Wilkins is one of the few persons to have headed a college at both the University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge. He was a polymath, although not one of the most important scientific innovators of the period. His personal qualities were brought out, and obvious to his contemporaries, in reducing political tension in Interregnum Oxford, in founding the Royal Society on non-partisan lines, and in efforts to reach out to Protestant Nonconformists. He was one of the founders of the new natural theology compatible with the science of the time.Alister E. McGrath, A Scientific Theology: Nature (2001), p. 242. He is particularly known for An Essay towards a Real Character and a Philosophical Language (1668) in which, amongst other things, he proposed a universal language and an integrated system of measurement, similar to the metric system.
Wilkins is one of the few persons to have headed a college at both the University of Oxford and the University of Camb?ridge. He was a polymath, although not one of the most important scientific innovators of the period. His personal qualities were brought out, and obvious to his contemporaries, in reducing political tension in Interregnum Oxford, in founding the Royal Society on non-partisan lines, and, in efforts to reach out to Protestant Nonconformists. H.e was one of the founders of the new natural theology compatible with the science of the time.Alister E. McGrath, A Scientific Theology: Nature (2001), p. 242. He is particularly known for An Essay towards a Real Character and a Philosophical Language (1668) in which, amongst other thi?ngs, he proposed a universal language and an integrated system of measurement, similar to the metric system.