MAHAFFi' — The Origins of Learned Academies in Modern Europe. 137 



different compauiou, Prince Kupert, whose signature, with those of the king, his 

 brother James, and Prince George of Denmark, you can study in the beautiful 

 facsimile of the EoU lying on the table. The Society was much larger than 

 the French forty, because they admitted nobles as such, without expecting 

 from them more support than liberal contributions to their funds. The king 

 endowed them with the ground on which Chelsea Hospital now stands, and 

 bought it back from them when he determined to build that hospital. It is 

 recorded that he looked on with profound amusement at the experiments to 

 find the weight of the atmosphere — what could that signify to anyone ? — but 

 I do not see confirmed in Geikie's trustworthy History the story we were all 

 told in our youth, that he set them the problem to discover why a live fish in 

 a tub of water made no difference in its weight, whereas a dead one did. We 

 used to be told that a sceptical member who proposed the king's assertion 

 should be verified by experiment was thought to have verged on high treason in 

 his doubts. These were the humours of the Society as repeated in satirical 

 poems and criticisms which emanated from the old-fashioned, who suspected 

 some heresy in everything new. There is distinct evidence that the Universities 

 — though their professors of mathematics and physics were among the earliest 

 members — looked upon the Society as damaging to their reputation and 

 influence. I have said that there was no linguistic side, no polite literature 

 included, save by exception, though great men of letters were admitted — Dryden 

 and Waller among them. But there was an attempt made by one of the 

 greatest of them, John Wilkins, afterwards Bishop of Chester, to obviate the 

 difficulties of international work being carried out in vernacular languages- 

 How could learned men communicate their discoveries one to another across 

 the globe ? Far from insisting, therefore, on the purification of English, in 

 imitation of French and Italian examples, he set himself to invent an 

 international script, wherein all languages could be set down. It was 

 somewhat like the ideographic system of the Chinese, which can be read 

 into the language of Japanese, Manchus, Coreans, and others, because the signs 

 represent ideas, and not words. This would seem to be a logical addition to 

 the great schemes of having sister colleges in many lands, whose work should 

 pass from one to the other with promptness and certainty. 



His book, delayed by the destruction of parts of his manuscript and 

 proofs in the great fire of London, nevertheless appeared in a stately folio 

 in 1668, under the sanction and with the seal of the Eoyal Society, and printed 

 by its printer. The author started with a common script, based on logical 

 classifications of ideas ; but he hoped to advance from a common script to a 

 common language, in this the forerunner of Volapiik, Esperanto, and Ido, but 



K.I. A. PKOC, VOL. XXX, SECT. 0. [62] 



