Thomas Harrison and his 'Ark of Studies' an episode in the history of the organization of knowledge

N Malcolm - The Seventeenth Century, 2004 - Taylor & Francis
N Malcolm
The Seventeenth Century, 2004Taylor & Francis
The intelligencer Samuel Hartlib was an enthusiast for discoveries, schemes, and projects of
all kinds; but few inventions seem to have inspired his interest so strongly as the one he
called'Harrisons booke-Invention'or'Harrisons Indexes'. This device, or method, first came to
his attention during the spring of 1640, when he summarized his initial impressions of it as
follows: Harrisons booke-Invention is nothing else but an excellent and the compleatest Art
that ever yet hase beene devised of a commodious and perfect art or slight of excerpendi …
The intelligencer Samuel Hartlib was an enthusiast for discoveries, schemes, and projects of all kinds; but few inventions seem to have inspired his interest so strongly as the one he called'Harrisons booke-Invention'or'Harrisons Indexes'. This device, or method, first came to his attention during the spring of 1640, when he summarized his initial impressions of it as follows:
Harrisons booke-Invention is nothing else but an excellent and the compleatest Art that ever yet hase beene devised of a commodious and perfect art or slight of excerpendi. Hee is a good and vniversal judicious schollar that hase beene about it these 20. years... Hee aimes by it to gather 1. all the Authors. 2. their Notions or Axioms. 3. Argumentorum or their whole discurses... An incredible easy compend for Quotations. The ground of it is a passe-port with as much paper vpon it as you please. Vpon it there bee slices of paper put on which can bee removed and transposed as one pleases which caries a world of conveniences in it. etc. Many have put themselves to needles troubles and scruples about it, for not learning his Method exactly. By one view and to see him excerpt one shall conceave more of it then by a large description. Hee purposes to give only the Canon and few examples, the exerpts themselves he leaves to others. One perfection of it is that it can never bee perfect. For it is Opus Generis Humani rather than one mans which must bee perfected by every Nation. One maine scope of it is to give a perfect Index vpon all Authors or a most Real and judicious Catalogue Materiarum out of all Authors to represent totum Apparatum Eruditionis which is extant in what Bookes soever.'
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