Founded in 1660, the Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge was influenced by the "new science" proposed earlier in the century by Francis Bacon. In this excerpt from the History of the Royal Society (1667), poet and publicist Thomas Sprat advocates the use of a "scientific" prosestyle--a utilitarian manner of writing that relies on "mathematical plainness" rather than "specious tropes and figures."

Although the Royal Society's aim to "fix" the English language was never realized, Sprat's manifesto did have some influence on the development of the plain style in the neoclassical period. (This issue is documented in Michael Srigley's article "The Lascivious Metaphor: The Evolution of the Plain Style in the Seventeenth Century," published in Studia Neophilologica in 1988.)

The English Manner of Discourse*

by Thomas Sprat

[T]here is one thing more, about which the Society has been most solicitous; and that is the manner of their discourse; which, unless they had been very watchful to keep in due temper, the whole spirit and vigour of their design had been soon eaten out by the luxury and redundance of speech. The ill effects of this superfluity of talking have already overwhelmed most other arts and professions; insomuch that when I consider the means of happy living, and the causes of their corruption, I can hardly forbear recanting what I said before; and concluding, that eloquence ought to be banished out of all civil societies, as a thing fatal to peace and good manners.

To this opinion I should wholly incline if I did not find that it is a weapon, which may be as easily procured by bad men as good; and that, if these should only cast it away and those retain it, the naked innocence of virtue would be, upon all occasions, exposed to the armed malice of the wicked. This is the chief reason that should now keep up the ornaments of speaking in any request, since they are so much degenerated from their original usefulness. They were at first, no doubt, an admirable instrument in the hands of wise men when they were only employed to describe goodness, honesty, obedience, in larger, fairer, and more moving images; to represent truth clothed with bodies, and to bring knowledge back again to our very senses, from whence it was at first derived to our understandings. But now they are generally changed to worse uses; they make the fancy disgust the best things, if they come sound and unadorned; they are in open defiance against reason, professing not to hold much correspondence with that but with its slaves, the passions; they give the mind a motion too changeable and bewitching, to consist with right practice. Who can behold, without indignation, how many mists and uncertainties, these specious tropes and figures have brought on our knowledge? How many rewards, which are due to more profitable and difficult arts, have been still snatched away by the easy vanity of fine speaking! For now I am warmed with this just anger, I cannot withhold my self from betraying the shallowness of all these seeming mysteries upon which we writers and speakers look so big. And, in few words, I dare say that of all the studies of men, nothing may be sooner obtained than this vicious abundance of phrase, this trick of metaphors, this volubility of tongue, which makes so great a noise in the world. But I spend words in vain; for the evil is now so inveterate, that it is hard to know whom to blame, or where to begin to reform. We all value one another so much upon this beautiful deceit and labour so long after it in the years of our education that we cannot but ever after think kinder of it than it deserves. And indeed, in most other parts of learning, I look on it to be a thing almost utterly desperate in its cure; and I think it may be placed amongst those general mischiefs, such as the dissension of Christian princes, the want of practice in religion, and the like, which have been so long spoken against, that men are become insensible about them; every one shifting off the fault from himself to others; and so they are only made bare commonplaces of complaint. It will suffice my present purpose to point out what has been done by the Royal Society, towards the correcting of its excesses in natural philosophy; to which it is, of all others, a most professed enemy.

They have therefore been most rigorous in putting in execution the only remedy that can be found for this extravagance; and that has been a constant resolution to reject all the amplifications, digressions, and swellings of style; to return back to the primitive purity and shortness, when men delivered so many things almost in an equal number of words. They have exacted from all their members a close, naked, natural way of speaking; positive expressions, clear senses, a native easiness; bringing all things as near the mathematical plainness as they can; and preferring the language of artisans, countrymen, and merchants, before that of wits or scholars.

And here there is one thing not to be passed by; which will render this established custom of the Society well nigh everlasting; and that is the general constitution of the minds of the English. I have already often insisted on some of the prerogatives of England; whereby it may justly lay claim to be the head of a philosophical league above all other countries in Europe; I have urged its situation, its present genius, and the disposition of its merchants; and many more such arguments to encourage us still remain to be used. But of all others, this which I am now alleging is of the most weighty and important consideration. If there can be a true character even of the universal temper of any nation under heaven, then certainly this must be ascribed to our countrymen: that they have commonly an unaffected sincerity; that they love to deliver their minds with a sound simplicity; that they have the middle qualities, between the reserved subtle southern, and the rough unhewn northern people; that they are not extremely prone to speak; that they are most concerned what others will think of the strength, than of the fineness of what they say; and that an universal modesty possesses them. These qualities are so conspicuous and proper to our soil that we often hear them objected to us by some of our neighbour satirists in more disgraceful expressions. For they are wont to revile the English, with a want of familiarity; with a melancholy dumpishness; with slowness, silence, and with the unrefined sullenness of their behaviour. But these are only the reproaches of partiality or ignorance; for they ought rather to be commended for an honourable integrity; for a neglect of circumstances and flourishes; for regarding things of greater moment, more than less; for a scorn to deceive as well as to be deceived; which are all the best endowments that can enter into a philosophical mind. So that even the position of our climate, the air, the influence of the heavens, the composition of the English blood, as well as the embraces of the ocean, seem to join with the labours of the Royal Society, to render our country a land of experimental knowledge. And it is a good sign that nature will reveal more of its secrets to the English than to others; because it has already furnished them with a genius so well proportioned for the receiving and retaining its mysteries.

*This version of Sprat's manifesto has been adapted from section 20 of the fourth edition of The History of the Royal Society of London: For the Improving of Natural Knowledge (1734). Spelling and punctuation have been modestly updated.