The visit of Comenius to London in 1641-1642 and its bearing on the origins of the Royal Society

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Abstract
Miss Dorothy Stimson, Dean of Groucher College, U.S.A., in an article in Isis for 1 September 1935, tried to traverse the view stated in the Introduction to my Comenius in England (Oxford University Press (1932)), pp. 6-7, that the visit of Comenius (Komensky) to London in 1641-1642 marked an important stage in the development in England of the idea of a great society for scientific research which resulted in the organization of the informal ‘Invisible College’ by Theodore Haak and others in 1645, and prepared the way for the foundation of the Royal Society in 1662. She was however unable to explain away the fact that Theodore Haak, who was one of the most active supporters of Komensky’s plan for a Scientific College in 1641, was in 1645 the virtual founder of the informal ‘Invisible College,’ the precursor of the Royal Society. Miss Stimson stresses the contrast between the universal speculative plan of Comenius as outlined in his Via Lucis (1642), and the empirical and specialized activities of the Invisible College. Miss Stimson however has completely overlooked the fact that John Wilkins (1614-1672), Warden of Wadham College, Oxford, whom she rightly regards as one of the most active members of the Invisible College, held views very similar to those of Comenius on scientific method and on the desirability of a universal language.

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