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In 1685, (1626-1697) looked back to 1649 and the early days of ‘experimental philosophy’ when 'twas held a sinne to make a scrutinie into the waies of nature’. Despite the censure such enterprise invited, Aubrey had found himself fascinated with ‘the view of things rare which is the beginning of philosophy’ and, carried by that impulse, had explored the world around him. ‘I knew not why unles for my owne particular pleasure,’ he remarked.

John Aubrey, via

In 1656, Aubrey began a survey of the natural history of Wiltshire, the first systematic analysis of an English county's natural world ever attempted, and thirty years later drew his notes together into manuscript form. In 1691, acknowledging the importance of the work, the Royal Society arranged for it to be copied and added to its library, where it has remained ever since (). It contains ideas far more radical than its modest title, Memories or Natural Remarques in the County of Wilts., would suggest.

The ambition behind the work was clear. ‘There is no nation abounds with the greater variete of soiles, plants, and minerals than ours, and therefore it very well deserves to be surveyed. Certainly, there is no hunting to be compared with Venatio Panos [pursuing the god of nature] and to take no notice at all of what is dayly offered before our eyes is grose stupidity’, wrote Aubrey in the preface. It was a study of flora and fauna, but also a comprehensive environmental, social, and economic portrait, ostensibly of Wiltshire but arguably of England and Wales, that viewed these elements as an integrated system.

And so, to Aubrey, the soil and air of a place directly shaped everything from the plants to the physical characteristics, temperament, behaviour, and even speech patterns and health of the people who lived there. In this work Aubrey combined classical knowledge with systematic empirical evidence and folk wisdom. Central were his consultations and collaborations with Royal Society fellows including , and , but Aubrey was also willing to seek knowledge from people of all backgrounds and nationalities.

The work was printed only in a . Its Victorian editor, , reduced a systematic study of natural philosophy to a randomised collection of quaint anecdotes; in part, at least, due to his poor assessment of seventeenth-century scientific enterprise. Yet, Aubrey’s interpretation of early Earth history was more attuned to scientific reality than Britton’s pre-Darwinian perspective.

The question of whether fossils, which Aubrey called formed stones, were organic remains or formations that merely resembled living things was contested. Yet Aubrey was certain. In the hills around the village of in Wiltshire’s Nadder valley, he discovered an abundance of ‘perfect petrified shells’ that resembled cockles. These stones, and many others he recorded across the county, were the remains of sea creatures, and they were in a landlocked place. Over 20 years before the Royal Society copied the natural history, Aubrey gathered specimens from Dinton and presented them to the newly-formed society. His frequent collaborator, Robert Hooke, the curator of experiments, presumably examined them carefully, as Aubrey recorded that Hooke told him the species was 'now lost.' They were extinct, a notion that directly challenged the belief in a perfect, unchanging creation. That God's world could contain species that had simply ceased to exist was, to many, not just scientifically contentious but theologically dangerous.

Aubrey was characteristically self-deprecating. Great discoveries, he reflected, always seem obvious in retrospect; just as, after Columbus discovered America, every navigator thought they could have done the same. He had ridden and walked over these formed stones for years without understanding them. 'Me thinkes,' he wrote, 'I could be angry with my selfe for my stupidity.' He credited Hooke with first presenting the hypothesis to the Royal Society in 1663 or 1664 and was scrupulous in recording that debt. But he was equally determined to hand the idea down to posterity himself, ‘which I doe here,' he wrote, 'with a due acknowledgement of his great discovery and witt.'

In the chapter he called 'An Hypothesis of the Terraqueous Globe', he argued that the Earth had been shaped over immense time by water and subterranean fire. The formed stones were evidence of a world in which seas had covered continents, species had vanished, and the Earth itself had a violent, dynamic history. All of this pointed toward a conclusion that was as theologically unsettling as it was intellectually exciting. The Earth was not a stable, perfect creation handed down unchanged from the six days of Genesis. It was, in Aubrey's vivid phrase, the ruin of an old world – battered, reshaped, and still changing. He was aware that this was dangerous territory, but did not withdraw it – ‘tis the best thing in the book,' he said. However, over 160 years later it was still theologically problematic, and was a chapter his Victorian editor suppressed entirely.

This year marks the 400th anniversary of Aubrey’s birth at just outside Chippenham in north Wiltshire. is marking the occasion with an exhibition ‘Wiltshire & the World - John Aubrey and the Quest for Knowledge’ that runs from 13 June to 19 September 2026. The exhibition highlights Aubrey’s wide-ranging pursuits and scientific interests, including his role as an Original Fellow of the Royal Society. The Society has generously loaned Aubrey’s Natural History of Wiltshire, which will join manuscripts, books, and artwork by the author from the Bodleian Library, Ashmolean Museum, and Worcester College, Oxford.

John Aubrey never published his Natural History. But in his restless, curious, empirical pursuit of knowledge – from the fossils beneath his feet to the stars above his head, from the wisdom of poor country women to the findings of the greatest scientists of his age – he embodied the spirit that the Royal Society was founded to foster. Take nobody's word for it. Look for yourself. Write it down. Nullius in verba.