Bacon's literary executor, Dr. Rowley, published "The New Atlantis" in1627, the year after the author's death. It seems to have been writtenabout 1623, during that period of literary activity which followedBacon's political fall. None of Bacon's writings gives in short apaceso vivid a picture of his tastes and aspirations as this fragment ofthe plan of an ideal commonwealth. The generosity and enlightenment,the dignity and splendor, the piety and public spirit, of theinhabitants of Bensalem represent the ideal qualities which Bacon thestatesman desired rather than hoped to see characteristic of his owncountry; and in Solomon's House we have Bacon the scientist indulgingwithout restriction his prophetic vision of the future of humanknowledge. No reader acquainted in any degree with the processes andresults of modern scientific inquiry can fail to be struck by thenumerous approximations made by Bacon's imagination to the actualachievements of modern times. The plan and organization of his greatcollege lay down the main lines of the modern research university; andboth in pure and applied science he anticipates a strikingly largenumber of recent inventions and discoveries. In still another way is"The New Atlantis" typical of Bacon's attitude. In spite of theenthusiastic and broad-minded schemes he laid down for the pursuit oftruth, Bacon always had an eye to utility. The advancement of sciencewhich he sought was conceived by him as a means to a practical end theincrease of man's control over nature, and the comfort and convenienceof humanity. For pure metaphysics, or any form of abstract thinkingthat yielded no "fruit," he had little interest; and this leaning tothe useful is shown in the practical applications of the discoveriesmade by the scholars of Solomon's House. Nor does the interest of thework stop here. It contains much, both in its political and in itsscientific ideals, that we have as yet by no means achieved, but whichcontain valuable elements of suggestion and stimulus for the future.
We sailed from Peru, (where we had continued for the space of one wholeyear) for China and Japan, by the South Sea; taking with us victualsfor twelve months; and had good winds from the east, though soft andweak, for five months space, and more. But the wind came about, andsettled in the west for many days, so as we could make little or noway, and were sometime in purpose to turn back. But then again therearose strong and great winds from the south, with a point east, whichcarried us up (for all that we could do) towards the north; by whichtime our victuals failed us, though we had made good spare of them. Sothat finding ourselves, in the midst of the greatest wilderness ofwaters in the world, without victuals, we gave ourselves for lost menand prepared for death. Yet we did lift up our hearts and voices toGod above, who showeth his wonders in the deep, beseeching him of hismercy, that as in the beginning he discovered the face of the deep, andbrought forth dry land, so he would now discover land to us, that wemight not perish.
And it came to pass that the next day about evening we saw within akenning before us, towards the north, as it were thick clouds, whichdid put us in some hope of land; knowing how that part of the South Seawas utterly unknown; and might have isla