[WILKINS, John]

A fascinating and remarkably prescient study of the possibility of life on the moon, with charming woodcut astronomical diagrams. It is the first work in English to consider the mechanics of popular space travel and one of the first works of popular science in any language. The ‘First Book’ was first published in 1638, but this 1640 edition for the first time completed it with a fourteenth chapter including the sensational idea of contriving a way of flying to the moon, alongside a second book discussing the Earth’s status as a moveable planet. A distinguished figure in seventeenth-century scientific circles who went on to become the Royal Society’s first secretary, Wilkins was a strong advocate for a ‘natural theology’ in which ‘[b]oth man and nature are governed by laws that ensure the harmony of religion and science’ (DSB 14 p.361). His Discourse brings these theories to bear in a set of propositions defending the views of Galileo, Copernicus and Kepler as well as the merits of experimental philosophy to aid Scriptural interpretation. 

The contents of Book 1 cover fourteen propositions supporting the notion that the moon is a world comparable to the earth. It observes ‘[t]hat the Moone is a solid, compacted, opacious body’ which doesn’t produce its own light, before going on to posit that the variegated colours of its surface correspond to land and sea, and that it has its own atmosphere and meteors. Wilkins suggests that it would therefore not be unreasonable to believe that this world could, like the earth, be inhabited and discusses the possibility of trade with its inhabitants. The fourteenth proposition included in the 1640 edition adds to this ‘the sensational idea that it might be possible to contrive a way of flying to the moon’ (DSB 14 p. 365), an impressive piece of prediction. Book 2 defends the Copernican solar system as compatible with Scripture, since ‘there is not any Argument from the words of Scripture, Principles of Nature, or observations in Astronomy, which can sufficiently evidence the Earth to bee in the centre of the Universe’. 

This copy bears the marks of several early owners. The autograph of ‘N. Newcomen’ (Nicholas Newcomen) is the earliest dated; he matriculated at University College, Oxford on 22 June 1698 (Alumni Oxoniensis; Lincolnshire Pedigrees) shortly after inscribing this book. ‘Rich: Bateman, Chyrurgeon’ is Richard Bateman (c.1661-1718), who was admitted to the Barbers-Surgeon’s Hall on 12 January 1685. The Batemans were a family of prominent London surgeons. Richard trained as an apprentice to his father Charles, who was executed for high treason on 18 December 1685 for conspiracy to kill Charles II. The ex libris stamp of R. H. Robbins is likely Rossell Hope Robbins (1912-1990), a scholar whose medieval collections are now housed at the University of Rochester. A good copy of an important and prophetic work. 

‘With a wide and mature command of the literature, Wilkins was engaged in international controversy. There can be no doubt that he succeeded in his aim of gaining acceptance for Copernicus, Kepler and Galileo in England’ (DSB 14, p.365)