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.

Allison P. Coudert, Ph.D. in History, Warburg Institute, University of London, is currently the Castelfranco Chair in Religious Studies at the University of California at Davis. She has published extensively on religion, magic, and science in early modern Europe.
Taylor Corse, Ph.D. at the University of Florida, is Associate Professor of English Literature at Arizona State University. Corse has published widely on John Dryden, Alexander Pope, Aphra Behn, Anne Conway, and other writers of the Restoration and Eighteenth Century.