The New Atlantis
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The New Atlantis was a utopian novel written by Francis Bacon in 1626. It depicts a mythical land, Bensalem, to which he sailed, that was located somewhere off the western coast of the continent of America. He recounts the description by one of its wise men, of its system of experimentation, and of its method of recognition for inventions and inventors. In Bensalem, marriage and family are the basis of society and family ties are celebrated in state-sponsored holidays.
The best and brightest of Bensalem's citizens attend a college called Salomon's House, in which scientific experiments are conducted in Baconian method in order to understand and conquer nature, and to apply the collected knowledge to the betterment of society.
The riches of Salomon's House
- "These are, my son, the riches of Salomon's House. ...
- " ... we have twelve that sail into foreign countries under the names of other nations (for our own we conceal), who bring us the books and abstracts, and patterns of experiments of all other parts. ...
- "We have three that collect the experiments which are in all books. ...
- "We have three that collect the experiments of all mechanical arts, and also of liberal sciences, and also of practices which are not brought into arts. ...
- "We have three that try new experiments, such as themselves think good. ...
- "We have three that draw the experiments of the former four into titles and tables, to give the better light for the drawing of observations and axioms out of them. ...
- We have three that bend themselves, looking into the experiments of their fellows, and cast about how to draw out of them things of use and practice for man's life and knowledge, as well for works as for plain demonstration of causes, means of natural divinations, and the easy and clear discovery of the virtues and parts of bodies. ...
- "Then after divers meetings and consults of our whole number, to consider of the former labors and collections, we have three that take care out of them to direct new experiments, of a higher light, more penetrating into nature than the former. ...
- "We have three others that do execute the experiments so directed, and report them. ...
- "Lastly, we have three that raise the former discoveries by experiments into greater observations, axioms, and aphorisms. These we call interpreters of nature.
- "For our ordinances and rites we have two very long and fair galleries. In one of these we place patterns and samples of all manner of the more rare and excellent inventions; in the other we place the statues of all principal inventors. There we have the statue of your Columbus, that discovered the West Indies, also the inventor of ships, your monk that was the inventor of ordnance and of gunpowder, the inventor of music, the inventor of letters, the inventor of printing, the inventor of observations of astronomy, the inventor of works in metal, the inventor of glass, the inventor of silk of the worm, the inventor of wine, the inventor of corn and bread, the inventor of sugars; and all these by more certain tradition than you have. Then we have divers inventors of our own, of excellent works; which, since you have not seen, it were too long to make descriptions of them; and besides, in the right understanding of those descriptions you might easily err. For upon every invention of value we erect a statue to the inventor, and give him a liberal and honorable reward. These statues are some of brass, some of marble and touchstone, some of cedar and other special woods gilt and adorned; some of iron, some of silver, some of gold.
Sailing, a simile for his time
In Bacon's time, the Age of Exploration by ship was common knowledge. For example, the actors of the time could declaim:- ... There is a tide in the affairs of men Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; Omitted, all the voyage of their life Is bound in shallows and in miseries. ...
- *Shakespeare, Julius Caesar (play) IV.iii, (c. 1599), first published 1623.
Influences
The New Atlantis (1626) is widely thought to have influenced B.F. Skinner's Walden Two. Skinner was a great admirer of the scientific methodology which Bacon adhered to.External links
- Project Gutenberg e-text of Francis Bacon's book [The New Atlantis].
- ["Francis Bacon's God" by Stephen A. McKnight]
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