The Alphabet of Nature: By F.M. Van Helmont (Aries Book Series) (Aries Book Series)

F. M van Helmont's "Alphabet of Nature" was one of many books published about language in the early modern period. The "language debate," as it has come to be called, was a topic of compelling interest to major figures such as Reuchlin, Rabelais, Paracelsus, Agrippa, Postel, Boehme, Kircher, Hobbes, Descartes, Comenius, Spinoza, Locke, Boyle, Newton, and Leibniz. At issue were profound questions about whether language is natural or artificial, ordained by God or created by man. The answers given entailed a web of consequences that could lead to arrest, imprisonment, even execution. It is therefore not surprising that van Helmont wrote his book while imprisoned in the dungeons of the Roman Inquisition. The Alphabet of Nature belongs to the debate over language that marked the transition from the pre-modern to the modern world. Involved were profound issues about the origin and nature of language that could lead authors like van Helmont to imprisonment and even death. Contents 10 List of Plates 12 Introduction 14 Note on the Text 50 Alphabeti vere Naturalis Hebraici — A Short Sketch of the Truly Natural Hebrew Alphabet 52 Images 220 Bibliography 256