Interfacing Samuel Hartlib
Britain's first information scientist? Mark Greengrass tells the story of a remarkable 17th- century polymath and of the modern enterprise to re-categorise and evaluate, with the aid of the modern computer, his archive of knowledge.
Two famous English engravings evoke the confident aspirations of those who promoted the advancement of scientific learning in the seventeenth century. The first is the frontispiece to Francis Bacon's Great Instauration, published in Latin in 1620. It depicts the ship of learning sailing through the pillars of Hercules to the undiscovered but fructiferous lands of 'New Atlantis'. Beneath it lies inscribed the famous biblical passage from Daniel: 'Many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased'. The second is the frontispiece to Thomas Sprat's History of the Royal Society, published in 1667. Within the marbled halls of Academe and to one side of the statue of Charles II, the Jacobean figure of Francis Bacon, 'Artium Instaurator' is pointing towards and beyond the instruments of science, the counterpart of bookish learning. Within the time-span of these two images lies the life and hopes of the remarkable 'intelligencer' Samuel Hartlib.
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