Conclusion

This chapter provides an invaluable body of source material for the intellectual history of the seventeenth century by summarising and contextualising Johann Moriaen’s correspondence. Correspondence such as Moriaen’s, sifted, edited, transcribed and disseminated by Samuel Hartlib or at Hartlib’s behest, initiated no new ideas, but played an essential role in broadcasting new ideas and stimulating discussion and reassessment of them. Moriaen’s first surviving letter to Hartlib vividly conveys both Hartlib’s centrality and the sense of community among his supporters. Both Moriaen and Hartlib provide classic examples of personal intellectual histories that appear, superficially, to represent a progressive secularisation of interests. The increase of knowledge, in which the Hartlib circle had undoubtedly played an important role, exacerbated the fragmentation of learning rather than healing it. Hartlib’s papers are a ragbag, which is precisely what makes them so interesting and valuable historically.