , Descartes' system of natural philosophy (Cambridge, 2002), 204–6; and Clarke Desmond , Descartes's theory of the mind (Oxford, 2003), 91–99. For the significance of localized versus distributed, and representational versus dispositional, memory, see Sutton John , Philosophy and memory traces: Descartes to connectionism (Cambridge, 1998).

[ Barker Henry ], The polite gentleman; or, reflections upon the several kinds of wit (London, 1700), 64–65. On this text, see Lund Roger D. , “Wit, judgment, and the misprisions of similitude”, Journal of the history of ideas, lxviii (2004), 2004–74.

[ Barker ], Polite gentleman (ref. 158), 67–70. Locke's unusual formulation should be noted here: Whereas “wit” was normally used as a synonym for understanding (for example, by Hooke), Locke used it to denote clever humour or banter, assisted by a quick memory; he contrasted this unfavourably with “Reason and Judgment”. See Locke , Essay (ref. 34), II.xi.2. But this did not affect agreement on the contrast between memory and reason.

See Singer B. R. , “Robert Hooke on memory, association and time perception”, Notes and records of the Royal Society of London, xxxi (1976), 115–31; Kassler Jamie C. , Inner music: Hobbes, Hooke and North on internal character (London, 1995), chap. 3.

Mulligan Lotte , “Robert Hooke's ‘memoranda’: Memory and natural history”, Annals of science, xlix (1992), 47–61; and “Self-scrutiny” (ref. 152), 311–42.

Hooke Robert , Micrographia, or, some physiological descriptions of minute bodies made by magnifying glasses (London, 1665), “The preface”, sig. b1v alludes to “another Discourse”, which must be “A general scheme”.

Hooke , Micrographia (ref. 162), “The preface”, sig. a1r and a2r and v.

Ibid., “The preface”, sig. b2r. Hooke used various synonyms for reason, almost interchangeably: Thus in a manuscript of 21 April 1692, he refers to “the Intellect and the mind & judgment”. See the transcription of Trinity College, Cambridge, MS: O.11a.114, in Oldroyd D. R. , “Some ‘Philosophicall Scribbles’ attributed to Robert Hooke”, Notes and records of the Royal Society of London, xxxv (1980), 17–32, pp. 29–30. Note that “Philosophicall Scribbles” (MS: O.11a.128) is the item that Oldroyd transcribes in full.

Hooke , Micrographia (ref. 162), “The preface”, sig. a1v; emphasis in original.

Ibid., “The preface”, sig. b1v.

Ibid., “The preface”, sig. b2r.

Hooke's preface to Pitt's The English atlas (London, 1680) is in BL, Sloane MS: 1039, f. 1. This did not appear in the published version.

Sprat , History (ref. 63), 175–79, p. 175; and p. 179 for the chart: “A Scheme at one View representing to the Eye the Observations of the Weather for a Month”.

“Mr. Hooke's analysis of the whole businesse of navigation under the title of hydrographie”, Bodleian MS Rawlinson: A. 171 ff. 245, 246v. This is dated 23 March 1685/86.

Hooke , “General scheme” (ref. 156), 64. For relevant discussion, see Harwood John T. , “Rhetoric and graphics in Micrographia”, in Robert Hooke: New studies, ed. by Hunter Michael Schaffer Simon (Woodbridge, 1989), 119–47, pp. 134–47.

Hooke , “General scheme” (ref. 156), 64. Compare Seth Ward's comment (see ref. 86).

Ibid., 7, 61. Waller interpolated: “This I think Dr. Hook never wrote” (pp. 5–6).

Ibid., 5–6.

Ibid., 6–7.

Ibid., 18, 8; also 61 for another statement about this method. See Hesse , “Hooke's philosophical algebra” (ref. 136); and Mulligan Lotte , “Robert Hooke and certain knowledge”, Seventeenth century, vii (1992), 151–69.

Hooke , “General scheme” (ref. 156), 18.

Significantly, in endorsing Bacon's criticism of the ancients, Hooke paused to say that “I do not here altogether reject Logick, or the way of Ratiocination already known; as a thing of no use. It has its peculiar Excellencies and Uses … and affords some Helps to some kinds of Invention … as well as to the Memory, by its Method”(ibid., 5–6).

Ibid., 34.

Letter, Robert Hooke to G. W. Leibniz, 15 May 1681, Royal Society of London, Letter Book, EL/H3/64. Hooke went on to call this “the Algebra of Algebras or the Science of methods”. He envisaged a real character, based on a reduction of things and notions to primitive natural kinds, as a part of this yet to be achieved “Generall method”.

See the table in Hooke, “General scheme” (ref. 156), 22–26. On the close links with Bacon's method, see Hunter Michael , “Hooke the natural philosopher”, in Bennett , London's Leonardo (ref. 154), 119–22; and, more generally, Anstey, “Locke, Bacon” (ref. 60).

For earlier lectures in this series, see Hooke Robert , Lectiones Cutlerianae, or a collection of lectures (London, 1679). Hooke's account of memory appeared in a lecture on 21 June 1682. See his “Lectures of light, explicating its nature, properties, and effects”, in Posthumous works, ed. by Waller (ref. 152), Section VII, 138–48, 143–4. See Singer , “Hooke on memory” (ref. 160); and Oldroyd, “Some ‘Philosophical Scribbles’” (ref. 164), 17–32, for an undated manuscript bearing on related topics.

For Hooke's likely debts to Hobbes and Thomas Willis, see Oldroyd , “Some ‘Philosophical Scribbles’” (ref. 164), 24–25. For accounts of Hooke's physicalist theory of memory, see Richards Graham , Mental machinery: The origins and consequences of psychological ideas, Part 1: 1600–1850 (London, 1992), 67–69; Draaisma Douwe , Metaphors of memory: A history of ideas about the mind (Cambridge, 2000), 56–61, and his “Hooke on memory and the memory of Hooke”, in Robert Hooke: Tercentenary studies, ed. by Cooper Michael Michael Hunter (Aldershot and Burlington, 2006), 111–21.

Hooke , “Lectures of light” (ref. 182), 138–48, pp. 143–4. Boyle expressed amazement that the memory of a “learned man” could retain so much information. If memory is a “corporeal faculty” dependent on “distinct traces, footsteps, impressions” in the brain, how can “this vast multitude of exceedingly various things” be stored and found again? Robert Boyle, The Christian virtuoso: The second part [1691–92], in Works (ref. 95), xii, 427–530, p. 463.

Hooke , “Lectures of light” (ref. 182), 140. On Hooke's weather clock as an analogue of memory, see Wilding Nick , “Graphic technologies”, in Robert Hooke, ed. by Cooper Hunter (ref. 183), 123–34, p. 124.

Hooke , “General scheme” (ref. 156), 140. Hooke did not specifically mention association of ideas as one of the problems; on this see Hobbes , Leviathan (ref. 39), chap. III, 20, for the danger of trains of thought; also Yeo Richard , “Before Memex: Robert Hooke, John Locke, and Vannevar Bush on external memory”, Science in context, xx (2007), 1–27.

See Hooke Robert , “Mathematical language”, Royal Society classified papers, xx, no. 72 (undated), cited in Slaughter, Universal languages (ref. 110), 183.

See the undated manuscript in Hooke's hand entitled “Lectures of things requisite to a Ntral History”, Royal Society of London, Classified Papers, CI.P/20/50a, ff. 99–109. This is transcribed in Oldroyd D. R. , “Some writings of Robert Hooke on procedures for the prosecution of scientific enquiry”, Notes and records of the Royal Society of London, xli (1987), 145–67; transcription at pp. 151–9; quotation, p. 155.

Hooke , “General scheme” (ref. 156), 21.

Ibid., 64, 42. For a similar rejection of “Needless philology, avoyding also the citations of all kinds of authors & opinions”, see Hooke , “Lectures of things requisite to a natural history”, in Oldroyd , “Some writings of Hooke” (ref. 188), 155.

Hooke , “General scheme” (ref. 156), 63. For his own concerns about remembering details, see Hooke , Diary (ref. 151), 12 July 1675: “I have forgot most particulars of this week”.

Hooke , “General scheme” (ref. 156), 18. In an undated paper printed by William Derham as “Dr. Hook's method of making experiments”, there is a prescription “to register the whole Process of the Proposal, Design, Experiment, Success, or Failure”. See Hooke Robert , Philosophical experiments and observations of the late eminent Dr. Robert Hooke … publish'd by W. Derham (London, 1726), 26–28, p. 27.

Hooke , “General scheme” (ref. 156), 21. This is close to Locke's allusion to Bacon's advice (see ref. 103).

Ibid., 62.

Ibid., 20–21.

Hooke , Micrographia (ref. 162), “The preface”, sig. d1r.

A comparison of Hooke's note taking with both earlier methods and the putative innovations of his contemporaries is beyond the scope of this article, but see Yeo Richard , “John Locke's ‘Of Study’ (1677): Interpreting an unpublished essay”, Locke studies, iii (2003), 147–65 and “John Locke's ‘New Method’ of commonplacing: Managing memory and information”, Eighteenth-century thought, ii (2004), 2004–38.

The other side of this was secrecy and credit, since accurate records allowed priority claims. See Iliffe Rob , “‘In the warehouse’: Privacy, property and priority in the early Royal society”, History of science, xxx (1992), 29–68.

The following quotations are found in Hooke , “General scheme” (ref. 156), 63–65.

In the “General scheme” (ref. 156), Hooke was mainly interested in what might be called the pre-publication stage: Collection, arrangement of material, comparison, and inferences. Once papers were recorded in the “Register”, or published in the Transactions, he advised yet another sifting and collating process, again using commonplace method and different notebooks (journal, ledger etc). See “Proposals concerning the arrangement & of the publications of the R. society”, Royal Society of London, Classified Papers, CI.P/20/97 (not in Hooke's hand). For the degree of control he envisaged, see Johns Adrian , The nature of the book: Print and knowledge in the making (Chicago, 1998), 484–89; Wilding , “Graphic technologies” (ref. 185), 131–3. Of course, Hooke was not alone in these concerns. See Hunter Michael , Establishing the new science: The experience of the early Royal Society (Woodbridge, 1989), 4, 45–71; and Feingold Mordechai , “Of records and grandeur: The archive of the Royal Society”, in Archives of the scientific revolution: The formation and exchange of ideas in seventeenth-century Europe, ed. by Hunter Michael (Woodbridge, 1998), 171–84.

Waller , “Life of Hooke”, in Posthumous works (ref. 152), p. iii.

Sprat , History (ref. 63), 119. Curiously, on the very next page, Sprat mentions “the dreadful firing of the City” of London and loss of “many Books”.

Cain A. J. , “Logic and memory in Linnaeus's system of taxonomy”, Proceedings of the Linnean Society of London, xlix (1958), 144–63, p. 156.

See the citations from Buffon's Histoire naturelle générale et particulière (Paris, 1787), in De Renzi , “Writing and talking of exotic animals” (ref. 41), 162; and Rossi , Logic (ref. 24), 172.

D'Alembert , Preliminary discourse (ref. 37), 144–5; “Histoire”, in Encyclopédie, ed. by Diderot Denis le Rond d'Alembert Jean (17 vols, Paris, 1751–80), viii, 220–30, pp. 220–1, cited in Brian Ogilvie, “Natural history, ethics, and physico-theology”, in Historia, ed. by Pomata and Siraisi (ref. 40), 75–103, p. 98.

Rossi , Logic (ref. 24), 172, citing “Botanique”, in Encyclopédie (ref. 205), ii, 340–5, p. 342.