ABSTRACT
In 1647, John Dury (1596-1680) and Samuel Hartlib (1600-1662) made plans for an “Oce of Publike Addresse,” a universal center of communication and knowledge that was part of a proposal to reform state and church and constitute a new societal order.2 e planned oce had “Two Parts or Branches: the One for Bodily, the Other for Spirituall Matters.”3 e “bodily” part was an institution that dealt with the organization of practical information of everyday life, especially for the poor in order to help them nd employment. e “spiritual” matters on the other hand were subject to the Oce of Addresse for Communications. Based on a global correspondence network the oce would serve as a central point where information was to be collected, registered, systematized, and disseminated. e conception was provided by Francis Bacon’s utopian work “New Atlantis,” where in Salomon’s House scholars compiled, selected, and archived social and natural science ndings (which were achieved by their traveling brethren), discussed and reected upon the accumulated knowledge and gave suggestions for continued research. Bacon therefore described a perpetuum mobile of research and studies which on the one hand viewed knowledge as the sum of empirical results and experiences but on the other hand also considered it a discursive and future-
1 John Dury, A brief discovrse Concerning e Accomplishment of our Reformation: Tending to shew, at by an Oce of Publike Addresse in Spirituall and Temporall Matters, the Glory of God, and the Happinnesse of this Nation may be highly advanced (London, 1647), p. 41.
