Table of Contents

Introduction Mark Greengrass, Michael Leslie and Timothy Raylor; Part I. The Cultivation of Mind and Soul: 1. Philosophical pedagogy in reformed central Europe between Ramus and Comenius Howard Horson; 2. In search of 'The True Logick' Stephen Clucas; 3. Comenius and his ideals Dagmar Capkova; 4. 'The unchanged peacemaker'? John Dury and the politics of irenicism in England, 1628–1643 Anthony Milton; 5. Hartlib, Dury and the Jews Richard Popkin; 6. Millenarianism and the new science: the case of Robert Boyle Malcolm Oster; Part II. The Communication of Knowledge: 7. Closed and open languages: Samuel Hartlib's involvement with cryptology and universal languages Gerhard Strasser; 8. Language as the product and the mediator of knowledge: the concept of J. A. Comenius Jana Privratska and Vladimir Privratsky; 9. Milton among the monopolists: Areopagitica, intellectual property and the Hartlib circle Kevin Dunn; 10. George Starkey and the selling of secrets William Newman; Part III. The Improvement of Nature and Society: 11. Benjamin Worsley: engineering for universal reform from the Invisible College to the Navigation Act Charles Webster; 12. New light on Benjamin Worsley's natural philosophy Antonio Clericuzio; 13. 'These 2 hundred years not the like published as Gellibrand has done de Magnete': the Hartlib circle and magnetic philosophy Stephen Pumfrey; 14. Technology transfer and scientific specialization: Johann Wiesel, optician of Augsburg, and the Hartlib circle Inge Keil; 15. The Hartlib circle and the cult and culture of improvement in Ireland T. C. Barnard; 16. Natural history and historical nature: the project for a natural history of Ireland Patricia Coughlin; 17. Hortulan affairs John Dixon Hunt; 18. 'Another epocha'?: Hartlib, John Lanyon and the improvement of London in the 1650s Mark Jenner; Appendix.