In the intellectual change that took place in the seventeenth century, the role of Samuel Hartlib was of immense significance. As John Milton put it, he was sent 'hither by some good providence from a farre country to be the occasion and the incitement of great good to this Hand'. Hartlib (originally from Elbing) settled in England in the late 1620s and lived there until his death in 1662. His aspirations formed a distinctive and influential strand in English intellectual life during those revolutionary decades. This volume reflects the variety of the theoretical and practical interests of Hartlib's circle and presents them in their continental context. The editors of the volume are all attached to the Hartlib Papers Project at the University of Sheffield, a major collaborative research effort to exploit the (largely untapped) resources of the surviving Hartlib manuscripts. In an introduction to the volume they explore the background to the Hartlib circle and provide the context in which the essays should be read.

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.