Preliminary reflections on a philosophical language: a study of John Wilkins’ Mercury: or the secret and swift messenger

ABSTRACT In An Essay towards a Real Character, and a Philosophical Language (1668), John Wilkins (1614–1672) invented a real character, an artificial language, to express his philosophical language. The Essay was a culmination of Wilkins’ long-term analyses of the interrelationships among language, communication, science, and learning. His lesser known publication on language, Mercury: or the Secret and Swift Messenger (1641), was Wilkins’ earliest published study of these interrelationships. The real character and the philosophical language that Wilkins presented in his Essay were far more advanced than any artificial language he surveyed in Mercury. His was the most comprehensive real character and philosophical language published to date as Wilkins attempted to represent and communicate the ever-expanding knowledge emerging from the new science. Moreover, he intended that his philosophical language remedy the imperfection of natural languages that he believed were caused by the Biblical ‘confusion of tongues.’ Mercury provides Wilkins’ initial published observations regarding the nature of language as well as the types and roles of artificial languages from antiquity to his day. It reflects his forward-thinking understanding of language early in his career; and it foreshadows his continuing development of a philosophical language.