Volume 24, Number 5 · March 31, 1977
The Future of Knowledge
By Stuart Hampshire
I want to look here at the progress of the mind in an extended historical setting. I shall take as my inspiration a former warden of Wadham College, Oxford, Warden Wilkins, who was elected warden in 1648 and died in 1672, a founder of the Royal Society, which started in embryo in Wadham and then continued in London.[1] Wilkins foresaw and helped to plan the new science in Britain and in Europe, and he wanted to bring the work of Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo to the attention of Englishmen. He typically helped and encouraged Christopher Wren at Wadham. His writings were not intended for the learned only, but for a wider public of practical men. He wanted to use the state for the assistance of the intellect, and to organize learning. Could men find a means to fly to the moon? he asked. Could they navigate under water? These were technical possibilities which he guessed were being opened up by the new science of his time.
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